February 13

World Radio Day
 

Shoot, I missed it.  It was February 13.

Well, here's to World Radio Day. . . belated though I am.

1831         John A. Rawlins, Brig Gen, U.S., born.  Rawlins Wyoming, which is near a location where he camped in 1867, is named for him.  He practiced law from 1854 to 1860, and served with Grant thereafter even though he was suffering from tuberculosis..  He remained in the Army after the war until becoming Secretary of War under Grant in 1869, but died of ill health just six months later.  He was instrumental in surveying the course of the Union Pacific Railroad which is what took him near to Rawlins Wyoming's location.

 John A. Rawlins with his family, City Point, Virginia.

1865  1st Lt. Henry C. Bretney assumes command of Comapny G, 11th Ohio Cavalry, stationed at Platte Bridge Station, when its commander, Cpt. Levi M. Rinehart is killed by a drunken trooper accidentally during a skirmish with Indians.

1890  The Northwestern and Elkhorn Railroad announced it would be extending its line to Sundance.

1901  Stinkingwater River renamed the Shoshone River.

1911  Campbell County created.

1917  The Wyoming Legislature appropriated $750 to move Jim Baker's cabin from Carbon County to Cheyenne.  Baker was a frontiersman who came West working for the American Fur Company.  He was later Chief Scout for Gen. Harney out of Ft. Laramie.  In 1859 he homesteaded at a location that is now within Denver Colorado.  He held a commission in the Colorado State Militia during the Civil War.  He relocated to a site near Savery Wyoming in 1873 and homesteaded there.  He continued to ranch in that location until his death in 1898, although he did serve the Army as a scout occasionally in the 1870s.

Today the cabin is located once again in Savery.  It is an unusual structure, as it was built partially as a block house in case of attack.

It's interesting to note that a concern for preserving the early history of the state became quite pronounced during this period.

1917   Cheyenne State Leader for February 13, 1913: Carranza the peacemaker?
 

Carranza, who was settling in as the recognized head of the Mexican government, but still fighting a civil war himself, entered the picture of the Great War by proposing an arms embargo.  Some cynics suggested German influence in his proposal.

1919  February 13, 1919. No love for alcohol

The big Wyoming news on this Valentine's Day Eve was the passage of a "Dry Bill" that limited the production of alcohol to beverages with no more than 1% of the stuff in them.

This has been noted before here, but the curious thing about this bill is that it was wholly redundant.  It was known at the time that the Federal government was going to pass its own bill to bring the provisions of the 18th Amendment into force. So why was a state bill necessary? Well, it really wasn't.

Or maybe it wasn't.  A modern analogy might be the bills regarding marijuana, which remains illegal under Federal law.  Many states prohibited it, and still do, under state law.  The Federal law remains in full force and effect for marijuana which technically, in legal terms, makes all state efforts to repeal its illegality, which date back to the early 1970s, moot.  However, in recent years the Federal Government has chosen not to enforce the law, and states have legalized it under state law.  There's nothing to preclude the Federal government from enforcing its own laws again other than that it would be unpopular.

Something similar, but not identical, occurred with alcohol.  The Prohibition movement was successful in making it illegal under the laws of numerous states before the 18th Amendment became law.  Even running right up to that states were passing anti alcohol laws right and left, and as can be seen, some passed them even after Prohibition came to the U.S. Constitution.  But that meant than when the 18th Amendment was repealed those same states, i.e., most of them, had to figure out how to deal with the ban under their own laws.  Wyoming chose to step out of Prohibition slowly over a term of years.

To bring this current, in recent years there's been efforts in Wyoming to have Wyoming follow the smoky trail laid down by weedy Colorado, and to allow marijuana for some purposes.  If it did, that would certainly be the first step to being a general legalization under state law.  As people have become unaware that it remains illegal under the Federal law, that would be regarded as a general legalization, and indeed my prediction is that at some point in the future when the Democrats control both houses of Congress, the Federal law will be repealed.

All of that is, in my view, a tragedy as Americans clearly don't need anything more to dull their whits chemically than they already have.  While I'm not a teetotaler, and I think passing the 18th Amendment in general was a foolish thing to do, it's a shame that once it came it was reversed as society would have been better off without alcohol quite clearly.  In terms of public health, Prohibition was a success and likewise, the legalization of marijuana will be a disaster.  About the only consolation that can be made of it is that, in my view, within a decade it'll prove to be such a public health threat that lawyers will be advertising class action law suits against weed companies for whatever long lasting health effects, and it will have some, that its proven to have.  It'll vest into American society like tobacco, something that we know is really bad for us, but people use anyway, and then they file suit against companies that produce it based on the fact that they turn out to be surprised that its really bad for you.

In other 1919 news, a big blizzard was in the region.

1924  Police corruption in Casper.

1936  First social security checks mailed.

1942  US and Canada agree to construct the Alcan Highway.  This is, of course, not directly a Wyoming event, but it is significant in that it represents the ongoing expansion of road transportation.  A highway of this type would not have even been conceivable just 20 year prior.  It also is a feature of the arrival of really practical 4x4 vehicles, all Army vehicles at that time, which were capable of off road and road use for the first time. Such vehicles would become available to the public at the conclusion of World War Two, and would provide widespread easy winter access to much of Wyoming for the very first time.

1942  All Japanese nationals employed by the Union Pacific Railroad were dismissed.

2012.  Legislature convenes.

2012  Chief Justice Marilyn Kite delivers an address to the Legislature.

2016  Antonin Scalia passes on.

 

By the time this goes up here, this will hardly be in the category of really new "news", as it was already widely discussed and analyzed on the very day that it occurred.  The story, of course, is that Judge Antonin Scalia has died at age 79.

I've posted a lot about the Supreme Court and the fact that the system we have would create in the very near future an opening on the Court that would be of huge significance, so the analysis being done today is something I've already touched upon.  Suffice it to say, however, while no man controls the date of his passing, the passing of Justice Scalia couldn't come at a time that would have more impact.  Or, perhaps, make the impact of Presidential elections more obvious.  Some far left Liberals are frankly almost gloating about this death, which is unseemly to say the least, but his death, like his life, may have more of a Conservative impact than those gloaters may think.

First, the man. Scalia was, by all who would evaluate him objectively, a massive intellect.  In recent years Scalia stood out with his political opposite Ruth Bader Ginsberg in those regards.  Not every Justice can have that claimed and almost none can have it claimed to the extent it was true about Scalia.  It was impossible to ignore him as the force of his logic and opinion were simply too great to to do so.

Appointed by Ronald Reagan, Scalia was only older than the other surviving Reagen appointee, the disappointing Anthony Kennedy.  He was not the oldest Justice at the time of his death, that being Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  For some time I've been expecting either Ginsberg or Scalia to pass on, simply based on their appearance, which did not look good to me.  That may sound morbid, but it's realistic. Kennedy appears much healthier.  But, any way this is looked at, at the age that four, now three, of the Justices have been, death has been something that's been in the Court chambers every day.  During the next President's term, whomever that is, there will be at least one more Justice to replace in this manner, if not three.  This fact alone, evident seemingly to all, has made me wonder why Ruth Bader Ginsberg did not resign last year, thereby making it semi assured that President Obama would pick her successor rather than potentially a Republican President next term.

That gets ahead, I suppose, of the story a bit.

Scalia was born in 1936 in Trenton New Jersey.  His father was from Sicily and his mother was an American whose parents had immigrated from Italy. At the time of his birth his father, who would go on to be a professor of Romance languages, was a graduate student.  His mother was an elementary school student.  He attended a public grade school and a Jesuit high school before going on to Georgetown University and then Harvard Law School.

As a lawyer, he only practiced for six years before moving on to a teaching position at the University of Virginia.  In 1971 he began a series of posts with the then Administration which he retained until appointed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1982.  He was appointed to the United States Supreme Court on September 17, 1986.  He was the longest sitting justice at the time of his death.

Scalia's career, quite frankly, defines much of what I have criticized about the United States Supreme Court.  He practiced in the real world very little, and was yet one of the many Ivy League graduates to be appointed to the bench. And, of course, he occupied the position for eons, leaving it only through death.  But I'll concede that Scalia's intellect argues against my position.  He was a giant.

One of the justices whose opinions were consistently well thought out and frankly brilliant, it won't be easily possible to replace him.  And his death occurs at a time when American politics have descended into an increasingly extreme stage, epitomized by a very odd Presidential race, while the Court has been consistently split between four conservatives and four liberals with Justice Kennedy in the middle.  His death means we now have a more or less liberal court with a swing vote that is problematic.  So, this court will swing between deadlocked and liberal at least until the next appointee makes it something else.

The appointment of that Justice is of massive importance.  President Obama will nominate somebody, but of course he well knows that there is little chance that nominee shall be approved (but not no chance whatsoever).  Given that, it will be interesting to see who he chooses for a position that can probably not be obtained, at least right away.  And now, who will fill this vacated bench, will become an issue in this campaign.

Who fills the Supreme Court seats should in fact always be an issue, and perhaps in this fashion Justice Scalia serves us one more time. Grant that it should be somebody of such equal intellect.

2019  Governor Gordon's First Signed Bill. Women's Suffrage Day.

Governor Gordon's first bill signed into law. An act establishing December 10 as Women's Suffrage Day.

ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED

JOINT RESOLUTION

NO. SJ0003

ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 1, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

A JOINT RESOLUTION recognizing December 10, 2019 as Wyoming Women's Suffrage Day.

WHEREAS, Wyoming is often referred to as the "Cowboy State," its more apt sobriquet is the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, women, like all persons, have always inherently held the right to vote and participate in their government; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming was the first government to explicitly acknowledge and affirm women's inherent right to vote and to hold office; and

WHEREAS, this inherent right, at the founding of the United States, was inhibited; and

WHEREAS, women, at the founding of the United States, were also prevented from holding office; and

WHEREAS, women's suffrage — the basic enfranchisement of women — began to burgeon in the United States in the 1840s and continued to gain momentum over the next decades, despite the oppressive atmosphere in which women were not allowed to divorce their husbands or show their booted ankles without risk of public scandal or worse; and

WHEREAS, during the 1850s, activism to support women's suffrage gathered steam, but lost momentum when the Civil War began; and

WHEREAS, in the fall of 1868, three (3) years after the American Civil War had ended, Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant was elected President, and chose John Campbell to serve as Governor of the Wyoming Territory; and

WHEREAS, Joseph A. Carey, who was thereafter appointed to serve as Attorney General of the Wyoming Territory, issued a formal legal opinion that no one in Wyoming could be denied the right to vote based on race; and

WHEREAS, the first Wyoming Territorial Legislature, comprised entirely of men, required consistent and persistent inveigling to warm to the notion of suffrage; and

WHEREAS, abolitionist and woman suffrage activist, Esther Hobart Morris, was born in Tioga County, New York, on August 8, 1812, and later became a successful milliner and businesswoman; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris, widowed in 1843, moved to Peru, Illinois, to settle the property in her late husband's estate and experienced the legal hardships faced by women in Illinois and New York; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris married John Morris, a prosperous merchant, and in 1869 moved to the gold rush camp at South Pass City, a small valley situated along the banks of Willow Creek on the southeastern end of the Wind River Mountains in the Wyoming Territory just north of the Oregon Trail; and

WHEREAS, William Bright, a saloonkeeper, also from the once bustling frontier mining town South Pass City, was elected to serve in the Territorial Legislature and was elected as president of the Territorial Council; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature met in 1869 in Cheyenne and passed bills and resolutions formally enabling women to vote and hold property and formally assuring equal pay for teachers; and

WHEREAS, William Bright introduced a bill to recognize the right of Wyoming women to vote; and

WHEREAS, no records were kept of the debate between Wyoming territorial lawmakers, although individuals likely asserted a myriad of motivations and intentions in supporting women's suffrage; and

WHEREAS, the Wyoming Territory population at the time consisted of six adult men for every adult woman, some lawmakers perchance hoped suffrage would entice more women to the state; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers may have believed that women's suffrage was consistent with the goals articulated in post-Civil War Amendment XV to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; and

WHEREAS, some lawmakers inherently knew that guaranteeing the right of women to vote was, simply, the right thing to do; and

WHEREAS, the Territorial Legislature advanced a suffrage bill stating, "That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election laws of the territory, as those of electors" and that "This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage"; and

WHEREAS, when invited to join the Union, demanding that women's suffrage be revoked, the Wyoming Legislature said, "We will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women"; and

WHEREAS, in July 1890, Esther Hobart Morris presented the new Wyoming state flag to Governor Francis E. Warren during the statehood celebration, making Wyoming the 44th state to enter the Union and the first with its women holding the right to vote and serve in elected office; and

WHEREAS, the United States did not endorse women's suffrage until 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; and

WHEREAS, despite the passage of the 19th Amendment, women of color continued to face barriers with exercising their right to vote, as American Indian men and women were not recognized as United States citizens permitted to vote until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, and ongoing racial discrimination required the passage and implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and

WHEREAS, achieving voting rights for all women required firm and continuing resolve to overcome reluctance, and even fervent opposition, toward this rightful enfranchisement; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming, the first to recognize women's suffrage, blazed a trail of other noteworthy milestones, such as Louisa Swain, of Laramie, casting the first ballot by a woman voter in 1870; and

WHEREAS, in 1870 the first jury to include women was in Wyoming and was sworn in on March 7 in Laramie; and

WHEREAS, Esther Hobart Morris was appointed to serve as justice of the peace in February 1870, making her the first woman to serve as a judge in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming women become the first women to vote in a presidential election in 1892; and

WHEREAS, in 1894 Wyoming elected Estelle Reel to serve as the state superintendent of public instruction, making her one of the first women in the United States elected to serve in a statewide office; and

WHEREAS, the residents of the town of Jackson in 1920 elected a city council composed entirely of women — dubbed the "petticoat government" by the press — making it the first all-women government in the United States; and

WHEREAS, in 1924 Wyoming elected Nellie Tayloe Ross to serve as governor of the great state of Wyoming, making her the first woman to be sworn in as governor in these United States; and

WHEREAS, all these milestones illuminate and strengthen Wyoming's heritage as the "Equality State"; and

WHEREAS, December 10, 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the date women's suffrage became law.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING:

Section 1.  That the Wyoming legislature commemorates 2019 as a year to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth (150th) anniversary of the passage of women's suffrage. 

Section 2.  That the Wyoming legislature is proud of its heritage as the first state to recognize the right of women to vote and hold office, hereby affirming its legacy as the "Equality State."

Section 3.  That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit a copy of this resolution to the National Women's Hall of Fame in support of Esther Hobart Morris' induction into the Women of the Hall.

Section 4.  That the Wyoming legislature encourages its citizens and invites its visitors to learn about the women and men who made women's suffrage in Wyoming a reality, thereby blazing a trail for other states, and eventually the federal government, to recognize the inherent right of men and women alike to elect their leaders and hold office.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the Senate.

Chief Clerk

February 12

1809     Abraham Lincoln born in present-day Larue County, Ky.

1870     Women in the Utah Territory gained the right to vote.

1873  Barnum Brown, paleontologist, born in Carbondale Kansas. See February 5.

1915  A fire in the downtown area of Powell caused resort to dynamite to blow out the flames.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1918   February 12, 1918. The bad news. Some good. And a Holiday.
 

The paper was expressing the worries that a lot of people no doubt had.

The King had addressed his nation.

It turned out that the recently sunk Tuscania did have some Wyoming men on board it, but they had survived.

Cheyenne was named as a future air hub for airborne travelers to Yellowstone, and interesting forward looking thought.

And it was Lincoln's Birthday, a holiday.

February 12, 1919. Lincoln's Birthday. Returning heroes, Women and radios, Highways in Wyoming, Worker's Compensation and Villa not dead.

Black soldiers of the 369th Infantry, New York National Guard, who had won the Croix de Guerre in France.  February 12, 1919.

Returning black soldiers were photographed returning to New York.  The link posted in above details their heroism and their later lives, something I always find interesting.

Women radio operators of the U.S. Army, February 12, 1919.

Women were brought into the service in the Great War in substantial numbers for the first time.  Among their roles was that of radio and telephone operators.  As with other soldiers, some stayed on in Europe after the war, where their services remained in need.

I'll have a post on something in the 2019 genre that is related to the above, but the winds of change were blowing in the state as evidence by the article that the State was getting into highway funding in a major way.  $6,600,000 was a huge amount of money in 1919, and it was going into highway construction.

The automobile era had arrived.

A renewed war scare was building as well as it appeared that Germany was about to rearm.  It would have had a really hard time doing so in 1919, but the fear was understandable.

And surprisingly, there was discussion in the legislature about adding agricultural workers to the Workers Compensation rolls.  They were exempted when the bill passed a few years earlier, and they still are.  Such a suggestion would get nowhere today, but then there was a higher percentage of the population employed in agriculture in 1919 than there is in 2019.

And Villa was reported dead again, but the paper was doubting the veracity of that report.

1919  February 12, 1919. Lincoln's Birthday. Returning heroes, Women and radios, Highways in Wyoming, Worker's Compensation and Villa not dead.

Black soldiers of the 369th Infantry, New York National Guard, who had won the Croix de Guerre in France.  February 12, 1919.

Returning black soldiers were photographed returning to New York.  The link posted in above details their heroism and their later lives, something I always find interesting.

Women radio operators of the U.S. Army, February 12, 1919.

Women were brought into the service in the Great War in substantial numbers for the first time.  Among their roles was that of radio and telephone operators.  As with other soldiers, some stayed on in Europe after the war, where their services remained in need.

I'll have a post on something in the 2019 genre that is related to the above, but the winds of change were blowing in the state as evidence by the article that the State was getting into highway funding in a major way.  $6,600,000 was a huge amount of money in 1919, and it was going into highway construction.

The automobile era had arrived.

A renewed war scare was building as well as it appeared that Germany was about to rearm.  It would have had a really hard time doing so in 1919, but the fear was understandable.

And surprisingly, there was discussion in the legislature about adding agricultural workers to the Workers Compensation rolls.  They were exempted when the bill passed a few years earlier, and they still are.  Such a suggestion would get nowhere today, but then there was a higher percentage of the population employed in agriculture in 1919 than there is in 2019.

And Villa was reported dead again, but the paper was doubting the veracity of that report.

1924 George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered in New York City.

1941  Governor Smith designates the period of February 12 to 22 National Defense Week.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1971  James Cash Penney died in New York City. Penney, in partnership with Guy Johnson and Thomas Callahan, opened his first store in Kemmerer in 1902.  He had been working for Johnson and Callahan in Golden Rule stores in Utah, and they had been impressed with him as an employee.  Penny bought them out in 1917 and the franchise expanded rapidly thereafter.  The company did have its ups and downs and Penny himself had to fund the company by borrowing on his life insurance to keep it running during the Great Depression.

2018  The Legislature opened with Governor Mead's State of the State address.

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2018   Big Brown Closes
 

Big Brown in Fairfield Texas, a coal fired power plant that used Wyoming coal, has closed, the victim of natural gas.

We've been tracking this trend for some time.  It's this trend, the phasing out of coal for electrical power generation, that's causing the decline in demand for Wyoming coal. And this trend will continue.

It's worth noting, a day after Natrona County's Chuck Gray introduced a quixotic bill to sue Washington State over it's "no" to a coal terminal in its state, thereby proposing to bypass the Attorney General who no doubt know that such an effort is doomed to failure, that this is not only a national trend, but set to become a global one.  Indeed, it hit in Europe in some ways before here, and its in full swing here.  People who look to Asian markets to save coal are fooling themselves.  Sure, they might consume it at an increased rate briefly, but at the speed this conversion is occurring, it will be brief indeed.

As we have also noted, this is a trend line that is over a century old.  We always only live in our own times and therefore have a hard time appreciating that. But if we really want to sue somebody. . .sue the Royal Navy.  They really accelerated this change.

Me, third from right, when I thought I had a career in geology.

2024.  State of the State, and State of the Judiciary.

February 11

1805   Sacajawea gives birth to her first child, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau at Fort Mandan, in what is now North Dakota.

It has been claimed that Jean Baptiste lived until 1885 and is buried, along with Sacajawea, on the Wind River Reservation.  The evidence for this, however, is weak on both accounts.  The better evidence is that neither died in Wyoming, and that Jean Baptiste far outlived his mother, but that he died in 1866 due to a sudden illness, brought about by an accidental plunge into icy water, in Oregon.

1842   Texas marines mutinied aboard the schooner San Antonio.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890   President Benjamin Harrison orders 11 million acres of Sioux Reservation, South Dakota, territory open for settlement. This leads the "Ghost Dance"  and ultimately Wounded Knee.

Note this same item was listed for yesterday so apparently there's some disagreement as to the date.

1904 President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed strict neutrality for the U.S. in the Russo-Japanese War.

1911   Governor Carey signed the "Direct Primary Law", which was part of a general movement towards such primaries throughout the United States.

1917  Commissioner of Labor authorized by legislature.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1917   The Sherdian Enterprise for February 11, 1917; Austrian officers dudes no more, U.S. reestablished diplomatic relations with Mexico.
 

I haven't put too many Sheridan Enterprise up here, but this one I had to because of the great headline about Austrian officers

Wow.  Austrian officers "cease to be dudes".

That probably doesn't quite read the same way now.

In other items, this issue also reported the war news and on the restoration of diplomatic relations with Mexico.  And again, a tragic automobile accident was reported.

Sunday State Leader for February 11, 1917. Diplomatic relations with Mexico restored.
 

Things were changing a bit in our relationship with Mexico, as this paper, and one more I'll put up from this date, shows.

Wyoming's National Guard was still  on the border, but the US was reestablishing relations with Mexico, recognizing the Constitutionalist as the legitimate government of the country.

Also in the news was the crisis with Germany, not surprisingly.  And the legislature was still in session.

Radicalism was popping up in Cuba.

Fatal automobile accident,s, a nearly constant news item of the early automobile era, were also in the news.

1918   Woodrow Wilson's Address to Congress of February 11, 1918.
 

Monday in 1918 was starting off on a serious note, as Monday so often does.  President Wilson addressed Congress regarding our enemies as the war.

Gentlemen of the Congress:

On the eighth of January I had the honor of addressing you on the objects of the war as our people conceive them. The Prime Minister of Great Britain had spoken in similar terms on the fifth of January. To these addresses the German Chancellor replied on the twenty-fourth and Count Czernin, for Austria, on the same day. It is gratifying to have our desire so promptly realized that all exchanges of views on this great matter should be made in the hearing of all the world.

Count Czernin's reply, which is directed chiefly to my own address of the eighth of January, is uttered in a very friendly tone. He finds in my statement a sufficiently encouraging approach to the views of his own Government to justify him in believing that it furnishes a basis for more detailed discussion of purposes by the two Governments. He is represented to have intimated that the views he was expressing had been communicated to me beforehand and that I was aware of them at the time he was uttering them; but in this I am sure he was misunderstood. I had received no intimation of what he intended to say. There was, of course no reason why he should communicate privately with me. I am quite content to be one of his public audience.

Count von Hertling's reply is, I must say, very vague and very confusing. It is full of equivocal phrases and leads it is not clear where. But it is certainly in a very different tone from that of Count Czernin, and apparently of an opposite purpose. It confirms, I am sorry to say, rather than removes, the unfortunate impression made by what we had learned of the conferences at Brest-Litovsk. His discussion and acceptance of our general principles lead him to no practical conclusions. He refuses to apply them to the substantive items which must constitute the body of my final settlement. He is jealous of international action and of international counsel. He accepts, he says, the principle of public diplomacy, but he appears to insist that it be confined, at any rate in this case, to generalities and that the several particular questions of territory and sovereignty, the several questions upon whose settlement must depend the acceptance of peace by the twenty-three states now engaged in the war, must be discussed and settled, not in general council, but severally by the nations most immediately concerned by interest or neighborhood. He agrees that the seas should be free, but looks askance at any limitation to that freedom by international action in the interest of the common order. He would without reserve be glad to see economic barriers resolved between nation and nation, for that could in no way impede the ambitions of the military party with whom he seems constrained to keep on terms. Neither does he raise objection to a limitation of armaments. That matter will be settled of itself, he thinks, by the economic conditions which must follow the war. But the German colonies, he demands, must be returned without debate. He will discuss with no one but the representatives of Russia what disposition shall be made of the people and the lands of the Baltic provinces; with no one but the Government of France the "conditions" under which French territory shall be evacuated; and only with Austria what shall be done with Poland. In the determination of all questions affecting the Balkan states he defers, as I understand him, to Austria and Turkey: and with regard to the agreement to be entered into concerning the non-Turkish peoples of the present Ottoman Empire, to the Turkish authorities themselves. After a settlement all round, effected in this fashion, by individual barter and concession, he would have no objection, if I correctly interpret his statement, to a league of nations which would undertake to hold the new balance of power steady against external disturbance.

It must be evident to everyone who understands that this war has wrought in the opinion and temper of the world that no general peace, no peace worth the infinite sacrifices of these years of tragical suffering, can possibly be arrived at in any such fashion. The method the German Chancellor proposes is the method of the Congress of Vienna. We cannot and will not return to that. What is at at stake now is the peace of the world. What we are striving for is a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice, -- no mere peace of shreds and patches. Is it possible that Count von Hertling does not see that, does not grasp it, is in fact living in his thought in a world dead and gone? Has he utterly forgotten the Reichstag Resolutions of the nineteenth of July, or does he deliberately ignore them? They spoke of the conditions of general peace, not of national aggrandizement or of arrangements between state and state. The peace of the world depends upon the just settlement of each of the several problems to which I adverted in my recent address to the Congress. I, of course, do not rnean that the peace of the world depends upon the acceptance of any particular set of suggestions as to the way in which those problems are to be dealt with. I mean only that those problems each and all affect the whole world; that unless they are dealt with in a spirit of unselfish and unbiased justice, with a view to the wishes, the natural connections, the racial aspirations, the security, snd the peace of mind of the peoples involved, no permanent peace will have been attained. They cannot be discussed separately or in corners. None of them constitutes a private or separate interest from which the opinion of the world may be shut out. Whatever affects the peace affects mankind, and nothing settled by military force, if settled wrong, is settled at all. It will presently have to be reopened.

Is Count von Hertling not aware that he is speaking in the court of mankind, that all the awakened nations of the world now sit in judgment on what every public man, of whatever nation, may say on the issues of a conflict which has spread to every region of the world? The Reichstag Resolutions of July themselves frankly accepted the decisions of that court. There shall be no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damage. Peoples are not to be handed about from one sovereignty to another by an international conference or an understanding between rivals and antagonists. National aspirations must be respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. "Self-determination" is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of actions which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. We cannot have general peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements of a peace conference. It cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between powerful states. All the parties to this war must join in the settlement of every issue anywhere involved in it; because what we are seeing is a peace that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain and every item of it must be submitted to the common judgment whether it be right and fair, an act of justice, rather than a bargain between sovereigns.

The United States has no desire to interfere in European affairs or to act as arbiter in European territorial disputes. She would disdain to take advantage of any internal weakness or disorder to impose by own will upon another people. She is quite ready to be shown that the settlements she has suggested are not the best or the most enduring. They are only her own provisional sketch of principles and of the way in which they should be applied. But she entered this war because she was made a partner, whether she would or not, in the sufferings and indignities inflicted by the military masters of Germany, against the peace and security of mankind; and the conditions of peace will touch her as nearly as they will touch any other nation to which is entrusted a leading part in the maintenance of civilization.. She cannot see her way to peace until the causes of this war are removed, its renewal rendered as nearly as may be impossible.

This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to determine their own allegiances and their own forms of political life. Covenants must now be entered into which will render such things impossible for the future; and those covenants must be backed by the united force of all the nations that love justice and are willing to maintain it at any cost. If territorial settlements and the political relations of great populations which have not the organized power to resist are to be determined by the contracts of the powerful governments which consider themselves most directly affected, as Count von Hertling proposes, why may not economic questions also? It has come about in the altered world in which we now find ourselves that justice and the rights of peoples affect the whole field of international dealing as much as access to raw materials and fair and equal conditions of trade. Count von Hertling wants the essential bases of commercial and industrial life to be safeguarded by common agreement and guarantees but he cannot expect that to be conceded him if the other matters to be determined by the articles on peace are not handled in the same way as items in the final accounting. He cannot ask the benefit of common agreement in the one field without according it in the other. I take it for granted that he sees that separate and selfish compacts with regard to trade and the essential materials of manufacture would afford no foundation for peace. Neither, he may rest assured, will separate and selfish compacts with regard to provinces and peoples.

Count Czernin seems to see the fundamental elements of peace with clear eyes and does not seek to obscure them. He sees that an independent Poland, made up of all the indisputably Polish peoples who lie contiguous to one another, is a matter of European concern and must of course be conceded; that Belgium must be evacuated and restored, no matter what sacrifices and concessions that may involve; and that national aspirations must be satisfied, even within his own Empire, in the common interest of Europe and mankind. If he is silent about questions which touch the interest and purpose of his allies more nearly than they touch those of Austria only, it must of course be because he feels constrained, I suppose, to defer to Germany and Turkey in the circumstances. Seeing and conceding, as he does, the essential principles involved and the necessity of candidly applying them, he naturally feels that Austria can respond to the purpose of peace as expressed by the United States with less embarrassment than could Germany. He would probably have gone much farther had it not been for the embarrassments of Austria's alliances and of her dependence upon Germany.

After all, the test of whether it is possible for either government to go any further in this comparison of views is simple and obvious. The principles to be applied are these:

First, that each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent;

Second, that peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that

Third, every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and

Fourth, that all well defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to breaks the peace of Europe and consequently of the world. 

A general peace erected upon such foundations can be discussed. Until such a peace can be secured we have no choice but to go on. So far as we can judge, these principles that we regard as fundamental are already everywhere accepted as imperative except among the spokesmen of the military and annexationist party in Germany. If they have anywhere else been rejected, the objectors have not been sufficiently numerous or influential to make their voices audible. The tragical circumstance is that this one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just.

I would not be a true spokesman of thc people of the United States if I did not say once more that we entered this war upon no small occasion, and that we can never turn back from a course chosen upon principle. Our resources are in part mobilized now, and we shall not pause until they are mobilized in their entirety. Our armies are rapidly going to the fighting front, and will go more and more rapidly. Our whole strength will be put into this war of emancipation, -- emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers, -- whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of independent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for a new international order under which reason and justice and the common interests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable conditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back.

I hope that it is not necessary for me to add that no word of what I have said is intended as a threat. That is not the temper of our people. I have spoken thus only that the whole world may know the true spirit of America -- that men everywhere may know that our passion for justice and for self-government is no mere passion of words but a passion which, once set in action, must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish interest of our own. lt springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom.

In other grim news, readers of the Monday paper were learning that the Ukraine had indeed accepted German protectorate status and that Romania  now appeared on the brink of bowing out.  U.S. troops were pouring into Europe, but at the same time, German troops already in Eastern Europe should have been pouring back the other way.

I guess in cheerier news, the weather in Cheyenne was really warm for February, the warmest ever at that time.   And a holiday was coming up.  Readers of the Laramie paper were encouraged that Heatless Days, which were in fact Mondays, might be coming to an end.

1919  February 11, 1919. Looking back, seeing the future, and How Dry I Am.

The news on this day, Lincoln's Birthday and a holiday, was a bit ominous.  And knowing the future to come, it proved a scary look into something that was coming.

But also in an insight as to views of the time.

The Casper paper reported that Japan was about to go to war with China. . . which in fact it was, although not for a bit over a decade from the date of the paper.  That things were brewing, however, was pretty obvious.

And the Germans were already discontent with the Versailles Treaty they hadn't even signed yet.

Stores in Casper were taking half a day off in honor of the late President Lincoln.

All the Wyoming papers were reporting that the amount of alcohol that could legally be in a beverage was now down to 1%.  Down from 2%.  Just yesterday, if you keep track of things here, you would have seen that certain religious leaders were unhappy with the 2% figure.  Perhaps their voice had been heard.

A voice that wanted to be heard, as you can read in the papers above, is Frank Houx's, who was insistent that had done nothing improper regarding land rights acquisitions.

And notable cities in the former Russian Empire were changing hands as the fortunes of the Reds seemed to be reversing on the battlefield.

And France and Britain wished to remain friends with the United States going forward, they both had declared.

And the clothing shortage made both the front news, and the cartoons.

1994  A 5.3 earthquake occurred about 50 miles from Jackson.

2006  The Dick Cheney,  Harry Whittington, accidental shooting incident.

Elsewhere:   1943   General Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe.