--- 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: 17 number: 6 published: 1914-04 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* 17, no. 6 (April 1914): 606–610." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse 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: improvementera176unse start_page: 606 end_page: 610 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-04) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera176unse publication_year: 1914 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 1914, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Passing Events Passing Events The Panama Canal will be open for regular service not later than July 1, according to a prediction by Colonel Goethals. The road through and over the Continental Divide to be built by the Moffatt Tunnel Commission of Denver, will be sixty-four and fourtenths miles long and the route will shorten the distance from Denver to Salt Lake by ninety-two miles. Noble Warrum was appointed postmaster of Salt Lake City, his name being sent to the Senate for confirmation March 6. Mr. Warrum has been city recorder of Salt Lake City. I. C. Thoresen, formerly of Hyrum, Utah, was confirmed United States Surveyor-General, on March 13, to take the place of General Thomas Hull, whose second term had expired. Mrs. Susan Noble Grant, eighty-one years of age, widow of Jedediah M. Grant, first mayor of Salt Lake, and who was a member of the General Board Relief Society, died March 8, 1914, at the residence of her son, Joseph H. Grant, President of the Davis-stake. She was born in New York, July 25, 1832, and married Elder Grant in the early '50s. She was among the second company of pioneers to land in Salt Lake valley, in 1847, and was a woman who took great interest in Church affairs all her life. Bishop Charles W. Rockwood, a brother of Bishop J. A. Rockwood, of Richards ward, Utah, died at Iona, Idaho. His funeral was held on the 8th of March. He was born at the old fort, Salt Lake valley, March 2, 1850, and presided over the Iona ward, Bingham county, Idaho, for more than a decade, having been appointed bishop by President James E. Steele of Bingham Stake, February, 1901. He was in the Black Hawk war at the age of fourteen. He was active in the beet industry, and in other industries for the development of the country, and was likewise an active member of the Priesthood and auxiliary organizations of the Church. Owing to ill health, he was released as bishop of Iona ward, June 1, 1911. In San Juan county, New Mexico, an election for prohibition was held in the early part of March. The entire county went "dry," three to one. The precinct No. 4, in which the Latter-day Saints are in the majority, went dry eighteen to one; and in the whole precinct not one "Mormon," whether in good standing or otherwise, we are informed by Supt. William Evans of the Y. M. M. I. A., voted "wet." As there is much ridiculous talk about the so-called "Mormon menace," the above facts will be of great interest. Naturally not only the "Mormon" peo pie, in New Mexico, but throughout the world, are proud of such a record, and we are willing to have any fair-minded person judge as to whether these things indicate the existence of a "menace" or not. "The Woman's Exponent" discontinued publication in February, 1914, after being published regularly for forty-two years, about half the time semi-monthly, and during the last twenty years, monthly. It v-as the oldest women's publication in the world, except the "Woman's Journal of Boston," and was the official organ of the Relief Society of PASSING EVENTS. 607 the Latter-day Saints. It was begun under the direction of President Brigham Young, in 1872, Louise Lula Greene being the first editor. She married about two years after the first publication, and Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells, the assistant editor, was made editor. She has continued as editor from that time until the last number, being assisted during the last twenty years by her daughter, Mrs. Annie Wells Cannon. in East Bountiful, Utah, Elder Frank Frederick Browai, born November, 2, 1876, son of David S. Brown and Abbey A. Flagg, died in Arco, Idaho, January 26, 1914. He was buried in Blackfoot, January 28. He was ordained a deacon in 1887, and an elder in 1897, and married Mary E. Dean, of Woodruff, September 29, 1897, in the Salt Lake Temple. In 1903, they removed to Groveland, Idaho, where he was president of the Y. M. M. I. A. and assistant superintendent of the Sunday School. The year following, they removed to Blackfoot and on June 22, 1910, he went on a mission to the Western states, returning in 1912, when he settled in Arco, Idaho. When Arco was made a ward, he was chosen first counselor to Bishop William B. Lowry, being ordained and set apart to this office, September 22, 1912. He was a young man who had won the respect of all who knew him. The agricultural extension bill, appropriating money for the agricultural colleges to use in carrying instruction and demonstration in farm work and home economics direct to the farmers, was passed by the Senate on February 7. Over five million dollars a year is to be spent in this way. The Alaska railway bill, for which Congress has recently appropriated thirty-five million dollars, to build a road in that territory, and which will be the first government-owned railway constructed by the United States, was signed by President Wilson on March 12. This bill will be followed by the Alaska Leasing bill, which will mean the carrying out of the administration program for the developing of Alaska in an incredibly short time. These projects will not only provide for the shipment of ore and the mining interests, but also develop the agricultural resources of the country, which are said to be of great importance. Ex-Senator Henry Moore Teller, of Colorado, former Secretary of the Interior, and for more than thirty years United States Senator from Colorado, died in Denver, February 23. He was born in Allegheny. New York, May 3, 1830, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in January. 1858. In 1861, he crossed the plains with ox team, and settled in Central City, Colorado, where he opened a law office and became a referee in disputes over mining claims, and was associated with such men as George M. Pullman, Henry M. Stanley, the explorer, and William A. Clark, later senator from Montana. Senator Teller joined the Republican party on its organization. Being a leading advocate of bimetalism, he led a silver "bolt" from the national convention of the Republican party, in 1896, after it had adopted a gold rtandard plank. On March 3, 1909, he completed more than thirty 608 IMPROVEMENT ERA years' service in the United States Senate, interrupted only by five years as Secretary of the Interior in the cabinet of President Arthur. A Ben E. Rich memorial is to be erected in memory of the late president of the Eastern and Southern States missions. A committee of fifty former missionaries under the administrations of President Rich, has been selected and have organized with J. Stokes, Jr., chairman; F. M. Mickelsen, secretary-treasurer; Joseph A. Wagstaff, Jr., Austin P. Miller, E. H. Woolley, L. Loraine Bagley, executive committee. The committee is desirous of reaching all the elders who have labored under President Rich, in order to solicit them to subscribe for the monument. If any of the elders desire any information in relation to the matter they may communicate with the chairman of the committee, or send direct to him any contribution that they may desire to make. Any information relating to the monument will be gladly given by the chairman. Personal letters have been sent out to all the missionaries as far as their addresses could be ascertained, but a large number of missionaries have not been reached in this manner, and it is therefore desired by the committee that they communicate with Chairman Stokes, Templeton Building, Salt Lake City, Utah. The repeal of the canal tolls has become a subject for hot debate in Congress. The question is, shall Congress repeal the law which now says that American coastwise vessels may go through the Panama canal free? On March 5, President Wilson personally appealed to Congress, assembled in joint session, to sustain the national honor of the United States in upholding treaty obligations by repealing the Panama tolls exemption, against which Great Britain so radically protests. The president made it clear that he regarded the present toll law as a violation of our treaty promise, and also exceedingly dangerous to our peace and safety. Following are the exact words of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty: "The canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect to the conditions or charge of traffic, or otherwise." President Wilson maintains that our canal tolls law violates this agreement because it lets American coastwise vessels go through the canal without paying toll, while British and other foreign coastwise vessels have to pay. "That is not," he says, "entire equality." The Mexican situation was complicated by the murder of William S. Benton, a Scotchman from Aberdeen, and a subject of great Britain, February 17, by Pancho Villa; also by the murder of an American named Vegara, by soldiers of Huerta. Benton was a wealthy ranch owner of one of the great ranches in Mexico valued at over a million dollars. He sought Villa to gain permission to export some four hundred head of cattle. This Villa denied, when a quarrel is said to have ensued, which resulted in the killing of Benton. Complications between Great Britain and the United States were threatened over the murder, but the affair was later amicably adjusted, for the present; though it tended to great excitement in this country and in Europe, and Britain will later settle with Mexico. Clement Vegara was a Texas ranchman, and was murdered by soldiers of Huerta's federal army. He lived on an island in the river near Laredo, Texas. The federal soldiers stole several of his horses, and seeing him on the American bank of the river, they invited him to cross, saying they would pay for the horses. They knocked him PASSING EVENTS. 609 down and confined him in jail, and later the soldiers took him from the jail, shot him, and hanged the dead body to a tree. Much excitement occurred over the matter, and members of his family and hired Mexicans went over to the graveyard in Mexico, where he was buried, exhumed his body, and took it to the American shore. Governor Colquitt, of Texas, at first threatened to do this, but was told by the Secretary of State that such an act would be one for which only the national government could assume responsibility, and in the opinion of the president it would be an act of war. Castillo, the bandit, who was charged with responsibility for the Cumbre tunnel disaster, on the Mexican Northwestern Railway, was arrested, February 17, at Hachita, New Mexico, and is held in the United States. There was talk of a movement among the constitutionalists to bring about a secession of the five northern states of Mexico. Both Carranza and Villa repudiate any solution of the Mexican problem that does not include the deposition of Huerta. Elder William Gardner, who has been appointed successor to President O. D. Romney of the New Zealand Mission, and of whom a recent portrait is presented herewith, is a sturdy man who has earned the title, "pioneer made." He is a son of Robert Gardner and Jane McEwan. He was born in a wagon on the plains, while his parents were on their way to the Rocky Mountains, on May 22, 1846, at Bonaparte, Iowa. The family reached Utah in October, 1847, and settled in Mill Creek. In 1862, the family were called to build up southern Utah. Elder Gardner assisted in building the St. George tabernacle, and enlisted also in Captain James Anderson's regiment, organized to protect the people from the Indians. In 1866, he settled in Pine Valley. He received a call, by Erastus Snow, to go on a mission to New Zealand, and left in May, 1884, being absent for three years and eight months. He was one of the first six elders sent to labor among the Maoris, and while among them baptized over four hundred into the Church, and assisted in organizing seventeen branches. In the fall of 1887, he returned home, and was given a patriarchal blessing by John Smith, Patriarch of the Church, who told him he had been called and chosen for the ministry, and that his voice would yet be heard in 610 IMPROVEMENT ERA the islands of the sea, that he would be called to preside both at' home and abroad, and that he should do a great work in the temple of the Lord. He has now lived to see his blessing fulfilled to the very letter. He has acted as Bishop of the Pine Valley ward, where he labored until the spring of 1893, when he was called to preside over the Australian Mission, which consisted then of both Australia and New Zealand. He spent three years and six months in this mission, and, returning home, was made superintendent of Sunday Schools, which position he filled for eight years, when he was released to work in the St. George Temple, where he labored for nine years. He has also acted as stake superintendent of Religion Classes for the past fourteen years, and was a member of the High Council of his stake. Now, in the sixty-seventh year of his life, he has been called to the responsible position of presiding over the New Zealand mission, as well as the Maori Agricultural College. He succeeds Elder O. D. Romney who was released some time ago and is on his way home by way of Europe, having presided over the mission for about three years. — C. A. Hancock, Secretary New Zealand Mission. Elder Hans Jacob Christiansen will leave for Scandinavia early in April, having been called to preside over that mission to release Elder Martin Christofferson. He was born January 9, 1848, at St. Jorgensbjerg, near Roeskilde, Denmark, and is the son of Christian Hansen and Margrethe Jacobsen. At the age of fourteen, Hans became attached to the sea, and hired out as a deck boy visiting different parts of the world, including America, with the bark "Valkyrien." Taking sick in New York, he was compelled to stay for a time in America, but later returned to his native land after a very trying experience. Here he succeeded his father as postmaster of Roeskilde, being twenty-one years of age, shortly after which he entered the Danish army. In the meantime his mother became a convert to "Mormonism," and under her influence he began to investigate the gospel, believed, and was baptized on December 26, 1871, by Elder Martin Willemsen, and confirmed by Anthon H. Lund. He emigrated to Utah in June, 1872. In Salt Lake City, he learned the harness and saddle business, and later moved to Logan, where he took a prominent part in Church matters. In 1880-82, he filled a mission to Scandinavia, during which he baptized eighty-five persons.* He filled a second mission in 1885-88, presiding over the Christiania, Norway, conference for nearly three years, and added one hundred twenty-six souls to the Church by baptism. On his return he entered the mercantile business, but in 1893-5, he filled the third mission to Scandinavia, visiting the world's fair on the way. After a successful mission, baptizing sixty-four persons, he returned home in August, 1895, in charge of a company of emigrating Saints, as he had done on each return before. In Logan he again took active part in Church affairs, in priesthood and Sunday school work particularly. In 1902, he removed to Salt Lake City, where he has resided since. That same year he filled the fourth mission to Scandinavia, laboring as president of the Copenhagen Conference. In 1905, he returned, and made a business trip to California. He was called in that same year, in October, to labor as a special missionary among the Scandinavian Saints in the stakes of Zion, which position he has held since that time, and has visited practically all the stakes of the Church. Recently he was ordained a High Priest, and since 1906, acted as assistant editor of "Bikuben," up to January, 1909, when he became editor-in-chief of the paper, having held that position up to date. His experience as a missionary should specially fit him for the responsible calling to which he has now been set apart.