May 2020 Archives

Back at the beginning of March, we reported that Gilcrease Museum would not be renovated and expanded, as Tulsa voters were promised in April 2016, but would instead be demolished and rebuilt as a smaller facility, with the help of funding from the University of Tulsa and other donors.

The change is substantial enough that the new plans will not fit within the broad language of the "Brown Ordinance" adopted in advance of the April 2016 tax vote, so the provisions of the ordinance have been invoked and a legal notice has been published, announcing public hearings on June 10 and June 17, 2020, to consider an amendment to Title 43-K to change the name of the line item "Gilcrease Museum Expansion" to "Gilcrease Museum Facilities Improvements."

The "Brown Ordinance" is named in honor of former City Attorney Darven Brown. City of Tulsa capital improvements were traditionally financed by general obligation bond issues (repaid by property taxes) or revenue bond issues (repaid by, e.g., water and sewer customers, parking garage customers, airline passengers). In 1979, Mayor Jim Inhofe attempted to pass a one-cent sales tax to fund a backlog of capital improvement needs, but the vote failed, in part because a sales tax, once in effect, could be spent on anything, even operational costs, unlike a bond issue, which could only be spent on the named improvements. Brown came up with the idea of an ordinance which set out the specific projects to be funded and the amount allocated for each, provided for a Sales Tax Overview Committee to monitor spending, provided for a process to ensure sufficient public notice of proposed changes, and established penalties (including removal from office) for spending any of the money contrary to the ordinance. With the Brown Ordinance in place (and with the Zink Lake low-water dam removed from the package), the sales tax passed on Inhofe's second attempt in 1980. A Brown Ordinance has been enacted for each city capital improvements sales tax vote ever since.

Title 43-K is the Brown Ordinance attached to the 2016 Vision Tulsa tax. It was amended within a year that of its passage. The promise that the South Tulsa/Jenks low-water dam would be cancelled and its $64 million in funding reallocated if Tulsa and the Muscogee Creek Nation could not reach a partnership agreement by December 31, 2016, was nullified in February 2017 and replaced with a deadline at the end of this year. (The original proposed change was to a vague deadline of "within a reasonable time.") The ordinance was changed again in May 2019 to move all $3.6 million designated for OSU-Tulsa to increase the BMX World Headquarters funding from $15 million to $18.6 million.

I hope that Tulsans will register their objections to this proposal publicly through social media and with their city councilors. Tulsans voted for expansion of Gilcrease, not contraction, not relocation, and certainly not demolition of this historic facility. The proposed new language doesn't fit the announced plans: Total or near-total demolition can hardly be considered a "facilities improvement." This could be considered an attempt to deceive in the legal notice and could subject the councilors to lawsuits and removal from office if they go ahead with it. Tulsans should insist that their councilors approve an honest title for the line item: "Gilcrease Museum: Demolition and reconstruction as a smaller facility," and it is this title that should be published as a legal notice.

Tulsans should also insist that this change not move forward unless and until the City begins to disentangle our priceless Gilcrease collection from the troubled University of Tulsa. The City should terminate its management contract with TU, reject any contributions from the Kaiser System (the name given by Michael Mason to the network of organizations linked to the Obama-backing billionaire), and insist that the collection remain at the same site. Any additional money needed could be reallocated from the dam project that will likely never happen. Some of these stipulations could be written into the Brown Ordinance to ensure compliance.

RELATED: President Trump tweeted on Wednesday:

The Tulsa, Oklahoma area has been approved for a transportation loan from the @USDOT of up to $120M to help expand highway on the Gilcrease Expressway West Project. This will mean less congestion and faster routes to popular spots! @GovStitt

The loan will be to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, which will repay the loan from the tolls it will be collecting on the five-mile stretch of the west leg of the Gilcrease Expressway between the I-44/I-244 west junction and US 412 at 57th West Avenue.

It's cringe-worthy. Some persons, apparently with the permission of the Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority, painted the Tesla logo on the chest of the Golden Driller, and painted the name Tesla on his belt buckle, over the word Tulsa. If that weren't bad enough, used some kind of wrap to cover the statue's face to turn it pale, almost white, to try match the appearance of Tesla chairman Elon Musk's pale, square face.

Images of this work began circulating on social media on Tuesday, May 19, 2020, and many people thought it was some kind of lame photo-manipulation meme. At 2 pm on Wednesday, Tulsa Mayor G. T. Bynum IV led an "unveiling" of the modified statue -- unveiling consisting of a big white sheet (twin size, if the Golden Driller had a bed) held by two cranes in front of the statue, then dropped on cue.

Meanwhile someone created a webpage called bigf***ingfield.com, urging Musk to locate his new "cybertruck gigafactory" in Tulsa.

While some Tulsans on social media applauded the effort, many more expressed emotions ranging from amusement to dismay at these gestures which were endorsed by our city's leaders, describing the promotions as cringe-inducing, pathetic, needy, and desperate. Some thought the Tesla logo on the Golden Driller was reasonable, but the Elon Musk mask was just creepy. (It reminded me of fictional TV celebrity Alan Partridge's visit to an obsessed fan's home.)

All this was triggered by a story in TechCrunch on May 15:

Tesla officials visited two sites in Tulsa, Oklahoma this week to search for a location for its future and fifth gigafactory that will produce its all-electric Cybertruck and Model Y crossover, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch.

Company representatives also visited Austin. A final decision has not been made, but Austin and Tulsa are among the finalists, according to multiple sources. The AP also reported Tulsa and Austin as top picks for the gigafactory.

It was earlier last week that Musk, frustrated by CCP Bat Virus-related restrictions in Alameda County, California, threatened to move the Fremont factory and Tesla headquarters out of California. On May 9th, Musk tweeted:

Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately. The unelected & ignorant "Interim Health Officer" of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!

Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.

Neither Texas nor Nevada have an income tax, and Tesla already has a gigafactory east of Reno where batteries for its vehicles are manufactured.

I have the sneaking suspicion that rumors of Tulsa being considered were designed to frighten the City of Austin and the State of Texas into sweetening the deal. When a company comes to a vendor right before a deadline and asks for a quote, it's often an indication that the company has already selected another vendor for the work, but needs a competing quote to satisfy internal policies or as leverage to improve the preferred vendor's bid. The result is a lot of activity and expense with little realistic hope of a good result.

Several people have noticed the interesting timing of City of Tulsa's spat with Navistar IC Bus, the bus manufacturer that operates in Air Force Plant No. 3. The plant, used for building bombers during World War II, has a footprint of about 1.3 million square feet. Tesla's Nevada factory has a footprint of 1.9 million sq. ft.

When I was a young man, I learned the hard way that, contrary to TV shows and movies and the poetry we read in English class, wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, declaring one's undying and complete devotion to one's beloved, is not an effective courtship strategy. The object of such attention is apt to respond with indifference, pity, or revulsion. Those who went about their lives with confidence and purpose, without regard to the impression they made on the opposite sex, were far more successful with the opposite sex.

In 1908, a five-car train carrying 113 Tulsans, including a brass band, went around the northeastern and midwestern US on a two-week excursion to promote the city to potential businesses and residents. The Booster Train's itinerary included St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Des Moines, and Kansas City. They were welcomed heartily everywhere they went. One participant, C. W. Deming, told the Tulsa Democrat upon their arrival home:

We arrived on fairly good time in all cities, unloaded ourselves, 113 strong, lined up behind the band and marched through the streets. Six or eight of us would walk along the sidewalks with an arm load of the special issue of the Booster [a daily paper printed on board the train] for every town we visited, throwing them in doors, mingled with the people and handed them papers out right and left through the large crowds which blocked the sidewalks and street crossings.

The Tulsa Boosters didn't go pleading with businesses to move to the city or trying to bribe them with incentive payments. They didn't focus flattery on Eastern kingpins in hopes of winning their investment. The Tulsa Boosters projected confidence and pride in their city, which had grown in eight years from a population of 1,313 to about 16,000. They touted the availability of energy for manufacturing. They brought an exhibition car to demonstrate the natural resources of the city and its environs. From page 3 of the April 20, 1908, New York Sun:

Out of alfalfa growing knee high in the exhibition car of their own private train..., more than 100 representative citizens of Tulsa, the greatest town of Oklahoma -- ask them! -- stepped upon the soil of Jersey and walked as quickly as possible to the ferryboat which was to give them an Easter morning glimpse of New York....

Alfalfa isn't the only thing growing in the car of the special train over in Jersey City. Whole branches of cherry trees are there, with cherries as big as they ought to be in April growing on them, branches cut from the trees a week ago whose fruit shows, as the Tulsans say, that the cherries left on the trees in Tulsa will be ripe and waiting for them when they reach home again in ten days more. Besides these there are samples of all the woods of the Tulsa region of Oklahoma and samples of the limestone, the shale and the other natural ingredients of Tulsan success and prosperity, and also photographs showing what a town situated on ten railroads can do in the way of growing in six years of lifetime. ...

The excursion is really a big one for Tulsa, more than a hundred of her business and professional men leaving their occupations and paying their share of a $25,000 or $30,000 trip of 3,500 miles for the purpose of bringing Tulsa to the world's notice and the hope of bringing the world to Tulsa. Tulsa buys of New York merchants, to be sure, but she buys mainly through St. Louis, Chicago and Kansas City branches or houses. Her business men feel that they might do better for themselves and better for New York also if they could deal direct with the metropolis.

This they desire to bring about to some degree if they can get acquainted to-day with Broadway -- the business part of Broadway. They also want to tell people that Tulsa can furnish 200,000,000 feet of natural gas every twenty-four hours at two cents per foot [per thousand feet, according to other stories] for manufacturing concerns which might find it convenient to establish there branches to take care of the great Southwestern trade.

It would be a great thing for Tulsa to gain a few thousand manufacturing jobs, but pathetic, needy, creepy gestures will not impress those who are selecting the site. So many of the people I've seen expressing enthusiasm for the Elon Musk mask on the Golden Driller or the vulgarly named website are also among those who frequently express shame and embarrassment about Oklahoma and our state's church-going ways. They seem to hope that Musk and company will come here to transform Tulsa into a progressive paradise, rather than to benefit from our conservative character. Perhaps that makes it hard for them simply to be dignified and confident in what our city and state has to offer.

Tulsa's leaders should emulate their predecessors from a century ago: Make Tulsa the best Tulsa we can be (not San Francisco or New York City or even Austin) and be confident enough in what we have to offer that we simply let the world know what they can find here, rather than grovelling in hopes of becoming something different.

MORE: The American Oil & Gas Historical Society has an article on the evolution of the Golden Driller, including the earlier, very different 1953 and 1959 versions for the International Petroleum Exposition (IPE). The present-day driller was built in 1966 alongside the permanent 9-acre IPE Building. This Land Press published the story of the permanent Golden Driller and its Greek immigrant designer, George Hondronastas. In dire shape, with a hole in his boot, the Driller escaped the wrecking ball and was refurbished in 1979.

Tulsa Gal, Atlas Obscura, Roadside America, and Wikipedia all have articles on the statue. Mental Floss ties the story of the Golden Driller into Tulsa's history as Oil Capital of the World. The Tulsa World has the story of Spooky, the cat who was rescued from the statue in 1976, at a time when the statue's skin was flimsier than it is now. Kent Schnetzler has posted a May 1966 photo of the Golden Driller, taken by his father, Robert Schnetzler, which shows the original, thinner shell of the statue, with the rebar grid clearly visible.

A scale replica of the Golden Driller stands in front of a 216 ft free-fall ride of the same name in Fraispertuis City amusement park in the historic province of Lorraine, in the northeast of France.

Rita Thurman Barnes, a Bartlesville local historian and newspaper columnist, recounts a Tulsa conversation that rubbed her the wrong way.

We made a very early trip to Tulsa this morning to get a belt for hubby's lawn mower. We left before breakfast so we could get there when the dealership opened and home to mow before the rain.

On the way back about 9:30 we stopped at a bakery and got a couple of donuts. We were making small talk while the clerk made change and I mentioned we were hungry and heading back to Bartlesville. She was an older lady, about my age, and she looked at me and said, "I've been up there a couple of times. It's such a 'cute little town'."

I don't know what rattled my cage but her comment didn't set right. I could be getting old and touchy but I want the town I'm spending the rest of my life in to be thought of as more than just "a cute little town".

I reminded her that Phillips 66 had its beginnings in Bartlesville as did what is now known as Citgo. I had to stop myself from preaching a sermonette about all the good things that go on here in town and how the lives of people around the state and even around the world have been impacted because of the research and development that continues to take place in Bartlesville in spite of some relocation to Houston.

We may be a small city tucked in the NE corner of Oklahoma but we matter and we contribute and for the most part we reach out to our neighbors and friends less fortunate and give from deep down in our pockets and from our hearts.

There's no doubt that Bartlesville punches above its weight, culturally and economically.

My earliest memories, mostly happy, are of Bartlesville -- walking to Johnstone Park playground past the Nellie Johnstone replica and the tank cannon and the steam engine, swimming at Sani-Pool, walking to the library, church, and the stores; the Play Tower and the amphitheater at Sooner Park; and of course the Kiddie Park. As an adult, I brought my family back annually for Kiddie Park visits (until the youngest got too tall) and OK Mozart concerts, often with supper at Mr. Limey's or Murphy's or Dink's, and always with a drive around town to point out where things used to be when I was a kid.

When I was five, my dad's employer, Cities Service, moved his job to Tulsa, and we were sad to leave Bartlesville. I've been told that Cities Service didn't feel welcome to expand its presence in Bartlesville, that efforts to build a world headquarters in the city were blocked. I have no way of knowing if that was true, but it certainly seemed like Bartlesville was a Phillips town, even though Cities Service's antecedent companies were there first. There was a frequently used jibe, "Cities Service makes me nervous. Phillips gives you better service." I'm sure Tulsa worked hard to woo the company as well.

How did Phillips get such a hold on the civic imagination of Bartlesville? I'm sure the moguls who led Cities did their share of philanthropy, but it seems like Frank Phillips was more generous, or at least more visibly generous, and flamboyant on top of it, enough so that the main east-west road through the city was renamed in his honor, and that he came to be known simply as Uncle Frank. (To my shame, I still haven't read Michael Wallis's biography of Phillips.)

In hindsight, I can't but wonder if Cities Service's move was an inflection point in Bartlesville's destiny. Had Cities Service felt that it was welcome to consolidate and grow in Bartlesville, other businesses would have sprung up as well, and perhaps it would be a city of 100,000 now, instead of bumping along in the mid-30s where it has been since 1980.

Comparing the population history of Bartlesville and Tulsa it looks like something happened in the early decades of the two cities to set them on different courses. Both grew dramatically in the first 20 years of the 20th century, but Tulsa grew twice as fast and kept growing into the 1920s as Bartlesville stagnated. Was Bartlesville limited by geography -- wedged between a flood-prone Caney River and the Osage boundary? Or was the Phillips dominance already enough to convey to energetic entrepreneurs that they'd have to go elsewhere to shine? Even Frank's brother, Waite Phillips, seems to have felt the need to move to Tulsa to make a name for himself, out from under Frank's shadow.

I confess this is speculation on my part, but it seems to me that if a city is dominated by a single businessman and philanthropist and by the company he founded, if the city's leading citizens all climbed the ladder with his help, people with dreams of making it big on their own might take their entrepreneurial energies elsewhere. The junior executives and non-profit leaders and city officials who advanced to influence and wealth through the good graces of the city Big Shot might feel threatened (more so than the Big Shot himself) by the rise of independently wealthy and powerful innovators, and they might use their influence over local government, real estate, and finance to frustrate potential rivals and encourage them to move elsewhere.

In the short run, a dominant businessman/philanthropist would give a city a certain stability and identity; in the long run, that dominance would deprive the city of dynamism, particularly after the founding Big Shot has left the scene, and the system he left behind becomes more about self-preservation than innovation and progress.

Michael Mason's excellent and exhaustive study, "The Kaiser System," has stirred some of these musings, and I hope to comment more in the near future.

Tulsa was once a city where W. G. Skelly, Josh Cosden, Harry Sinclair, Thomas Gilcrease, W. K. Warren, Waite Phillips, and many others made names for themselves in business and society in parallel with one another, in a dynamic environment where success and fame didn't require ingratiating oneself to the in-group. When that dynamism is lost, the city is poorer for it.

NOTE 2020/09/25: The brief excerpt above from an article by Rita Thurman Barnes is presented here under the Fair Use limitation on exclusive rights under Section 107 of the U. S. Copyright Law for the purpose of comment. No license or prior permission from the copyright owner is required to quote an excerpt within the boundaries of Fair Use. In all cases where I present a short quote from another publication for comment, I make no claim to ownership of the copyright of the material I am quoting. The copyright notice at the bottom of this page applies to my work here presented on BatesLine, not to quotations from other sources presented under the Fair Use exemption. Although these facts are generally known by people familiar with copyright law, I am stating it explicitly here to allay concerns in this particular instance.

MORE: Bartlesville historian Granger Meador has posted a scan of the program for the citywide celebration honoring Frank Phillips on his 66th birthday, November 28, 1939. Special trains carrying employees and special guests came from Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and Phillips, Texas, where they were greeted by members of the Jane Phillips Sorority serving breakfast. The morning was filled with tours and open houses at Woolaroc Ranch and Museum, company headquarters, research lab, US Bureau of Mines building, the Phillips company airport, Jane Phillips Sorority, and Phillips Men's Club. A birthday parade through downtown included a historical pageant depicting key episodes in Uncle Frank's life, all 21 departments of the company, Osage Indians, marching bands from high schools around the region, including Nowata, Dewey, Collinsville, and Coffeyville, and a drill team from the Tulsa sales division. Phillips was presented with a birthday cake at the Municipal Stadium, with a speech by Gov. Leon Phillips, and the festivities broadcast over KTUL in Tulsa, KOMA in Oklahoma City, KWFP in Wichita Falls, and KGNC in Amarillo. The evening festivities included a "continuous variety show" at the Civic Center, a basketball game at the new high school gym (built with financial support from Uncle Frank), a fireworks show at the stadium, and free dances at four different venues, plus (weather permitting) a street dance.

There ought to be a law that all social media posts about CCP Bat Virus must begin with the word "Aha!" Quite a few posts on the topic are there not so much as information, but as vindication for whatever theory or policy prescription the poster wishes to offer.

I've heard this stat in the title quoted many different ways, by people who want to prove that lockdowns are useless, and by people who want to prove that the CCP Bat Virus is so fierce that lockdowns aren't tough enough.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, when presenting the chart, "This is a surprise. Overwhelmingly the people were at home.... 66% of the people were at home, which was shocking to us."

The CNBC story that quoted Cuomo was headlined: "Cuomo says it's 'shocking' most new coronavirus hospitalizations are people who had been staying home"

"66% of hospitalizations in New York are from people sheltering in place," claims Tom Nikkola, who argues that stay-at-home orders and mask recommendations are for the purpose of behaviorally priming the populace for some nefarious reason.

Here's a sampling from a Twitter search -- the most recent relevant results at time of writing:

• @Daniel48240947: "Lockdown increased COVID in NY. 66 percent of new cases were caused by the lockdown."
• @jeffreywood709: "Cuomo himself stated that more than 66 percent of people in NY who contracted COVID where sheltered in their homes"
• @BryanGarner18: "#coronaviruses, I find it revealing that New York found that 66 percent of Covid Patients had been closed up inside. Is this a Legionaires air system phenomena. ? States allowing beach access are better off. NY needs UV light."
• @D4M4C4, replying to @NYGovCuomo: "If 66 percent of the people were home and still caught the covid virus...I would question your water quality. Your sewer quality too. New York needs infrastructure projects badly!"
• @DrjimPhifer: "Very important to note: 66 percent of new COVID-19 hospital admissions in NY were people who were self-isolating. These two individuals only left home to get groceries. Please use extreme caution!"

Let's look at the chart that was presented by Gov. Cuomo at a May 6, 2020, news conference.

Note the title and the choices on this slide:

SOURCES OF ADMISSION

Other 8%
Nursing Home 18%
Jail/Prison <1%
Homeless 2%
Home 66%
Congregate 2%
Assisted Living 4%

This is a list of the types of places people live, not how busy they were, not whether they sheltered in place or went on public transport or went to the supermarket.

A better way to read this: 66% of the people admitted to hospital for CCP Bat Virus were not homeless, in jail, living in a nursing home, assisted living, or living in any other sort of group housing.

Yet a simpler way to read this: 66% of the people admitted to hospital for CCP Bat Virus live in their own houses, apartments, or condos.

The chart does not convey any information about how much of the time admitted COVID-19 hospital patients had been spending at home or away from home, whether they wore masks or not, whether they maintained social distance or not. Just where they resided.

Bill Hammond, director of health policy for the Empire Center, a free-market think tank serving New York State, was the first one I noticed pointing this out on Twitter.

This question seems to be about where people live, not what they do. On that basis, people living at home are significantly *underrepresented,* as you would expect.

Hammond goes on to point out:

The stat that jumps out at me is nursing homes. They house about 100,000 NYers, which is roughly 0.5% of the population, yet they account for 18% of hospitalizations.

It's not necessarily shocking, but it confirms that NH residents are at dramatically higher risk.

New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz commented:

After reading your thread I now think the highlight on the 66% number was to cover up the 18% nursery [sic] home number.

After listening to Cuomo's remarks a few more times, I'm inclined to agree. As he presents the slide, he says:

This is a surprise. Overwhelmingly the people were at home. Where there's been a lot of speculation about this, a lot of people again had opinions, a lot of people have been arguing where they come from, and where we should be focusing, but if you notice, 18% of the people came from nursing homes, less than 1% came from jail or prison, 2% came from the homeless population, 2% from other congregate facilities, but 66% of the people were at home, which is shocking to us.

The italics indicate Cuomo raising his vocal pitch in emphasis. Rhetorically, he's trying to sweep under the rug the truly shocking number -- 0.5% of the population are the source of 18% of hospital admissions for CCP Bat Virus. The beginning of his remarks suggest that he's about to reveal a number which will undermine the public chatter about the shameful number of people in care homes who have become victims of this disease.

I had thought that many more people would notice what Hammond had noticed, and that the "66% were at home" misreading would quickly be corrected. But here we are eight days later, and I'm still seeing and hearing claims like 66% of hospitalizations were of people who were welded into their apartments and washed their hands a hundred times a day.

As far as I have been able to find, the data set for this survey has not been released. It is not on the State of New York's health data website. The only information we have about it is the slide deck Andrew Cuomo presented on May 6, which in turn was the source for all the news stories written about it. We don't know who conducted the survey, how the questions were presented, or what definitions were provided for the responses to each question. And yet hot take after hot take has been built atop a misreading of the data, or worse, a misreading of someone else's misreading of someone else's misreading.

Moral of the story: Before you quote a statistic, take the time to find out exactly where the number came from and as many specifics as you can about the basis for the number.

MORE: Interestingly, the New York Times ignored the housing chart altogether in their coverage of the survey and Cuomo's news conference. Was it because they didn't want to highlight the horrific nursing home number, because they were confused about the significance of the chart, or because they didn't want to expose Cuomo's mishandling of the chart?

The German war is therefore at an end. After years of intense preparation, Germany hurled herself on Poland at the beginning of September, 1939; and, in pursuance of our guarantee to Poland and in agreement with the French Republic, Great Britain, the British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations, declared war upon this foul aggression. After gallant France had been struck down we, from this Island and from our united Empire, maintained the struggle single-handed for a whole year until we were joined by the military might of Soviet Russia, and later by the overwhelming power and resources of the United States of America.

Finally almost the whole world was combined against the evil-doers, who are now prostrate before us. Our gratitude to our splendid Allies goes forth from all our hearts in this Island and throughout the British Empire.

We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution. We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King!

So concluded Winston Churchill's announcement to the British people of the utter defeat of Nazi Germany. The news launched two solid days of rejoicing throughout Britain.

America welcomed the news, but the war with Japan continued, and the country was still in mourning for the death of President Roosevelt less than a month earlier.

When he repeated his remarks to the House of Commons, he appended an appreciation for his parliamentary colleagues of all parties, for maintaining "the liveliness of Parliamentary institutions" as well as unity and perseverance in the face of war:

We have all of us made our mistakes, but the strength of the Parliamentary institution has been shown to enable it at the same moment to preserve all the title-deeds of democracy while waging war in the most stern and protracted form. I wish to give my hearty thanks to men of all Parties, to everyone in every part of the House where they sit, for the way in which the liveliness of Parliamentary institutions has been maintained under the fire of the enemy, and for the way in which we have been able to persevere-and we could have persevered much longer if need had been-till all the objectives which we set before us for the procuring of the unlimited and unconditional surrender of the enemy had been achieved.

He concluded by putting a motion before the House:

I recollect well at the end of the last war, more than a quarter of a century ago, that the House, when it heard the long list of the surrender terms, the armistice terms, which had been imposed upon the Germans, did not feel inclined for debate or business, but desired to offer thanks to Almighty God, to the Great Power which seems to shape and design the fortunes of nations and the destiny of man; and I therefore beg, Sir, with your permission to move:

That this House do now attend at the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster, to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God for our deliverance from the threat of German domination.

This is the identical Motion which was moved in former times.

A great many events were planned for this weekend, and nearly all of them have had to be cancelled because of the CCP Bat Virus. Britons were encouraged go to their doorsteps to join in a toast to the nation at 3 pm, and to sing along with "We'll Meet Again" after the Queen's broadcast at 9 pm.

This playlist begins with a British Movietone newsreel of V-E Day in London, including excerpts of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's broadcast announcing Germany's unconditional surrender, the procession of the House of Commons to a service of Thanksgiving across the street at St. Margaret's Church, V-E Day celebrations, appearances of the Royal Family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, and King George VI's address to the nation. There follows the complete seven-minute Churchill radio address, then what looks like the raw footage of Churchill's speech that British Pathé included in the Movietone newsreel. There is a seven-minute silent color film of London on V-E Day from the US National Archives.

Next up, film from the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1995, featuring the "Sweetheart of the Forces," Dame Vera Lynn, then 78 years old, performing the songs that inspired the Allied nations through World War II. She was joined by Harry Secombe and Cliff Richard for a sing-song in front of Buckingham Palace. Three of the four royals who had appeared on the balcony in 1945 appeared again in 1995: Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret.

Finally, from today's commemorations in COVID-19 lockdown: The Queen's address to the nation; the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge speak to World War II veterans in a care home; and today's concert from the Royal Albert Hall, with Katherine Jenkins performing for an empty arena, closed because of the CCP Bat Virus.

One phrase in Queen Elizabeth's speech might have been merely a reference to those still living who remember that day, but it could also be taken as an allusion to her incognito excursion with her sister Princess Margaret to join the celebrating throng, a night that included joining a conga line at the Ritz Hotel. A Daily Mail timeline of V-E celebrations around Britain has more details of the princesses' adventure.

For some reason, the ability to add this to the playlist above, but here, from the Royal Family's YouTube channel, is King George VI's V-E Day broadcast to the Empire.

MORE:

Dame Vera Lynn, who lives with her daughter and son-in-law in Ditchling, Sussex, raised a glass to salute the 75th anniversary and joined in the national sing-a-long of "We'll Meet Again" following the Queen's address. (Prof. Kate McLoughlin recounts a memorable interview with Dame Vera in 2005.)

Westminster Abbey recalls its role in the celebration of V-E Day, and the steps it took to protect its treasures during the war. The order of service of Thanksgiving for Victory began with this bidding from the minister to the congregation:

Brethren, we are met together on this day to pour out our hears in fervent thanksgiving to the God and Father of us all, and to dedicate ourselves afresh to the service of his Kingdom. We desire to thank him for deliverance from the hand of our enemies; for the devotion, even to death, of those who for the five years past have stood between us and slavery; and for the hopes of a better world for all his people. I bid you, therefore, lift up your hears that you may tell the praises of our God, and pray that his wisdom may lead us, and his Spirit strengthen us, in the days that are to come.

Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us:
but unto thy Name give the praise.
The Lord hath done great things for us already:
whereof we rejoice.
Praise the Lord, O my soul:
and forget not all his benefits.

The service included the National Anthem and the hymns "Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven," "Rejoice, O Land, in God Thy Might," and "Before the Almighty Father's Throne." The congregation, kneeling, recited a Solemn Dedication:

Let us, as our best and only worthy thanksgiving, lay our lives before God in penitence for the past and resolve for the future, and dedicate ourselves anew to his service that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.

The short service of Thanksgiving, offered hourly in Westminster Abbey on V-E Day, included the Doxology, "All People That on Earth Do Dwell," "Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven," "O God, Our Help in Ages Past," and "Now Thank We All Our God." One of the prayers offered was adapted from President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, including the words, "With malice toward none, with charity toward all."