--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 14 number: 6 published: 1911-04 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Passing Events," *Improvement Era* 14, no. 6 (April 1911): 564–568.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1406unse 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: improvementera1406unse start_page: 564 end_page: 568 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1911-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1406unse publication_year: 1911 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 1911, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Passing Events 864 IMPRO VEMENT ERA . the dead. Her crowning adornment was her sublime spirituality. In her private and public life she was modest, quiet, and unassuming, as she was true and faithful. The largest inheritance tax on record in the United States was lately received by the state of Utah. The check, dated March 1, 1911, was received by State Treasurer David Mattson, on the 9th of March, from Mrs Mary W. Harriman, executrix, and was made out for the amount of $798,546.85, being the inheritance tax on the late Edward H. Harriman 's property in Utah. The legislature on the 10th passed a bill appropriating $750,000 of the amount towards the building of the state capitol, in Salt Lake City, which had been arranged for earlier in the session, and for which a bond issue of one million dollars had been authorized. The corporation tax provision in the Payne-Aldrich tariff act was held by unanimous opinion of the United States Supreme Court, rendered March 13, to be valid. The decision was announced by Justice William R. Day, appointed to the Supreme Court from Ohio, in 1903. The opinon was an elaborate treatment of the subject, and the tax was declared to be an excise tax on the doing of corporate business, and not a direct tax on the ownership of property. It was held that the tax was not applic- able to the real estate "trust" of Boston, and the Minneapolis syndicate, since they were not "doing business" within the meaning of the law. An income of approximately twenty-five million dollars annually will be assured to the government by this decision. Robert E. Peary, the discoverer of the north pole, was promoted to rear-admiral by Congress on the 4th of March. He was put upon the retired list of the engineering corps and paid from the time he dis- covered the pole. On the evening of the same day, Dr. Frederick A. Cook lectured to a great audience in Salt Lake City, discrediting all of Peary's claims to polar distinction, and declaring him a buccaneer in the Arctic, and an assassin in the field of geographic honor. It will be remembered that Dr. Cook's claim to the discovery of the north pole was rejected by American and Danish scientists, but recently he has made a renewal of the claim to be the discoverer of the pole. To the Salt Lake audience, he made a clear and simple statement regarding his own journey in the Arctic wastes. New wards and changes for the month of February, 1911, are reported as follows, by the Presiding Bishop's office: The name of Big Cottonwood ward, Granite stake, changed to Holliday. Joseph Y. Lar- son sustained as bishop of the Holliday ward, Granite stake, to succeed PASSING EVENTS. 565 Milo Andrus. William D. Van Dyke, Jr., sustained as bishop of the Ogden Third ward, North Weber stake, to succeed Carl E. Peterson. Brinton ward, Granite stake, organized, Albert Quist, bishop, organized from a part of the old Big Cottonwood ward. George A. Fuller sustained as bishop of the Eden ward, Ogden stake, to succeed Henry J. Fuller, deceased. Joseph Nelson Ford sustained as bishop of the Centerville ward, Davis stake, to succeed Melvin H. Randall. David J. Reese sus- tained as bishop of the Adamsville ward, Beaver stake, to succeed Thomas L. Griffiths. Famine and plague in China continue to devas tate parts of that country. Cables from Mr. Calhoun, American minister at Pekin, to the State department, inform the government that two million dollars, at least, will be required for the famine sufferers in China. At Shanghai the American consul-general states that two million people will die of star- vation if help is not immediately sent. The American Red Cross society has undertaken to collect and transmit relief funds, while Congress has authorized the use of army transports for the conveying of supplies, and appropriated fifty thousand dollars for that purpose. The first relief steamer from Seattle carried one thousand tons of provisions. In one of the provinces of China, thousands of people are dying of pulmonary plague, a disease of the lungs caused by coughing; up to March 2, deaths from plague in Manchuria reached sixty-five thousand, and the famine has caused more deaths than the plague. Investigation of "Mormon" activity in England will be made by the House of Commons. On the 6th of March, Secretary Churchill stated that the attention of the government had been attracted to recent allegations that young girls were being induced to emigrate to Utah, and that the matter was causing deep concern. He therefore proposed to investigate the subject exhaustively, with a view to bringing out the exact facts. President Rudger Clawson, of the European Mission of the Latter-day Saints, welcomes the investigation, as do his co-laborers in that country, for they are confident there can be no other outcome before a fair judicial tribunal than a complete vindication of the actions of the Church. It has nothing to fear from an impartial and honest investigation, for its emigration affairs, as well as its missionary work in Great Britain, have been conducted in a manner that will bear the closest scrutiny. The Church has nothing to lose and everything to gain by the action which the home secretary has recom- mended. On the 6th of March a demented man broke the windows and door of the mission house in Liverpool, "for God's sake," he said. San Francisco has won the Panama Canal Exhibition. The late Congress, which adjourned March 4, designated San Francisco as the place for holding the Panama Canal exhibition, in 1915, in celebration of the opening of the canal which it is expected will ue completed by that time. The people of San Francisco reeeived the news by a great celebration and discharge of fireworks. The Californians have expressed themselves that the national government would not be asked for a single cent for expenses. Before the decision was rendered, the people of California had already raised seventeen million dollars for exhibition purposes. The celebration will be the seventh of a series of great cele- brations of this character held in the United States, beginning with the centennial celebration held in Philadelphia in 1876. While the other six celebrations have marked dates or events in American history, this one will be even more important, since it will celebrate a turning point in the history of the world, — man's greatest engineering feat, and his most important victory over nature. It will indeed fulfil the great dream of Columbus — a western highway to India. Congress has appro- priated one million dollars for the government exhibit. The revolution in Mexico continues, and severe fighting in Casas Grandes and several other places was reported. In order to enforce the neutrality laws and protect the border line, and, as some declare, be on hand to guard American interests in Mexico, or to use intervention in case of necessity, the war department of the United States ordered the mobilization of nearly one-fourth of the United States army, twenty thousar.d troops, in Texas, and on the border line between Mexico and this country. It was given out in Washington that the purpose of the movement was for maneuvers, for the training of officers and men. On the evening of the seventh of March, the fifteenth United States Infantry, located at Fort Douglas, Utah, moved to Pueblo, on telegrephic orders received from the war department, at 10 o'clock the night previous. The order was signed by Brigadier-General W. S. Schuyler, commanding the department of the Colorado. Colonel Walter S. Scott commanded the 15th Infantry on their way to Fort Housfon, Texas, via Pueblo. The troops expected to return to Salt Lake before leaving for the Philippines on the first of May. Their families and effects were left at the fort. In connection with the moblization of the army, American warships, ready for battle, were assigned to patrol duty on the Pacific and Gulf coasts of Mexico. The Secretary of War, Jacob M. Dickinson, has denied that the United States government con- templates intervention. 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