Events of the Month

Passing Events

The Equal Suffrage Amendment Resolution was finally adopted by the Nevada Legislature on January 30, and by Missouri, Feb. 20. The Montana Legislature, on January 23, finally passed a woman suffrage resolution; and in Minnesota the lower house, early in February, decided to submit the question to the voters.

King Menelik of Abyssinia Died, about February 3, and Prince Lidj Jeassu, one of his grandsons, entered the capitol as his successor. The kingdom of Abyssinia has a population of about 8,000,000 with a powerful army, and its political institutions are feudal in character. Menelik became the supreme ruler in 1889, and has been reported dead many times before. The new emperor is only seventeen years old, and was elected some years ago by Menelik as his successor.

The Parcels Post System has been an eminent success in the United States. Even if there should be no increase over the packages handled in January, approximately 40,000,000, about 500,000,000 parcels will be handled this year. Some postmasters estimate 1,000,- 000,000 packages. At the fifty largest postoffices, in January, 19,- 365,433 parcels were handled the first four weeks, the last two weeks exceeding the first by 5,000,000 packages.

An attempt on the life of Lord and Lady Hardinge by a bombthrower in Delhi, December 23 last, and the murder of a native official January 14, at Bengal, has had the unexpected effect, it is reported, of cementing Anglo-Indian solidarity. Representative public meetings have been held to resent the outrage against the viceroy and to denounce the crime. The people are said to be doing all they can to help in the discovery of the criminals and to cry down the symptoms of anarchy which have so suddenly invaded that country.

Job Smith, valiant member of the Church and veteran citizen of Utah, died January 2, at Sugar. He was born in England, December 2, 1828, and joined the Church May 18, 1840, being confirmed by Brig-

ham Young, Willard Richards and Wilford Woodruff. He came to America in 1843, and arrived in Nauvoo May 31, of that year. He was ordained a Seventy and taught school there, and was quite familiar with the Prophet Joseph Smith. He started for the west in 1846, and arrived in Utah September 25, 1848. He later filled a mission to England, returning home in 1854, leading a company across the plains. He filled a short mission to California in 1877.

The Pioneer Trail Bill was presented to the Senate of the Utah

524 IMPROVEMENT ERA Legislature early in February, by Senator BennerX. Smith. It provided for making a state road of the trail and placing it under the control and direction of the State Road comission, and appropriated $10,000 towards surveying, marking and preparing the road for travel, to be expended under the direction of the commission. Later a committee representing the M. I. A. Scouts appeared before the Senate Committee on Highways and Lands and had a hearing upon the subject. In connection with the presentation of the bill petitions from Salt Lake, Sanpete, Wasatch, Davis, Summit, Tooele and Beaver counties, aggregating about 4,000 petitioners were presented to the Senate.

The Temple to be Built in Alberta will be located at Cardston, according to a decision by the First Presidency and Council of Twelve, Thursday, February 6th, and announced on the 14th. The site is on a beautiful eminence in Cardston, in the heart of the city. The elevations and prospective drawings of the temple appeared in the New Year's News; the estimated cost of the building is $100,000, for which amount it is believed that as beautiful an edifice as that of Manti, Utah, may be erected. It is expected that the work will be completed within a year, provided enough skilful workmen may be found to complete the finishings.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott who, something over two years ago, led an expedition from London to the South Pole, perished with four of his men after he had reached the pole and while on his return jour- ney, in a fearful snow blizzard. He reached the South Pole on Janu- ary 18, 1912. After attaining the Pole they faced about to return, and for two months struggled to get back to the "One Ton Depot," which they had established one hundred and fifty miles north of the ultimate south, but one by one they perished on the way, the first on February 17th, the second on March 17th, and Captain Scott, Lieu- tenant Bowers and Dr. Wilson, from exposure and starvation during the blizzard, about March 29th. The sad news reached London and i # ,

the civilized world early in February, and detads of the penlous jour- ney are being printed in all the newspapers.

The Balkan War. On January 22, the Turkish grand council de- cided to accept the advice of the powers in their pointed note of the 17th, advising it to let the Balkan allies have Adrianople and the Aegean Islands. The grand council decided to surrender Adrianople to the allies on January 22nd, but their decision was so unpopular with the young Turk party in Constantinople that Emer Bey, one of its leaders, demanded the resignation of the ministry. Nazim Pasha, com- mander-in-chief of the Turkish army, was killed in a riot which fol- lowed. Shefket Pasha, who commanded the army in the successful revolution of the young Turks, when Sultan Abdul Hamid was deposed, was' made grand vizier and minister of war in the new cabinet. The armistice was officially declared to be at an end, by the allies, on

PASSING EVENTS 525

January 30, and hostilities were again resumed. The Balkans and Servians attacked Adrianople and continued its bombardment. Conflicting reports of the progress of the war reached the outside world, and up to February 15th no specially decisive event had occurred. There was a great destruction of lives and much suffering on both sides. All the conflicting nations lack money, which Europe is loath to supply. Internal quarrels among the Turks, have been a great source of weakness to their cause. No one at present has any hopes that Turkey will win out.

President Joseph F. Smith's Stand upon the matter of liquor traffic was announced in a telegram from Washington, February 6. It appears that officials of the Anti-Saloon League of America, who are advocating the passage of bills pending in Congress to prohibit the shipment of liquor into "dry" territory, inquired and received the following telegram from President Smith relating to his stand on the subject: "The Church of Latter-day Saints is positively and unalterably opposed to shipment of liquor into dry territory, and to all unlawful traffic in intoxicants, and favors the entire suppression of all liquor traffic."

The reason the question had been asked of President Smith was that it had been reported that the "Mormon" Church was using its

influence against the pending legislation.

— Dunces Who May Blame Tobacco. That over 90 per cent of all boys who fail in the grammar and high schools are smokers, is asserted by Prof. M. V. O'Shea of the University of Wisconsin, as quoted in the Literary Digest from the University Press Bulletin (Madison, December 16). The tobacco evil, he declares, is the most serious one that the public schools have to contend with. We read:

"Most boys do not learn to smoke because they like tobacco, but because their schoolfellows smoke. It is a social thing with the boy. By doing it he thinks he is one 'of the crowd' and not an 'outsider.' Unruly boys are almost always addicted to the cigaret habit. Smoking robs pupils of their docility. Records kept of the work of students who were not addicted to the smoking habit when they entered the high school, but who acquired it later show that not only did these pupils become harder to manage, but the quality of their school work also declined greatly. What a hold the smoking evil has gained on public school boys is indicated by the statements made by a number of highschool principals who declare that from 50 to 80 per cent of high school pupils are now using cigarets. It is an interesting fact that the strongest sentiment against smoking has arisen in communities in which the raising of tobacco is the principal industry. Tobacco men do not want young boys in their own communities to smoke, and in a number of places in Wisconsin various organizations have taken a stand against smoking by school children."

Amendments to the Constitution appear to be in order. On Feb- ruary 1st the Senate passed the proposed amendment limiting presi- cents of the United States to one term of six years, instead of a possi- ble two terms of four years, as now. If this amendment shall become

526 IMPROVEMENT ERA a law, which is very doubtful in our minds, it will mark a radical change in our form of government. The chief arguments in favor of the proposed change appears to be that it would extend the president's opportunity to develop his policies and prevent him from devoting so much time and energy to appointments that would aid in his re-election. The commonest objection is that it would keep the people from choosing, perhaps in a great emergency, what man might seem best fitted to head the government. The resolution as passed by the Senate, with one vote only to spare over the necessary two-thirds, substitutes for the first two sentences of section one, article two of the Constitution, the following:

"The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. The term of office of President shall be six years, and no person who has held the office by election or discharged its powers or duties, or acted as President under the Constitution and laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be eligible to hold again the office by election. The President and Vice-president chosen for the same term shall be elected as follows:" The principle embodied in the proposed amendment was a Democratic platform plank, but there is some question as to how it would

affect President Wilson — whether it would affect him at all, extend his term for two years, or keep him from serving a second term. Obviously, if this amendment should pass, it would exclude President Taft and President Roosevelt from ever again holding office, for which reason three Progressive senators voted against it. The House Judiciary committee later "indefinitely postponed the measure.

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The Present Status of Two Reforms is well shown in the above drawings, the one to the left representing the progress of Prohibition. The states in white have prohibition laws. Those in black have a license law, with practically no dry territory; while those shaded have license laws but contain much dry territory. Prohibition in West Virginia becomes effective in 1914. The drawing to the right gives a good idea of the suffrage map of 1912. The equal suffrage states are shown in white,those with partial woman suffrage are shaded, and those with no suffrage are in black. As stated heretofore in the Era, Kansas, Oregon, and Arizona gave votes to women at the last election.

PASSING EVENTS 527

France's New President, Monsieur Raymond Poincare, elec^d January 17, to the presidency, took his seat on the 18th of February. He has been engaged in politics for more than twenty-five years, and entered the cabinet first in 1893. He became premier in January, 1912, and has taken a leading part in the concert of the powers relating to the Balkan trouble, working to confine the war to the small district where it originated. Aristide Briand consented, on January 20, to succeed him as premier. The presidents of France since the war of 1870, with Germany, are herewith presented. Upper row, left to right: Thiers (1871-73), MacMahon (1873-79), Grevy (1879-87), Carnot (1887- 94), Casimir Perier (1894-95). Bottom row: Faure (1895-99), Loubet (1899-1906), Fallieres' (1906-13), Poincare (1913).

The Income Tax Amendment to the Constituticn of our country, being the sixteenth amendment to that sacred document, became law on February 3, 1913, when it was approved by the Wyoming assembly, the thirty-sixth legislature to take favorable action. The process of ratification by the required three-fourth of the state legislatures dragged along for nearly four years. The favorable votes of Delaware, which state claimed that they were just ahead of Wyoming, Wyoming, New Mexico and New Jersey, this year, made the amendment a law with three states to spare. Utah is among the states that failed to ratify. The amendment has had a very long struggle, but finally won acceptance, agitation of the question having been going on for eighteen years or more. It had to fight the vast influence of great wealth throughout the nation. The amendment reads: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever sources derived without apportionment among the several states and without regard to any census or enumeration." Many still consider it a very objectionable form of tax, holding

528 IMPROVEMENT ERA that it will tax the life out of thrift and industry, also that the government will be largely supported by one class. Naturally there will be a tax-paying and a tax-voting class, arising from the fact that a majority of the people in a large part of the country will be exempt from any personal concern with the levy while they will still vote in its expenditure. While the terms of the new measure are not yet decided upon, Congress will likely put a tax of one per cent on incomes of $5,000, and this is expected to raise a revenue of $100,000,000. If the English rate should be imposed, the new law would yield $400,000,000. Through this law Congress will have a better opportunity to revise the tariff to a revenue basis, and to place lower rates, or none at all, upon articles of common necessity, which action is likely to be taken by the new administration.

The Mexican Situation became very serious during February, and occupied most of the space in the newspapers. Felix Diaz, a nephew of ex-President Porfirio Diaz and formerly chief of police of Mexico City, was one of the chief actors in the drama. On October 16th last, Diaz took short possession of the city and port of Vera Cruz, but his revolutionary movement collapsed on the 23rd of October, when he was made a prisoner, and condemned to death; but his sentence was suspended to imprisonment. He was released by mutinous cadets and appeared on February 9th in the City of Mexico as a leader in the new situation. Associated with Diaz was General Bernardo Reyes, former war minister, also released from prison. General Reyes was killed in the battle which followed. Machine guns swept the square before the president's palace, the government's forces poured forth a murderous fire from the tower of the cathedral, and the conflict continued with

unabated force until Sunday morning, February 16, when there was a short armistice, but fighting was again resumed shortly before noon on Sunday, and a large number of non-combatants were killed. Thousands of foreigners have made their way out of the city and others found temporary refuge in the American and other foreign legations. Our government dispatched a part of the Atlantic battleship fleet to Vera Cruz and armed cruisers were within easy reach of Mexico's western ports. General Steever had 5,000 of the regular army on the Mexican frontier, and both the army and the navy are ready for service at a moment's notice, in case of the necessity of intervention. ^Military actionon the part of the United States will not be taken except as a last resort, since President Taft and Congress evidently wish to avoid embarrassing the new administration with an international imbroglio of military operations. On the 18th a new revolution succeeded in Mexico City. The federal General Huerta, aided by the military leaders, treacherously overthrew President Madero, and made him prisoner in the national palace, and it was expected Huerta would be declared provisional president by the Mexican Congress. But the end is not yet.