How To Use This Site
How To Use This Site
This blog was updated on a daily basis for about two years, with those daily entries ceasing on December 31, 2013. The blog is still active, however, and we hope that people stopping in, who find something lacking, will add to the daily entries.
The blog still receives new posts as well, but now it receives them on items of Wyoming history. That has always been a feature of the blog, but Wyoming's history is rich and there are many items that are not fully covered here, if covered at all. Over time, we hope to remedy that.
You can obtain an entire month's listings by hitting on the appropriate month below, or an individual day by hitting on that calendar date. Use 2013 for the search date, as that's the day regular dates were established and fixed.
We hope you enjoy this site.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Blog Mirror: “The Great Call Up- Wyoming Moves to the Border, 1916”
The early morning hours before dawn on March 9, 1916 in the sleepy Mexican border town of Columbus, New Mexico were beautiful, clear and star-lit.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
December 31
1871 The Territorial Legislature authorized the formation of militia companies, the birth of the Wyoming National Guard.
1890 A New Year's Ball was held in the Casper Town Hall to benefit the Casper Cornet Band. Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.
1912 USS Wyoming made the President' flagship.
1916 The Cheyenne State Leader for December 31, 1916. Going out on a belligerent note.
And so 1916 would not go out on a peaceful note.
Carranza was unhappy that the protocol did not require a UW withdraw, the Allies were not tempted by peace. The Army was taking a position contrary to what supposedly the Administration was taking, if reports were accurate, in that it wanted to withdraw the expedition in Mexico.
A bizarre headline was featured on the front page indicating that "churchmen" were opposing "premature peace" in Europe, with the promise that details would be provided the following day.
It was a dry New Years Eve. . . at least officially for Americans and most Canadians who, if they were following the law, had to ring in the arrival of 1922 with some non-besotted beverage. I'm sure many did.
And there was a lot to celebrate that year. For Americans, the Great War had officially ended, although the fighting had obviously stopped quite some time prior. For the many Americans with Irish ancestry, it appeared that Irish independence was about to become a de jure, rather than a de facto, matter. Americans were moving definitively past World War One, and in a lot of ways definitively past a prior, much more rural, era and country.
Not all was well, however, as the economy was doing quite poorly. There was hope that would soon change, with that hope being expressed in a regional fashion on the cover of the Casper Daily Tribune.
Also, on the cover of the paper was the news that the County had taken over ownership of the hospital. It'd run the hospital until 2020, when Banner Health took over it, converting it back into a private hospital after almost a century of public ownership.
1941 Big Piney, Pinedale, Nowood, and Star Valley became the first Wyoming Conservation Districts when their Certifications of Organization were signed by Wyoming's Secretary of State Lester Hunt.
1950 Frank Barrett resigned from the US House of Representatives, where he had been Wyoming's Congressman, in order that he could take office as Governor.
1952 The 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron, Wyoming Air National Guard (F-51s) released from active service. During their service in Korea nine 187th pilots were lost.
1974 Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.
1976 Wyoming hit by a statewide blizzard.
1978 Clifford Hanson, who was leaving his office as U.S. Senator, resigned, thereby allowing his successor, Alan K. Simpson to have Hanson's seniority by virtue of short appointment to replace him.
2011 The year departs with a Central Wyoming blizzard.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
December 22
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.
1917 December 22, 1917: The United States Guards Authorized
1921 President Warren Harding signed an Executive Order that designated expanded the National Elk Refuge into, additionally, a bird refuge.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War
Part of the reason that we don't think much of the Korean War and Wyoming, is that we don't think much about the Korean War at all. The Korean War is one of several wars that have been tagged "forgotten wars" and, in the case of Korea, it's really true. Perhaps that was inevitable, coming between World War Two and the Vietnam War, as it did.
Wyoming's role in the Korean War is tied closely to the the decline in the Army's conventional war fighting abilities that followed World War Two. The largest war ever fought, World War Two was the largest conventional conflict of all time but it ended with the use of two nuclear weapons. Given that, the immediate assumption by the American military was that the age of conventional warfare had ended and that any future war, of any kind, would be a nuclear war. The Army was allowed to atrophy as a result. Between 1945, when World War Two ended, and 1950, when the Korean War started, the Army's training in conventional warfare dramatically declined.
An end to conventional warfare turned out to be a massively erroneous assumption, and the place we learned that was in Korea.
That the US would fight a war in Korea was something that, moreover, seemed an impossibility in 1945, when events took us there for the first time in the 20th Century. The US had actually fought in Korea once before, but in the 19th Century, oddly enough, when the Marine Corps landed briefly in Korean in an obscure punitive expedition. It was World War Two, however that brought the US back onto the Korean Peninsula, but only due to the end of the war.
Korea itself had been a Japanese possession since 1910, when the Japanese simply made a fact out of what had been the case following the Russo Japanese War. Korea had been more or less independent prior to that, but heavily influenced by its much more powerful neighbors. The Russo Japanese War effectively ended Korean independence in favor of the Japanese. The Japanese dominance was not a happy thing for the Koreans. Korea remained a Japanese possession up until after World War Two, when it was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, splitting the country in half. The US had no intention to remain there but the original concept of uniting the country in a democratic process fell apart, and the Soviets and the US left with the country divided. The US had weakly armed the South and failed to provide it with heavy weapons. The North, on the other hand, was heavily armed and trained by the Soviets, who left the North with the means, and likely the plan, on how to unite the peninsula by force. In 1950, North Korea invaded the South with a well equipped and well trained Army. They faced a poorly trained South Korean Army.
Soon after that they, quite frankly, faced a poorly trained American Army. The US hadn't really given much thought to South Korea after leaving it, but the fall of China, followed by the Berlin Blockade, followed by shocking early revelations about Soviet espionage inside the US, followed by the development of the Soviet bomb, suddenly refocused attention on a country that now seemed to be a dagger aimed at Japan. President Truman made the immediate decision to send the U.S. Army into South Korea to turn the North Koreans back.
That Army, however, wasn't the same Army the US had in 1945 after the defeat of Germany and Japan. After VJ Day the U.S. had rapidly demobilized. Moreover, convinced that all future wars would be nuclear in nature, the U.S. had let the Army deteriorate markedly. It was poorly trained and not all that well equipped in some ways.
The intervention in South Korea required the call up of numerous Army National Guard units, and Wyoming's 300th Armored Field Artillery was one of them. Deployed in February 1951, the unit made up of young recruits from northern Wyoming and World War Two veterans proved to be a very effective one. It achieved a fairly unique status in May 1951 at Soyang with the unit directly engaged advancing enemy infantry, a very rare event in modern combat and a risky one at any time. The unit came out of the Korean War with Presidential and Congressional Unit Citations in honor of its fine performance in the war. The individual Guardsmen of the 300th AFA largely came home after completing a combat tour, at a little over a year, but the called up unit remained in service throughout the war. Other Wyoming Army National Guard units were also called up in this time, but only the 300th AFA was sent to the Korean War.
The Air National Guard's 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Wyoming was called up. The new Air Guard saw combat service for the first time in the Korean War. Nine Wyoming F51 pilots were lost serving in the unit during the war.
Of course, many Wyomingites served in the war by volunteering for military service, or by being conscripted during the war. Like earlier wars, Wyomingites volunteered in high numbers.
Sidebar: The Vietnam War In Wyoming
Saturday, December 14, 2013
December 14
Gillette Wyoming is named after him.
1877 Cheyenne incorporated by the Territorial Legislature.
1911 Hiram S. Manville, after whom Manville in Niobrara County is named, died in Nebraska. He was a rancher and worked for large ranches in the region, and was influential in the early development of the town.
1914 Grace Raymond Hebard became first woman admitted to state bar.
This was a remarkable achievement in and of itself, but it only one of a string of such accomplishments made by Hebard. She was also the first woman to graduate from the Engineering Department of the University of Iowa, in an era when there engineering was an overwhelmingly male profession. She followed this 1882 accomplishment by acquiring a 1885 MA from the same school, and then an 1893 PhD in political science from Wesleyan University. She went to work for the State of Wyoming in 1882 and rose to the position of Deputy State Engineer under legendary State Engineer Elwood Mead. She moved to Laramie in 1891 and was instrumental in the administration of the University of Wyoming. She was a significant figure in the suffrage movement, and a proponent in Wyoming of Americanization, a view shared by such figures such as Theodore Roosevelt.
She was an amateur historian as well, which is what she is best remembered for today. Unfortunately, her historical works were tinged with romanticism and have not been regarded as wholly reliable in later years. Her history of Sacajawea, which followed 30 years of research, is particularly questioned and would seem to have made quite a few highly romantic erroneous conclusions. On a more positive note, the same impulses lead her to be very active in the marking of historic Wyoming trails.
While she was the first woman to be admitted to the Wyoming State Bar, she never actually practiced law. Her book collection is an important part of the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center's collection today.
1916 Former Governor John Osborne concludes his service as Assistant Secretary of State for the Wilson Administration.
1916The Submarine H3 runs aground, leading to the ultimate loss of the USS Milwaukee.
The USS Cheyenne with the H1 and H2. The Cheyenne had been decommissioned in 1905, after having served since only 1900, but she was recommissioned in 1908. She was the first fuel oil burning ship in the U.S. Navy after having been refitted prior to recommissioning. She was refitted as a U.S. Navy submarine tender, as a brief stint in the Washington Naval Militia, in 1913.
2006 Staff Sgt. Theodore A. Spatol,1041st Engineer Company, Wyoming Army National Guard, died of illness acquired while in Iraq. He had returned to his home in Thermopolis prior to passing.
Elsewhere: 1916: In strong contrast to the State of Wyoming, Quebec bans women from entering the legal profession.
This was in contrast with progress in suffrage elsewhere in Canada that year, but it wasn't terribly unusual for the time. Note that the first Woman admitted to the bar in Wyoming had only been admitted two years earlier in spite of suffrage dating back to the late 19th Century and in spite of women already having served as justices of the peace and jurors. Having said that, every US state would have admitted at least one woman to the bar by the early 20th Century and many in the late 19th Century
Saturday, December 7, 2013
December 7
Today is, by State Statute, WS 8-4-106, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. The Statute provides:
(a) In recognition of the members of the armed forces who lost their lives and those who survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, territory of Hawaii on December 7, 1941, December 7 of each year is designated as "Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day". The day shall be appropriately observed in the public schools of the state.
(b) The governor, not later than September 1 of each year, shall issue a proclamation requesting proper observance of "Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day".
(c) This section shall not affect commercial paper, the making or execution of written agreements or judicial proceedings, or authorize public schools, businesses or state and local government offices to close.
_________________________________________________________________________________
I also note, at least according to an engineer who explained it to me, that December 7 is also a date involving an astronomical anomaly, that being that it is the day of the year which, in the Northern Hemisphere, features the earliest sunset. That doesn't, of course, make it the shortest day of the year, it's just that the sunsets the earliest on this day, or so I am told.
1868 U.S. Post Office reestablished at Green River.
1890 The subject of sermon at the Rawlins Presbyterian Church was “Choosing a Husband.”
1898 Battery A, Wyoming Light Artillery, arrives in Manilla where it will serve in the Philippine Insurrection.
1909 The Natrona County Tribune reported in a story that ran this week:
"Snowed In.
"W. L. Hobbs and Dr. J. W. Padgett left Lander over seven weeks ago on a three weeks' elk hunt, and the first of last week one of their horses returned, and their friends feared that they had perished in the deep snow in the mountains, and relief parties were organized to search for them. On Sunday night Dr. Padgett was brought into Lander by a trapper, and the doctor said that Mr. Hobbs was badly snowed in near Fremont Peak, there being three to five feet of snow all over the mountains. He said that Mr. Hobbs would not leave his horses, that he had plenty to eat and was clearing small patches of ground so his horses could feed, that there was no immediate danger of either the horses or Mr. Hobbs perishing."
1916 The Cheyenne Leader for December 7, 1916: Wyoming Guard coming home before Christmas?
The proverbial soldier "home before Christmas" story was running in the Leader. Would it be true?
And given the rest of the news, how long would that be true for, if it was true?
The series continued all the way through 1956, making it a very successful cartoon.
This particular cartoon is not on line, and it might largely be lost, like many films of this period.
1917 The USS Wyoming, under sail since November 25, arrives in Scapa Flow. Four U.S. battleships arrive at Scapa Flow taking on the role of the British Grand Fleet's Sixth Battle Squadron. These include USS Delaware (BB-28), USS Florida (BB-30), New York (BB-34), and USS Wyoming (BB-32).
1917 The United States declared war against Austria-Hungary.
December 7, 1917. The United States Declares War On Austria Hungary
Whereas the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America : Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a state of war is hereby declared to exist between the United States of America and the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government; and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.1917 The Cheyenne State Leader. Disaster and bad decisions
On December 7, a date we associate with a later war, Cheyenne's residents had headline about another maritime disaster.
And they got to read about a stupid proposal., the concept of eliminating German from the high schools even though it was a popular course.
War . . .
1941 US military installations were attack in Hawaii by the Imperial Japanese Navy bringing the US formally into World War Two.
It was a surprisingly warm day in Central Wyoming that fateful day. The high was in the upper 40s, and low in the lower 20s. Not atypical temperatures for December but certainly warmer than it can be.
Events played out like this:
0342 Hawaii Time, 0642 Mountain Standard Time: The minesweeper USS Condor sighted a periscope and radioed the USS Ward: "Sighted submerged submarine on westerly course, speed 9 knots.”
0645-0653: Hawaii Time, 0945-0953 Mountain Standard Time: The USS Ward, mostly staffed by Naval Reservists, sights and engages a Japanese mini submarine first reported by the USS Connor, sinking the submarine. The Ward reports the entire action, albeit in code, noting: "“We have dropped depth charges upon sub operating in defensive sea area" and “We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges upon submarine operating in defensive sea area.”
At this point in time, most Wyomingites would be up and enjoying the day. A large percentage would have gone to Church for the Sunday morning and have now started the rest of their Sundays.
0702 Hawaii Time, 1002 Mountain Standard Time: An operator at the U.S. Army's newly installed Opana Mobile Radar Station, one of six such facilities on Oahu, sights 50 aircraft hits on his radar scope, which is confirmed by his co-operator. They call Ft. Shafter and report the sighting.
0715 Hawaii Time, 1015 Mountain Standard Time: USS Ward's message decoded and reported to Admiral Kimmel, who orders back to "wait for verification."
0720 Hawaii Time, 1020 Mountain Standard Time: U.S. Army lieutenant at Ft. Shafter reviews radar operator's message and believes the message to apply to a flight of B-17s which are known to be in bound from Califorina. He orders that the message is not to be worried about.
0733 Hawaii Time, 1033 Mountain Standard Time, 1233 Eastern Time: Gen. George Marshall issues a warning order to Gen. Short that hostilities many be imminent, but due to atmospheric conditions, it has to go by telegraph rather than radio. It was not routed to go as a priority and would only arrive after the attack was well underway.
0749 Hawaii Time, 1049 Mountain Standard Time: Japanese Air-attack commander Mitsuo Fuchida looks down on Pearl Harbor and observes that the US carriers are absent. He orders his telegraph operator to tap out to, to, to: signalling "attack" and then: to ra, to ra, to ra: attack, surprise achieved. This is interpreted as some as Tora, Tora, Tora, "tiger, tiger, tiger" which it was not. Those who heard that sometimes interpreted to be indicative of the Japanese phrase; "A tiger goes out 1,000 ri and returns without fail.”
0755 Hawaii Time, 1055 Mountain Standard Time: Commander Logan C. Ramsey, at the Command Center on Ford Island, looks out a window to see a low-flying plane he believes to be a reckless and improperly acting U.S. aircraft. He then notices “something black fall out of that plane” and realizes instantly an air raid is in progress. He orders telegraph operators to send out an uncoded message to every ship and the base that: "AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL"
0800 Hawaii time, 11:00 Mountain Standard Time. B-17s which were to be stationed at Oahu begin to land, right in the midst of the Japanese air raid.
0810 Hawaii Time, 11:10 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Arizona fatally hit.
0817 Hawaii Time: 11:17 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Helm notices a submarine ensnared in the the antisubmarine net and engages it. It submerges but this partially floods the submarine, which must be abandoned.
0839 Hawaii Time. 1139 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Monaghan, attempting to get out of the harbor, spotted another miniature submarine and rammed and depth charged it.
0850 Hawaii Time. 11:50 Mountain Standard Time. The USS Nevada, with her steam now up, heads for open water. It wouldn't make it and it was intentionally run aground to avoid it being sunk.
0854 Hawaii Time. 1150 Mountain Standard Time. The Japanese second wave hits.
0929 Hawaii Time. 1229 Mountain Standard Time. NBC interrupts regular programming to announce that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.
0930 Hawaii Time. 1230 Mountain Standard Time. CBS interrupts regular programming to announce that Pearl Harbor was being attacked.
0930 Hawaii Time. 1230 Mountain Standard Time. The bow of the USS Shaw, a destroyer, is blown off. The ship would be repaired and used in the war.
0938 Hawaii Time, 1238 Mountain Standard Time. CBS erroneously announces that Manila was being attacked. It wasn't far off, however, as the Philippines would be attacked that day (December 8 given the International Date Line).
10:00 Hawaii Time, 13:00 Mountain Standard Time
A third wave was by the Japanese debated, but not launched.
Wyoming is three hours ahead of Hawaii (less than I'd have guessed) making the local time here about 10:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning when the attack started.. The national radio networks began to interrupt their programming about 12:30. On NBC the announcement fell between Sammy Kaye's Sunday Serenade and the University of Chicago Round Table, which was featuring a program on Canada at war. On NBC the day's episode of Great Plays was interrupted for their announcement. CBS had just begun to broadcast The World Today which actually headlined with their announcement fairly seamlessly.
2010 Lighting ceremony held in Washington D.C. for the Capitol Christmas Tree, which this year came from the Bridger Teton National Forest.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
December 4
Wyoming has a long association with artillery, which may surprise many of its residents, which continues on to the present day. The Wyoming National Guard became an artillery unit some time prior to World War One and served in that capacity during the Great War. In the early 1920s, it was converted to cavalry, but artillery units were reintroduced after World War Two. The Wyoming Army National Guard's 300th AFA served with distinction in the Korean War, winning both Congressional and Presidential Unit Citations and the state retains artillery units to this day.
1873 William Ross born in Tennessee. Ross was Wyoming's twelfth Governor, but only served a year and a half, dying from complications following an appendectomy. Ross was a lawyer in Cheyenne, having had a practice there since 1901. He ran several political campaigns, but it was not until 1922 that he was successful, running on an assistance to farmers platform, and supporting stronger prohibition measures. His successful campaign was hard on his finances, largely draining any surplus, which had an impact on his wife successive campaigns. He was married to Nellie Tayloe Ross, who became the governor following his death.
1877 Rail line between Cheyenne and Denver completed.
1889 The first load of coal was shipped from Cambria
1890 Some legislators staying at a private home in Cheyenne were robbed during the night, while they slept. Attribution. Wyoming State Historical Society.
1917 December 4. Predictions and Predicaments old new.
Gentlemen of the Congress:
Eight months have elapsed since I last had the honor of addressing you. They have been months crowded with events of immense and grave significance for us. I shall not undertake to retail or even to summarize those events. The practical particulars of the part we have played in them will be laid before you in the reports of the Executive Departments. I shall discuss only our present outlook upon these vast affairs, our present duties, and the immediate means of accomplishing the objects we shall hold always in view.
I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to consider again and with a very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures by which we mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and our action must move straight towards definite ends. Our object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking and answering the question, When shall we consider the war won?
From one point of view it is not necessary to broach this fundamental matter. I do not doubt that the American people know what the war is about and what sort of an outcome they will regard as a realization of their purpose in it. As a nation we are united in spirit and intention. I pay little heed to those who tell me otherwise. I hear the voices of dissent; who does not? I hear the criticism and the clamor of the noisily thoughtless and troublesome. I also see men here and there fling themselves in impotent disloyalty against the calm, indomitable power of the nation. I hear men debate peace who understand neither its nature not the way in which we may attain it with uplifted eyes and unbroken spirits. But I know that none of these speaks for the nation. They do not touch the heart of anything. They may safely be left to strut their uneasy hour and be forgotten.
But from another point of view I believe that it is necessary to say plainly what we here at the seat of action consider the war to be for and what part we mean to play in the settlement of its searching issues. We are the spokesmen of the American people and they have a right to know whether their purpose is ours. They desire peace by the overcoming of evil, by the defeat once for all of the sinister forces that interrupt peace and render it impossible, and they wish to know how closely our thought runs with theirs and what action we propose. They are impatient with those who desire peace by any sort of compromise--deeply and indignantly impatient--but they will be equally impatient with us if we do not make it plain to them what our objectives are and what we are planning for in seeking to make conquest of peace by arms.
I believe that I speak for them when I say two things: First, that this intolerable Thing of which the masters of Germany have shown us the ugly face, this menace of combined intrigue and force which we now see so clearly as the German power, a Thing without conscience or honor or capacity for covenanted peace, must be crushed and, if it be not utterly brought to an end, at least shut out from the friendly intercourse of the nations; and, second, that when this Thing and its power are indeed defeated and the time comes that we can discuss peace--when the German people have spokesmen whose word we can believe and when those spokesmen are ready in the name of their people to accept the common judgment of the nations as to what shall henceforth be the bases of law and of covenant for the life of the world--we shall be willing and glad to pay the full price for peace, and pay it ungrudgingly. We know what that price will be. It will be full, impartial justice--justice done at every point and to every nation that the final settlement must affect, our enemies as well as our friends.
You catch, with me, the voices of humanity that are in the air. They grow daily more audible, more articulate, more persuasive, and they come from the hearts of men everywhere. They insist that the war shall not end in vindictive action of any kind; that no nation or people shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have themselves done deep and abominable wrong. It is this thought that has been expressed in the formula "No annexations, no contributions, no punitive indemnities." Just because this crude formula expresses the instinctive judgment as to right of plain men everywhere it has been made diligent use of by the masters of German intrigue to lead the people of Russia astray, and the people of every other country their agents could reach, in order that a premature peace might be brought about before autocracy has been taught its final and convincing lesson, and the people of the world put in control of their own destinies.
But the fact that a wrong use has been made of a just idea is no reason why a right use should not be made of it. It ought to be brought under the patronage of its real friends. Let it be said again that autocracy must first be shown the utter futility of its claims to power or leadership in the modern world. It is impossible to apply any standard of justice so long as such forces are unchecked and undefeated as the present masters of Germany command. Not until that has been done can Right be set up as arbiter and peace-maker among the nations. But when that has been done--as, God willing, it assuredly will be--we shall at last be free to do an unprecedented thing, and this is the time to avow our purpose to do it. We shall be free to base peace on generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all selfish claims to advantage even on the part of the victors.
Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present and immediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is accomplished. Every power and resource we possess, whether of men, of money, or of materials, is being devoted and will continue to be devoted to that purpose until it is achieved. Those who desire to bring peace about before that purpose is achieved I counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We will not entertain it. We shall regard the war as won only when the German people say to us, through properly accredited representatives, that they are ready to agree to a settlement based upon justice and the reparation of the wrongs their rulers have done. They have done a wrong to Belgium which must be repaired. They have established a power over other lands and peoples than their own--over the great Empire of Austria-Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan states, over Turkey, and within Asia--which must be relinquished.
Germany's success by skill, by industry, by knowledge, by enterprise we did not grudge or oppose, but admired, rather. She had built up for herself a real empire of trade and influence, secured by the peace of the world. We were content to abide the rivalries of manufacture, science, and commerce that were involved for us in her success and stand or fall as we had or did not have the brains and the initiative to surpass her. But at the moment when she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to oust where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and hated. The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of Belgium and northern France from the Prussian conquest and the Prussian menace, but it must also deliver the peoples of Austria-Hungary, the peoples of the Balkans, and the peoples of Turkey, alike in Europe and in Asia, from the impudent and alien dominion of the Prussian military and commercial autocracy.
We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do not wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of ours what they do with their own life, either industrially or politically. We do not purpose or desire to dictate to them in any way. We only desire to see that their affairs are left in their own hands, in all matters, great or small. We shall hope to secure for the peoples of the Balkan peninsula and for the people of the Turkish Empire the right and opportunity to make their own lives safe, their own fortunes secure against oppression or injustice and from the dictation of foreign courts or parties.
And our attitude and purpose with regard to Germany herself are of a like kind. We intend no wrong against the German Empire, no interference with her internal affairs. We should deem either the one or the other absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have professed to live by and to hold most sacred throughout our life as a nation.
The people of Germany are being told by the men whom they now permit to deceive them and to act as their masters that they are fighting for the very life and existence of their Empire, a war of desperate self-defense against deliberate aggression. Nothing could be more grossly or wantonly false, and we must seek by the utmost openness and candor as to our real aims to convince them of its falseness. We are in fact fighting for their emancipation from fear, along with our own--from the fear as well as from the fact of unjust attack by neighbors or rivals or schemers after world empire. No one is threatening the existence or the independence or the peaceful enterprise of the German Empire.
The worst that can happen to the detriment of the German people is this, that if they should still, after the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under ambitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the peace of the world, men or classes of men whom the other peoples of the world could not trust, it might be impossible to admit them to the partnership of nations which must henceforth guarantee the world's peace. That partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not a mere partnership of governments. It might be impossible, also, in such untoward circumstances, to admit Germany to the free economic intercourse which must inevitably spring out of the other partnerships of a real peace. But there would be no aggression in that; and such a situation, inevitable because of distrust, would in the very nature of things sooner or later cure itself, by processes which would assuredly set in.
The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this war will have to be righted. That of course. But they cannot and must not be righted by the commission of similar wrongs against Germany and her allies. The world will not permit the commission of similar wrongs as a means of reparation and settlement. Statesmen must by this time have learned that the opinion of the world is everywhere wide awake and fully comprehends the issues involved. No representative of any self-governed nation will dare disregard it by attempting any such covenants of selfishness and compromise as were entered into at the Congress of Vienna. The thought of the plain people here and everywhere throughout the world, the people who enjoy no privilege and have very simple and unsophisticated standards of right and wrong, is the air all governments must henceforth breathe if they would live. It is in the full disclosing light of that thought that all policies must be conceived and executed in this midday hour of the world's life. German rulers have been able to upset the peace of the world only because the German people were not suffered under their tutelage to share the comradeship of the other peoples of the world either in thought or in purpose. They were allowed to have no opinion of their own which might be set up as a rule of conduct for those who exercised authority over them. But the congress that concludes this war will feel the full strength of the tides that run now in the hearts and consciences of free men everywhere. Its conclusions will run with those tides.
All these things have been true from the very beginning of this stupendous war; and I cannot help thinking that if they had been made plain at the very outset the sympathy and enthusiasm of the Russian people might have been once for all enlisted on the side of the Allies, suspicion and distrust swept away, and a real and lasting union of purpose effected. Had they believed these things at the very moment of their revolution and had they been confirmed in that belief since, the sad reverses which have recently marked the progress of their affairs towards an ordered and stable government of free men might have been avoided. The Russian people have been poisoned by the very same falsehoods that have kept the German people in the dark, and the poison has been administered by the very same hands. The only possible antidote is the truth. It cannot be uttered too plainly or too often.
From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed to be my duty to speak these declarations of purpose, to add these specific interpretations to what I took the liberty of saying to the Senate in January. Our entrance into the war has not altered our attitude towards the settlement that must come when it is over. When I said in January that the nations of the world were entitled not only to free pathways upon the sea but also to assured and unmolested access to those pathways I was thinking, and I am thinking now, not of the smaller and weaker nations alone, which need our countenance and support, but also of the great and powerful nations, and of our present enemies as well as our present associates in the war. I was thinking, and am thinking now, of Austria herself, among the rest, as well as of Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equality of rights can be had only at a great price. We are seeking permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace of the world and must seek them candidly and fearlessly. As always, the right will prove to be the expedient.
What shall we do, then, to push this great war of freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion? We must clear away with a thorough hand all impediments to success and we must make every adjustment of law that will facilitate the full and free use of our whole capacity and force as a fighting unit.
One very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our way is that we are at war with Germany but not with her allies. I therefore very earnestly recommend that the Congress immediately declare the United States in a state of war with Austria-Hungary. Does it seem strange to you that this should be the conclusion of the argument I have just addressed to you? It is not. It is in fact the inevitable logic of what I have said. Austria-Hungary is for the time being not her own mistress but simply the vassal of the German Government. We must face the facts as they are and act upon them without sentiment in this stern business. The government of Austria-Hungary is not acting upon its own initiative or in response to the wishes and feelings of its own peoples but as the instrument of another nation. We must meet its force with our own and regard the Central Powers as but one. The war can be successfully conducted in no other way. The same logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bulgaria. They also are the tools of Germany. But they are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct path of our necessary action. We shall go wherever the necessities of this war carry us, but it seems to me that we should go only where immediate and practical considerations lead us and not heed any others.
The financial and military measures which must be adopted will suggest themselves as the war and its undertakings develop, but I will take the liberty of proposing to you certain other acts of legislation which seem to me to be needed for the support of the war and for the release of our whole force and energy.
It will be necessary to extend in certain particulars the legislation of the last session with regard to alien enemies; and also necessary, I believe, to create a very definite and particular control over the entrance and departure of all persons into and from the United States.
Legislation should be enacted defining as a criminal offense every willful violation of the presidential proclamations relating to alien enemies promulgated under section 4067 of the Revised Statutes and providing appropriate punishments; and women as well as men should be included under the terms of the acts placing restraints upon alien enemies. It is likely that as time goes on many alien enemies will be willing to be fed and housed at the expense of the Government in the detention camps and it would be the purpose of the legislation I have suggested to confine offenders among them in penitentiaries and other similar institutions where they could be made to work as other criminals do.
Recent experience has convinced me that the Congress must go further in authorizing the Government to set limits to prices. The law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unrestrained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteering in several branches of industry it still runs impudently rampant in others. The farmers, for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regulation of food prices restricts their incomes, no restraints are placed upon the prices of most of the things they must themselves purchase; and similar inequities obtain on all sides.
It is imperatively necessary that the consideration of the full use of the water power of the country and also the consideration of the systematic and yet economical development of such of the natural resources of the country as are still under the control of the federal government should be immediately resumed and affirmatively and constructively dealt with at the earliest possible moment. The pressing need of such legislation is daily becoming more obvious.
The legislation proposed at the last session with regard to regulated combinations among our exporters, in order to provide for our foreign trade a more effective organization and method of cooperation, ought by all means to be completed at this session.
And I beg that the members of the House of Representatives will permit me to express the opinion that it will be impossible to deal in any but a very wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous appropriations of the public moneys which must continue to be made, if the war is to be properly sustained, unless the House will consent to return to its former practice of initiating and preparing all appropriation bills through a single committee, in order that responsibility may be centered, expenditures standardized and made uniform, and waste and duplication as much as possible avoided.
Additional legislation may also become necessary before the present Congress again adjourns in order to effect the most efficient coordination and operation of the railway and other transportation systems of the country; but to that I shall, if circumstances should demand, call the attention of the Congress upon another occasion.
If I have overlooked anything that ought to be done for the more effective conduct of the war, your own counsels will supply the omission. What I am perfectly clear about is that in the present session of the Congress our whole attention and energy should be concentrated on the vigorous, rapid, and successful prosecution of the great task of winning the war.
We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusiasm because we know that for us this is a war of high principle, debased by no selfish ambition of conquest or spoliation; because we know, and all the world knows, that we have been forced into it to save the very institutions we live under from corruption and destruction. The purposes of the Central Powers strike straight at the very heart of everything we believe in; their methods of warfare outrage every principle of humanity and of knightly honor; their intrigue has corrupted the very thought and spirit of many of our people; their sinister and secret diplomacy has sought to take our very territory away from us and disrupt the Union of the States. Our safety would be at an end, our honor forever sullied and brought into contempt were we to permit their triumph. They are striking at the very existence of democracy and liberty.
It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested purpose, in which all the free peoples of the world are banded together for the vindication of right, a war for the preservation of our nation and of all that it has held dear of principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves doubly constrained to propose for its outcome only that which is righteous and of irreproachable intention, for our foes as well as for our friends. The cause being just and holy, the settlement must be of like motive and quality. For this we can fight, but for nothing less noble or less worthy of our traditions. For this cause we entered the war and for this cause will we battle until the last gun is fired.
I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in order that all the world may know that even in the heat and ardor of the struggle and when our whole thought is of carrying the war through to its end we have not forgotten any ideal or principle for which the name of America has been held in honor among the nations and for which it has been our glory to contend in the great generations that went before us. A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of His own justice and mercy.
Those concerns probably motivated the large headline in the Cheyenne State Leader, but that is also not the reason I'm putting this one up. Rather, even though it had happened a couple of days prior, the news of the border skirmish on the border with Mexico had finally made it to the front page. Again, with the nation engaged in sending men to Europe, renewed clashed on the Mexican border couldn't have been welcome news.
1918 December 4, 1918. Americans arrive, Wilson leaves, Flu returns.
1942 President Roosevelt issues a letter that abolishes the Works Project Administration effective June 30.
1942 Troops arrive at Scottsbluff Army Air Field, a satellite field of the Casper Army Air Field.
1948 This Union Pacific's City of San Francisco photographed near Cheyenne.