--- 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: 11 published: 1914-09 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. 11 (September 1914): 1089–1094.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera17011unse 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: improvementera17011unse start_page: 1089 end_page: 1094 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1914-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera17011unse 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 Sugar prices in Utah advanced three dollars per hundred in Vugust, owing to the war in Europe. In England the price advanced in one day three times normal, sugar selling for thirteen cents a pound instead of four and a quarter. J. M. Sjodahl, editor of the Deseret Evening News, recently tendered his resignation, after many years of faithful labor. Elder LeRoy Bourne, it was announced by the First Presidency, will occupy the position made vacant by Editor Sjodahl. From Scotland to Norway, over the North Sea, in four hours and ten minutes, was the feat of Lieut. Tryggve Gran, a Norwegian aviator. He left Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, at 1:08 p. m., July 20, and arrived at Klep, near Stavanger, Norway, at 5:17 p. m., English time, covering a distance of 320 miles at an average speed of just over 76 miles an hour. It is said to be the longest aviation trip from land to land ever taken. Russia and Poland. Russia, according to dispatches, has offered Poland autonomy, and the privilege of its own language, provided she will prove loval to Russia under the present war. This is a remarkable offer for Russia to make. However, it is reported in the telegrams that Austria has also issued a proclamation to the Poles, calling upon them to join the Austro-Germanic army, as Austria will bring them freedom from Muscovite rule. The completion of the Orem Road to Provo. A celebration of the completion of the Orem interurban road to Provo was held on the 14th of August, at Provo. Representatives from the surrounding cities and towns met, and, under the direction of the Provo Commercial Club, a suitable program was carried out. Speeches were made by Samuel C. Park, mayor of Salt Lake City, by Governor William Spry, and by President William C. Orem and others. The International Harvester Company was declared to be a monopoly in restraint of inter-state and foreign trade by Judges Walter I. Smith and William C. Hook, in the United States court at St. Paul, August 12. The company was ordered dissolved. The corporation is capitalized at one hundred and forty millions, and is ordered to submit plans for the dissolution of the combination into at least three independent concerns, within ninety days. Failing in this, the court will entertain an application for the appointment of a receiver for all the properties of the corporation. George T. Odell, of the Consolidated Wagon & Machine Co., declared that the dissolution of the company would likely result in a raise rather than a lowering in price of farm machinery. President Joseph F. Smith visited Canada with Presiding Bishop Charles 'W. Nibley and Bishop David A. Smith, in early August. They made an inspection of the foundation of the temple which is being erected in Cardston, and attended the Taylor and Alberta stake conferences. At the Cardston conference President Joseph F. Smith said, in relation to the raising of a local squadron by Major H. B. Brown for service in the army: "It is the duty of all Latter-day Saints to be 1090 IMPROVEMENT ERA loyal to the country in which they reside, and if exigencies should arise in Canada, as they have arisen in England, our blessed motherland, the Latter-day Saints are prepared to do their part. If you here are called to the defense of your country we want you to be loyal. Ours is a blessed country, and we will defend it with our lives if necessary. We do not want war and bloodshed, but if they come, and your services are required, be loyal and help to defend your country." The company returned, after a ten days' visit, on August 14, 10 a. m. Mr. J. S. Perkins, formerly assistant manager of the Herald Square Hotel, New York, and at present associated with the Marlborough Hotel, 36-37 Broadway, New York, pays the following splendid tribute to the character of the Latter-day Saints, particularly do his statements apply to the missionaries whom he has principally entertained. He says in a letter to Mr. W. C. Spence of Salt Lake City: "During the past twenty-five years I have roomed possibly ten thousand 'Mormons,' and wish to say that I have never known one of them to leave a hotel with his bill unpaid, nor did I ever see one of them under the influence of liquor, two cardinal virtues which I think might be successfully copied by communicants of other denominations. I have no particular creed myself, other than a firm belief in the Ten Commandments and future rewards and punishments. I firmly believe that every man has a right to worship God in his own way. under his own vine and fig tree as he may see fit, with no one to molest or make him afraid." Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, wife of the President of the United Staf.es, died at the White House, August 6, 1914. Death came after a brave struggle of months against brights disease with complications. The president's tender for peace to the warring nations of Europe, was written while he was sitting at the bedside of Mrs. Wilson. Every moment that could be spared from his office the president spent at her side. She was his constant co-worker in the past. On the morning of her death, the Senate, realizing her condition, passed in silent concurrence her Alley bill for the destruction of Washington slums a bill in which she was deeply interested. While she was still conscious, this cheering news was brought to her. It was the strain of social work, and the duties of entertainment that sapped her life. The whole nation sympathizes with the President in the great grief that has come upon him. "The people grieve," one editor has stated, as quoted in the Literacy Digest, "but at such a time as this there is no way for anv mortal man to lighten the load or lessen the grief of President Wilson." Mrs. Wilson's body was buried at Myrtle Hill cemetery, Rome, Ga., August 11. Thousands of visitors came to Rome to do honor to her memory, and a Sabbath-like quiet prevailed. — Ithamar Sprague. In reading in the Era No. 7 of the resting place of the Saints at Mount Pisgah, and having brothers and sisters laid to rest there, I beg a small space in your magazine for a brief incident in the life of my father, Ithamar Sprague. After my father joined the "Mormon" Church he met and married a girl by the name of Betsy Gardner. She was not in the Church, but he married her in hopes of converting her to his faith later on. This, however, required a long time. She would say to him, "I don't believe in your faith, but I believe in you. Where you go I will go, and what you suffer I will suffer in life." At Pisgah they lost three children, the name of one being Fonzo. After they gathered with the Saints my father's wife said to him one day: "Isn't death an awful thing. We are married PASSING EVENTS. 1091 until death do us part. Death to me looks like a leap into the dark, and I fear that we shall never see our children again. The Latter-day Saints believe that we will meet on the other side of the veil and be more happy there than we are here with those whom e have loved \ upon the earth. This is and I Wish to be bap- a glorious principle, tized this very day." She then joined the Church. .When she was sick at Pisgah she told my father: "1 am going to die and when the Saints have built a temple I want you to do the work for me and my folks." She then bade him good-bye, and stated that she and the children would meet him beyond the vail. The work in the Temple has been done, and my mother undoubtedly has received the blessings and is associating with her little ones. I desire to get this stated about my father and mother. I was born in the old fort, at Ogden City, in 1851. I lost my beloved wife over two years ago. Your brother in the gospel, Ithamar Sprague, Jr. Entrance into the City of Mexico by the Constitutionalists was delayed by the insistence of General Carranza that the surrender of the city by the Federals, under Carbajal, should be unconditional. To this Carbajal did not agree, and hence, on August 13, he retired with his army and associates from the City of Mexico, leaving it to Eduardo Sturbide, governor of the Federal District, who later signed a formal peace pact with General Obregon, representing the Constitutionalists. This document formed the basis under which the Constitutionalists were to enter the capital. It guaranteed the life and property of the citizens, and promised a peaceful occuption. President Carbajal and his associates went to Vera Cruz and the Federal army, under Velasco, former minister of war, retired to some place unknown, having first taken with them considerable war material. President Carbajal issued a manifesto to the nation prior to his leaving, in which he said, according to the dispatches, that' he had done his best in a provisional capacity to save the country from further bloodshed, but his peaceful overtures had been met on the part of the Constitution- CARRANZA THE NEW RULER alists by uncompromising de- OF MEXICO mands for an unconditional surrender. Two paths lay before him, he said — to fight or accede to the Constitutionalists. Under such conditions the president claimed that his government could not longer exist, and he concluded: "I leave the high post which I have occupied in the belief that I have fulfilled my duty toward my country, and entrust the lives and interests in the capital to the governor of the federal district. "The whole responsibility for the future rests with the revolution, and if we should behold with affliction a repetition of the situation, which I am trying to put an end to, the truth will be manifested once more that by violence society cannot be reconstructed." 1092 IMPROVEMENT ERA General Obregon took peaceful possession of the City of Mexico on August 15. He and his soldiers were greeted by the citizens with cheers. The city was gaily decorated, and for the first time in many months, the American flag flew beside the Mexican color;; General Carranza, with the main body of the army, were scheduled to enter Mexico City on Thursday, the 20th. There is said to be great friction between General Villa and First Chief Carranza, and a new revolution is feared. The Panama Canal. —The "Alliance," of the Panama line, was the first ship to passthrough Gatun locks on June 8, preliminary to the official opening, Augustl5. The picture shows this ocean liner leaving the upper west chamber on her way to Gatun lake, on the Pacific side of the divide. It is said that it took an hour and twenty-four minutes for this vessel to ascend from the sea level to Gatun Lake, eighty-five feet. The return trip was about ten minutes longer. The "Alliance" passed through the locks on June 8. While she is only a small steamer and had only a gross tonnage of four thousand when she went throuerh the lock, the test is considered as good as if she had been one of the biggest liners afloat. The experimental trip was to try out the electrical towing machines, which operated with the accuracy of a per- fectly regulated clock. The speed by which the test was made, however, is not considered indicative of the time that it will require to take a larger ship through the locks. The canal was officially opened on August 15, "free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations on terms of entire equality." The war department liner "Ancon" passed the entire canal in nine hours, accompanied with playing of bands, ringing of bells, shrieking of whistles, and decked in flags and ensigns of all nations, the Stars and Stripes fluttering to the jack staff, and many high government officials taking part, including Colonel Goethals, who was instrumental in bringing the monstrous task to a successful end. The European war came about in this manner: Austria and Servia came to serious relations on July 23, when the former country dis- PASSING EVENTS. 1093 patched a note to Belgrade, the capital of the latter. This note referred to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, as the culmination to anti-Austrian conspiracies hatched by Pan-Slavic sympathizers under Servian protection. This was the immediate firebrand that started the European war conflagration, though the primary cause dates many years into the past. Austria demanded that Servia give definite assurance henceforth to prevent anti-Austrian agitators from carrying on their propaganda in that country. The demand was sharp and unusual and required also that Austrian officers should have part in the investigation of the alleged propaganda. On the 26th, Servia announced that she would comply with most of Austria's demands, but wished that the stipulation that the Austrian officers take part in the investigation be referred for settlement to The Hague. The reply of Servia was unsatisfactory to the Austrian government, which denounced it as "filled with the spirit of dishonesty, which clearly leaves it to be seen that the Servian government is not seriously determined to put an end to the culpable tolerance it hitherto has extended to intrigues against the Austrai-Hungary monarchy." Then, on July 28, Austria declared war against Servia, her stand being, according to her ambassador to the United States, "the defensive act of a man whose bedroom was being entered at midnight by an assassin." The next day Austrian artillery began bombarding Belgrade, the war spreading thence until it has transformed Europe from a peaceful continent into an unparalleled battlefield. It has plunged the leading nations of Europe into what' public opinion in America considers a war "senseless, insane and — utterly without cause" a war in which the European powers, after ten years of careful preparation, are at last arrayed in a struggle the like of which has no comparison since Europe was arrayed against Napoleon one hundred years ago. With Austria invading Servia, Russia became alarmed, not only for political reasons, but because the Russians are in fraternal sympathy with the Serbs, being men of a similar race and kind both — Slavs. The war is fundamentally a war of Teuton against Slav. Russia began to mobolize her army to aid the Serbs. It was set forth, also by her, that Austria had forced important railroad concessions from Turkey, seized Bosnia and Herzegovina, and interfered with the Balkan states both before and after their war with Turkey. All this had been committed against the desires and "benevolent intervention" of Russia. "We have stood this thing for seven and a half years," said Czar Nicholas to his ministers, "that is enough." France, of course, fell in line with her ally. Then Germany, whose political and race sympathies are with Austria, and whose political eye is on the Balkans, protested against the warlike preparations in Russia. The chancellor for Kaiser Wilhelm stated: "While we, at Russia's request, mediated in Vienna, the Russian forces were raised on our almost open frontier, and France, though she did not mobilize, admits that she took some military measures." Germany, therefore, sent Russia an ultimatum asking that mobilization be stopped. This was not heeded, and Germany therefore declared martial law July 31, and on August 1 declared war on Russia. The kaiser said that "Germany goes into battle with a clear conscience," and considers the present situation the result of ill-will existing for years against the strength and prosperity of the German empire. The first army movement was to invade Luxemburg and Belgium as a military necessity. This was justified, on the part of Germany, to prevent a French invasion, and to secure an easier entrance into France, and it was announced that the wrong was to be made good when the military object was achieved. Belgium being threatened with invasion, that country called upon Great Britain to aid in 1094 IMPROVEMENT ERA the maintenance of its integrity and neutrality under the treaty of 1839. Great Britain, after King George had done all in his power to establish peace, then declared war on Germany, feeling, according to Sir Edward Grey, that "we could not barter our interests or our obligations." This was followed by a declaration of war between Austria and Russia and later by Britain against Austria. Agreat battle was fought at Liege continuing during the early days of August, the Germans losing many thousands of soldiers and the Belgians at heavy loss successfully defending their forts. However, the Germans entered the interior on their way to the French border where, at this writing, millions of soldiers are concentrating for a decisive battle such as, perhaps, has never been witnessed before in the world's history. A brief summary of the chief events following the first declaration of war by Austria is here given: — July 28. Austria declares war on Servia and Russia moves troops toward Austrian frontier. — July 29. Russia partially mobilizes 1,200,000 men. All European bourses, except in Paris, are closed. Belgrade is bombarded. — July 30. Emperor William bids Russia cease mobilization within twenty-four hours or Germany will fight. Prices on New York stock exchange drop to lowest level since the panic of 1907. Special reserves are called out in Great Britain. July 31. — Germany declares martial law. New York stock exchange closes its doors for the first time since 1873. The British fleet leaves Plymouth. — August 1. Germany declares war on Russia. German and French border patrols exchange shots. Formal mobilization orders are issued in France and Germany. Italy refuses to join forces with Germany and Austria, declaring that her alliance is only defensive. TransAtlantic service between New York and continental Europe is suspended. — August 2. Russia invades Germany. Germany invades France, Belgium and Luxemburg. Belgium appeals to England. — August 3. The German fleet is reported to have attacked Russian ships and ports in the Baltic Sea. England announces she will protect France from naval attack. General mobilization begun in France. — August 4. England declares war against Germany and definitely binds herself to the support of France and Belgium. The neutrality of the United States was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson. — August 5. German forces attack Liege, Belgium. President Wilson, as chief of the greatest state signatory to The Hague convention, tendered his good office for peace to any and all of the conflicting nations of Europe. — August 6. Austria and Russia declare war on each other. — August 13. The British government declares a state of war existing between Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. — August 17. Japan sends Germany an ultimatum requesting Germany to clear the eastern seas of her warships by August 23. Pope Pius X died at Rome, at 1:20 o'clock, on the morning of August 20, 1914. His last words held forth a regret that he was unable to stem the tide of warfare which is sweeping over Europe. He said: "In ancient times, the Pope by a word might have stayed the slaughter, but now he is impotent." He was born near Venice, June 2, 1835; ordained Priest in 1858; appointed Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice in 1893, and elected Pope, August 9, 1903. He was a man of peace and friendly to both the sides of the present war.