Cattle Market Slump

By CAROLE BUTCHER

June 19 — As the United States entered World War II, North Dakota ranchers were busy supplying beef to the armed forces. At the same time, they tried to keep meat on the tables of American families. It was an enormous task. But on this date in 1943, ranchers ran into a major obstacle when five packing plants in Chicago suspended operations. Nine others reported that they had already stopped slaughtering. Packing plants in Ohio were also shutting down. Consequently, ranchers had trouble finding a market for their cattle in spite of consumer demand.

The slaughter houses complained about government price regulations. There was uncertainty in the government meat subsidy program, and no one could be sure what they would be paid. In one year, the number of cattle being shipped to market dropped from 180,000 to 130,000.

Both Republican and Democratic Congressmen from agricultural states demanded prompt action from Senate leaders. A petition said there should be a vote to restrict price decreases. The Senators said that ranchers were in “a state of absolute demoralization” because of retail meat price rollbacks.

Senators were not the only ones demanding action. Ranchers from Iowa and Nebraska met and said they would withhold all animals from slaughter unless the government rescinded price rollbacks. They appealed directly to President Roosevelt.

The government had created a complex system. The price of food was fixed, and in most cases prices were rolled back. For example, the government rolled back the price of meat by two cents per pound. That loss could not be taken from packing house labor since wages were fixed. So, the rollback was taken from the amount packing houses paid farmers. A decrease of two cents per pound put the hardship squarely on the rancher. The loss was supposed to be offset by government subsidies, but many Congressmen opposed subsidies, and there was no guarantee the rancher would ever see a dime from the program.

The Fargo Forum predicted a meat famine. There was no way that North Dakota ranchers could survive the price rollbacks. That situation extended to ranchers across the country. It was in part the result of a government strategy to encourage hog production over cattle, with the idea that hogs matured more quickly and provided lard – an important resource, not just for cooking, but for the manufacture of weapons, munitions and various accessories.

Invisible Wounds

By DR. STEVE HOFBECK

June 20 — World War I was known as the “Great War” or the “War to End All Wars.” It began 100 years ago, in 1914, and the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917.

That year, a young man from Grand Forks named Leon Brown joined the U.S. Army as an infantryman, after leaving his studies at the University High School. Brown became a machine-gunner and went to the battlefields in France for the American Expeditionary Force.

“While in action on one of the front lines” in early 1918, wrote the UND Quarterly Journal, Leon Brown “was severely injured by shell shock, which affected the heart, a type of ‘hidden wound’ so often suffered in this war.”

Private Brown was evacuated to a Red Cross hospital in France, where the nurses “kept him alive for three nights when . . . he thought he would die, as he hovered between life and death.” After recovering somewhat, Brown was sent home.

It was on this date in 1918 that the Grand Forks Herald reported that Private Leon Brown had given a speech at the St. Andrew’s Society Picnic in Lincoln Park, telling of his “experiences as an American gunner in the battlefront in France . . . and how the Red Cross served him after his health had given out.”

After spending several weeks at home, the shell-shock symptoms returned and he went east for more treatment at an Army hospital in Maryland. After five months he came home again, and even then, his heart problems caused him to be “confined to his bed” for a week.

Leon Brown was in a photograph accompanying a Literary Digest story about shell-shocked fighters who had suffered “invisible wounds” and were coming back home “broken within by the ravages of modern warfare.” They were the “war’s worst wrecks,” but had “no outward signs of injury,” yet required care until “full health” might return.

Doctors were unsure if shell shock was something physical, psychological, or some combination of the two. Physicians clearly saw the concussions and deafness that came from exploding artillery-shells, and they saw men whose nerves had been shattered and “their minds badly affected” by their war trauma. A soldier’s heart dynamics . . . blood pressure [and] pulse rate … seemed to be altered.

Modern war with “high explosives and rapid fire” machine guns and the “inhumanities of asphyxiating gases and liquid fire” caused “mental fatigue.” The “extreme shock” and “intense nervous strain” of seeing comrades killed in the trenches caused some to become unhinged. “Continued tragedy wears down personality,” an author wrote, “when a man has for three days been fighting almost without interruption, [and] has had practically no sleep with but little to eat.”

How could these veterans return to a normal civilian life when the war ended? The answer was unclear for shell-shocked Leon Brown in 1918, just as it is today for those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as it is now known.

Red Cross

By JIM DAVIS

June 21 — On this date in 1917, the final total for selective service registration was announced. There were 64,124 North Dakota citizens registered. They also registered 88 friendly aliens and 605 enemy aliens, basically German nationals. Although it was 12,000 short of projected, this did not include the 4,000 men who had already enlisted or were serving in the North Dakota National Guard. Warrants were issued for 500 identified slackers who had failed to register.

Meanwhile, President Wilson declared the third week in June to be dedicated to the American Red Cross. A. F. Clifford, chairman of the Grand Forks Red Cross Committee, reminded the citizens of the county that no government takes care of its wounded other than taking them by stretcher to the first aid camps. After that, the battle for the life or death of each man was up to the Red Cross workers who desperately needed financial aid to do their part. With 65,000 men from North Dakota eligible for duty in the trenches, Mr. Clifford offered a somber statistic.

Based on Canadian casualties so far in the war, he stated that one out of five soldiers from North Dakota sent to the front would be killed or wounded. The War Department provided a one in twenty ratio, but either way, the reality of war was coming home. These men were all “somebody’s boys,” their own sons or their neighbor’s. It was a hard selling point.

In Fargo, the Commercial Club set a quota of $6,000 a month for the city to raise in support of the Red Cross. A treasurer’s office was set up in a local bank to handle the contributions.

In Langdon, a July 4th picnic was planned, with all proceeds going to the Red Cross. The Red Cross Chapter covering both Williams and McKenzie Counties was seeking to raise $10,000 during the week. The Syrian Ladies Auxiliary and the Syrian Relief Fund donated $100. All citizens of the area were asked to become Red Cross members, with the membership fees donated to the national fund.

While men waited to be drafted, women were encouraged to sign up to become Red Cross nurses. Training was offered to provide nurses for battlefield hospitals and local care giving. Sewing circles worked to provide mufflers, socks and mittens. A Red Cross auxiliary could be set up with ten members. Pamphlets could be obtained on the art of rolling surgical dressings or providing other services. All across North Dakota every man, woman, and child was asked to do their part that week in support of the Red Cross.

Bar Sinister

By CAROLE BUTCHER

June 22 — On this date in 1920, it was reported in the Capital Journal of Salem, Oregon, that a North Dakota appeals court had removed the “bar sinister,” a discriminatory law affecting illegitimate children. The term “bar sinister” comes from medieval heraldry. “Sinister” is Latin for “left.” It simply indicates a direction, and does not carry the negative modern meaning. “Bar” refers to a broad line on a coat of arms. Therefore, a bar sinister is a diagonal line running from the upper right to the lower left.

The bar sinister came to be associated with being born out of wedlock, but in reality, there was no one single heraldic element used to designate illegitimacy. The association apparently arose from popular fiction, the authors of which may have used the term because the bar sinister sounded, well, sinister. It found its way into science fiction with Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” A bar sinister can be found on the badges of military units, including The Black Sheep Squadron, a Marine fighter squadron in World War II.

That “bar sinister” history aside, the matter at hand involved the court upholding the Tennyson Law, which was passed in 1917. The law was named for B.G. Tennyson of Fargo. It abolished illegitimacy of birth and provided that children born out of wedlock have equal rights with children born in wedlock. As a result, children born out of wedlock were entitled to equal education as well as the right to share equally in the estates of the parents.

The newspaper praised the North Dakota court saying that for centuries innocent children had suffered because of bigotry and the unfair conventions of society. The newspaper went on to say that “It is a hopeful sign of a better day for brotherly love preached but seldom practiced when laws like the North Dakota statute replace those of a fanatical intolerance dating from the dark ages.”

Early Weather Forecasting on the Prairie

By MARIA WITHAM

June 23 — The weather is a continual companion, with its whims and follies, highs and lows, bitterness and warmth. And for many of us, our daily routine begins with a check of the forecast. However, a good forecast was not always easy to come by.

During much of human history, storms and droughts were seen through the lens of religion or superstition, with weather patterns owing to the judgment of higher powers. In 1542 King Henry the VIII of England outlawed predicting the weather as part of the Witchcraft Act. Prognosticating weather was seen as sorcery, punishable by death!

Fortunately for a Mr. Martin of Medora, Dakota Territory, by the 1880s monitoring and predicting the weather was no longer a capital crime. In fact, it was becoming an indispensable service.

On this date in 1885, Mr. Martin received a package from the National Weather Bureau with supplies needed to become a volunteer weather observer. Mr. Martin had been contributing his observations to the Bad Lands Cow Boy newspaper, providing a service for cattle ranchers. But the chief of the Weather Bureau in Washington also appreciated his efforts and encouraged him to continue.

Mr. Martin was one of many in the nation who volunteered to gather weather observations for the US Signal Service, which oversaw the National Weather Bureau. The Signal Service was established during the Civil War, and its network of telegraph communications was being utilized to consolidate national data on weather patterns. As the Little Rock, Arkansas, Gazette, stated in 1884:

“There is not a thinking man … who does not realize the great value of the systematic dissemination of weather statistics and warnings, such as the Signal Service is furnishing the whole country…”

The National Weather Bureau continued to grow, and in 1891 it became a civilian, rather than a military enterprise, and was moved to the Dept. of Agriculture. It was in the 1950s, post World War II, that weather technology made another big leap forward as a byproduct of war. The radar technology used to monitor enemy movements was found effective in detecting precipitation and weather patterns. The 1990s brought the development of Doppler Weather Radar, which made possible the storm warning systems we have today. However, even with all the advancements, completely accurate weather predictions remain inscrutably elusive. So, we close with this sentiment from an anonymous British poet:

Whether the weather be fine

Or whether the weather be not,

Whether the weather be cold

Or whether the weather be hot,

We’ll weather the weather

Whatever the weather,

Whether we like it or not.

“Dakota Datebook” is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from Humanities North Dakota.