--- 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: 7 number: 1 published: 1903-11 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* 7, no. 1 (November 1903): 42–51.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0701unse 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: improvementera0701unse start_page: 42 end_page: 51 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0701unse publication_year: 1903 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 1903, 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 OF CHURCH SCHOOLS. The Open Shop. Shall the government of the United States keep an open shop? That is the question. Shall it permit men to enter its employment without respect to their membership in the unions? If the unions become sufficiently strong, they may make that question an issue, and keep all men from enjoying the exalted office of President of the United States who will not pledge themselves to shut the door of employment in the face of every man who is not a recognized member of the union. A Mr. W. A. Miller was a foreman in the printing office of the United States. The union said that the binding of ten volumes a day should be the maximum work required in the government bindery. Mr. Mnler thought that twelve or even thirteen volumes would not be an unreasonable requirement, and more in keeping with what men do in private institutions. For this breach of duty to the union, further membership in that body was denied him; and the union succeeded in having him removed from his office. Upon his appeal to the President of the United States, President Roosevelt reinstated Mr, Miller, and declared that a membership in the union could not be made a test by the government of the United States in the choice of its employees. Unionism is now defining its position, in a circular sent out by the Washington Central Labor Bureau with the endorsement of the American Federation of Labor. The different bodies CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 43 constituting the Federation of Labor claim a membership of two and a half million working men. This circular expresses the dis- pleasure of the unions over the President's attitude toward unionism. The gist of the circular is found in the following resolution: Whereas, the President of the United States has seen tit to reinstate W. A. Miller, who is an expelled member of trades organization, notwith- standing the overwhelming evidence of his moral turpitude, and has also committed himself to the policy of the open shop, as shown by his letters. "Resolved, That the order of the President cannot be regarded in any but an unfriendly light." The question of Mr. Miller's morals was apparently an after- thought, or side issue. Miller's reinstatement was strictly on the ground that the government could not discriminate in favor of unionism; and the President has given offense by "committing himself to the policy of the open shop." If the unions make war on the President, they may certainly endanger his prospects for re-election. Two and a half million voters would constitute a formidable electoral army confronting a candidate for presidential honors. Only a short time ago, President Roosevelt was the hero of unionism when he interceded in the coal strike to bring about a settlement between the operators and the strikers. This rapid shifting on the part of unionism illustrates the fickle conditions of a large part of public sentiment in this country. It is an age of social and industrial cyclones. No one can tell what the morrow may bring forth. Such great political, social, and industrial uncertainties must, sooner or later, give rise to in- stability in the institutions of our country, if present untoward con- ditions in this country move as rapidly in the future as they have moved in the past. The dangers of such instability may have no dire- ful effects in the immediate future, but such conditions illustrate the grave possibilities which may suddenly and at any time be realized in such social, political, and industrial revolutions as the world has never witnessed. On September 30, the President granted an interview with 44 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the executive council ofthe Federation of Labor, and, concerning the Miller case, made the following statement, after thanking the committee for their courtesy, and assuring them that he would always be glad to see them or other representatives of labor. But he told them his decision was final, and the government will not discriminate against non-union labor: As regards the Miller case, I have little to add to what I have already said. In dealing with it I ask you to remember that I am dealing purely with the relation of the Government to its employees. I must govern my action by the laws of the land which I am sworn to administer, and which differentiate any case in which the Government of the United States is a party from all other cases whatsoever. These laws are en- acted for the benefit of the whole people, and cannot and must not be construed as permitting discrimination against some of the people. I am President of all the people of the United States without regard to creed, color, birthplace, occupation or social conditions. My aim is to do equal and exact justice as among them all. In the employ- ment and dismissal of men in the Government service, I can no more recognize the fact that a man does or does not belong to a union, as being for or against him, than I can recognize the fact that he is a Protestant or a Catholic, a Jew or a Gentile, as being for or against him. It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of the free institutions of America that a committee, representing two and a half millions of working men, should call upon the President and seriously advocate to him the justice of closing the doors of re- munerative employment in the faces of all men who are not members of some union. It is doubtful that a single ruler in the world ever urged measures so drastic against human rights. It clearly indicates that there may be gross tyranny in large masses as well as in individual sovereigns. The extreme, yet logical result of such a demand might be the utter starvation of all men who would not yield to the coercion of unionism, and with them the starvation of their wives and children. Political Affairs in England. England is now undergoing a political and economical revolu- tion that has not been equaled since the days of her adoption of CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 45 free trade. For a long time she has felt herself crowded here and there from the markets of the world. Other countries are show- ing wonderful increases in their exports while England shows none. To-day, her exports are twenty per cent, less than they were thirty years ago, while the United States has increased more than two hundred per cent, in that time, and Germany more than one hundred per cent. Russia charges an average tariff against Great Britain of one hundred and thirty per cent. the United ; States, seventy-two per cent.; Austria, thirty-two per cent.; France, thirty per cent. ; Italy, twenty-seven per cent. ; Germany, twenty- five per cent.; Canada, ten per cent.; Belgium, thirteen per cent., and Australia, seven per cent. The most discouraging feature of it all is, to find herself hard pressed in her own colonies, such as Canada and Australia, by such competing nations as the United States and Germany. For years there have been mutterings against the tariff system of Great Britain; but in that empire free trade has been a sort of political idealism, against which no man's voice could be heard. For years England, however, has felt herself loosing ground. Lately, Joseph Chamberlain, one of England's strongest personal factors in polit- ical life, announced his conversion to a modified form of tariff. He did not come out and repudiate free trade, but attached a tariff string to it; he would enter into treaty relations with the provinces of Great Britain, whereby absolute free trade could ex- ist between England and such colonies as Canada and Australia; and then he would erect a tariff barrier against other countries. In the first place, this would mean that England would put a tariff on our wheat, and let in Canadian wheat free; but the free traders felt alarmed at such a proposition, for they believed that as Canada could not furnishall the wheat England needed, Canadian wheat would cost as much as our wheat after a tariff had been added to it. Mr. Balfour, the Prime Minister, became a convert to Mr. Cham- berlain's policy of partial protection, though Mr. Balfour was much more conservative than Mr. Chamberlain. It was finally decided that Mr. Chamberlain should resign; but, it apoears now, that his decision to resign was accompanied by a plan that kept him in the Balfour cabinet, until those members of the cabinet who were 46 IMPROVEMENT ERA. uncompromisingly free traders, and opposed to Mr. Chamberlain's policy, should first withdraw, as they could not consistently serve in the cabinet along with Mr, Chamberlain. It now looks as though the voters of England would undergo a re-alignment along political lines. There are undoubtedly many conservatives and many liberals who will go with Mr. Chamberlain. If the number becomes sufficiently powerful to constitute a political party, political divisions in Great Britian will be entirely changed within the next few years. If England becomes a protection country, free trade will have lost its last exponent. Manufacturing committees in the past have said that England's loss in the markets of the world was due to old and relegated methods; that machinery was not up-to-date, and should be thrown into the scrap pile. Committees of scientists have made investigations, and de- clared that what England needed was better laboratories, schools of technology, and that technical education would solve the prob- lem. Mr. Chamberlain now comes along and says that tariff is the remedy. The present political contest in Great Brstain is one of the most interesting and significant that ever came to that country. Cured in Graves. Up in the mountainous country of Morris County, New Jersey, there is a sort of sanitarium called Bethesda, where people go dur- ing the summer season to be cured by mother earth. This sani- tarium is under the charge of a Newark physician named Charles W. Lauterwasser who is an ardent disciple of the German physician, Adolph Just, whose sanitarium, in the Hartz mountains, attracts thousands of people who tell of the wonderful cures effected by his treatment of outdoor life in that region. The New Jersey sanitarium is certainly a novelty, and illustrates the fact that the methods of treating diseases increase with the number and variety of afflictions that come to the human family. Mr. Lauterwasser receives patients suffering from rheumatism, consumption, kidney trouble, and a great variety of diseases, and subjects them to a drastic treatment of what he calls nature's cure —a cure brought about by a living resembling that of the animal world. As soon as a patient reaches the camp, he is required to CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 47 abandon his clothing, live on a simple diet, consisting of uncooked fruits, nuts, graham bread, and sweet butter and milk. But the strangest feature of the treatment consists of the bed which the patient prepares and sleeps in. He first digs a sort of a grave in the earth, a foot or two deep; the loose virgin soil, at the bottom of the grave, is carefully raked so as to remove twigs, sticks, or rocks that might prove excessively uncomfortable to the body. The ground is so curved as to fit the shape of the body. When evening comes, the patient gets down into his little grave, and is covered with a blanket. At first it is said he is troubled by the crawling, creeping sensation of bugs and worms which he imagines are creeping about his body. This, it is explained, is the electric- ity of mother earth, the powerful factor in eliminating the disease. For the first night or two, it is said that the patient is unable to sleep, but he soon overcomes the strange feelings that such a treatment creates; and, though he may not have more than five or six hours sleep after he becomes accustomed to his new bed, he nevertheless arises in the morning thoroughly rested. In a few days, nausea and depressed feelings set in, and the patient becomes ill. This is said to be the crisis and that the body is now purging itself of its weakness. Some persons develop boils, and others, per- haps, are sick at the stomach for days. Soon these trying con- ditions pass away, and while the patient may feel weak, he is im- proved in health. After a while, the patient discovers that the sensation of sleeping in mother earth is agreeable, though his sleep is said to resemble that of animals; it is never very sound; he awakens at the slightest rustle of the leaves or other movements about him. In the morning the patient arises, goes to the river near by, and takes a sitz bath, after which he is rubbed dry by an attend- ant. During the day the patients are put in mud packs for two or three hours. If they are suffering from consumption, mud is packed over the lungs; if from some nervous disease, it is packed along the spinal column; if he suffers from kidney troubles, the back is encased in clay. After the patient is thus packed, he is put back again into a new grave where he lies for two or three hours. This is substantially the complete treatment. During the rest of the time, patients roam about the camp or 48 IMPROVEMENT ERA. forest at their pleasure, of course, always without clothes. It is said that sleeping thus in mother earth has become quite pleasant to those who have recovered through this treatment from the diseases that afflicted them, and that they return often during the summer season to spend their vacation in the mountains, where they can sleep so restfully and pleasantly in the soil. During the winter season, the patients return to their homes where, it is claimed, they experience the beneficial effects of their summer's treatment. The Situation in the Balkan. It was pointed out by the writer in the October number of the Era that the solution of the Turkish question was by no means so easy as many people supposed. There can be no question that reforms in the government are sadly needed, and that the Turkish rule is not desirable, and especially where it touches modern civil- ization. It is ancient, corrupt, and oppressive. But misrepresen- tation of the Turk in the long run only retards the work of reform. The Great Powers have concluded to delegate to Austria and Russia the right and freedom of reforming Turkish rule in Macedonia. England has been more yielding in the matter than ever before. Russia and Austria have made their demands, and outlined a pro- gram by which it was intended to bring about necessary reforms. From the standpoint of democratic institutions, and the highest ideals of human rights, it must be confessed that the selection of these two powers in some respects was most unfortunate. They are both despotic governments, and are both vastly more intoler- able than the Turk. The Turk will take bribes, and lay a heavy tax burden on the people, but he is neither so intolerant nor oppres- sive as the Russians or Austrians. One of the great troubles with the Turk is that he is both poor and weak. There is more religious liberty and toleration in Turkey than in either Austria or Russia. The work delegated to these two powers was due largely to their close proximity to Turkey. Force might be necessary, and they were in the best position to exercise it. Again, if it became necessary for the Great Powers to set up any claims, in case a par- tition of the territory of Macedonia became necessary, the rights of Russia and Austria would be, of course, foremost. None of the other Great Powers cares to undertake a controling influence over CURRENT STORY OF TEE WORLD. 49 any of the Slavonic peoples in south-eastern Europe, nor would any of the other Powers care to undertake their government. In the case, therefore, of war, it would mean Turkey on one side, with Austria and Russia on the other. These Powers have already in- formed both Turkey and Bulgaria that in case they went to war neither could hope for any enlargement of its territory. The dual powers called to treat with Turkey have been persistent in their warnings to the Sultan; and it is not impossible that such compli- cations may arise as will lead to war between Turkey on the one side and Russia and Austria on the other. Bulgaria is sending out delegates to the great nations of the earth begging them to intercede in behalf of Macedonia. The United States has no visible ground for interference, and all the other great nations have fully determined to give Austria and Russia a free hand. Such appeals are, therefore, not likely to be of any avail.Many people wonder why some of the Great Powers do not step in and put a summary end to Turkish misrule. They talk as though it would be an easy matter; that it would mean simply a sending of a small army corps into Macedonia, and the whole thing would end in short order in the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. The world has just had an astounding lesson in the unexpected powers of defense, in a country attacked by a foreign nation, in the case of the Boer war. The Turks are in all proba- bility every whit as good fighters as the Boers, and they would have the same dogged persistency. The work of expelling the Turks from Europe might easily cost half a million lives to the country or countries undertaking it, as well as an enormous treasury. The world had a lesson of the fighting powers of Turkey in the war between that country and Russia, in 1877. Turkey can put in the field, today, an army probably double the size it was then, and vastly better trained and equipped. The highest military strategists in the world have been training and educating the Turk- ish army for the past twenty-five years. The great German mili- tary officer and author of military works. Von Golz, has been the Turkish adviser for many years; and it may be safely predicted now that if the Turks do go to war they will certainly surprise the world, as the Boers did, although it may be as safely predicted that 50 IMPROVEMENT ERA. in the end they will be defeated. Whoever sticks his hand in the fire is going to be horribly burned, even if the desirable chestnuts be pulled out. Again, the Great Powers understand perfectly well how exas- perating the Bulgarians have been toward the Turks, and that they are blameworthy, and are unnecessarily responsible for the horrors that now characterize the revolution in Macedonia. Recently the church ministers of England appealed to Prime Minister Balfour, expressing the anxiety of church men over the sufferings of the Macedonians. In my last article on the question, in the October Era, I said that if the Great Powers believed half the stories that were sent out they would certainly have interfered, and that they understood very well that the Bulgarians were very greatly to blame themselves. Mr. Balfour's words to the ministers confirms this view of the case, in the following very truthful reply which he makes, and which shows why no more can be done than is now taking place: We have to pass judgment on men, not angels, and if outrage is met with outrage, and brutality with brutality, we may regret, but cannot wonder, and hardly blame. But, as I read the history of the last unhappy year, the revolutionary committees have done more than this, and worse. They have deliberately set themselves to the work of violence, not for the purpose of repelling their opponents, but for the purpose of provoking them. They thought, and with but too much reason, that if Turkey were compelled in self-defense to send in large. bodies of troops, excesses would assuredly be committed which would justly excite general horror. They have not shrunk from crimes against the innocent in order to play upon the sympathies of the world. I can no more believe that methods like these are morally tolerable than I can speak without indignation of the misgovernment which is quoted as their excuse. Between the two, the very organization of social life is lapsing into dissolution. Omitting the smaller elements,it may be said that more than a third of the population Mohammedan, and that of the remainder the is two most considerable constituents are Bulgarians, who in religion are Exarchists, constituting, I believe, the largest group of all, and Greeks, who in religion are Patriarchists. A.11 suffer under Turkish misrule. All would gain immensely by the CURRENT STORY OF THE WORLD. 51 reforms, but while the Mohammedans would be terror-stricken at being placed under Christian dominion, the Exarchist Christians would perse- cute the Patriarchist Christians, often, I fear, with much cruelty, and the Greeks, both in and out of Greece, would rather find protection for their race and religion under the rule of the Sultan than be left to fight the matter out with the Bulgarians under a scheme of unfettered autonomy, I cannot think that any man of sober judgment will doubt that the best hope of dealing with this unique problem lies in the continued co- operation of Austria and Russia, strengthened by the support and aided by the advice of other signatories of the Treaty of Berlin. They possess, if only in virtue of their geographical position, an incomparable influence over the antagonistic forces by which the Balkan peninsula is rent. No other nation or group of nations can do the work as well. No other could do it at all if Austria and Russia were supercilious or hostile. It follows that our best hope at present of ameliorating the condition of Macedonia, as well as of avoiding an international complication, is the support of the two Powers. Another American Peril. Europe, and especially Germany, has been very much dis- turbed since the beginning of the present century, by the invasion of American commerce into European markets hitherto undis- turbed, by American industry and American enterprise. Germany has been ceaselessly sounding an alarm to the rest of Europe, and demanding a European combination that would defeat the perni- cious and aggressive Yankee. The Americans, it would seem from the statements of the Staatshurger Zeitung, are now disturbing the peace of Europe on a question more vital than commerce. This is what our esteemed Berlin contemporary has to say: The most prominent European statesmen, diplomats and politicians marry American girls, who thereby obtain unbounded influence over their public acts. This tends to democratize Europe and produce other dangerous consequences. This is a serious phase of the American peril. American wives are really political agents of the western republic away from America. The difficulty in averting such a calamity is found in the natural tendency of man to court dangers. An embargo might be put on American women, and save Europe a world of trouble.