--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Anderson, Edward H. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 11 number: 6 published: 1908-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Edward H. Anderson, "Events and Comments," *Improvement Era* 11, no. 6 (April 1908): 480–488.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1106unse 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: improvementera1106unse start_page: 480 end_page: 488 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1908-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1106unse publication_year: 1908 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 1908, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Events and Comments EVENTS AND COMMENTS. BY EDWARD H. ANDERSON. School House Fire and Panic— At Collinwood, near Cleveland, Ohio, March 4, a fire broke out in the basement of the public school house containing about 300 children between 6 and 14 years of age, and in 30 minutes 170 of them were burned, or trampled to death in the panic. One exit was locked, and the other directly over the fire. Two teachers perished with the children who were jammed against the doors and penned in the hallways by the crowd. The fearful calamity has caused an examination of the fire escapes of school buildings in all parts of the country, and in Utah many school officials are considering the removal of furnaces now in the main buildings to separate structures some distance away from the schools. New Stake of Zion— The Fifty-Seventh — At the quarterly conference of Bingham stake, held in Iona, Idaho, February 1 and 2, the stake was divided, and later a new one formed, called Rigby, in honor of the late President William Rigby. The dividing line between the two stakes is the same as the county line between Bingham and Fremont counties. The following wards were thus thrown into the new stake: Annis, Lorenzo, Grant, La Belle, Lewisville, Menan, Rigbv, Rudy, and Palisade. This leaves nine wards in each of the stakes. On the Monday following the conference, a mass meeting of the people residing between the boundary line of Fremont and Bingham counties and the south fork of Snake river, comprising the new stake, was called at Rigby, and a new organization effected by Elders John Henry Smith, and Hyrum Smith. The stake presidency chosen and sustained are: Don C. Walker, Lewisville, president; Josiah Call, Rigby, and William W. Selck, Jr., Lewisville, counselors. The high council is composed of James J. Chandler, Cyril J. Call, George E. Hill, Alfred Josiah Cardon, of Rigby: James 0. Webster, Alfred K. Dabell, J. H. Holland, of Grant; Richard Jardine, Henry Boyce, John Walker, of Lewisville; David Stowell, of Annis; and James G. Browning, of Lorenzo; William W. Selck, Sr., stake clerk; Supt. Y. M. M. I. A., Frank A. Brinton. There are about 3,000 souls in the Rigby Stake. Fourteenth Ward Reorganized. — The reorganization of this ward which was left without a bishop in the death of the late Bishop George H. Taylor, marks the opening of a new effort at missionary work in the heart of the business EVENTS AND COMMENTS. \> center of Salt Lake City. The ward is one of the oldest in the Church, and owing to removals, and the crowding out of homes by business structures there are left only few permanent members of the Church in the ward. The reorganization was effected on March 8, by the selection of Elder Elias S. Woodruff, a grandson of President Wilford Woodruff, as bishop, and Elders George Q. Morris, superintendent of the Salt Lake Stake Y. M. M. I. A., first, and Quayle Cannon of the Cannon ward, second, counselor. They are all efficient church workers, and in the missionary labors of the ward will call to their aid a corps of workers living in other wards but who will be completely identified in membership and otherwise, with the new ward. The old meetinghouse will be made a model gathering place, and efforts will be extended to attract to the religious services and church organizations many young men and women living in the hotels and rooming houses, in the heart of the city, as well as people who sojourn here for short periods. Other important movements for improving the grounds, and rendering help and accommodations to temporary members, are in contemplation. Colonization of Siberia. — Many people who lived in Utah thirty years ago will remember tracts of land and districts of the territory which they considered wholly worthless through want of water, or by reason of some unfavorable location. Today these same lands are in some instances worth from $500 to $1,000 per acre, according to the improvements on them. It is much the same with the world at large. There are countries which thirty years ago were considered practically beyond the pale of agriculture which today are among the most promising wheat lands in the world. Whoever thought, for example, a thousand miles north of the "Mormon" colonies in Alberta, wheat fields would he seen in the regions of Peace river? Even the Northwest territories themselves, as well as northern Montana, were considered outside of the wheat belt. Today the grain in those same regions has been made to yield 200,000,000 bushels in a year. Whenever Siberia has been spoken of, in the past, it has been with shivering accents. Somehow people considered that northern region as a land of perpetual snow and ice. Experiments and experience are changing the views of the Russian government respecting the wonderful possibilities of a hitherto unproductive part of its vast domain. There are, indeed, men whose knowledge entitles them to the greatest consideration who believe that Siberia will some day be the greatest wheat producing country in the world. Forty-five years ago the peasants of Russia were emancipated, but the land allowed them for cultivation, and which was thereafter to belong rather to the village community than to the individual was wholly inadequate to meet their needs. The result has been great discontent and suffering among the Mujiks of Russia. The great majority of the people of that empire are peasants; and the important problem of the Czar and his advisers today is to provide these subjects with more land. The discoverv of the value of Siberia as a grain producing region has led the government in recent years to provide facilities for emigrating her peasants into the more fertile parts of Siberia. The minister of agriculture has given out a recent statement of appropri 482 IMPROVEMENT ERA. ations made for emigrating farmers, and for providing them with funds to bring under cultivation a certain amount of land. For a number of years prior to 1906, the annual appropriations amounted to $1,300,000; in 1906, they were increased to $2,800,000; in 1907, to $6,750,000. The estimates for 1908 are $9,500,000. The average annual number of families that emigrated to Siberia up to 1906 was 11,000, making a total of 66,000 persons. In 1906 there were 30,000 families, or 180,000 persons. The estimates of 1908 are for the emigration of 70,000 families, or 420,000 persons. It will be seen that the emigration to Siberia is increasing at wonderful strides, that this year something like one-half million will settle in Siberia. If this increase continues, it is only a few years until Siberia will be transformed, and all its southern surface will be dotted by thousands of Russian villages; and a land that has hitherto been considered unfit for the abode of man will be one of the greatest grain producing regions of the globe.— Joseph M. Tanner. Henry Ballard, N. C. Flygare, Henry W. Naisbitt— One by one the staunch veterans of early days in Utah are passing to their rest. Patriarch Henry Ballard, Logan; President N. C. Flygare, Ogden; Patriarch Peter A. Forsgren, Brigham; Henry W. Naisbitt, Salt Lake City, are among the many veterans recently called to the other side. Henry Ballard, who died February 27, 1908, was bishop of the Logan 2nd ward from 1861 to 1900, was born in England Jan. 27, 1832, and came to Utah October 16, 1852. He was a pioneer of Cache county where he settled in 1859, and where he was ever helpful in promoting the spiritual and temporal welfare of the people. President N. C. Flygare, second counselor in the Presidency of the Weber stake (since 1883,) formerly bishop of the Fourth Ward, Ogden, (1877-83) and for three terms president of the Scandinavian Mission, was born in Southern Sweden, February 3, 1841, joined the Church September 5, 1858, and came to Utah in 1864. He died February 19, 1908. Altogether he spent twelve years of his life in the Scandinavian mission field, while at home he was always in the harness doing church work. In a civil capacity he served Ogden as building inspector, city councilor, and fire and police commissioner; the state, as superinten. dent for the erection of the Agricultural College buildings, Logan; and trustee and treasurer for the State Industrial School, Ogden. In a private capacity as architect and builder, many buildings in the northern part of the state are standing monuments to his skill In business he was active and useful and was connected at various times with the Standard Publ. Co., the Firgf. Nat. Bank, Eccles Lumber Co., Ogden Street Railway Co., and the Sugar Company. He was a man of calm and wise'judgment, skilfuj and able, and was true as steel to his friends and the gospel cause which he loved o dearly. FLYGARE. EVENTS AND COMMENTS. 483 PETER A. FORSGREN. Peter A. Forsgren, the Scandinavian pioneer and patriarch, died in Brigham City, March 1, 1908. He was born in Gefle, Sweden, July 26, 1826. He was the first person in Scandinavia in this dispensation baptized by immersion by divine authority. On July 26, 1850, about a month before Elder Erastus Snow began baptizing in Copenhagen, Denmark, Elder Forsgren was baptized by his brother, John E., who was called in 1849 to accompany Elder Snow to open the Scandinavian mission. Peter A. Forsgren has remained faithful to the cause he espoused fifty-eight years ago, and to the truth of which he bore many strong testi" monies. In 1853, he came to Utah, and has since resided in Brigham City nearly the whole time. For many years he served as counselor to Bishop Henry Tingey of the First Ward, Brigham; and in July, 1902< at the Scandinavian celebration, was ordained a Patriarch by President Joseph F. Smith. Henry W. Naisbitt, poet, writer, and business promoter, was born in England November 7, 1826, and died February 26, 1908. He joined the Church in 1850, and came to Utah in 1854. He was with Z. C. M. I. from its organization in 1868, for 27 years until 1896 when he retired from mercantile pursuits. Prior to his connection with Z. C. M. I., he was buyer [f or William Jennings, and also for William Nixon, at Camp Floyd and Salt Lake City. There is perhaps not a local periodical published in Utah in which the writings of Henry W. Naisbitt are not found. For three years he published Zion's Home Monthly, and after his return from his last mission to England, he gathered his poems and printed them in a volume entitled Rhymelets in Many Moods. He was in charge of the European mission from September, 1877, to June, 1878. Several of the hymns in the L. D. S. Hymn book are written by him, and he is the author of a number of the songs in the S. S. Union Song book. Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Francis M. Lyman spoke at his funeral in the 20th ward on Sunday, March 1, and paid deserved tributes to his life of activity and usefulness. President Smith well said that he is not dead but sleepeth. His works will follow and testify of him. President Winder called attention to the fact that Elder Naisbitt gave to the Church the trees which today adorn the temple block; and incidentally, Bishop Romney said that the trees which surround the 20th ward chapel were donated by Elder Naisbitt from the Hooper farm. At the regular meeting of the General Board Y. M. M.I. A. held on the 26th of February, the day of Elder Naisbitt's death, Elder HENRY W. NAISBITT. 484 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Junius F. Wells called attention to his sterling character, and the work done by him a? a writer. He presented the following resolution which was unanimously adopted by the Board, and ordered printed in the Era: Resolved, That in the death of Henry W. Naisbitt, the Superintendence and General Board of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations, recognize the loss of a staunch friend of the associations, whose ready and talented pen was ever freely at the service of the associations' publications, and whose poetic and prose writings were potential for a high standard of home literature in which we, with all Latter-day Saints, find intellectual comfort, pleasure and profit. The following lines are inscribed to the memorv of Henry W. Naisbitt by Ruth May Fox, under the title, "The Measure of Man:" Not by its shallows do we measure the tide, Nor by ripples which over its surface doth glide; By depth and by force and the water's clear gleam, By the craft that it sails we measure the stream; Yes, that is the way we measure the stream. Not by its shadows should we measure a life; What of the struggles, when temptations are rife, When reverses and trials upset every plan? How did he meet them? is the measure of man ; Ah, that is the way to measure a man. By the toil of his hands and toil of his brain, By the sacrifice made again and again ; No! we count not his fortune, name or proud clan, But what he has done, is the measure of man. Ah, that is the way to measure a man. By the light of the soul, ambition and hope, With mortality's failings, how did he cope? By the seed he has sown, as swiftl7 he ran To work for his fellows, we measure a man. Ah, that is the way to measure a man. By the song in the heart and pray'r on the lip, The tear in the eye, when his stumbling feet slip; His righteous endeavor, though life's but a span, By his love for the good, we measure a man. Ah, that is the way God measures a man. Britain's Sea of Liquor. — Here is an item from Collier's Weekly for March 7, worthy of notice : The items of Great Britain's drink bill for 1906 are in. It appears that in that year the forty- three million people of the United Kingdom drank 33.891,101 barrels of beer, 39,302,402 gallons of spirits, 12,328,691 gallons of wine, and 15,000,000 gallons of other liquors — enough to make a lake that would float a EVENTS AND COMMENTS. Is", hundred battleships. Taking all kinds of liquors together, every man, woman, and child in the kingdom, including infants in arms, consumed nearly thirty gallons, costing about eighteen dollars, or say ninety dollars per family. This represents at least a quarter of the average British family income. For the whole kingdom the liquor bill of 1906 amounted to $809,681,829. British public opinion is torn just now by two insistent demands, one for old-age pensions, the ^ ther for more battleships. The great navy advocates say that the country must build two ships to Germany's one, and that it can not find the money and still carry out the Government's pension program. The cost of an old age pension scheme is estimated at from $54,000,000 to $140,000,000 a year, according to its liberality. The most liberal plan, which goes far beyond anything now proposed by the government, would cost a little over one-sixth of the nation's drink bill. A seventh part of the remainder would build ten new battleships, thought to be necessary. By confining themselves to three hundred million dollars' worth of beer and two hundred million dollars' worth of spirits, without courtailing their consumption of wine or other liquors at all, the British people could have their old-age pensions and their battleships too. To check any tendency to moralize at the expense of others, it may be worth while to mention that in the same year, in which Great Britain was consuming 1,286,510,729 gallons of liquor, we were consuming 1,874,225,409 gallons. We might say that even these figures showed us to be drinking less than the British in proportion to population, but it happens that the British excess was all in beer. We drank over three times as much distilled spirits, when in proportion to population we should have only twice as much. Yet the British race is not particularly noted for abstemiousness in the matter of strong waters. It would be a revelation to most people to know how much of the total of liquors in the United States, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are guilty of consuming. For government revenue only on liquor and tobacco (this does not include city or county licenses) the Montana district, comprising the first three states named, pay about $660,000 annually. To the credit of Utah, with about 280,000 inhabitants it should be said that only 20 per cent of this amount, or about $132,000, is paid by her citizens; while Idaho, with 162,000, pays 19 per cent; and Montana, with 244,000, pays 51 per cent of the whole amount. We venture the guess, however, that Utah pays as much for liquor and tobacco as for the education of her 98,000 school children at $20 per capita. Isn't it about time for our own sakes that this amount should be devoted to a better purpose? The Saloon Question. — At present there appears to be no doubt but the saloon is doomed in the United States. The abolition of the liquor traffic is rapidly proceeding in many of the states. In less than two years, it has been almost wiped out of Kentucky — Kentucky, the whiskev state, think of that! — by action of the County Unit law, by which the people obtained the right of local option as to the existence of the saloon. There are 119 counties in the state, and out of this number 93 are wholly "dry;" and out of the remainder all but four have abolished the sale of intoxicants outside the limits of certain cities. There is a law now before the General Assembly of Kentucky, which is at present in session, proposing an amendment to the County Unit law. If this passes it will result in making 113 "dry" counties out of the 119. Harper's Weekly relates an interesting sequel to the movement. The members of the General Assembly in session at Frankfort, have recently received copies of the following letter: 486 . IMPEO VEMENT ERA . The Association of the Jailers of the State have caused to be drafted certain acts for their relief, now before the General Assembly for their consideration. These acts are intended to relieve the acute pecuniary conditions in which the Jailers have been placed by the general adoption of local option laws in the state. The office of jailer in counties having a population of less than 75,000 is now worthless, the fees being totally insufficient to compensate the jailer or feed the prisoners * * * the compensation of jailers * * * averaging less than $100 per annum. The jail doors in nearly every county in which local option prevails are wide open, and the jailers have been compelled to engage in other pursuits for the purpose of eking out a scanty support for their families. Will Utah elect a legislature this fall that will place her in line with the rest of the Union, on the saloon question? She is now one of the only six black states in the United States where the saloon is granted full license. The people are the sovereigns. On March 7, it was announced from Chicago, that the Pulman Company would quit as soon as possible the serving of liquors in its cars throughout the United States. The reasons given are state prohibition and local option, and unruly passengers who indulge too freely, driving away many passengers less boisterous, thus making the business less profitableTerrorism.— Appalling events are now chronicled in such rapid succession that many readers have settled down to the conviction that they are but the natural explosions of a highly civilized age. What, however, is most alarming to the peace of the world is the rise, frequency, and persistency of a new terror, whose consequences may be most distressing to those who are looking for the millennium of brotherly love and good will. A doctor living in New York sends the following to the New York Sun: A bomb was thrown at 405 East 116th street at 1:40 a. m., on January 21, 1908 I reside at 407 East 116th street. I was sitting at my window studying, and my chair was just about five feet away from where the bomb exploded. In consequence I was thrown down senseless and lay on the floor until a fireman after bursting through the door, roused me, and with the help of my janitress brought me to my senses. All the windows, gas fixtures, glass in picture frames, curtains. inside shut ters, carpet, and even my gas stove were totally destroyed. In short, my whole anatomy and humble belongings were almost a total wreck. When I appeared before the people visiting the Children's Settlement House, they exclaimed, "Why, doctor, you look a sight! What on earth has happened to you?" "Well," said I, "I was bombarded this morning; there are no windows left in my apartments, and with no gas, I have been freezing all night. And the bomb and its explosion have given me a nightmare ever since. My stomach is on strike, and I am nervously shivering still at the thought of another bomb. Now, I do not know where to go for shelter, fearing that another bomb might be thrown in my neighborhood." Tnis is the moral and physical condition I have been in since January 21. My pecuniary losses are amounting to about $100, and my physical and moral losses are untold in amount. Bomb throwing was supposedly confined for the most part to Russia, and one or two other European countries whose people were supposed to have some grievances which nothing but such drastic measures would relieve them of. The manu- EVENTS AND COMMENTS. 487 t'acture, however, of bombs hasmade its progress with all the ingenuity peculiar to other remarkable inventions of the age. They can be so constructed that they act with the precision of a clock and may be made to go off a certain minute of the night or day. They may be constructed so as to present a harmless appearance, and can be thrown or secreted where they are likely to do the desired damage to both life and property. A short time since the objects of these destructive missiles were supposed to be kings and other monarchs. Only recently, bomb-throwers made attempts upon the lives of the Emperor of Persia and the President of the Argentine republic. When aimed at crowned heads, some notoriety and publicity are given to the events; but what is most startling at the present time is the growing frequency with which bombs are aimed at the private citizen who may be the object of some personal pick. If the destructive use of the bomb continues to increase within the next ten or twenty years as it has increased within the past five, it will unquestionably create a guerrilla warfare upon our social institutions. Private revenge will take the place of the orderly adjustment by law. Warfare will likely be carried against capitalists and those who are supposed to occupy some superior advantage over their fellowmen, and upon whom their fellowmen are in a large degree dependent for a livelihood. Along with the increased growth of bomb- throwing is the increase in the growth of class hatred, and who shall say where the terror of this new diabolical invention shall end? The New York Sun commenting briefly upon the letter of its correspondent remarks : The author of this description of the wreck created by the bomb is only one of a large number of persons who have suffered personal injury and loss of property through the operations of miscreants whose activities the police seem unable to prevent. The natural terror in which he lives is shared literally by thousands of men and women Who do not know at what moment they may be blown to atoms, maimed, disfigured or rendered homeless. It is not overstating the situation to say that a large portion of the population is and has been for months in a state of high nervous excitement on account of the numerous outrages of this class that have been perpetrated in the city. It may be assumed that the police are doing the best they can to trace and arrest the criminals responsible for these deeds, but it is unfortunately true that their efforts have not inspired the community with confidence or the bomb throwers with fear. The popular opinion is that the law is powerless to afford protection from certain classes of criminals, and this belief gains some color from the appalling frequency with which so-called "black hand" assaults are reported. This is said while making due allowance for the exaggeration with which the subject has been treated. New York is not the only city infested by this class of anarchists. They are not only anarchists in the sense that they would overthrow political institutions, but they have respect for neither life nor society. The increase of the evil runs hand in hand with the decline of religion and disrespect for authority. It is one of the signs of the times in which men's selfish natures and evil inclinations will not submit to limitations or restraint. When men act in disregard of human life from motives of revenge, it is only a step which they have to take in acting upon motives of suspicion. The new invention makes it easy for men to escape the 488 IMPROVEMENT ERA. punishment of the law, and the evil grows by what it feeds upon. When the first step is taken, the second step is an easy one. What little conscience such anarchists have is appeased by the thought that there are others like themselves — not a few, but many. There are now coming to this country, thousands of people from southern Europe whose regard for human life is inspired by fear of the law rather than by any fear of God. The suppressed feelings of an injustice to which they have been subjected finds an outburst after landir.g in a country which affords them a liberty which they either do not understand or do not appreciate. Bomb throwing may result in an internal social warfare whose horrors have never been known on the battlefields where even barbarous nations have settled their disputes. The ''black hand, ' ' as the bomb throwing is sometimes styled, is an evil of which heretofore men have little dreamed. This is truly an age of surprises, among which the spirit of terrorism is gaining ground. — Joseph M. Tanner. Indiana Conference. — The Indianapolis News of March 9 contains a half column favorable synopsis of a discourse delivered before an audience of 100 people in Indianapolis, Ind., Engineer's Hall, on March 8, by President German E. Ellsworth, of the Northern States mission. The meeting was the closing one of two days' session of the southern Indiana conference. The elders had gathered for this purpose, and to plan for their summer campaign in the country districts. President Ellsworth was listened to with great attention while he explained the foundation principles of the gospel as taught by the Latter-day Saints, and gave a very comprehensive outline of the contents of the Book of Mormon, and bore testimony that it is a new witness for the Bible and the divine mission of Jesus Christ. He closed by saying: The book of Mormon has been translated into fourteen languages. It is the most important book of the twentieth century. In it you read the destiny of America, the greatest country on earth, the land dedicated to liberty. We are making a special sacrifice to place the Book of Mormon in the hands of every honest soul in our fair land. Tens of thousands of copies were sold last year. Surely no person who is searching for truth will be slow in securing this greatest and most-talked-of book of the present century. We bear our testimony to you that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and invite you to read it with a prayerful heart, ''with real intent, having faith in Christ, and he wiil manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost." The A. C. McClurg & Co. 's monthly bulletin of new books for March, 1908, contains a half page advertisement of the Book of Mormon, the American volume of Scripture.