April 7

National Beer Day.

 A glass of Mishap! Brewing Company's dark double IPA in a Seward Alaska Brewing Company glass. A Wyoming beer in an Alaskan glass, sort of a small scale Distributist brewing triumph on National Beer Day.

Today, as it turns out, is National Beer Day.

National Beer Day?

Yes, it's National Beer Day.  

According to Time magazine, this day came about  as it was the day when the first step out of Prohibition, the Cullen-Harrison Act, came into effect. As time notes, about that act, and the day.

National Beer Day’s origins go as far back as 1919, when Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the sale, transportation, and production of alcohol in the U.S. This marked the start of the Prohibition era, which made many Americans turn to creative ways to enjoy their illicit beverages.

But 14 years later, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, Americans were in for a change when he signed into action the Cullen-Harrison Act, which once again made selling and consuming low-alcohol beverages like beer and wine legal in the U.S.

And so, the day is celebrated on April 7, the first day you could pour a glass of amber goodness into a glass, legally, for fourteen years.

The Volstead Act and the supporting Constitutional amendment, as noted, came in during 1919, so we're almost at the centennial of that.  That certainly has its lessons, not all of them obvious, but here on National Beer Day we might note that Prohibition was arguably a byproduct of World War One, although there'd been a strong movement in that direction for decades.  The war, however, pushed Prohibition over the top for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that there was a strong fear that American troops would come back from the war exposed to all sorts of terrible things, such as death, violence, French women, and wine.  There wasn't much that could be done about death, violence and French women, but there was something that could be done about wine and everything alcoholic, so Prohibition got a bit boost.

Added to that, beer was associated, somewhat unfairly, with enemies of the Allies, most particularly the Germans, but also Irish nationalist. Everything German was really getting dumped on during the Great War, and only Irish resilience and the fact that the Irish were clearly fighting with the Allies even if some were fighting against the British kept that from occurring to them.  And the fact that the United States was going through a grain conservation mania also weighed in.  So, beer, along with every other form of alcohol, became a casualty of the war, although it was taking hits before.

But beer would be the first back, and nearly everywhere, as Prohibition started getting stepped back out following the election of Franklin Roosevelt.  Nonetheless, it was pretty wounded.  Piles of regional and local breweries died with Prohibition came in, their brews, and the jobs they'd provided to brew them, gone with the Volstead Act.  American beer, which didn't have the greatest reputation in the world anyhow, but which had developed some strong regional brews of quality, really took a pounding and when it came back out of Prohibition there was much less variety.  Indeed, American beer wouldn't be much to write about until the local micro brew boom of the 1980s, a good fifty years after it became legal to brew it once again.

Now, of course, the story is radically changed and the United States is the center of beer experimentation.  Weird brews take their place along side every variety of traditional European brews including a good many the average European has no doubt never tried.

So, here's to the revival of American beer. Better than it ever was.

529  The first draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis is issued by Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.  The compilation of Roman Law is the father of the later Code Napoleon and one of the foundations of European law.

1805   The Corps of Discovery breaks camp among the Mandans and resumes its journey west along the Missouri River.

1836         Skirmish between Texans and Mexican troops at San Felipe Ford.

1869 John Campbell sworn in as Wyoming's first Territorial Governor. Campbell had been a brevet Brigadier General in the Union Army during the Civil War, serving on Gen. John M. Shofield's staff. He would later serve in the office of the US Secretary of State and as American Counsel at Basel Switzerland before dying in 1880 at age 44.

1870  Residents of Miners Delight, lead by Captain (from the Civil War) Herman G. Nickerson, attacked a band of Arapaho lead by Black Bear, killing 14.  The raid had intended to intercept and attack a party of Arapaho under Little Shield who had a attacked two residents of Miners Delight the day prior.  Tension between locals and Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation had been high for several months. Black Bear's band, however, had merely been on its way to Camp Brown to trade.

1892  Dissension came to a head in the Johnson County Invasion resulting in Frank Wolcott resigning command of the expedition and ceding it to Tom Smith and Frank Canton, with Smith "commanding" the Texans.  To add to their difficulties, a heavy snowstorm broke out..  The party broke into two groups with some men becoming lost in the process, including Wolcott who spent the night in a haystack as a result.

1916  Casper Weekly Press: April 7, 1916
 

The Casper Weekly Press was apparently the Friday edition of the paper.

1917   The Casper Daily Tribune for April 7, 1917. No panic here.
 

The Casper Daily Tribune is almost a shock compared to other papers in the state this week.  It didn't seem that worked up about the war.

It was starting off with the bold declaration that Casper, in the midst of the World War One oil boom, was "the city wonderful".  It predicated a population of 15,000 in the next few years, which may or may not have been a pleasant thought to long term residents, but as things would play out, it's prediction was in fact lower than that which the city would rise up to in the near future.  The refinery depicted in the photo on the bottom of the front page was much of the reason why.  Already, as the paper noted, residents who were returning to the town after an absence were shocked to see how much it had changed.

Major Ormsby, that was his name, not his rank, was interviewed in the paper about radios.  Ormsby was a local rancher who is remembered today for a road north of Casper that takes people to a rural subdivision, although it might be more recalled by some as it goes past the oldest of Casper's two strip joints (shades of what 1917 would bring in there).  At the time, however, that was all rural land and apparently Ormsby had a radio set there.  He was interviewed due to a rumor that his radio was going to be taken over by the Navy, although the article notes he'd heard no such rumor.  He also hadn't listed to his radio for a long time, apparently.  The paper noted that the nearest commercial station was in Denver, which was true, that being the very early predecessor to KOA, which is still in business.

The Cheyenne State Leader for April 7, 1917: Wyoming can furnish finest cavalry horses obtainable anywhere
 

As the US plunged into war, the Leader was proclaiming that Wyoming could furnish the finest cavalry horses obtainable anywhere.

Actually, it already was.

Wyoming, in addition to experiencing a petroleum boom, was also experiencing a horse boom as horse ranchers, quite a few of them with English connections, had been been supplying the British, as well as the French, with horses for the war for years.  Starting with the Punitive Expedition, it'd started doing the same for the United States.  Not all of these horses were "finished" by any means, indeed most of them were not, something that came as a shock to their European users who were surprised by how green these horses were.

Added to his, of course, Wyoming had a major Remount station in Sheridan Wyoming, right in the heart of Wyoming's horse country, which would continue on through World War Two.

In that other boom, the oil boom, that had become so significant that the Leader was quoting the prices from the Casper exchange now on a daily basis.

1922  Ground broken for the town of Parco.  Parco still exists, but it is now known as Sinclair, and is the site of the Sinclair Refinery.  At the time of its founding, it was the location of a very nice hotel on the Lincoln Highway. The hotel's buildings still exist, but the hotel itself is long closed.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1922 U.S. Secretary of Interior leased Naval Reserve #3, "Teapot Dome," in Wyoming to Harry F. Sinclair.

1933   Prohibition repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight.

1943. On this day, the sale of coffee was banned in Cheyenne and Casper due to violations of wartime rationing restrictions.

1947  United States v. Wyoming, 311 U.S. 440 (1947) argued in front of the United States Supreme Court. The topic was the ownership of school sections, and the suit had been brought by the US against Wyoming due to a controversy regarding oil royalties.

1994   A 5.2 magnitude earthquake occurred 90 miles from  Evanston, WY.

April 6

1808   John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company.

1830  Mexico halts American immigration into Texas. Attribution:  On This Day.

1860   First west bound Pony Express arrives at Fort Laramie. 

1862  John Wesley Powell, after whom Powell is named and who would become a noted post Civil War explorer, lost his right arm in the Battle of Shiloh.

1866  The Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans organization of Union soldiers, founded.  There are at least two GAR memorials in Wyoming, with one being located in Casper and another being located in Big Horn.

1880 Cowboy hopeful Charles Russell arrived in Utica Montana.

1887  Cheyenne & Burlington Railroad Company filed articles of incorporation as a foreign corporation.  The railroad is a predecessor of the Burlington Northern.. Attribution:  On This Day.

1892  Special train carrying the "Invaders", hired gunmen and representatives of large cattle interests, arrives in Casper and discharges its passengers under darkness, at about 4:00 AM.  The chartered train arrived with its window shades drawn, but the secrecy associated with it only encouraged rumors as to its cargo.  They traveled a few miles north of Casper and assembled at Casper Creek at about 9:00 AM.  Delays soon set in, with horses breaking fee and requiring hours to be rounded up.  Some horses were never found and the men whose mounts those were rode in wagons.  As it had snowed, traveling by wagon proved slow. The party made 20 miles that day.

For perspective, a typical long day for an Oregon Trail party was about 30 miles in a day, although many were shorter. The cavalry of the period typically made 30 miles a day, although they could go further.

1916  The Casper Daily Press for April 6, 1916

This evening issue is inserted here not for what is on the front  page, but for what isn't.

For the first time since the Columbus Raid, the Punitive Expedition didn't make the front page for the Casper Daily Press.

1917     Congress approved a declaration of war against Germany at 3:08 a.m.

 The Cheyenne State Leader for April 6, 1917: Duels of Nations and Duels of Indiviuals
 

The news was all about duels.

The United States had entered the duel with Germany.

Villa was moving in his duel with Carranza.

And a farmer died in a duel with a cowboy near Sheridan.

And the Wyoming National Guard's Second Battalion had been called fully back into service.

The Laramie Boomerang for April 6, 1917: Wilson Signs Measure

 

1920  Work began on the Standard Oil Refinery in Laramie.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1960.   Esther Morris statue dedicated in Statuary Hall, U.S. Capitol.  Attribution: Wyoming State Historical Society.

1999 A 4.6 magnitude earthquake occurred about 35 from Rawlins, WY.

April 5

1892.  Specially chartered train leaves Denver Colorado for Cheyenne carrying hired Texas gunmen, bound ultimately for Central Wyoming.  The train would pick up large stockmen associated with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association in Cheyenne before going on to Casper.  This was the opening phase in the Johnson County War, the best known, if not particularly accurately remembered, of the range wars on the Northern Plains.

1916 The Punitive Expedition: The Casper Daily Press, April 5, 1916
 

1917   The Douglas Budget for April 5, 1917: Company F In Active Service
 

The United States was on the eve of war with Germany and Company F was back in Federal service.

The Wyoming Tribune for April 5, 1917: War By Way Mexico
 

Even this late the impact of the Zimmerman Note was sufficient to create a concern that the Germans could have enticed Mexico into war with the US.

1919  April 5, 1919: Showers, Parades, Shows, Sabers, Ships and Slogans.

On this day in April, 1919 the Saturday Evening Post featured one of J. C. Leyendecker's illustrations, this one of a young woman expecting, but not receiving, April showers.

In the port town of St. Nazaire France, American sailors were on parade.

The Army was conducting shows of its own on this day.  In Toul, France, the U.S. Second Army was having a horse show on this Saturday.

War prizes were being photographed in northern Russia, where this U.S. Army Captain was displaying a Russian saber taken from a Red Army commander.  These men had lately been in action against the Reds.

And the Troopship America docked with solders returning home from France.

Casper was pondering a slogan, which is a headline that's oddly contemporary as Casper just adopted one a couple of years ago, that being "WyoCity".  What became of the 1919 effort I don't know, but perhaps we'll learn of it in upcoming editions of the Casper Daily Tribune.

And in southern Wyoming efforts were underway to create a Pershing Highway, in honor of John J. Pershing. The proposed route was on the Lincoln Highway, so what was really contemplated was renaming  a stretch of that highway.

1922  It is locally reported that W.R. Coe had the highest altitude T-bred breeding operation in the United States, the Shoshone Ranch, which had an latitude over 5,000 feet above sea level.  I don't know much else about Mr. Coe, but some of his horses raced in the East.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1927  An explosion at the Sinclair Refinery kills 16. Attribution:  On This Day.

1933  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 6102 "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates" by U.S. citizens.

1945  A Silver Star was awarded to a Sheridan man for a raid on a POW camp in the Philippines. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1984  Hugus Hardware store in Saratoga added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

1999 The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 holding that, absent exigency, the warrantless search of a passenger's container capable of holding the object of a search for which there is probable cause is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but justified under the automobile exception as an effect of the car.

2012  Buford WY up for auction.

Elsewhere:

1792     George Washington cast the first presidential veto.

1944  The Ploesti Romania oil installations and rail sidings are attacked by B-17 and B-24 bombers of the US 15th Air Force.

1945     Japanese cabinet resigns.

1947   Five Marine guards were killed and eight wounded when attacked by Communist Chinese raiders near the Hsin Ho ammunition depot in Northern China, the last clash between U.S. Marines and Chinese forces of any kind inside Chinese borders.

1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death for conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union.

April 4

1842  Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, created through the severing of territory from Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

1861   Colonel Robert Reily a meeting in his home to name what would become Wyoming, Ohio.

1872  Wyoming Stock Growers Association officially organized.

1892  Wyoming Stock Growers Association annual meeting concludes.

1905  This stage stop at Muddy Home photographed.

As was this post office at Ft. Washakie.

1906  Worland incorporated.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916  Bill Carlisle robs passengers on the UP's Overland Limited as it traveled between Laramie and Cheyenne.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1916   Joseph Fallis of Rock Springs granted a patent for a article carrier.

1916   The Punitive Expedition: The Wyoming Tribune, April 4, 1916
 

We're looking at, I think, a morning newspaper now.  The Wyoming newspaper archive lacked the public domain copy Casper evening paper I was posting for 1916, but it will be back tomorrow night.

The interesting thing here is that quite a few Wyoming papers for this date, including a Casper morning paper, do not have Punitive Expedition entries for this date.  I was curious of the story was just off the front page, but they're also smaller papers that may have simply been running all local news.

Also of interest is the cartoon on the price of gasoline.  Obviously it must have been of real concern to make the front page, but it's something we don't think much about, in the context of 1916, now.  That gasoline would be expensive in the context of a world war is not surprising.

1917   Nebraska Senator George W. Norris's speech to the Senate, April 4, 1917.

There are a great many American citizens who feel that we owe it as a duty to humanity to take part in this war. Many instances of cruelty and inhumanity can be found on both sides. Men are often biased in their judgment on account of their sympathy and their interests. To my mind, what we ought to have maintained from the beginning was the strictest neutrality. If we had done this I do not believe we would have been on the verge of war at the present time. We had a right as a nation, if we desired, to cease at any time to be neutral. We had a technical right to respect the English war zone and to disregard the German war zone, but we could not do that and be neutral. I have no quarrel to find with the man who does not desire our country to remain neutral. While many such people are moved by selfish motives and hopes of gain, I have no doubt but that in a great many instances, through what I believe to be a misunderstanding of the real condition, there are many honest, patriotic citizens who think we ought to engage in this war and who are behind the President in his demand that we should declare war against Germany. I think such people err in judgment and to a great extent have been misled as to the real history and the true facts by the almost unanimous demand of the great combination of wealth that has a direct financial interest in our participation in the war. We have loaned many hundreds of millions of dollars to the allies in this controversy. While such action was legal and countenanced by international law, there is no doubt in my mind but the enormous amount of money loaned to the allies in this country has been instrumental in bringing about a public sentiment in favor of our country taking a course that would make every bond worth a hundred cents on the dollar and making the payment of every debt certain and sure. Through this instrumentality and also through the instrumentality of others who have not only made millions out of the war in the manufacture of munitions, etc., and who would expect to make millions more if our country can be drawn into the catastrophe, a large number of the great newspapers and news agencies of the country have been controlled and enlisted in the greatest propaganda that the world has ever known, to manufacture sentiment in favor of war. It is now demanded that the American citizens shall be used as insurance policies to guarantee the safe delivery of munitions of war to belligerent nations. The enormous profits of munition manufacturers, stockbrokers, and bond dealers must be still further increased by our entrance into the war. This has brought us to the present moment, when Congress, urged by the President and backed by the artificial sentiment, is about to declare war and engulf our country in the greatest holocaust that the world has ever known… 

To whom does the war bring prosperity? Not to the soldier who for the munificent compensation of $16 per month shoulders his musket and goes into the trench, there to shed his blood and to die if necessary; not to the broken-hearted widow who waits for the return of the mangled body of her husband; not to the mother who weeps at the death of her brave boy; not to the little children who shiver with cold; not to the babe who suffers from hunger; nor to the millions of mothers and daughters who carry broken hearts to their graves. War brings no prosperity to the great mass of common and patriotic citizens. It increases the cost of living of those who toil and those who already must strain every effort to keep soul and body together. War brings prosperity to the stock gambler on Wall street—to those who are already in possession of more wealth than can be realized or enjoyed. [A Wall Street broker] says if we can not get war, “it is nevertheless good opinion that the preparedness program will compensate in good measure for the loss of the stimulus of actual war.” That is, if we can not get war, let us go as far in that direction as possible. If we can not get war, let us cry for additional ships, additional guns, additional munitions, and everything else that will have a tendency to bring us as near as possible to the verge of war. And if war comes do such men as these shoulder the musket and go into the trenches? 

Their object in having war and in preparing for war is to make money. Human suffering and the sacrifice of human life are necessary, but Wall Street considers only the dollars and cents. The men who do the fighting, the people who make the sacrifices, are the ones who will not be counted in the measure of this great prosperity he depicts. The stock brokers would not, of course, go to war, because the very object they have in bringing on the war is profit, and therefore they must remain in their Wall Street offices in order to share in that great prosperity which they say war will bring. The volunteer officer, even the drafting officer, will not find them. They will be concealed in their palatial offices on Wall Street, sitting behind mahogany desks, covered up with clipped coupons—coupons soiled with the sweat of honest toil, coupons stained with mothers' tears, coupons dyed in the lifeblood of their fellow men. 

We are taking a step today that is fraught with untold danger. We are going into war upon the command of gold. We are going to run the risk of sacrificing millions of our countrymen's lives in order that other countrymen may coin their lifeblood into money. And even if we do not cross the Atlantic and go into the trenches, we are going to pile up a debt that the toiling masses that shall come many generations after us will have to pay. Unborn millions will bend their backs in toil in order to pay for the terrible step we are now about to take. We are about to do the bidding of wealth's terrible mandate. By our act we will make millions of our countrymen suffer, and the consequences of it may well be that millions of our brethren must shed their lifeblood, millions of broken-hearted women must weep, millions of children must suffer with cold, and millions of babes must die from hunger, and all because we want to preserve the commercial right of American citizens to deliver munitions of war to belligerent nations.

Warren G. Harding's April 4, 1917 speech to the Senate.

 

 Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding's speech to the Senate.

My countrymen, the surpassing war of all times has involved us, and found us utterly unprepared in either a mental or military sense. The Republic must awaken. The people must understand. Our safety lies in full realization the fate of the nation and the safety of the world will be decided on the western battlefront of Europe.

Primarily the American Republic has entered the war in defense of its national rights. If we did not defend we could not hope to endure. Other big issues are involved but the maintained rights and defended honor of a righteous nation includes them all. Cherishing the national rights the fathers fought to establish, and loving freedom and civilization, we should have violated every tradition and sacrificed every inheritance if we had longer held aloof from the armed conflict which is to make the world safe for civilization. More, we are committed to sacrifice in battle in order to make America safe for Americans and establish their security on every lawful mission on the high seas or under the shining sun.

We are testing popular government's capacity for self-defense. We are resolved to liberate the soul of American life and prove ourselves an American people in fact, spirit, and purpose, and consecrate ourselves anew and everlastingly to human freedom and humanity's justice. Realizing our new relationship with the world, we want to make it fit to live in, and with might and fright and ruthlessness and barbarity crushed by the conscience of a real civilization. Ours is a small concern about the kind of government any people may choose, but we do mean to outlaw the nation which violates the sacred compacts of international relationships.

The decision is to be final. If the Russian failure should become the tragic impotency of nations--if Italy should yield to the pressure of military might--if heroic France should be martyred on her flaming altars of liberty and justice and only the soul of heroism remain--if England should starve and her sacrifices and resolute warfare should prove in vain--if all these improbable disasters should attend, even then we should fight on and on, making the world's cause our cause.
A republic worth living in is worth fighting for, and sacrificing for, and dying for. In the fires of this conflict we shall wipe out the disloyalty of those who wear American garb without the faith, and establish a new concord of citizenship and a new devotion, so that we should have made a safe America the home and hope of a people who are truly American in heart and soul.

U.S. Capitol at night, April 4, 1917

 

The Cheyenne State Leader for April 4, 1917: Conscription

 

By the 4th, still prior to the declaration of war, news of conscription was hitting.  An army numbering 500,000 men in strength still seemed to be the one that was contemplated, and which Wilson had indicated as anticipated in his speech.  It'd turn out to be much larger than that.

1st Battalion of the Wyoming National Guard was also being called up, it appeared.

Right away anti sedition measures were being contemplated, something that would occur and which is shocking to read about now.  We're used to thinking of the terrible example of Japanese internment during World War Two, but we've forgotten the anti sedition efforts, and even the enemy alien internment, of World War One.

The Laramie Boomerang for April 4, 1917: Troops might go overseas
 

War hadn't been declared yet but it began to dawn on people that war with Germany meant sending troops to Europe, something that President Wilson had indicated in his request for a declaration of war.  The news had been so full of the war being naval, and problems with Mexico, that this hadn't been obvious at first, even though it should have been.

Wilson's speech, however, grossly underestimated the number of men that World War One would require in that role.

In an act that would be shocking today, students at the Laramie High School who were 17 were being encouraged to enlist in the Navy.

And scarlet fever was back.
1933  Graduate engineering courses at the University of Wyoming suspended as a result of the Great Depression.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1955 39 inches of snow fell in Sheridan. Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

April 3

1043. Edward the Confessor crowned King of England. His death without heirs would lead to the 1066 invasions by King Harald Haadraadada and Duke William of Normandy. Edward is recognized as a Saint by the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican Communion churches.

This may seem like a strange post here, but Duke William's invasion and defeat of Harold Godwinson would bring the Norman system of law to England, which in turn would become English Common Law.  English Common Law is the basic system of law in every US state except for Louisiana, and is the system of law by statutory adoption in Wyoming. 

1860   The Pony Express service began between St. Joseph, Missouri and San Francisco, California. In Wyoming the mail route followed the Oregon Trail.

I have to note that starting this in the month of April, given the weather on the plains, was odd.

1863  Utes attacked station garrisoned by 6th Ohio Cavalry at Sweetwater Utah.

1868  Wood cutting party near Rock Creek attacked by Indians.

1869  John A. Campbell appointed Territorial Governor by President U. S. Grant.

1897  This photograph of heavy snow and equine transportation taken by Laramie geology professor S. H. Knight.

1916   The Punitive Expedtion. Casper Daily Press for April 3, 1916
 

1917   The Cheyenne State Leader for April 3, 1917: US to declare war today (actually, it wouldn't).
 

The Cheyenne State Leader was predicting that war was going to be declared today.  They hadn't counted on Senator LaFollette delaying the vote.

President Wilson was reported as asking for a 500,000 men army. . . a fraction of what would prove to be needed in the end.  Wyoming was ready to contribute.

The Lodge scuffle of yesterday hit the Cheyenne news.

It appeared that two companies of the Wyoming National Guard were to start off the impending war guarding the Union Pacific. . . things would soon change.

The Laramie Boomerang for April 3, 1917: Senator LaFollette a Traitor?

 

Given the stories I've been focusing on, this one is a bit off topic, but I couldn't resist the headline declaring "Battling Bob" LaFollette a traitor for using a parliamentary move to delay the vote on President Wilson's request for a declaration of war. Seems a bit much.

The scarlet fever outbreak in Laramie seemed under control.

Winter wouldn't leave.

The Wyoming Tribune. April 3, 1917: War Action Blocked

 

"Battling Bob" LaFollette used a procedural move to keep the vote on Wilson's request for a Declaration of War from occurring. The vote would of course occur. Something like that was a mere delay.

Governor Houx was pleading that the state a "contingent of rough riders" to the war.  Of course, given the way the war news was reading, a person might debate if that was to fight Germany or Mexico.  But anyhow, Wyoming was looking to supply cavalry.

West Point was going to follow the Navy's lead and graduate the 1917 class of officers early.

The Casper Record. April 3, 1917: Villa is to Fight US if War with Germany

 

Hmmm. . . . interesting speculation on what our relationship with Mexico, or in this case one segment of Mexico, would be if war was to be declared.

And young men were being urged to joint up to fight on the high seas.

The price of sheep, important to Wyoming, was up.  And Casper was getting a new big office building as part of the World War One boom and an ice processing company.

Anyone know what building that is, by the way?  Whatever it was, it's no longer there.

The scuffle Senator Lodge had yesterday hit the headlines, giving the typesetters the rare chance to use the word "biff".

1918  

When Laramie discontinued the teaching of the German language

Getting upset with all things German had gone a bit far. 

1941  Former Governor Frank Houx died in Cody.

1970  The Point of Rocks Stage Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Register Cliff added to the National Register of Historic Place.

1973  The T E Ranch Headquarters, near Cody, WY, which William F. Cody had owned, was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

2020  Governor Gordon extended his Coronavirus emergency orders through April 30, and broadened their scope.  His announcement stated:

Governor, State Health Officer extend statewide Public Health Orders through April 30

Governor also Directs 14-Day Quarantine for Travelers Arriving in Wyoming from another State or Country

CHEYENNE – Governor Mark Gordon and State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist have extended the three existing statewide health orders through April 30 to slow community transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) and protect lives.

The Governor continues to emphatically state that people need to stay home whenever possible to prevent or slow the spread of the virus. These orders are meant to enforce that direction through April. Specifically, the current orders closing public places including schools, prohibiting gatherings of 10 people or more in a single room or confined space (including outdoors) and closing bars, restaurants, coffee shops and some personal services businesses will continue through April 30. Food establishments can continue to provide delivery services, but carry-out service is now required to take place curbside.

“The decision to extend these orders was made to save lives and keep people at home,” Governor Gordon said. “We are seeing community transmission of COVID-19 occur around the state and we will continue to see more confirmed cases in the weeks to come. This action will help lower the rate of transmission and protect both our healthcare system and the healthcare workers we all rely on.”

The Governor has also issued a directive requiring any individual coming to Wyoming from another state or country for a non-work-related purpose to immediately self-quarantine for 14 days. For visits fewer than 14 days, that individual must self-quarantine for the duration of the visit. The directive is intended to discourage out-of-state visitation during the pandemic and reduce the spread of COVID-19.

“We know that travel from another state or country is a source of COVID-19 infections in Wyoming," Governor Gordon said. “Visitors from neighboring states have strained the resources of many Wyoming communities so we are asking them to do the right thing to protect the health of our citizens and the resources of our rural healthcare facilities.”

Dr. Harrist noted Wyoming continues to see community spread of COVID-19 and social distancing measures remain the most effective means to slow the spread of the virus.

“We need everyone to stay home as much as possible,” Harrist said. “Anyone can spread this disease, even if they don’t yet realize they are ill.”

The updated orders and the Governor's directive can be found on the Governor's website. The directive is also attached. 

The actual order stated:

April 2

 1792   Congress passed the Coinage Act, which authorized establishment of the U.S. Mint.

1866   U.S. President Andrew Johnson declares the Civil War to be over.

1870  An Indian attack on the Sweetwater killed six settlers.

1881  Big Nose George Parrot sentenced to death.  Attribution:  On This Day.

1890  Mail service, on a three times a week basis, established between Laramie and Keystone.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1892  George Dunning, an intimate of the conspirators associated with the invasion of Johnson County, returned from Idaho to Cheyenne at the behest of H. B. Ijams, secretary of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, to participate in the raid, although he professed disapproval.  He drew a .45-90 Winchester from a Cheyenne store where accounts had been set up to arm the invaders. While the plot did not yet have the endorsement of the WSGA, it was well advanced by WSGA officials at the time.

1902  Ester Hobart Morris died in Cheyenne.

1909.  The Spring Creek Raid marks the last open attack in a long running range war in Wyoming, and concludes the era of private warfare in the state.  In the Spring  Creek Raid a collection of Big Horn County cattleman attacked sheepman Joe Allemand and killed him, and then burned his sheepwagon.  This was one of a series of such raids that had occurred since sheep were introduced into Wyoming in the 1890s.  The brutality of the assault shocked area residents, who for the first time supported legal efforts to prosecute the perpetrators in the Big Horn Basin, which previously had not been the case.  The tide had effectively shifted some years earlier in much of the state, as the willingness to prosecute and execute assassin Tom Horn in 1903 had demonstrated.

News traveling more slowly in those days, news of the attack was first published in Natrona County Wyoming on April 6, 1909.

The Spring Creek Raid.

Students of Wyoming's history are well familiar with the story of the Spring Creek Raid, which occurred on April 2, 1909, on the Nowood River outside of Tensleep, Wyoming.  The tragedy has been the subject of at least three well known books, including the excellent A Vast Amount of Trouble, Goodbye Judge Lynch, and Tensleep and No Rest, the first two by lawyer and historian John W. Davis and the third, and earlier work, by Jack Gage, a former Governor of Wyoming.

The raid is justifiably famous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it may be the sheepman murder that most closely fits the way that we imagine the cattlemen v. sheepmen war of the late 19th and early 20th Century being.  Of course, the fact that it was an outright cold blooded killing no doubt causes it to be well remembered as well.  And then that the killings actually resulted in a trial which convicted the assassins is also worth remembering, as it demonstrated the turn of the tide of the public view on such matters.

The Wyoming historical marker sign that describes the killings does a good job of it, with perhaps the only thing omitted is that one of the ambushing party was armed with a semi automatic Remington Model 8 in .35 Remington, a very distinct arm for the time.  In basic terms, the raid occurred as several men connected with cattle raising in the area decided to enforce the "Deadline", a topographic feature of the Big Horn Mountains which meant it was a literal dead line.

The .35 Remington turned out to be critical in the story of the raid as it was an unusual cartridge for what was, at the time, an unusual arm.  The Remington 08 had only been introduced in 1905 and was a semi automatic rifle in an era in which the lever action predominated.  A lot of .35 Remington cartridges were left at the scene of the murders and investigation very rapidly revealed that a Farney Cole had left his Remington 08 at the home of Bill Keyes, which was quite near the location of the assault.  One of the assailants, George Saban, was known to not carry a gun and was also known to have been at the Saban residence the day of the assault.  Subsequent investigation matched other cartridges found on the location to rifles and pistols known to have been carried by the attackers.

Arrests soon followed and five of the assailants were ultimately charged with murder.  Two turned states' evidence.  The trials were not consolidated and only Herbert Brink's case went to trial.  To the surprise of some, he was convicted by the jury.  Due to prior trials for the killing of sheepmen being both unsuccessful and unpopular, Wyoming took the step of deploying National Guardsmen to Basin to provide security for the trial, which proved unnecessary.  The conviction was the first one in the area for a cattleman v. sheepman murder( Tom Horn had earlier been convicted for the 1903 killing of Willie Nickell, but that killing took place in southern Wyoming.

The killings were, quite rankly, uniquely cold blooded and gruesome, involving shooting into the wagons and setting them on fire.  Because of that, and the Brink conviction, the remaining four charged men plead guilty, rather than face trial.  Two plead guilty to arson, and two to second degree murder.

All were sentenced together, and Brink was sentenced to death.  His sentence was commuted, however, and he was released from prison, together with another one of the party, in 1914.  Another, George Saban, who was deeply affected by his conviction, escaped while out of the penitentiary and under guard, after being allowed to stay over in Basin in order to allegedly conduct some of his affairs.  His escape was successful and he disappeared from the face of the earth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

1916   The Punitive Expedition: Sunday State Leader. April 2, 1916
 

1917  President Wilson asks Congress for a Declaration of War against Germany.

 Woodrow Wilson addresses a Joint Session of Congress and ask for a Declaration of War Against Germany
 

Woodrow Wilson went before a special joint session of Congress on this day in 1917 to ask for a Declaration of War against Germany.

Gentlemen of the Congress:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe-conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the at tempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can not be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we can not make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation....

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.

One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the intercepted [Zimmermann] note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us -- however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship -- exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy, who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.

Congress did not vote on the matter on that day.

The Wyoming Tribune: Prelude to The Declaration of War. April 2, 1917

 

1948  A fire destroys 30 Laramie businesses.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.