December 30

1782  The Decree of Trenton gives the Wyoming region of Ohio and Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania.

1835  Santa Ana declared that all foreigners taking up arms against Mexico would be treated as pirates and shot.

1867  A .C. Clark of Cheyenne, a "professional pedestrian", begins a record breaking 50 mile walk without sleep or food.

1878  Camp Brown Wyoming renamed Ft. Washakie.  The change of name is remarkable in that it is the only instance of Frontier Army post being renamed in honor of a Native American.  Washakie, who was allied to the US, figured prominently in Wyoming as a Shoshone scout and was a war leader in both native wars and as the leader of Shoshone war parties in the field in support of the U.S. Army.  Washakie had a role in Crook's 1876 expeditions.  He would live in to the 20th Century, dieing in his 90s or 100s depending upon which birth date is accepted.

1905   Former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg is wounded by a powerful bomb that was triggered when he opens the gate to his home in Caldwell, Idaho. He died shortly afterwards in his own bed.  The act was a reprisal for his role in ending a mining strike.

1916   The Cheyenne State Leader for December 30, 1916: Discussions breaking down.
 

In spite of an accord having been signed last week, this week it looked like the agreement with Mexico might be going nowhere.

1918  December 30, 1918. "Zero Weather" predicted for Cheyenne, Rosa Luxemburg urges a name change for the German Spartacus League in Germany, Goshen County Sheriff held on suspicion of murder.

While this blog still does not seek to become a century ago today in retrospective blog, as we're still tracking stories important to the our overall theme, and the end of World War One and the events flowing from it are part of that story, here we have one.

And it's one that jam packed with myths that are probably so thick that disabusing them is impossible.  The story of Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacus Rebellion in Germany of 1919, which was coming to a head, by which we mean a bloody end.

Rosa Luxemburg, who is almost 100% incorrectly remembered by history.

With Germany in revolution and the Socialist government struggling to simultaneously put it down and to deal with the collapse of the state that had made the armistice with the Allies necessary, Rosa Luxemburg, misunderstood member of the German Spartacus League and one of its founders, urged the the consolidation of all of the non Social Democratic German radical Socialist parties into a new party to be called the Communist Party of Germany, somewhat ignoring the fact that there was already a radical left wing German party called the Communist Party which was a participant at the conference at which she was making the proposal.

Luxemburg, who will reappear here in a few days, is a quixotic figure.  She had long been a left wing figure in Europe and is romanticized today by the Communists pretty much for the same reason that movie fans romanticize James Dean. . . she died prior to her career really getting started and therefore can be all things to all people.

Luxemburg was a Polish Jew by ethnicity and a citizen of the Russian Empire by birth.  She'd grown up, before going to university in Switzerland, in Russian Poland and was the daughter of a father who was interested in liberal causes and a mother who was very religious.  She had no familial or perosnal history with Germany whatsoever but rather chose Germany as a place in which she wished to live sometime after obtaining a doctorate, very unusual for a woman at the time, in Switzerland.  She had obtained permission to live in Imperial Germany only by contracting a fraudulent marriage with Gustav Lubeck, the son of a long time friend, in order to circumvent German laws and she became a permanent resident of Germany sometime in the early 1900s.

In Germany she was a member, originally, of the Social Democratic Party which prior to World War One housed all of the left of center German political class and which was secure in its radiclalism by the fact that it didn't have a real chance to exercise power.  Probably not ironically, however, as she was a Pole, not a German, she was influential in that time in the formation of the Polish and Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.

Prior to World War One it can be argued that her politics evolved. She was a radical in her socialistic views but ran counter to almost all of those who would later lionize her. She was an opponent of Polish nationalism as she did not believe in Polish (or any) self determination, a policy that would run counter to Lenin's stated beliefs but which did fit conventional communist beliefs.  She was also, however, dedicated to social democracy and serious about not suppressing the votes of non socialist parties.  She came to be an open critic of Lenin and of the German Social Democratic Party.  By this point in time she was really a member of the Independent Social Democrats which were part of the first post war German coalition for a time until they pulled out due to their radical beliefs.  She opposed the Spartacus uprising in 1919 but naively supported none the less.  On this day, she proposed that the various parties of the left that were in the Spartacus League unite as the Communist Party of Germany, in spite of their already being a German communist party, and in spite of the fact that her views really did not match well with those that genuine communist held.

Her role would not go well for her.

Locally, while Germany was aflame, there was going to be "Zero Weather" in Cheyenne, which didn't mean what it sounded like.  The Goshen County Sheriff was being held in connection with a killing and Congress was working on a bill for anticipated homesteading discharged soldiers.

1921.  Prohibition agents conducted a raid in Rock Springs.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1942  A Riverton couple eccentrically converted 10,100 nickles into two war bonds.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1974  Teapot Dome added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1978  Teno Roncolio's technical last day as Wyoming's representative.  He resigned a few days in advance of Dick Cheney being sworn in, but he had not run for reelection so the resignation was likely merely to slightly advance his last day in office prior to January 1.

2008  The Yellowstone earthquake swarm continues adding an additional 23 quakes.

Elsewhere:  

1916  Grigori Rasputin Murdered.

 

Russian mystic and controversial friend of the Imperial household, Grigori Rasputin, murdered.  This isn't, of course, a Wyoming story, but as it was part and parcel of what would become the Russian Revolution which lead ultimately to the long Cold War with the Soviet Union of which Wyoming was part, we've noted it here.

Rasputin was such a controversial figure during his lifetime, and lived in a land that remains so mysterious to outsiders today, that almost every aspect of his life is shrouded in myth or even outright error. To start with, contrary to what is widely assumed, he was not a monk nor did he hold any sort of office of any kind within the Russian Orthodox Church.

Rather, he was a wondering Russian Orthodox mystic, a position in Russian society that was recognized at the time.  His exact religious beliefs are disputed and therefore the degree to which he held orthodox beliefs is not really clear.

He became a controversial figure due to his seeming influence on the Emperor and Empress, who remained true monarchs at the time, and therefore his influence was beyond what a person might otherwise presume.  Much of this was due to his ability to calm or influence bleeding episodes on the part of the Crown Prince who was a hemophiliac.  Ultimately concerns over his influence lead to his being assassinated although even the details regarding his death are murky.

He was 47 years old at the time of his death.

1919   Lincoln's Inn in London admits its first female bar student.

2009   The last roll of Kodachrome film is developed by Dwayne's Photo, the only remaining Kodachrome processor at the time.

December 22

1836  Texas'  First Congress established the General Land Office.

1916   The Casper Weekly Press for December 22, 1916: Wars everywhere
 

The Casper Weekly Press issued on December 22, 1916 warned that "Uncle Fears War". The papers were full of war warnings which, looking back, not only proved accurate but also can't help to call to mind that Woodrow Wilson had just been elected for keeping us out of war and yet the news was headed rapidly, and accurately, in the other direction.

In terms of other wars, the Casper paper reported that Villistas had killed 50 Constitutionalist soliders, hardly a large number by European standards but a scary one for a nation that had been worried about the direction the war in Mexico was taking for months.

In other grim news, two died in a refinery fire in Casper.  There is at least one famous refinery fire in Casper's history but it's not this one.  I can't find any details about it.

Finally the American Automobile Association, which I didn't even know existed that long ago, came out in support of a concrete highway across Wyoming. Such an improved highway remained quite a few years in the state's future at that time, but it's interesting to note how people were already pondering it.

1917  Mrs. Cody reacquires title to the Irma Hotel, in Cody.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

 Louisa and William F. Cody in later years.

1917   December 22, 1917: The United States Guards Authorized

Red Cross repsentatives marching with members of the New York State Guard in 1918. This is, of course, the State Guard, not the United States Guards. 

Showing a distinctly different approach to things than would be taken during the Second World War, something that will continue to be the case as we read more about Woodrow Wilson's approach to Federalism during World War One, the United States Guards were authorized on this day in 1917. They were part of the National Army, i.e. that part of the Army raised from civilians for the war, as opposed to those parts made up of the combined National Guard and Regular Army.  While they were part of the National Army, they were under the authority of the Militia Bureau (today's National Guard Bureau).  Of interest, at the same time the Federal Government was encouraging states to raise units of State Guards.

Some explanation of what these various units are or were is necessary to make much sense out of this story, of course.

The National Guard is well known to Americans, of course, and the nature of the National Guard would be evident to anyone who has been reading this blog over the past two years, as various National Guard units were called up and deployed to the Mexican border to be followed by the mass call up, and then mass conscription for odd legal reasons, of the National Guard in 1917.  As has also been seen, and a much different practice from what would occur in later years, states actively recruited for National Guardsmen right up until they were formally inducted into the U.S. Army and even proposed new National Guard units, much like they had done with the formation of state units during the Civil War.

Much different from the Civil War or even the Spanish American War, however, changes to the structure of the American military establishment following the Spanish American War had formalized its status as a reserve of the Army and caused the Militia Bureau to come about to deal with that.  The regularization of the National Guard as the state militia country wide created, in all states and in some territories the creation of those units to fill both a local militia role and to be the reserve of the Army in time of war.  In a few states this was controversial and they ended up accordingly splitting their state establishments between the National Guard and a State Guard, with the liability of the State Guard in times of war being fairly unclear.  The latter would seem to have been so liable as long as the fighting was to occur within the boundaries of the United States.  Rhode Island provides us one such example, Maryland another.  Most states did no such thing, however.

When the US entered the Great War in 1917 the National Guard, lately back from the Mexican border, was first called up and then conscripted in mass.  Indeed, it was expanded and therefore the result was that the states now lacked, for the most part, men for local militia service, should it be needed. That was one perceived problem.

A second was that, in spite of how we recall it today, the U.S. entry into World War One, while largely popular, was not entirely popular everywhere.  We've already had the example of a revolt against conscription and perhaps the war in general in Oklahoma.  To compound that, the teens were at the height of the radicalization of the American labor movement and labor was much less willing to go along with the Federal government as part of the war effort than it would be in later years.  Those who have read the newspaper entries here have seen the ones about trouble in the vital coal and rail industries, two industries that literally had the ability to completely cripple the nation.  Beyond that, the Administration of this era was highly intolerant to radical dissent and tended to see the events in Russia as if reflected in a distant mirror in the United States.

Given all of that, the Federal Government perceived there being a need for internal security forces at a national level.  To take up that role, it formed 48 regiments of United States Guards.  By the end of 1918, 1,364 officers and 26,796 men were serving in the United States Guards, stationed in the continental United States and the Territory of Alaska. 

These men were taken from the many men found unfit for service in the National Army, something which the readers of the newspapers here would also have noted, although the regulations provided that such departures from physical standards had to be "minor".  While physical standards for service were far less strict than they are now, frankly American health wasn't what the covers of The Saturday Evening Post and Leslie's might suggest.  Plenty of men were too old, infirm or in ill health so as to go to France with the National Army.  18,000 of the men who served in the United States Guards fit the category of men with a "minor" physical defect who had been conscripted but, because of their condition, could not go oversees. They were volunteers from the National Army into the United States Guards.  The balance were men whose condition precluded them from being drafted in the first instance, or who were above conscription age as the United States Guards would take able men who were above the service age.  After August 1918, when the Selective Service operated to process all incoming servicemen, a crack in the door that had existed for overage men to attempt to volunteer for the National Army was closed but they could still volunteer for the United States Guards. Some of them ended up in the 48 regiments of United States Guards maintained to keep the wolf at bay in the US itself.

 Enormous panoramic photograph of Michigan state troops, June 1917.  I've never been certain if these cavalrymen are National Guardsmen or State Guardsmen. If they're National Guardsmen, they're irregularly equipped in that they're carrying riot batons and lever action rifles, both of which would be extremely odd for National Guardsmen of this period even taking into account that prior to the Punitive Expedition some units were still privately equipped to some degree. This suggests state equipage, which was common for State Guards.

They didn't do it alone.  The various states had to form State Guard units as, even though its rare, State Governors lacked an armed force for internal security in the event of riots or disasters.  Substitute militia units were authorized and formed in every state, drawing from the same pool, to some extent, as the United States Guards, but with less connection to the formal National Army.  They were also less regularly equipped as well, relying on old or irregular weapons.   

For the most part, these units saw no action of any substantial type at all, but there is one notable exception, the Texas State Guard, which remained constantly deployed on real active service on the Mexican border, augmenting the United States Army which carried on in that role all throughout the war.  The United States Guards did provide security in Alaska, wild and far duty at that time (the initial unit was made up of men from a waterways unit), and in controlling IWW strikes in Arizona in 1918 and 1919. They also were used to suppress a race riot in North Carolina in 1918.

After the war, the United States Guards were disbanded, with that formally coming in 1920 but with actual demobilization starting on November 11, 1918 and continuing on into 1919.  The states largely disbanded the State Guard units, but a few retained them, with states that had such units before the war being in the forefront of that.  During World War Two State Guard units were again reestablished everywhere, after the National Guard was federalized in 1940, although this did not have happy results everywhere.  No effort was made to re-create the United States Guards and no need to do that was seen.  Today, some states still retain State Guard units that augment their National Guard establishments, but most do not.

Photographs, we'd note, of the United States Guards are exceedingly difficult to find, and therefore we've posted none.  They were issued obsolete U.S. arms, like the Krag rifle, or non standard arms, like rejected Russian Mosin Nagants.  While not equipped with the latest weapons going to France, these arms were more than adequate for the role the units performed.  Uniforms were initially going to be made up of blue dress uniforms of a late pattern, which did not vary greatly from field uniforms of the late 19th Century, but this was soon rejected on the basis that it deterred enlistment on the part of the men who did not want to be identified with rejected uniforms for rejected service.

Their service is obscure, but like that provided by State Guardsmen on the Mexican boarder during the war, it was real service.  It started on this day in 1917.

1917   The Saturday Evening Post, December 22, 1917

1918  December 22, 1918. Some days the headlines are just weird.

1921  President Warren Harding signed an Executive Order that designated expanded the National Elk Refuge into, additionally, a bird refuge.

1942  It is announced that a major butane plant will be built by Continental Oil Company at Lance Creek.  Lance Creeks saw a huge boom in oil activity during World War Two.

1958  Herbert J. Brees died in San Antonio Texas.  Brees was born in Laramie in 1877, and graduated from the University of Wyoming with a BS in 1897.  He earned a LLD, a version of a JD, in 1939, very late in his Army career.

He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Volunteer Cavalry during 1898 as a volunteer for the Spanish American War and transferred from it in to the Regular Army in 1898.  He served initially in the artillery after joining the regular Army, but thereafter served principally in the cavalry branch until his retirement in 1941.  One of this last roles in the Army was as the Chief Controller for the Louisiana Maneuvers.  Brees Field, Laramie's airport, is named for him.

1978  The Downtown Cheyenne Historic District added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

December 19

1866   Indians attempted to lure a detachment commanded by Captain James Powell into a trap near Ft. Phil Kearny but did not succeed.

1882  The telegraph line between Ft. McKinney and Ft. Laramie became a telephone line.  Attribution.  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1892  A subpoena was issued in the case of Subpoena, State of Wyoming vs. Frank M. Canton, et al., a criminal action following the Johnson County War.  The original is now held by Texas A&M.

1906 This photograph was taken of Pilot Knob.  The date is interesting in that Pilot Knob is quite near Ft. Phil Kearny, and December dates are significant for that reason.

1944  A ridge on Saipan was named after a Casper man.  This information is via the State Archives (from the WSHS) site.  Unfortunately, they don't give the name.

1960  Ft. Phil Kearny designated a National Historic Landmark.

1960  The Sun Ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark.

1977  Nellie Tayloe Ross died at age 101 in Washington D. C.  She was buried alongside her late husband in Cheyenne. She had not, of course, lived in Cheyenne for many years, or even for the most of her long life.  Her years in Washington were considerably longer in extent than those in Wyoming.

 Nellie Tayloe Ross on her Massachusetts' farm.

2016  A recorded gust of wind reached 88 mph on the base of Casper Mountain, a new record 14 mph higher than any previously recorded gust in that location.  Clark Wyoming reported a blast of 108 mph.  It was a very blustery day.

December 15

Today is Bill of Rights Day.

1791     The Bill of Rights took effect following ratification by Virginia.

1887  The Burlington Northern commences operation on its freight line to Cheyenne.

1890 Sioux Chief Sitting Bull and 11 other tribe members were killed in Grand River, S.D., during a clash with Indian police.  This event would be one of a series which lead to the tragedy of Wounded Knee.

1890  Burlington Northern commences passenger service between Douglas and Cheyenne.  The Douglas depot is now a train museum (a photo of which will later appear on our Railhead site).

1903  USS Wyoming anchored at the Bay of San Miguel Panama, during the period of Panamanian separation from Columbia.

1909  The six masted schooner Wyoming, the largest wooden schooner ever built, launched in Bath, Maine.  The huge schooner was the last one launched on the East Coast of the United States.

1910  Bishop James A. Keane approved of the parish of St. James in Douglas, together with
several missions.

1910  Wills Van Devanter confirmed as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

1913  The cornerstone of the Newcastle National Guard Armory laid. The building is a museum today.

1913  George Saban, who had plead guilty to second degree murder in connection with the Spring Creek Raid, escaped while being transported as part of a work detail and was never heard from again.

1918  December 15, 1918. Returning Home, Not Making It Over, Wilson In France, Silly Cinema

The Philadelphia Public Ledger printed a poster as a supplement.  The troops were already returning home in appreciable numbers so that celebrations were occurring.

And Sunday movie releases were a thing.  Wives and Other Wives was released on this date in 1918.

The plot synopsis, involving newlyweds, looks absurd, but then it's no more absurd than the piles of slop that television offers now.  Compared to Below Deck, it was likely downright intellectual.

This was a five reel film, fwiw.

The Cheyenne paper features a full slate of recent post war news in its Sunday edition, including the news that Ireland was going for Sinn Fein in the British parliamentary election held the day prior, and Lloyd George had apparently called Labor to be Bolshevik.  France was celebrating Wilson's arrival and the paper was reporting that German efforts to woo African American troops had failed.

And at least in Chicago, the Sunday paper had cartoons, including one that was aimed at low grade coal used to heat homes during World War One as the better grades were devoted to other more pressing concerns.

Hardly anyone heats a house with coal now (I know some do, and I've been in at least a couple of structures heated by coal), so the soot and smell of it is something sort of lost on a modern audience.  But it would have done both of those.  I.e, coal smells even if its a good grade, and the lower grades would have been quite smokey and sooty.

If we take cartoons as a reflection back on contemporary life, and really we ought to, there's some other interesting things to glean in these cartoons.  For one thing, cars were obviously still a novelty, given the way that they were treated in Gasoline Alley.  The protagonists are basically a group of car owners in these early issues experimenting on their cars.  Note that steam cars were still a thing, as there's a reference to them in the cartoon.

And it must have already been the case that those who didn't make it "Over There" were a bit embarrassed by it, as that was the subject of one of the cartoons.

1933   The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.

1939     "Gone With the Wind" premiered in Atlanta.

1963  The statue of Ester Morris at the state capitol was dedicated.

2008  Wyoming's presidential electors met at the State Capitol Building at noon to cast their votes for President.

2011 Conclusion of three days of oral arguments at the Wyoming Supreme Court.

2011 Governor Mead meets carolers from Jessup Elementary School.

December 5

1848     President James K. Polk confirmed that gold had been discovered in California.

1916   Woodrow Wilson delivered his State of the Union Address for 1916.
 

 Woodrow Wilson addressing Congress (but not necessarily on this occasion).

GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: 

In fulfilling at this time the duty laid upon me by the Constitution of communicating to you from time to time information of the state of the Union and recommending to your consideration such legislative measures as may be judged necessary and expedient, I shall continue the practice, which I hope has been acceptable to you, of leaving to the reports of the several heads of the executive departments the elaboration of the detailed needs of the public service and confine myself to those matters of more general public policy with which it seems necessary and feasible to deal at the present session of the Congress. 

I realize the limitations of time under which you will necessarily act at this session and shall make my suggestions as few as possible; but there were some things left undone at the last session which there will now be time to complete and which it seems necessary in the interest of the public to do at once. 

In the first place, it seems to me imperatively necessary that the earliest possible consideration and action should be accorded the remaining measures of the program of settlement and regulation which I had occasion to recommend to you at the close of your last session in view of the public dangers disclosed by the unaccommodated difficulties which then existed, and which still unhappily continue to exist, between the railroads of the country and their locomotive engineers, conductors and trainmen. 

I then recommended: 

First, immediate provision for the enlargement and administrative reorganization of the Interstate Commerce Commission along the lines embodied in the bill recently passed by the House of Representatives and now awaiting action by the Senate; in order that the Commission may be enabled to deal with the many great and various duties now devolving upon it with a promptness and thoroughness which are, with its present constitution and means of action, practically impossible. 

Second, the establishment of an eight-hour day as the legal basis alike of work and wages in the employment of all railway employes who are actually engaged in the work of operating trains in interstate transportation. 

Third, the authorization of the appointment by the President of a small body of men to observe actual results in experience of the adoption of the eight-hour day in railway transportation alike for the men and for the railroads. 

Fourth, explicit approval by the Congress of the consideration by the Interstate Commerce Commission of an increase of freight rates to meet such additional expenditures by the railroads as may have been rendered necessary by the adoption of the eight-hour day and which have not been offset by administrative readjustments and economies, should the facts disclosed justify the increase.

Fifth, an amendment of the existing Federal statute which provides for the mediation, conciliation and arbitration of such controversies as the present by adding to it a provision that, in case the methods of accommodation now provided for should fail, a full public investigation of the merits of every such dispute shall be instituted and completed before a strike or lockout may lawfully be attempted. 

And, sixth, the lodgment in the hands of the Executive of the power, in case of military necessity, to take control of such portions and such rolling stock of the railways of the country as may be required for military use and to operate them for military purposes, with authority to draft into the military service of the United States such train crews and administrative officials as the circumstances require for their safe and efficient use. 

The second and third of these recommendations the Congress immediately acted on: it established the eight-hour day as the legal basis of work and wages in train service and it authorized the appointment of a commission to observe and report upon the practical results, deeming these the measures most immediately needed; but it postponed action upon the other suggestions until an opportunity should be offered for a more deliberate consideration of them. 

The fourth recommendation I do not deem it necessary to renew. The power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to grant an increase of rates on the ground referred to is indisputably clear and a recommendation by the Congress with regard to such a matter might seem to draw in question the scope of the commission's authority or its inclination to do justice when there is no reason to doubt either. 

The other suggestions-the increase in the Interstate Commerce Commission's membership and in its facilities for performing its manifold duties; the provision for full public investigation and assessment of industrial disputes, and the grant to the Executive of the power to control and operate the railways when necessary in time of war or other like public necessity-I now very earnestly renew.

The necessity for such legislation is manifest and pressing. Those who have entrusted us with the responsibility and duty of serving and safeguarding them in such matters would find it hard, I believe, to excuse a failure to act upon these grave matters or any unnecessary postponement of action upon them. 

Not only does the Interstate Commerce Commission now find it practically impossible, with its present membership and organization, to perform its great functions promptly and thoroughly, but it is not unlikely that it may presently be found advisable to add to its duties still others equally heavy and exacting. It must first be perfected as an administrative instrument. 

The country cannot and should not consent to remain any longer exposed to profound industrial disturbances for lack of additional means of arbitration and conciliation which the Congress can easily and promptly supply. 

And all will agree that there must be no doubt as to the power of the Executive to make immediate and uninterrupted use of the railroads for the concentration of the military forces of the nation wherever they are needed and whenever they are needed. 

This is a program of regulation, prevention and administrative efficiency which argues its own case in the mere statement of it. With regard to one of its items, the increase in the efficiency of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the House of Representatives has already acted; its action needs only the concurrence of the Senate. 

I would hesitate to recommend, and I dare say the Congress would hesitate to act upon the suggestion should I make it, that any man in any I occupation should be obliged by law to continue in an employment which he desired to leave. 

To pass a law which forbade or prevented the individual workman to leave his work before receiving the approval of society in doing so would be to adopt a new principle into our jurisprudence, which I take it for granted we are not prepared to introduce. 

But the proposal that the operation of the railways of the country shall not be stopped or interrupted by the concerted action of organized bodies of men until a public investigation shall have been instituted, which shall make the whole question at issue plain for the judgment of the opinion of the nation, is not to propose any such principle. 

It is based upon the very different principle that the concerted action of powerful bodies of men shall not be permitted to stop the industrial processes of the nation, at any rate before the nation shall have had an opportunity to acquaint itself with the merits of the case as between employe and employer, time to form its opinion upon an impartial statement of the merits, and opportunity to consider all practicable means of conciliation or arbitration. 

I can see nothing in that proposition but the justifiable safeguarding by society of the necessary processes of its very life. There is nothing arbitrary or unjust in it unless it be arbitrarily and unjustly done. It can and should be done with a full and scrupulous regard for the interests and liberties of all concerned as well as for the permanent interests of society itself. 

Three matters of capital importance await the action of the Senate which have already been acted upon by the House of Representatives; the bill which seeks to extend greater freedom of combination to those engaged in promoting the foreign commerce of the country than is now thought by some to be legal under the terms of the laws against monopoly; the bill amending the present organic law of Porto Rico; and the bill proposing a more thorough and systematic regulation of the expenditure of money in elections, commonly called the Corrupt Practices Act. 

I need not labor my advice that these measures be enacted into law. Their urgency lies in the manifest circumstances which render their adoption at this time not only opportune but necessary. Even delay would seriously jeopard the interests of the country and of the Government. 

Immediate passage of the bill to regulate the expenditure of money in elections may seem to be less necessary than the immediate enactment of the other measures to which I refer, because at least two years will elapse before another election in which Federal offices are to be filled; but it would greatly relieve the public mind if this important matter were dealt with while the circumstances and the dangers to the public morals of the present method of obtaining and spending campaign funds stand clear under recent observation, and the methods of expenditure can be frankly studied in the light of present experience; and a delay would have the further very serious disadvantage of postponing action until another election was at hand and some special object connected with it might be thought to be in the mind of those who urged it. Action can be taken now with facts for guidance and without suspicion of partisan purpose. 

I shall not argue at length the desirability of giving a freer hand in the matter of combined and concerted effort to those who shall undertake the essential enterprise of building up our export trade. That enterprise will presently, will immediately assume, has indeed already assumed a magnitude unprecedented in our experience. We have not the necessary instrumentalities for its prosecution; it is deemed to be doubtful whether they could be created upon an adequate scale under our present laws.

We should clear away all legal obstacles and create a basis of undoubted law for it which will give freedom without permitting unregulated license. The thing must be done now, because the opportunity is here and may escape us if we hesitate or delay. 

The argument for the proposed amendments of the organic law of Porto Rico is brief and conclusive. The present laws governing the island and regulating the rights and privileges of its people are not just. We have created expectations of extended privilege which we have not satisfied. There is uneasiness among the people of the island and even a suspicious doubt with regard to our intentions concerning them which the adoption of the pending measure would happily remove. We do not doubt what we wish to do in any essential particular. We ought to do it at once. 

At the last session of the Congress a bill was passed by the Senate which provides for the promotion of vocational and industrial education, which is of vital importance to the whole country because it concerns a matter, too long neglected, upon which the thorough industrial preparation of the country for the critical years of economic development immediately ahead of us in very large measure depends. 

May I not urge its early and favorable consideration by the House of Representatives and its early enactment into law? It contains plans which affect all interests and all parts of the country, and I am sure that there is no legislation now pending before the Congress whose passage the country awaits with more thoughtful approval or greater impatience to see a great and admirable thing set in the way of being done. 

There are other matters already advanced to the stage of conference between the two houses of which it is not necessary that I should speak. Some practicable basis of agreement concerning them will no doubt be found an action taken upon them. 

Inasmuch as this is, gentlemen, probably the last occasion I shall have to address the Sixty-fourth Congress, I hope that you will permit me to say with what genuine pleasure and satisfaction I have co-operated with you in the many measures of constructive policy with which you have enriched the legislative annals of the country. It has been a privilege to labor in such company. I take the liberty of congratulating you upon the completion of a record of rare serviceableness and distinction.

1917   Governor Frank Houx asked for closing of saloons statewide to regulate alcohol sales as a war measure.  Prohibitions fortunes would rise with World War One.  Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.

1933  Prohibition ended when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, repealing the 18th Amendment.

1941  The USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier, and the cruisers USS Indianapolis, Astoria, Chicago and Portland, together with five destroyers depart the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

1941  Japanese diplomats provided the following explanation to the U.S. Secretary of State in response to a question about Japanese ship movements in the eastern Pacific.

Reference is made to your inquiry about the intention of the Japa­nese Government with regard to the reported movements of Japanese troops in French Indo‑china. Under instructions from Tokyo I wish to inform you as follows

As Chinese troops have recently shown frequent signs of movements along the northern frontier of French Indo‑china bordering on China, Japanese troops, with the object of mainly taking precautionary measures, have been reinforced to a certain extent in the northern part of French Indo‑china. As a natural sequence of this step, certain movements have been made among the troops stationed the southern part of the said territory. It seems that an exaggerated report has been made of these movements. It should be added that no measure has been taken on the part of the Japanese Government that may transgress the stipulations of the Protocol of Joint Defense between Japan and France.

1944  A Japanese balloon bomb landed and blew up near Thermopolis.  News of these events was kept secret during the war to keep there from being a public panic.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1947.  The USS Wyoming, a battleship built in 1911, was delivered to purchaser to be scrapped.

 

1997  The Wyoming Air National Guard concluded its firefighting duty in Indonesia.

2003  The George Washington Memorial Park, Jackson's town square, added to the National Registry of Historic Places. 

2018  Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson spoke at the funeral of President George H. W. Bush.

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Elsewhere:

1941  UK declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania.

1941  Soviets launched a massive counterattack against the Germans in the Siege of Moscow.

November 29

Today is Nellie Tayloe Ross Day

 Ross in 1938 at her Maryland tobacco farm.

Nellie Tayloe Ross Day is a state holiday in Wyoming, although it is little observed. 

1847   Missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and 15 others are killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians in what is today southeastern Washington, causing the Cayuse War.  The Whitmans conducted the first Protestant religious service in Wyoming.

1864         Sand Creek Massacre in which Colorado militia attack Black Kettle's Cheyenne band in Colorado.  Black Kettle was at peace, and the attack was unwarranted.  The unit would muster out shortly thereafter.  The attack would drive many Cheyenne north into Wyoming and western Nebraska, where they would link up with Sioux who were already trending towards hostility with the United States.  This would result in ongoing unbroken armed conflict between these tribes and the United States up through the conclusion of Red Cloud's War.

Today the Cheyenne trek north is memorialized in the Sand Creek Massacre Trail, a highway designation for the combination Interstate Highways and State highways that lead to the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Wind River is not a Cheyenne Reservation, but it is an Arapaho and Shoshone reservation, and the Arapahos were allied to the Cheyenne and Sioux in this period. 

Black Kettle had the added misfortune of having his camp attacked later by the 7th Cavalry, under Custer, at Washita, in 1868.  He was killed in that attack, which likewise was a surprise and found his band at peace with the US, although others in the area were not.

 Cheyenne prisoners, in artist's depiction, following Washita.

1873  Laramie County Stockgrowers Association forms in Cheyenne.The organization was one of the precursors of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.

1876  Nellie Tayloe Ross born in Missouri.

1888  Territorial Governor Moonlight proclaimed the day one of Thanksgiving, Prayer and Praise.

1901  Mildred Harris, movie actress, born in Cheyenne.  She was a significant actress in the silent film era, having gone from being a child actor to a major adult actress, but had difficulty making the transition to talking pictures.

Harris is also evidence that, in spite of my notation of changes in moral standards elsewhere, the lives of movie stars has often been as torrid as they are presently.  Harris married Charlie Chaplin in 1918, at which time she was 17 years old and the couple thought, incorrectly, that  she was pregnant.  She did later give birth during their brief marriage to a boy who was severely disabled, and who died only three days after being born.  The marriage was not a happy one.  They divorced after two years of marriage, and she would marry twice more and was married to former professional football player William P. Fleckenstein at the time of her death, a union that had lasted ten years.  Ironically, she appeared in three films in 1920, the year of her divorce, as Mildred Harris Chaplin, the only films in which she was billed under that name. While an actress probably mostly known to silent film buffs today, she lived in some ways a life that touched upon many remembered personalities of the era, and which was also somewhat stereotypically Hollywood.  She introduced Edward to Wallis Simpson.

She died in 1944 at age 42 of pneumonia following surgery.  She has a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  A significant number of her 134 films are lost or destroyed due to film deterioration.  Her appearances in the last eight years of her life were minor, and unaccredited, showing the decline of her star power in the talking era.

Stories like hers, however, demonstrate that the often held concept of great isolation of Wyomingites was never true.  Harris was one of at least three actors and actresses who were born in Wyoming and who had roles in the early silent screen era.  Of those, she was arguably the most famous having risen to the height of being a major actress by age 16.

1908   Major Harry Coupland Benson appointed acting Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

1916:   The Wyoming Tribune for November 29, 1916: Villa in the headlines
 

Scary headlines in the Tribune, which reported that Juarez, on the Mexican border, might be Villa's next target.

The Cheyenne State Leader for November 29, 1916: Chihuahua in Villa's hands = Carranza agreeing to Protocol?
 

The Leader made the curious assumption that Villa taking Chihuahua would cause Carranza to agree tot he draft protocol with the US that was designed to bring about an American withdrawal.

Now, why would that be the case? Carranza had been opposed to American intervention, but as it was, the American expeditionary force amounted to a large block of troops in Villas way if he really intended to move north.

A curious assumption.

And the US acting on behalf of besieged Belgium was also in the news.

1917   Thanksgiving 1917
 

Given the news of the day, it couldn't have been a cheery one.

President Wilson issued a proclamation, as was the custom:

 

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
 It has long been the honored custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. That custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.

We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence, by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves. In this day of the revelation of our duty not only to defend our own rights as nation but to defend also the rights of free men throughout the world, there has been vouchsafed us in full and inspiring measure the resolution and spirit of united action. We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own. A new light shines about us. The great duties of a new day awaken a new and greater national spirit in us. We shall never again be divided or wonder what stuff we are made of.

And while we render thanks for these things let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened; and that in His good time liberty and security and peace and the comradeship of a common justice may be vouchsafed all the nations of the earth.

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the great ruler of nations.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the District of Columbia this 7th day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-second.

WOODROW WILSON

 The news, overall, was pretty grim:

The concern of what was going on with Russia, as can be seen, was mounting.

So what was Thanksgiving like in 1917 for average Americans?  This item from A Hundred Years Ago gives us a glimpse/  This ran on A Hundred Years Ago prior to the 2017 Thanksgiving.  I'm linking it in now, as the 1917 Thanksgiving was on this day, rather than the slightly earlier day in November we now celebrate it on.  An interesting look at earlier Thanksgivings:

Grandma’s 1914 Thanksgiving

Interesting that goose was the meat of choice.

1919  A four week coal strike causes as serious coal shortage in Cokeville, Wyoming. Attribution, Wyoming Historical Society.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1931  An Oregon Trail marker was dedicated at Torrington. The decade of the 1930s saw an increased interest in Wyoming in marking the state's early history which was coincident with the pioneer generation passing away.

1942   Coffee
 

Coffee rationing began in on this day in 1942.

Smiling soldier.  I think he's drinking coffee.  I may have had to volunteer for service (which I likely would have done anyway) just in order to get a cup of coffee.

I would not have liked that.  Coffee roasters were already restricted to 75% of their war time prior average.  This resulted not due to fewer beans being produced during the war.  Not hardly. Rather, it resulted from the fact that this import crop is shipped to the continental United States

I think that's something that we tend not to ponder much. Coffee is a huge American drink, just like tea is a huge British drink, but in neither case do these consuming nations produce the elemental crop locally.  Given that, it's really amazing that either drink has such a hold in the consuming nation.  Indeed, by and large, with some slight exception, its not even grown in the Norther Hemisphere.  Kona coffee, grown in Hawaii, is the only coffee actually grown in the United States, in so far as I'm aware.

Just consider it for a moment.  The bean that is roasted to produce the crop is grown thousands of miles from the continental United States, roasted (often) in the US, and then packaged for sale here.  It's pretty amazing that there's more than a couple of varieties of it, frankly, or that its even affordable.

The Coffee Bearer, by John Frederick Lewis, Orientalist painter.  The same figure was a figure in his painting The Armenian Lady, whose servant she is portrayed as being.

As an aside, the second biggest coffee bean producer in the world (the first is Brazil) is. . . . Vietnam.

One more reason that not having prevailed in the Vietnam War is unfortunate, to say the least.

Well, anyhow, it's not cheap, as any coffee drinker will tell you. But it's not terribly pricey either.

And somehow, it's gone from a few basic brands to a wide variety of specialty brands and brews of every imaginable type and variety.

Coffee varieties have of course always existed.  Interestingly, one of the contenders for oldest coffee brand sold in the United States is Lion Brand which is Kona coffee.  Lion was first sold in the United States, as green coffee beans, in 1864.  Pretty darned early.  Hawaii wasn't an American territory at the time.  Folgers has them beat, however, dating back to 1850.  Hills Brothers dates to 1878.  Maxwell House to 1892.

Arbuckle Coffee, for some reason, was a huge item in the West in the late 1800s, showing how brands come and go.  I've never seen Arbuckles sold today, although it apparently still exists.  The owners of the company, John and Charles Arbuckle, owned a ranch near Cheyenne, although I don't know if that explains the connection with the West, or if perhaps that connection worked the other way around.

Now there's a zillion brands of coffee, many of which I don't recognize, and many which have pretensions towards coffee greatness.  This seems to have come about due to the rise of coffee houses, lead in a major way by Starbucks.  There's a Starbucks on every street corner now, it seems.  I'll be frank that I don't like their coffee much at all.  Too strong, and I like strong coffee.  Anyhow, the many specialty brews that Starbucks makes has spawned many various specialty coffees, or at least different coffees, to the extent to which a person can hardly keep track of it.  Over the weekend I was in City Brew, one of the local coffee houses, as well as Albertsons, where a Starbucks is located, and they both had "Christmas Blends".  How can there be a Christmas blend of coffee?

Chock full o' Nuts, a brand that, as the can indicates, has been around since 1932.  That was the date the company founder changed his nut shops into lunch counters, figuring that they were a better bet during the Great Depression.  I used to drink Chock full o' Nuts when I was in college but stopped as it seemed to have way too much caffeine.

Not that I'm complaining.  I frankly like the vast variety in coffee. And while I'm not inclined to buy something like Starbucks Free Range Easter Island Coffee Licked Gently By Baby Yaks, I will buy peculiar roasts just because the sound interesting. And I tend towards those dark roasts even if I sometimes wish I'd gotten something milder.

And it is interesting to see how coffee houses, following in Starbuck's wake, have popped up everywhere.  Just the other day I bought a sack of Boyer's coffee in the grocery store.  I was aware of Boyers, as they're a Denver brand with a Denver coffee house, but I wasn't aware that you could buy it up here.  Quasi local, as it were.  A great Denver coffee, with some good coffee houses is Dazbog, which plays up the Russian origin of the founders.  One of the independent local coffee houses here sells Dazbog, and its good stuff.  City Brew has outlets here in town, and apparently they're originally from Montana, which they play up with some of their roasts, even though we all know coffee isn't grown in Montana.  I'm told that Blue Ridge Coffee, another local coffee house that sells sacked coffee, is purely local.

And that doesn't cover every coffee house in town.  Quite the evolution when just a decade or so ago you'd have had to go to a conventional cafe and just have ordered the house coffee, whatever that was.  No special roasts or blends.  Just a up of joe.

And I prefer to buy from the locals as well.  Subsidarity in action, I suppose.  Indeed, I'm not told that I can buy Mystic Monk sacked coffee at the Parish Office, and I likely will.

In the grocery store, for the most part, you bought the major brands.  Most of those are still around,  but now you can buy any number of major and minor brands.  I even have a coffee grinder, although that certainly isn't a new invention, although most of the time I buy pre ground coffee.  Indeed, I got the grinder as I bought whole bean coffee by mistake, which I've done from time to time, and I don't want to waste it.

Using coffee grinders, of course, is an odd return to the past. Everything old is new again, sort of.  But the huge variety, of course, is wholly new.

Industrial strength coffee grinder.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Related threads:

Coffee

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health

Blog Mirror. A Hundred Years Ago: Keep Coffee Warm with a Thermos

National Coffee Day.

The Joy of Field Rations: Roasting Coffee in the Field

November 26

1835  Texas forces defeated Mexican forces in the Grass Fight near San Antonio.

1863   President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26th as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November (since 1941, on the fourth Thursday).

1916   The Cheyenne Leader for November 26, 1916 (but with a date error): U.S. Ready to Ratify Protocol With Mexico
 

We need to note here that the Leader made an error on its date on page 1.  To show that, we've uploaded page 2 as well.  This was the November 26 paper, note the November 25 paper.

Woodrow Wilson, the Leader reported, was ready to ratify the protocol with Mexico. But was Carranza ready?  The battle appeared to be turning for Carranza's enemy, Villa, in Chihuahua.

In Washington, John E. Osborne, former Wyoming Governor, appeared to be pondering leaving his Assistant Secretary of State position in the Wilson administration in order to head back to Wyoming. 

And sad news was reported regarding the death if Inez Milholland Bossevain, who had been in Cheyenne during the Presidential campaign.

And the Governor put out a Thanksgiving message for the upcoming holiday. 

1918  November 26, 1918. Letters home with scruffy photos. News photographs with polish appearance. Wyoming for Pershing? The murder of the Jews of Lvov, Rumors of War between Peru and Chile.

Post card home of Harold A. Stivers, 311th Infantry, 78th Division.  Stivers refers to his dress, which he regarded as a little rough.  It is interesting.  He's wearing the by then standard overseas cap and a leather jerkin.  American troops wore the jerkin much less often than the British, with whom it had become standard late in the war.  He notes that his puttees aren't wrapped correctly.  Puttees, used by the British and the French during the war, were adopted by the Americans but they didn't completely replace leggings.  After the war, the American Army quickly went back to leggings.

The contrasting photograph of Gen. Leroy S. Upton, commander of the 57th Bde, 29th Division, who presents a much more polished appearance. Gen. Upton is wearing private purchase lace up, and thick soled, riding boots with speed laces. . . a much preferable piece of footgear for actual field conditions than the standard field boots of the time.

One of the Cheyenne newspapers was declaring that Wyoming would support drafting Pershing for a 1920 Presidential run, or otherwise supporting him in that effort.

No doubt, the news was not in error.  Pershing was the son in law of Francis E. Warren, Wyoming's Senator, and very well remembered there.

And the tax on automobiles was coming off.

The other Cheyenne paper was reporting about the looming war between Chile and Peru, and on the horror of ethnic genocide in Lvov.  And there was fighting, of a different type, in the streets of New York City.

1919  USS Laramie, a fleet replenishment oiler,  launched.

1926  Utah's John M. Browning died.  Browning is regarded as the most successful firearms designer of all time.

1934  Charles E. Richardson, publisher of the Rock Springs Daily Rocket-Miner from 1974 to 2005 born in Newcastle Wyoming.

1942  Lusk announces they will forgo outdoor Christmas lights in accordance with a request from the War Production Board.  Attribution.  Wyoming History Calendar.

1948  Former Governor Frank E. Lucas died in  Buffalo, Wyoming.  He had been Wyoming's Secretary of State from 1923 to 1927, and Governor in 1925 after the death of Governor Ross.  He left office in 1927 and spent the rest of his life as the editor and publisher of the Buffalo Bulletin.

1984  Big Nose George Parrott's remains given to the Carbon County Museum.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

2004  The Snake River Ranch added to the National Registry of Historic Places.