Events of the Month
Improvement Era, vol. 2, no. 1, November 1898, pp. 79 to 80
Hull, Thomas
EVENTS OF THE MONTH. BY THOMAS HULL, SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL BOARD OF Y. M. M. I. A.
September l%th: Miss Winnie Davis, daughter of Jefferson Davis, and known as the " Daughter of the Confederacy, " dies at Narragansett, Rhode Island. 19th: The war department orders reinforcements to Manila and an order is issued directing that 6,500 men lying at San Francisco be sent at once. * * * Dispatches from Manila state that it is asserted there that an attempt was made on the 16th instant to assassinate the insurgent leader, Aguinaldo, by poisoning soup intended for him. The plot was discovered by a steward, who upon tasting the soup fell dead. 22nd: Fillipe Agoncillo and Jose Lopez, representatives of the provisional government of the Philippines, arrive at San Francisco on their way to Washington to petition for the independence of the islands. They will also place their petition before the Powers of Europe. * * * An imperial edict just issued in Pekin, China, definitely announces that the Emperor of China has resigned his power to the Empress ( Dowager Empress), who has ordered the ministers to deliver to her, in future, their ofiicial reports. * * * The situation in Paris, France, assumes a very grave aspect on account of the Dreyfus affair, and fears of serious conflict between the authorities are entertained. 23rd: A peremptory message has been sent to the Cuban military commission to the effect that the Spaniards must evacuate Cuba immediately. 24th: The commission appointed to investigate the conduct of the war department during the Spanish-American war holds its first meeting in Washington. Major-General Granville M. Dodge was elected chairman of the commission. * * * The Spanish ship "Infanta Maria Teresa" sunk in the fight off Santiago on July 3rd, having been floated, arrives at Guantanamo. 25th: The hotel and buildings at Beck's Hot Springs, Salt Lake City, are entirely destroyed by flre. 26th: Major-General J. Ford Kent returns to Salt Lake City from the war. * * * Fanny Davenport, the famous actress dies at her home in Duxbury, Mass. * * * The Commission appointed to investigate the war department holds its flrst business session behind closed doors. * * * The ashes of Christopher Columbus are exhumed in Havana preparatory to their shipment to Spain. * * * The French cabinet decides in favor of a revision of the Dreyfus case. 27th: Theodore Roosevelt, colonel of Rough Riders, who served at
Santiago, is nominated by the Eepublicans for Governor of New York.
- Wm. J. Bryan is lying sick with a low fever in Washington, D. C. 28th: Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State during Cleveland's first
term and Embassador to England during his second term, dies at Karistein, Mass. 29th: Queen Louise of Denmark dies at Copenhagen. 30th: The Twenty-fourth United States Infantry reaches Salt Lake on its return from Santiago. * * * Forest fires devastate portions of Colorado and Wisconsin. October 1st: A special dispatch published in London, England, states that telegrams furnished by the governor of Shanghai allege that the Emperor of China committed suicide on September 21st. This is understood to mean that the Emperor was assassinated. 2nd: A terrific storm sweeps the Georgia and South Carolina coasts. Wind blew for eighteen hours at fifty to seventy miles an hour. Fifty to one hundred lives were lost and immense damage done to property. 5th:The third national Eisteddfod opens its sessions in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City. * * * ^ serious battle occurs between the Pillager Indians and United States troops near Leech Lake, Minnesota reservation. The soldiers had been taken to the reservation to aid the United States marshal in serving warrants. 6th: The Sixty-ninth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens in Salt Lake City. 9th: The Sixty-ninth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints closes. At the afternoon session Lorenzo Snow is sustained as Prophet, Seer, and Revelator and President of the Church, with George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith as his Counselors. Rudger Clawson is chosen to fill the vacancy which existed in the quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 11th: President McKinley arrives in Omaha to visit the Trans- Mississippi Exposition. 12th: At Virden, 111., where a miners' strike is on, a clash occurs between the union and non-union men, on the arrival of a train with two hundred negro miners, and fourteen men are killed and twenty wounded. 13th: Governor Tanner, of Illinois, refuses to allow negro miners to land from the cars at Virden, 111., and the officials of the Chicago and Alton Railway Company threaten to take steps to obtain legal redress. 14th: The new Stake Tabernacle which was nearing completion at Richfield, Sevier County, is entirely destroyed by fire. The loss will exceed $30,000. * * * The Atlantic Transport Company's steamer Mohegan is wrecked off the Lizard on the south-west coast of England, and one hundred and sixteen persons are drowned. 16th: The National Peace Jubilee opens in Chicago. President McKinley is in attendance. 17th: The Presbyterian synod of Utah at its closing session in Ogden, passes resolutions declaring that polygamy is practiced in Utah, and calling on people everywhere in the United States to begin the necessary agitation to memorialize Congress for a Constitutional amendment declaring monogamic marriage the only legal form and forbidding polygamous marriage.