Land-Grant of 1862

For any person who has viewed the documentary titled the "Civil War", that was directed by Ken Burns, they may recall a comment by pro-southern writer Shelby Foote who noted that the north entered the engagement with"one hand tied behind its back." While the north, after a long, bloody and protracted war would claim victory, Foote was referring to other actions that were authorized by the Republican congress and a near like-minded Lincoln administration during the first few years of the 1860's.  Most readers will recall the passage of the 1862 Homestead Act which gave a person, or family,who had not taken up arms against the nation, a grant of 160 acres of land in the west in exchange for settlement of the property for at least five years. The land-grant was usually only the cost of a minimal filing fee.  Yet, 1862 was also notable for another land-grant--The Morrill Act of 1862.  Its formal name is much longer--"An Act Donating Public Lands to the Several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts,"

Vermont Congressman Justin Morrill

Justin Morrill was a Republican congressman from the state of Vermont, and he proposed during the 1862 legislative session that the nation supply a grant of 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative to the states for them to sell and fund the establishment of schools of agriculture and mechanic arts.  Some states would fund new schools, others turn the funds over to existing colleges, and some would even help fund private colleges.  His goal was to assure that college was affordable to all classes of people.   Interestingly, given its design to applied endeavors, it would start a shift in education away from the classics and liberal arts to the applied sciences.  The library of Congress website notes that the act would end up funding 69 institutions of higher learning.  Interestingly the website calls out three of primary note that received such funding--Cornell, MIT, and the University of Wisconsin. Cornell is privately charted institution, but three of its colleges receives, to this day, substantial public subsidy.  MIT is also a private institution.  However, the University of Wisconsin at Madison is the standard bearer of publicly owned land grant institutions. Why else would it be recognized by the Library of Congress with two institutions that are privately held?  Not only is it a public institution, it is also the flagship of the now University of Wisconsin system.

Record of the US Senate Approving Morrill Act

In fact, much of the Big Ten is comprised of land-grant colleges.  Michigan State and Pennsylvania State University are recognized as the first land-grant institutions in the nation to  be funded under the Morrill Act. In addition, to the three already noted, the list of land-grant institutions in the Big Ten also includes Illinois, Purdue, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, THE Ohio State University, and Rutgers.  Michigan State, established in 1855, was the basis for the Morrill Act.  While Iowa was the first state to accept the grant, the funds were used for Iowa State University, not the University of Iowa.

US Capitol Building, 1861
A symbol of a nation under construction

Author David Van Drehle, notes in his work Rise to Greatness:  Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year, that the "laws passed in 1862 would create fountains of wealth, the only questions were how large the fortunes would be and who would get them."  1862 was also the year of the passage of an act to fund the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, of which graft and greed were plenty.  Yet, the Homestead Act and the lesser known Morrill Act were important pieces of legislation intended for those below the top one or ten percent.  The Morrill Act was the brainchild of a Republican Congressman, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed into law on July 2, 1862 by the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

Statute of Lincoln in front of Bascom Hall on the University of Wisconsin Campus

In his book, Van Drehle also comments that "the Union faced the flames of destruction, yet Congress was looking beyond the disaster to a future of hardworking homesteaders and an educated middle class."  1862 would plant the seeds for the rise of an American educational and industrial system that would propel the nation forward to be a leader among nations.  The 1862 Republican Congress understood the importance of an educated population.  It understood the importance of providing funding for higher education that would not only advance agriculture and mechanics, but also assist in growing the liberal arts. It understood the role of higher education.  Perhaps they understood the Wisconsin Idea, before it became the Wisconsin Idea.  The University of Wisconsin is the standard bearer of great public land-grant institutions, but yet, the current Republican administration and legislature in Wisconsin have seemingly lost the history of 153 years ago.  On July 12, 2015 (153 years and ten days after Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act) Governor Walker signed into law the biennial budget bill for the State of Wisconsin.  This budget cuts UW-System funding by $250 million (although this is less than the $300 million dollar cut in the budget Governor Walker presented to the state legislature), and also alters the tenure and shared governance provisions that have helped to create a strong university. If Governor Walker wants to grow the state economy perhaps he should look back to the reasoning behind the Morrill Act.

On Wisconsin?

The Berry Whisperer

We Americans, particularly those of us in the Midwest, tend to associate mid-summer with a variety nick-names and activities. Sometimes we refer to it as the dog-days of summer, or the lazy days of summer. It is a peak vacation time, allowing families a trip before children go back to school, and before fall sport training/practice intervenes and the days shorten. It is a time for picnics, baseball, hot dogs and Chevrolet (oops, in today’s world that should probably be Toyota). In the Madison, WI area on Thursday of this week the average high temperature is 81 degrees, a drop of one degree from the average high Wednesday. The high of 82 degrees before Thursday represents the highest normal temperature for the Madison, WI locale. As a weather forecaster said this morning, the normal temperature goes downhill for six months, before it starts to increase. But summer is more than celebrating warm weather, or longer daylight hours. It is also our prime growing season here in the Midwest. That means plenty of fruit and vegetables. Some vegetables, like broccoli, have peaked, and like other cool season vegetables do not fare as well in the warm weather. Mid-July is also peak raspberry time, at least in our red raspberry patch.

Our Raspberry Patch

So it is, that my wife finds herself picking raspberries twice a day, and during heat waves three times a day. The patch of raspberries is thick and so high that she said she could die in there and no one would ever know. I noted that I would probably notice when I tried to figure out what smelled so bad. I do, however, join in picking raspberries when I am home from work. We are lucky her job gives her off for most of mid-summer during prime berry picking time. Who else would pick the berries during the first part of the day? When I was growing up, we had a huge, and I mean huge, berry patch. My mother would send, or really order, us children out to pick the berries. We would spend an hour or two picking the berries and come in with a few quarts. On days we did not pick twice a day, Mom would have Mrs. Dohm, an elderly family friend and our babysitter, come down to pick. She would pick several quarts in much less time than it would take us. I always thought it was Mom’s way of saying we did not pick well enough.  After all, she was always telling us to lift the branches, and when we say what Mrs. Dohm picked it was easy to think we did not do well lifting the branches. However, now that we have our own berry patch, what I realize is that these berries ripen rather quickly on a warm summer day. A berry not ready for picking at 11:00 am, may well be ready by 6:00 pm.

Two Nice Big Raspberries

The older of my two sisters and I, became young entrepreneurs and one summer picked a huge number of quarts of berries that we sold to the former Krause grocery store in Sun Prairie. The store was only a store-front away from our Dad’s office in Sun Prairie on the main street, back when such traditional down towns were still vibrant. We made enough money to buy a tent to pitch in the back yard and the campground later owned by my older brother near Westfield. Raspberries sell for significantly more today, and are sold in pints, rather than quarts which notes how valuable they have become in the marketplace. I can understand why There are fewer picking machines like Mrs. Dohm around today than in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The ability to make some cash off the old berry patch is also a testament to the size of the patch. My Mom still had sufficient supply to make jam, pies, desserts and just to plain eat. We were no small group to feed.

Happy Raspberries Baked in a Pie

Last Saturday, which was a nice warm and humid day, my spouse and I ventured into the berry patch with mosquitoes dive bombing in to our faces and most annoyingly near our ears. We managed to get another haul of berries to complement those harvested earlier in the day. When Sunday morning came around, I knew that she would want to get to work making jam, and I had prepared my response. When she announced that she planned to make jam that day, she was informed by her husband, the berry whisperer, that the raspberries had whispered to him to have her make one of her delicious raspberry pies. I could tell she wanted to protest, but I noted that the berries were pretty adamant about not being cooked down and placed in some jars, followed by a hot water bath. Not to be outdone she found it odd that the raspberries would rather be baked in an oven. Berries are there for human eating and pleasure and a pie made with fresh raspberries, particularly the one my wife makes, is more pleasing to the berries, not to mention my stomach, than being cooked down and stuck in a jar on a shelf. She will have plenty of other berries to use from which to add to our collection of preserves, but the chance to get a raspberry pie with fresh homemade berries is shorter than the raspberry growing season.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread, layered with Peanut Butter and Red Raspberries
A nice delicious treat

As for me, I found another use for raspberries. I have been known for some odd sandwiches over time, such as my peanut butter, chocolate chip and bologna which was my main stay as a child. (I like to think I was the precursor of peanut butter and chocolate before Reese’s.) This past weekend, I slathered peanut butter on top of a piece of chocolate chip zucchini bread and layered the peanut butter with fresh raspberries. A nice treat to eat in between my daily pieces of raspberry pie.  Of course, as next week approaches and the peak of the season passes, my ears will once again be open to hear the sounds of the raspberries prodding me to get my wife to make another tasty desert.  While it is nice to keep my stomach happy, it is even nicer to keep the raspberries happy.

Photos by the author

Difference a Year Makes

The circumstances in which you find yourself can be dramatically different from one year to the next. It can be more than being one year older, it can be more than being at work one year and retired the next. It is a rainy mid-July evening tonight, and knowing that there is little I can do outside, I decided to go through some of the letters my father had written home while he served in the Counter Intelligence Corps during WWII. I just happened to open my copied collection to July 4, 1945. In July of that year he was in, if I correctly read his handwriting, Vilshofen, Germany. He notes in the letter that he and "Jack are going to meet Joe for dinner out" and then go to a party. Although he admits it “has been a dull l4th so far today.” The next paragraph begins with “though the 4th hasn’t had any of the loud celebrating (and this was 18 years before my sister Jeanne was born) which usually goes on in the States, it has been a holiday,” but it is the completion of this sentence that peaked my interest when he wrote “and what a relief from last year.” With the war complete and the censors less concerned about what he writes he adds some additional information on where he found himself one year earlier.

American Cemetery in Normandy in early 1950's, with temporary wooded crosses

“I remember,” he begins “we were living in Carentan (which is a port city in Normandy) and I was sent down to the 329 regiment to work that day as that was the 1st day we attacked the enemy. It was an experience I’ll never forget.” Carentan was made famous by the battle fought by the 101st airborne division in June, as part of the  D-Day invasion. Part of these events are captured in the popular video series "Band of Brothers”  which documents the exploits of the 101st.  The history of the 83rd notes that the division’s first command post was in a circus tent near Bricqueville. At this point in the war, the division was under Omar Bradley’s First Army. While there, they received orders to move to Carentan and relieve the 101st Airborne. Carentan, it says “was the roughest and most hotly contested area in the entire American zone.” The 83rd would move in over the course of two nights in late June—the whole division from the riflemen to the headquarters and service troops. As noted by my father, July 4 was to be the first engagement of the 83rd Infantry division who began to arrive on the continent on about D-day plus 15 at Omaha Beach. The fighting would take place south of Carentan, noted in the 329th Regiment “After Action Reports” specifically as Le Plessis. The division history notes that they jumped off the Carentan—Periers road. They were fighting in the hedgerows of Normandy. The hedgerow fighting was perhaps some of the most severe of the war. Not only was it thick with brush and trees, as the name would imply, but there was also a usual significant change in elevation, also implied by its name. American tanks, with their special plow type fronts, were not nearly as effective in the hedgerows as the war planners had thought. They also had not anticipated the density and commonness of this French farm feature. It could well conceal the enemy, and the hardened Nazi fighters took advantage of the territory. As the division history notes “We found hedgerow fighting treacherous, rugged, nerve-wracking, murderous. Even now we find it hard to explain, for it almost defies description.” It goes on to describe the hedgerows as consisting of “gnarled tree roots and vines as tough and strong as iron hoops, all woven together in an impenetrable wall.” They could not see the enemy, nor the enemy see them, but they knew each other was there. Movement was tortured and time consuming, it was simply slow, creeping, crawling and costly.

A special plow on a US tank to battle the hedgerows

Costly it was, the August 8 entry in the “After Action Report” notes that casualties for the battle that began on July 4 and would last most of the month were in the range of 35%.  More specifically another report notes that of the 3058 enlisted men in the regiment, after two days of fighting 2518 were still in fighting condition. In just two days the 329th had 540 casualties. Yet, the situation was actually worse than that, as the casualty rate of companies that came in to contact with the enemy was 50%. As for weather, it was rain, rain, and more rain. Mud was getting deeper, making movement difficult, and more importantly it dampened air support. It would be 21 days later, on July 25 when air support would arrive to provide some much needed assistance. The Germans utilized effective machine gun placement “with maximum field of fire” which was supplemented by mortars and what they would come to realize were the deadly 88’s.

US Soldiers in Normandy, Summer 1944

In that July 4, 1945 letter, my father goes on to say that prior year he was “fairly safe in a fox hole in an orchard, but the boys on the front 1,000 yards away were caught in a hell as they had to go through a swamp waist deep in water.” But he continues to describe what a dire situation the regiment was in when he says that “some got over and were cut off, others stayed in the swamp and a few struggled back and the look they had after their first real day of battle was horrible.” War is hell, and it showed on the faces of the men who retreated from the swamp as they were caught in the fire of German machine guns and 88’s. That first day of encounter, he goes on to say, was also the first day he “saw a German prisoner for the first time…and it was quite an experience. Now we live with them, practically.”

My father, Roy Bernard Hovel, CIC

One year makes a difference. On July 3, 1944 my father and the 83rd Infantry were preparing to enter battle against the Germans in France, but a year later, on July 3 he had taken “the large Mercedes” to what he refers to as some God-forsaken place” and got stuck twice on the way back due to heavy rain. His location, means of transport and means of purpose had changed, only the rain reamained the same.  He then notes that “4 former German army boys helped me out.” However, following that tale, he gets more serious when he writes “It sure is a funny world though and if you could see all that has been going on here for the past 6 yrs and still it would seem all twisted up to you too. I couldn’t even begin to write about everything because it’d take a year or two. I can understand it because it is my work but I guess there are few others over here outside of some CIC men who do. Even many CIC men are surprised to hear of different things and can’t imagine them.” He goes on to recount of having heard a father send his son to a concentration camp, and a son a father. “The Nazi propaganda, education, and system was horrible in its efficiency and the way it would keep the truth from the German people and still attain a horrible end.”  As a member of the CIC he would experience not only the horrors of war, but the ruthlessness of man to a fellow man.

83rd Infantry CIC Detachment, Morning Report
for August 1, 1944

In less than one year the war went from a terrible situation where the victory to secure the beaches one month earlier was almost lost, two ten months later with the total and unconditional surrender of the German army. It would take one year for my father to write about his account of his first experience near the front. July 4, 1944 was for him an experience that was burned in to his memory, and was quite the contrast with the party and dinner he would have one year later. He was part of the 329th regiment during those July days that would feel the wrath of the German war machine, but yet persevere. He would go from life in a foxhole in an orchard among the hedgerows of Normandy to driving a Mercedes on Army business in the south of Germany. Most of all, he saw the hell of war, the terrible cost, and a bittersweet July 4, 1945 where a holiday was interrupted in his mind by the horrors of one year earlier. What a difference one year can make.

Tubing

Contrary to what thought the title gives you, this post is likely not about that thought. Instead this post is about pneumatic tubes. My first experience in seeing a pneumatic tube at work was in the back seat of the Buick Invicta station wagon when I was a child at the bank drive-through. At least I think it was the Invicta, it may have been the red Electra. If recollection serves me correct, the Bank of Sun Prairie first installed a drive-through on the other side of an alley behind the bank, and the pneumatic tubes transferred the banking material from car to the teller and back. There was no direct view of the teller as most have today, and I don’t recall there being any video screens, likely only voice transmission. Fewer trips are made to the bank today, what with credit cards and on-line transactions, but drive-up, or drive-through lanes are now common. In fact, one of the measures of trips generated by a bank is based on number of drive-through lanes. When I do go to the bank I like to go in and visit a teller personally. Where I bank today, their drive-through uses the pneumatic tubes, and voice, but you face straight to a bank (pun intended) of teller windows. Depending upon activity, you may have difficulty knowing who is processing your banking transactions. Pneumatic tubes date back to the mid-18th century, but are still in use today. However, the first thoughts of such a device go back to Greek antiquity and a man named Hero of Alexandria.

This is not the type of tubing to which I refer.
Anyway, this a rather mild form of tubing, and not the usual for the driver of this watercraft.

Pneumatic tubes are based on a rather a simple principle—using a partial vacuum to move a cylinder through a tube from one place to another. They lost favor in the 20th century, due to a variety of factors. Changes in transportation—large trucks, suburbanization, cost of installation, and the need to move ever larger packages. In the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, development was more compact, and it was less expensive to place a tube from one building, like a post office to a large office building nearby. Some office buildgs used the technology to move mail within a building. Think of the scene in the movie "Elf." As development moved out further, it was no longer cost effective. But now, a variety of entrepreneurs are looking to reintroduce the pneumatic tube as a method of transportation. The intent is not to move mail, but to move people and goods from one city to another. Currently three groups are looking at raising funds and creating a test project. Among those involved is Elon Musk of Tesla car and Space X fame. Musk introduced this concept in 2012, to set forth a faster method of land transit. What is envisioned was a tube, likely a few stories above grade that would extend from Los Angeles to San Francisco, with a bullet-shaped capsule where a massive air compressor would suck air from the front and put it to the back to propel the capsule at designed 760 mph. But it would not be just people, it could be goods as well, at least of a size to fit in the capsule and tube.

Mail tubes

Musk is looking to construct a test loop in Texas, while another group is looking to do one in California. Depending upon cost-effectiveness, they could replace small regional airports like Dane County. Why fly from Madison to Minneapolis for a business trip when you can hop what is called a hyperloop. On the west coast, it is thought that you could leave San Francisco and about 40 minutes later be in LA, but of course you will need to get to and from the station. On the other hand, we have some states embarking on high-speed rail, but nothing that can come close to the speed of the hyperloop. If the hyper loop makes passenger rail a thing of the past, the rail corridors could be put to good use for the hyperloop, and other linear arranged activities. Nationally there has been rails-to-trails for quite some time now, so introducing another linear activity would not be out of the thinking.

Envisioned hyperloop

If hyperloops do become cost-effective perhaps they could become a reality. One estimate is that a ride of a few hundred miles could be accomplished for about $30.  It would cost more to drive that distance, not to mention the amount of time it would take. It likely is still a pipe dream (pun intended), but the challenge is not the movement, but rather the engineering involved in acceleration and deceleration. You cannot get to and down from speed too quickly as it could be hard on the body. It may be more traumatic, however, to get stuck in a tube. Of course, if it were to become reality, would it allow more sprawl to occur? Would the nation be settling in the depths of Montana with people hyperlooping to work in Denver or Seattle? It would pose an interesting use of an old technology, and it may show that not all advances are related to nano-technology. As I like to go inside a bank, I seldom see the pneumatic tubes at work, but the human transport tube may be of more interest than our commonly thought of water tubing.

Fourth and Food

For many years now, one of the departments where I work hosts a cookout in celebration of the Fourth of July.  The cookout is usually held on the first or second of July.  When the calendar allows, it is often held on July 2. July 2 is perhaps an appropriate day, as while it is not the official independence holiday, it is the day that the Continental Congress adopted a motion declaring independence from Great Britain. If it had been up to some of the members of that august body of American revolutionaries, the date would have been June 7. However, not unlike the doubts in the current Wisconsin legislature about adopting a state budget, at that time there were doubts that a unanimous vote could be secured. Those assembled thought it best to have a unanimous vote for such a drastic move. Debate was delayed until July 1. On June 7, a committee of five was appointed to draft a formal declaration. History seems to teach us that it was the work of Thomas Jefferson. Like class projects of today, one person took the reins, and that was Jefferson. The other members of the drafting committee were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Sherman, and John Livingston.  It is left to history as to how much input these lesser known members had on that revered document.

John Adams, who always seemed to play second fiddle
to Thomas Jefferson

Debate resumed on July 1, but the vote was delayed one more day, until July 2 in an attempt to still obtain unanimity. When the vote was taken on that early July day, 12 of the 13 delegations voted in favor, with the New York delegation abstaining. Perhaps portending his status as the first Vice-President, John Adams, would say that July 2 would be celebrated as one of most memorable events in the history of America. Not unlike the marginalized powers of the Vice- President, July 2 has been marginalized to July 4. As occurred through much of their careers, Thomas Jefferson would again trump John Adams, as the Continental Congress would meet again on July 4 to formally adopt the Declaration of Independence, of which Jefferson was the lead author.  While adopted in July, the formal signing did not occur until early August.  Jefferson and Adams often butted heads, but in an unusual occurrence, both would die on July 4 in 1826. Just so you know, while the New York delegation abstained on July 2, and again on July 4, they did grant approval on July 19.  Because of the adoption of the formal document on that day, we celebrate July 4 and not July 2 as the day of our nation's independence from Britain.  

The Committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence

Today, we celebrate the 4th with family gatherings, picnics, parties, festivals and fireworks. Likely many other places of work have had some type of event over their noon hour to recognize this most important of holidays for our nation. With such celebrations comes food. While waiting in line to make a choice among the grilled chicken (breasts or thighs), burgers, and brats at the work cookout today, I made an observation. Having been present for many of these events I noticed a couple things. First, not unlike July 2 and John Adams, the brats and burgers have been marginalized from when this event was first held some 15 years ago. Perhaps this is owing to the health craze, perhaps it is the aging of the work force, and the health problems that develop from eating too much fat and processed meat, but chicken seemed to be the grilled item of choice. At least for the older members. Younger members of the work force, and those in the Fire Dept., and Public Works still tend to burgers and brats, but office workers gravitated to chicken. This is consistent with our family picnics over the past twenty some years as chicken is now much more prevalent than it was when that started.

Fireworks are common aspect to celebrate the 4th

My second observation was that healthy food choice only goes so far. Eating lunch in the break room as I do, I see how the choice of lunch for many is healthy food. Thinking that people would choose healthy, I brought a fresh mixed green salad with lettuce, a greens mix, and pea pods picked from my organic garden during the evening of July 1. It could not have been much more fresh.  Who would pass on a nice fresh salad, topped off with my wife’s delicious basil salad dressing? Apparently many did, because I had a whole bag left over, of the one and one-half bags brought to help feed the near 90 persons that showed up. Other than me, I only noticed two others having grabbed my mixed greens salad. If the brats and burgers have been marginalized chicken as was John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, the salad of greens is Robert Sherman and John Livingston, two long forgotten men of the Continental Congress.  The mixed greens I brought were marginalized more than John Adams ever was.  Instead the items of choice were the omnipresent cheesy potatoes, even more ubiquitous baked beans, and a sausage laden pasta dish, perhaps reminiscent of Benjamin Franklin. Perhaps the only other salad that may be considered healthy was a Raman noodle type broccoli slaw salad.  Much to my surprise even the weight-conscious women in the Senior Center did not choose the salad. Perhaps, the feeling among the group was that today is a day to enjoy something less than fully healthy, not unlike the way we celebrate our other holidays, and that more healthy choices can come again next week. Healthy eating, even among the generally healthy, weight conscious eaters apparently has its end point.

Enjoy Independence day, whether it be July 2 or July 4

In that way, what we eat is much like our celebration of the fourth of July. The real date of when independence was declared is not recognized in our collective memory and July 4 now rules.  Burgers and brats may now be less common at our work cookout than before, but not as much as my mixed green salad was ignored.  Rather, the thought among those attendees was to celebrate with butter, cheese and cholesterol. However, while Thomas Jefferson may get the bulk of the credit for the writing of the Declaration of Independence, let us not forgot the others who participated.  While chicken is becoming more common at cookouts, let us not forget the mixed greens.  As you enjoy your grilled chicken, burgers,or brats have some greens, and at the same time think of the others who contributed to the nation’s independence.  But, more importantly, let also think of those less fortunate than ourselves. Just like my mixed green salad was less enjoyed than cheesy potatoes at today's cookout.  As for the greens, the people at work did not know what they missed, particularly when topped with that great basil salad made by my spouse.

 Images from Google images