--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - J. M. Tanner collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 5 number: 8 published: 1902-06 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'J. M. Tanner, "Some Leading Events in the Current Story of the World," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 8 (June 1902): 619–623.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0508unse start_page: 619 end_page: 623 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0508unse publication_year: 1902 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Some Leading Events in the Current Story of the World SOME LEADING EVENTS IN THE CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. BY DR. J. M. TANNER, SUPERINTENDENT OP CHURCH SCHOOLS. The Spirit of Modern Education. The recent inauguration of President Nicholas Murray Butler of Co- lumbia University is another evidence of the exalted position which those men occupy who stand at the head of the great universities of our land. The occasion was graced by the President of the United States. University pres- idents were there to give added brilliance and importance to the notable event Distinguished men of our country recognized the honor that had been . conferred upon the new head of that great institution, and hastened to pay their tribute in appropriate expressions to the man. In times past, political honors have been so pronounced and so superior that the ablest men of our country have sought them in preference to all others. The last twenty-five years have witnessed a remarkable change in the senti- ment which exalted political honors above all others. In the eastern world, men and women are born kings and queens, and rule by the right of birth over their fellow-man. In this country, political combinations determine the political honors of the nation; but neither birthright nor political combinations are permitted to place the crown of honor upon the head of genius. The great inventors and promoters of our commercial life,with all its enterprises, stand forth as the mightiest spirits of the age, and behind all, and giving direction and force to the genius and in- tellectual powers of man today, stand the great institutions of learning; and there are not a few of our countrymen who believe that the honor of standing at the head of one of our great educational institutions is today as great as that which comes to the President of the United States. The case of President Butler's inauguration is not without its in- terest to the Latter-day Saints, whose ideas of education are peculiar, in that they aim to educate the feelings as well as the mind or thoughts of 620 IMPROVEMENT ERA. men. So that the President of the United States today has no profounder interest in the education which promotes a high standard of citizenship in our country than the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat- ter-day Saints has for that education which not only promotes a high standard of citizenship in our nation but also prepares man for an exalta- tion and place in the Kingdom of God. A great day is coming to Zion, when men, who appreciate the character of the education which her schools are intended to give, will bestow, in the generosity of their souls, abundant favor upon her institutions of learning, as some have been dis- posed to do in the past. It is not, therefore, too much to expect that some day the Saints will enjoy the prestige of a great university wherein the foremost of her devoted sons of genius and learning will dedicate their best efforts, their love, and their lives, to that ideal education which looks to the whole life of man, both in this world and in the world to come. The schools of the Church are growing dearer and dearer, and nearer and nearer, to the Saints everywhere; and out of them, there are daily marching the standard bearers of God's revelation of truth to man. The scene today may not be so pretentious when the President of the Church stands before a body of students, in one of our institutions of learning, as when the president of a great university is inaugurated, but the Lat- ter-day Saints cherish the assurance that the occasion, after all, ia farther-reaching in its consequences. The Volcanic Eruptions in the West Indies. On May 10, the public journals announced that one of the most aw- ful catastrophes that had ever befallen the human race had taken place on the island of Martinique, one of the Lesser Antilles, in the West Indies. This island belongs to France. The small islands of the Lesser Antilles consist largely of volcanic cones that are built upon mountain ridges which are generally submerged beneath the ocean. One of the volcanic cones of Martinique is known as Mt. Pelee. This mountain is located in the north end of the island, and is four thousand four hundred and thirty feet high. While it is a volcano, it is seldom active, though an eruption occurred there in 1851. However, the long silence was broken on May 3, 4, and 5. In the words of the Associated Press, it is said: "On May 8, it began to throw out dense clouds of smoke. At midnight the same day flames, accompanied with rumbling noises, lighted the sky over an immense area, causing widespread terror. May 4, ashes covered the whole city of St. Pierre an inch thick, and made Mont Pelee invisible. At noon, May 5, a stream of burning lava rushed four thousand four hun- CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 621 dred feel down the mountain side, following the dry bed of a torrent and reaching the sea five miles from the mountain in three minutes." The island is one of the most thickly populated regions in the world, averaging something like four hundred and sixty souls to the square mile. Its principal city is called St. Pierre, and is said to have some twenty-four thousand population. Practically, all the inhabitants of the city have been swept out of existence, and it is estimated that the sur- vivors within the zone of this great destruction cannot number more than a few hundred souls. It is estimated that fully forty thousand people perished. What appears now to add to the horror of this great destruction of human life is the announcement that the island of St. Vincent is threat- ened with a similar fate, as there is a volcanic eruption from its volcano, La Soufriere. One of these islands belongs to France, the other to Eng- land. Just what the total loss of life will be from these volcanic erup- tions will perhaps never be accurately known. It is the greatest destruction of human life since the tidal wave of Lisbon, which in 1755 drowned sixty thousand men, women, and children. The catastrophe is •certainly greater than that which befell Pompeii and Herculaneum, more than eighteen hundred years ago. Then, the inhabitants were warned, and those of Pompeii, who lost their lives, suffered from their own dila- toriness or from their efforts to secure money, jewels, and household goods, which were left behind. Those who have perished at Martinique had no opportunity whatever to escape. It seems that the great volcano that overhung the town suddenly burst asunder. Lava, burning stone, steam and ashes, fell upon the city, and within a few minutes the whole- sale destruction of human life was complete. One description says that "A mass of fire fell on the city and completely destroyed it." Lava cannot flow down a mountain side as swiftly as water, and it is difficult to comprehend how the ordinary flow of lava could cover something like four thousand four hundred feet in so short a time. If the time required to complete this work of destruction is given correctly, it would seem more consistent to say that the fire rained like a tempest upon all the country round, rather than flowed as lava usually does down the moun- tain side. When the imperfect accounts that now reach us of this awful catastrope are completed and corrected, we shall doubtless have one of the most appalling records of human destruction that the world has ever known. The Wat in Sooth Africa. At this writing (May 15) strong hopes are entertained that terms 622 IMPROVEMENT ERA. of peace may be agreed upon by the English and Boers. It is said that some of the Boer generals feel that a further struggle would be useless, and are submitting to the Boer soldiers by popular vote the question of surrender on terms that have not yet been made public. May 15 is the date set for taking the ballot of the soldiers. It is to be hoped, in the interests of humanity, in the interests of commerce, and in the interests of the nations involved, that the war may be brought to a close on terms honorable to England, and not humiliating to the Boers. When peace again prevails in South Africa, a new impetus will be given to the commerce and development of that country. The construc- tion of the railroad, to extend from Alexandria in the north of Africa to Capetown in the south, will unquestionably go on even though one of its chief promoters, Mr. Cecil Rhodes, is dead. It will be difficult to esti- mate the great work of developing African resources that will be done when this railroad is completed. The entire distance across Africa, from north to south, is something like five thousand miles, and nearly three thousand miles of this distance has already been spanned by railroads leaving a gap of some two thousand miles to be filled in. Some of the richest country in the world lies along the route of this projected rail- road, and will be developed as soon as the railroad is completed. The country abounds in gold and diamonds, is celebrated for its palm products, its rubber, copper, iron, and coal. The agricultural resources of Africa are barely touched. In Africa, today, there are something like twelve thousand five hundred miles of railroad, and by far more than one-half of The brain that conceived this stupendous this is in British territory. work of a Cape-to-Cairo railway has recently succumbed to the hand of death, and one need not be surprised that the newspapers and periodicals of both America and Europe still continue to discuss the place in history which Cecil Rhodes has occupied, and is likely to occupy in the future. Admiral Sampson. The recent death of Admiral Sampson will again revive the interest which has attached to him as Commander of the North Atlantic Squadron, that was sent out to blockade the Cuban ports. Admiral Sampson was born at Palmyra, New York, February 9, 1840, and was graduated at the Naval Academy, Annapolis, in 1860. After the destruction of our battle- ship Maine, in the harbor of Havana, he was made one of the board of inquiry regarding the cause of its destruction; andwhen the war broke out with Spain, he was made a rear-admiral, and was commissioned com- modore July 3, 1898, and rear-admiral August 10, of the same year. The squadron under his command shut up the Spanish fleet under CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 623 Admiral Cervera, in the harbor of Santiago, Cuba. For some days, our ships had been in uncertainty as to the whereabouts of Admiral Cervera and his fleet, and while General Shafter was attacking the city of San- tiago, Sampson went ashore to confer with the general about making an attack on the city. While the admiral was thus absent from his fleet, Cervera under took toescape, and the battle of Santiago was fought, July 3, 1898. The victory was one of the most decisive, complete, and bril- liant in the annals of naval warfare. The fleet, when Admiral Sampson left,was confided to the command of Admiral Schley, yet the President styles it "a battle of the captains." At any rate Admiral Sampson's ab- sence deprived him of enjoying the honors of hero worship which would certainly have come to him, had he been present to assume the command when the Spanish fleet was destroyed. The disputes that subsequently arose over popular efforts to fix the honors upon Sampson and Schley respectively, have become matters of such notoriety as to be familiar to all the readers of the Era; and the question of who was entitled to the honors of that battle will be dis- cussed by future historians, and when the spirit of partisanship has died out, a more impartial and juster verdict will be rendered than is possible to render today.The source of his absence, however, at the critical mo- ment must always have been a circumstance of the profoundest regret to Admiral Sampson. The Schley investigation, and the decision by the President that it was a battle of the captains, must naturally have in- tensified Sampson's disappointment. The admiral might easily have won a foremost place in the hearts of his countrymen, and have become a hero of naval warfare, had it not been for the circumstance of his temporary absence at a critical moment. The lesson of his disappointment is not without its moral, for many a man has felt the disappointment which has come in life from a failure to be at the right place at the right time. The battle of Santiago, in many of its aspects, surpasses in brilliancy that fought by Dewey in Manila Bay. There are many who will easily believe that Admiral Sampson's death was in some measure the result of the disappointment which he must have felt when the battle of Santiago was fought without his pres- ence and guiding hand. Sampson was a man of lofty character, scholarly, and of marked superiority. His unexpected death will do much to allay those partisan feelings that have arisen over the question as to who was in command of the North Atlantic Squadron in the battle of Santiago.