Passing Events

Passing Events. President Diaz was re-elected president of Mexico on June 26, and Raymond Corral, vice-president, by an overwhelming majority. President Diaz is now in his 80th year, and has been president, excepting four years, since the first election in 1876. The Fourteenth International Congress of American Republics was opened at Buenos Aires on July 12, and will remain in session for five or six weeks. The last conference was held in Rio de Janeiro, in 1906. The importance of these gatherings is regarded as second only to the great peace conference of The Hague. Professor Goldwin Smith, author, lecturer and educator, died at Toronto, June 7, in his 87th year. In 1858-66 he was professor of modern history at Oxford, and later a professor of English and constitutional history at Cornell, 1868-71. He wrote numerous magazine and newspaper articles upon educational, religious, and political subjects and was author of forty books, The Eighteenth Universal Peace Congress will meet at Stock, holm, Sweden, the first week in August. The Seventeenth Congress was held in London, in 1908, at which Utah wa3 well represented, and it is hoped that some of the friends of peace from the people whose creed is "Peace on earth, good will to men," will find it convenient to represent Utah in the Eighteenth Congress. Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls, the English aviator, and the third son of Lord Langattock, who crossed the English channel twice in a Wright aeroplane without descending, and who flew from Dover to Sangatte, near Calais, France, and back again to Dover, and decended, covering fifty miles in ninety minutes, was killed on the 12th of July in an aviation accident at Bournemouth, England. Captain Scott, of the British Antarctic expedition, with a crew of twenty-seven picked men, and twenty-eight officers and men of science, sailed from the Thames on June 1st in Terranova. Captain Scott hopes to reach the South Pole in December, 1911. Besides ponies, and

956 IMPROVEMENT ERA. dog teams, they are provided with a motor sled which has been satisfactorily tested on the snows of Norway. A statue of General George A. Custer was unveiled June 4, by his widow, in the presence of President Taft, at Monroe, Michigan. This noted Indian fighter was slain in the Sioux massacre, on the Little Big Horn, in Montana, in 1876, and is represented as reining in his horse while reconnoitering from the summit of a hill. The monument was erected by the people of Michigan, and is the work of Edward C. Potter, of Greenwich, Connecticut. Old Folks' Day this year was observed on the 22nd of June, in Tooele City. This city and county entertained over two thousand people, all over seventy years of age, besides five hundred visitors from Cache in the north to Richfield in the south. Everybody in Tooele united to give them a pleasant time. Two hundred waiters served them with food and drink, and four local physicians, with nurses, arranged a medical relief corps to wait upon the old people in case of necessity. Postal savings banks will be established throughout the land, perhaps by the year 1911. A board of trustees provided by Congress will determine what postoffices shall become postal savings banks. An account may be opened with one dollar, and no single account may exceed $500. Saving stamps of a ten-cent denomination will be issued for those who desire to accumulate mo ney for deposits upon which two per cent interest will be paid. For those who desire to exchange their deposits for government bonds, which will be issued in denominations of twenty dollars and upwards, provision is made for exchanging with interest at two and a half per cent. The money accumulated in the postal savings banks is to be deposited in both national and state banns in the vicinity of the local postoffice, and these banks are to pay two and one-fourth per cent interest. The board of trustees for the selection of postoffices consists of the Postmaster General, Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General. "A Brief History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, by Himself," is the title of a neatly-bound, 63-page booklet published by the Deseret Sunday School Union, Salt Lake City, and sold for 25 cents. The first part of the volume contains the prophet's own account of his life and his early revelations up to and including the year 1830. In the first chapter following there is a brief account of the life of Joseph and the history of the Church from the organization to the martyrdom. The final chapter enumerates some of the prophet's characteristics, and refers to the divinity of his work and the founding of Utah. Altogether

PASSING EVENTS. 957 the little volume contains a fund of information on this subject as pertinent and encompassing, as it is brief and quickly to be read. As an introduction to "Mormonism" at home and abroad, it should be of great value. Noel Guy Davis passed the examination at Ann Arbor on the 17th of June, and was admitted to the Naval Academy, from Utah. He has earned his position through pluck, push and perseverance, and his friends wish him success jn securing for himself a name among the naval service of our nation. He was born on Christmas day, 1891, in Salt Lake City. He entered the public schools at eight and graduated at fourteen. He entered the Latter-day Saints' University in 1906, from which institution he graduated this spring. Just prior to his graduation from the L. D. S. he took the examination for the naval service, and the result came to the ears of his fellow students on the evening of the graduation exercises, at which time President Willard Young announced that one of the students, Noel Davis, had earned a place in the Ann Arbor Naval Academy. Barratt Hall almost shook with the applause that followed. His widowed mother, Mrs. Lena B. Davis, of Salt Lake City, may well be proud of her son's achievements, and he has occasion to exclaim with the immortal Washington, "What 1 am today I owe to my mother!'' The Press of Norway has recently made severe attacks upon the Latter-day Saints and their propaganda for converts, declaring that the elders are in Norway to induce young women to emigrate to Utah for evil purposes. To protest against these statements, and to show their utter incorrectness, the colony of Norwegian Latter-day Saints and other Norwegians of Salt Lake City held a public mass meeting on the 7th of July in the Fourteenth ward assembly hall. A representative of the Norwegian women read some of the objectionable and scurrilous articles from the Norwegian press to the assembly. An address was presented, signed by all the women present, protesting against the falsehoods, to be forwarded to the Norwegian papers with a request that they give the protest as wide a circulation as they have given the false and dishonorable attacks upon the people of Utah. Leading NorwegianAmerican citizens, not members of the Church, also testified to the correctness of the statements in the protest. An address was delivered NOEL GUY DAVIS.

958 IMPROVEMENT ERA. by Lawyer C. M. Nielsen, in which he gave statistics proving the utter falsehood of the statements made by the Norwegian papers. There are eight thousand Norwegian men and women in Utah, half of whom are Latter-day Saints, and the other half belonging to different denominations. The address from the Norwegian women in Utah sets forth the favorable, happy and prosperous condition of their cuntrymen in this state. It was signed by all present. The signatures are certified by C. M. Nielsen, Norwegian vice-counsel for the state of Utah. This was forwarded for publication to Aftenposten, Christiania, together with a photograph containing some hundred or more Norwegian men and women, taken before the doors of the courthouse in Salt Lake City, as happy and good looking a "bunch" as was ever placed before a camera. It is hoped the press will deal fairly in this matter. The Pioneer Monument, at Hyrum, Cache county, Utah, erected in honor of the pioneers who settled there in 1860, is located upon tne city hall grounds of that city, facing the main street. Upon the metal plate are inscribed the names of the pioneers and their children. Hyrum, a thriving city of two thousand people, feels just pride in thus honoring her pioneers. The imposing monument shaft composed of Utah temple granite, stands nearly eighteen feet high Its base weighs nine thousand pounds. The monument cost something over six hundred dollars, and is an art production emanating from the artistic mind and skilled hand of Mr. P. PIONEER MONUMENT, HYRUM, UTAH. C. Hansen, a native son of Hyrum, now of Logan. The fiftieth anniversary celebration of the settlement of Hyrum took place on June 22, 1910. The pioneers and early settlers from many points in Utah and Idaho participated in the festivities. They were decorated with badges indicating the year of their first arrival. The streets and public buildings were beautifully decora ced. There were true- tolife illustrations of the early mode of conveyance, the ox team, and the early style of abode, the log cabin. Mayor H. F. Liljenquist, son of the first mayor, the late Hon. 0. N. Liljenquist who was elected in 1870,

PASSING EVENTS. 959 presided over the exercises as marshal of the day. The address of welcome was delivered by President W. C. Parkinson, then followed a program of reminiscent stories, speeches, poems, prepared papers and songs. Following the program the pioneers, early settlers, and distinguished /isitors were banqueted, after which the unveilving ceremonies took place. Old Father Niels B. Nielsen, eighty-eight years of age, the oldest living Hyrum pioneer, with trembling hand, guided by his son-in-law, Hon. I. C. Thoreson, unveiled the monument to the applauding assembly, while the band played a national air. The dedicatory prayer was offered by Bishop A. 0. Allen and the oration, "The Pioneers— the Monument, " was delivered by Mr. C. F. Olsen. Mr. 0. F. Wilson presented the monument to the city authorities, and Mayor Liljenquist gave a speech of acceptance. Of the actual pioneers there are only ten living: Niels B. Nielsen, Andrew B. Nielsen, Moroni Benson, Adam Smith, Andrew Anderson, Oliver McBride, Alice Anderson, Elizabeth Williams, Cynthia Allen, and Elmira McBride. Elder Andreas Peterson, a leading business man, and well known Churchman of Logan, Utah, has been called to the presidency of the Swedish mission to relieve Elder Peter Sundwall. He was born on the 23rd of rjune, 1849, in Hobal Parish, Dalsland, Sweden. In the spring of 1871, he left his parental home and went to Christiania, Norway, returning at Christmas, that year. Having heard the gospel preached by elders during his stay in Christiania, he explained the first principles of the gos- ^m ■ ''"%''' •' pel to his father, mother three brothers rtri WL and one sister. Returning, next spring, K to Christiania he- was baptized, on the 25th of May following, by Niels Isaksen, ^^ — ^^^^^HJ ancj tne jay after confirmed by Maans ANDREAS PETERSON. Anderson. He was ordained to the office of deacon and later teacher in the Aaronic priesthood, acting as teacher in the Christiania branch. In the spring of 1873, he was called to labor as a missionary in Stavanger, and on the 3rd of August following was ordained an elder. He labored in Stavanger some two years? holding many public meetings and gaining a splendid experience in the mission field. In the spring of 1875, he was called to Dramen, where he continued in the ministry for more than two years, during which time some sixty members were added to the Church. In the summer of 1877

960 IMPROVEMENT ERA. he visited his home in Sweden, and on the 9th of June baptized his mother. Ten days later he left Christiania for America, reaching Salt Lake City July 14, 1877. Aside from a five-month residence in Spring City, Sanpete county, he has resided in Logan since January 8, 1878. He married Inga Overson July 25 following. At the October general conference, 1882, he was called on a mission to Scandinavia. He labored in the Stockholm conference, Sweden, as a traveling elder for nearly two years, during which time he walked more than three thousand miles and baptized forty- two souls. He was released in 1884 and arrived home November 10, being immediately called to preside over the second quorum of elders, which position he held until the 3rd of March, 1887, when he was ordained a high priest by George Pitkin and called to serve in the high council of Cache stake. On December 5, ] 889, after serving as a missionary in the Logan temple, he was chosen superintendent of the Logan 4th ward Sunday school, which position he held until August, 1898. On the 12th of that month he left on another mission to Scandinavia. On the way east he visited important Church historical places in Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and New York. Arriving in Copenhagen on the 9th of September, 1898, he was appointed to preside over the Scandinavian mission on the 18th of the same month, and for nearly three years following he faithfully performed the duties of that calling. In Gillavare. Lapland, thirty-six miles within the polar circle, he held a public meeting, attended by over two hundred people, which was the first ever held by a "Mormon" elder in that part of the world. Leaving Copenhagen on April 29, 1901, after his release, he made a trip of the orient, visiting Constantinople, Syria, and the Holy Land. He also went to Egypt, thence to Italy, Switzerland ai*l France, arriving in Utah July 8, 1901. Of this trip he says: "I have' had a life-long desire realized, for which I am happy indeed, and I must say that the experience which I have thus gained, and the sights seen, shall always be treasured fondly in my recollection as pearls of great price gathered from the shores of the ocean of life." Elder Peterson has always taken great interest in the study of his own language — Swedish — as well as the Danish, Norwegian, English and German languages. In a political way he has served his city one term in the City Council and two terms on the Board of Education. He expects to leave for Stockholm to fill his new missionary call about the first of September. A zealous worker in the cause of the Church, an excellent speaker, an experienced business man, Elder Peterson possesses all the qualifications that go to make an ideal mission president.