--- 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: 18 number: 5 published: 1915-03 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* 18, no. 5 (March 1915): 467–472." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse 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: improvementera1805unse start_page: 467 end_page: 472 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse publication_year: 1915 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 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Passing Events Passing Events Fanny Crosby Conn., February 12. the well of, known hymn writer, died in Bridgeport, Eli Harvey Peirce, business manager of the Salt Lake Tabernacle choir, telegraph operator, singer, actor, and book collector, died after a four-days' illness, February 9, 1915. He was born in Salt Lake City, Pt r 1850, His coIIection of 2,600 volumes of literature on u »A ' the Mormons" was purchased some year and a half ago by Harvard University, for $6,000. A hurricane, earthquake, and tidal wave swept over Manua, of the Samoan group, on February 10. Entire villages disappeared. The fury of the wind was unbelievable. Iron roofs were blown ten miles, and the very soil was torn from the coral rock. Even coffins in new made graves were left exposed. Five thousand inhabitants are left destitute. Edwin S. Hinckley was chosen, January 21, by the Board of Trus- tees, to be Superintendent of the Utah State Industrial School, Ogden, to succeed Dr. E. G. Gowans, who became State Superintendent of Public Instruction, on January 4 last. Mr. Hinckley is a graduate of the Brigham Young University of Provo, where he was dean of the teachers' college; and he attended the University of Michigan for four years, specializing in geology and education. He began his teaching career in his native town Fillmore, Millard county, Utah. The Mexican situation appears to be more complicated and un- promising than ever. Onthe 16th of January the convention of con- stitutionalist leaders in Mexico deposed provisional president Gutierrez and selected Colonel Roque Gonzales Garza to succeed him. Garza fled from Mexico City, January 27, for Cuernavaca where the conven- tion government was to be established. There are now four or five provisional presidents of the republic. Among this number is Gen- eral Francisco Villa who proclaimed himself in charge of the Mexi- can presidency, on February 3. He appointed three ministers to take charge of the civil government. Mrs. May Wilcken Cannon, president of the Woman's Press Club, and first counselor of the Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement As- sociation of Liberty stake, died on the 14th of February, at the L. D. S. hospital. She was born in Heber City, January 8, 1870. and was the daughter of Charles H. and Eliza Reich Wilcken. She graduated from the University of Utah, and was married to President Hugh J. Cannon of the Liberty stake, October 1, 1890. She accompanied her husband on missions to Switzerland and Germany, in 1903, and was a faithful and active worker in the organizations of the Church. She had a family of seven children the oldest of which is twenty-three years and the youngest seven. — Prize Essay. The National Education Association, through the generosity of a California resident, and in connection with the Panama- Pacific International Exposition, offers a prize of $1,000 for the best essay on "The Essential Place of Religion in Education, with an Out- line of a Plan for Introducing Religious Teaching Into the Public Schools." Notice of intention to file an essay must be given the secretary, D. W. Springer, Arm Arbor, Michigan, by April 1, 1915. 468 IMPROVEMENT ERA Further particulars will be glady furnished by him. The essays are limited to ten thousand words and must be in possession of the sec- retary by June 1, 1915. Six typewritten copies must be furnished so that the preliminary reading may be done independently. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone in 1875, has lived to see the day when his voice can be heard across the continent. On the 25th of January last he spoke from New York to California, a distance of 3,400 miles. He spoke to Mr. Watson, his assistant. The first words he said were: "Are you there?" Mr. Watson answered, "Indeed, I am," and as he did so he threw up his hands with a whoop of joy. This was the first official talk between the western and eastern gates of the United States, over a telephone line whose wires span cities, prairies, snowy mountain peaks, rivers, and chasms, and hummed the words from ocean to ocean in the twitch of an eyelid. The M. I. A. Boy Scouts of America, who are affiliated with the National Organization, celebrated, during the week February 7-13, the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America in Washington, D. C, February 8, 1911. There are about 2,000,000 boy scouts in the world, one-sixth of whom reside in the United States. There are over 1,200 M. I. A. scouts registered with the national or- ganization, and more than 3,000 doing scout work in the wards of the Church. The number is rapidly increasing, and systematic efforts are being made to effect a strong and united organization in the Y. M. M. I. A. They are represented by Major Richard W. Young in the National Council, by Dr. John H. Taylor as Scout Commissioner, and are supervised by about sixty scout masters. The movement has the hearty support of leading Church officials. Education in Utah is flourishing and forging on with great strides. During 1914, according to the tenth biennial report of the state super- intendent of public instruction, $4,570,085, were expended for school purposes. There were 96,679 children in attendance with a school population of 117,682; that means an increase since statehood, in 1896, of 28,793, in attendance, and 38.239 in population. The valuation of school property is now $8,963,579, as against $1,386,851, in 1896, an increase of more than seven and a half million dollars. Counting the school year 180 days, Utah expended daily for schools, during 1914, $25,411 per day, or more than $12,000 for each day in the year. Out of 2,600 teachers 600 are males, and 2,000 females. In the forty-four high schools of the state there were 7,444 pupils enrolled and 640 graduates, taught by 400 teachers— 130 men and 270 women. The "teachers received $1,839,690 in salary, and the sum of $813,576 was spent for new buildings. Text books cost $186,202. A direct prohibition bill was introduced January 20, into the Sen- ate of the Utah State Legislature, by Senator John H. Wootton, at the request of the Utah Federation of Prohibition and Betterment League, John M. Whitaker, president; and the Municipal League of Utah. Thomas H. Burton, chairman of the law and legislative committee of > that league. The signers said to Senator Wootton, in their invitation to him to introduce the bill, that it is "the sincere hope of the better element throughout the state that this measure be given prompt atten- of 7,000 words or more, tion and speedv approval." The bill consists or strong and prohibits the "manufacture, sale, or keeping, of liquor sacramental pur- drink of whatever description." It excepts wine for noses and alcohol and wine for medicinal purposes through physicians prescriptions. The act is to take effect on the first Monday in June, PASSING EVENTS 469 1916. On February 11, after six hours of debate, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of fourteen to three. Senators voting for the bill were: Bradley, Chez, Colton, Cottrell, Craig, Eckersley, Evans, Funk, Hansen, Reynolds, Rideout, Seegmiller, Thornley, and Wootton; vot- ing against it: Dern, Wight, who changed his vote to aye to move a reconsideration, and Ferry. Prohibition in the United States appears to be progressing: Dur- ing the month, Arkansas declared for state-wide prohibtion, and on January 14, both branches of the /\labama legislature passed a pro- hibition bill by large majorities. On February 9, the Colorado Senate, passed a state-wide prohibition bill by a vote of 27 to 4. On the 11th, the Senate of the Utah legislature passed a bill prohibiting the manu- facture and sale of liquors in the state of Utah by a vote of 14 to 3. On February 12, the Iowa Senate adopted a constitutional amendment providing for state-wide prohibition by a vote of 29 to 10. In this conection "Collier's Weekly" quotes from the editor of the "Arkansas Fruit and Farms," giving the condition on the border of the state be- tween Oklahoma and Arkansas as follows: "The liquor interests advocate that prohibition does not prohibit, but the record here in Fort Smith shows that the curse has been elim- inated to a point where our jails are empty, our police half of what it was when we had saloons, the cost of feeding prisoners is less than fifty dollars per month as compared to nearly a thousand a month under wet conditions, and our city jail is now used as a lodging house for the transient poor. No arrests occurred in Fort Smith from Thursday morning to Saturday morning, which included New Year's Day." The same paper also gives this quotation from a letter received from Waterloo, Iowa, and adds, "This is our idea of progress:" "The saloons in Iowa have been dwindling, and are being chopped off here and there through one action or another for the last number of years. In 1910 we had nearly 4,000 saloons in the state. Today we have whittled them down to about 560, and we have, through court actions and other actions, 150 of these to be closed between now and July 1 next. Des Moines, our capital, is to close its 86 saloons on the 16th day of February under a vote of the City Council." In answer to inquiry from George Albert Smith and Richard W. Young, of Utah, Hon. J. B. Case, President National Irrigation Con- gress, Abilene, Kansas, says: "Prohibition in Kansas has brought clean towns, permanent pros- perity and a high standard of morality. Ninety-five per cent of voters would indorse prohibition today. My experience dates from 1871 and any former Kansan who declares prohibition a failure here misrepre- sents facts. Our money goes into homes and happiness. Our bank deposits are overflowing. New generations who have never seen a saloon are making model citizens. No one thing ever was of so much value to the state industries and social life as prohibition. No law in Kansas is more rigidly enforced than prohibition." — The Submarine. The recent announcement that the submarine U-21 had rounded the north coast of Scotland and raided the mer- chant fleet of England on her western shores was perhaps the most depressing thing to England of all the present war. Before the pres- ent conflict in Europe broke out, naval experts declared that the new inventions looking to the perfection of the submarine system of war- fare meant the annihilation of the great dreadnoughts, just as Eng- 470 IMPROVEMENT ERA land, by the construction of these great vessels, had practically thrown into her junk-pile all of what then became an inferior almost useless navy. Experts point out the almost defenseless condition of any nation whose commerce and navy could be brought within the radius of the submarine. This great terror of the seas is intended to destroy the naval supremacy of any country. Germany cannot be reached. Her ships of war have either been destroyed or put securely under cover. Her commerce upon the ocean has been destroyed. The work of raiding the seas through the submarine is therefore her only and last resort, and she intends that England shall pay dearly for her command of the seas. It is said that the submarine has now a radius of 2,500 miles. If so, the damage which Germany can do to the com- merce of Great Britain is limited only by the number of effective sub- marines she can put in operation. England is at a disadvantage, be- cause, in the matter of submarine attacks, her position is wholly one of defense, and she is now very greatly exercised over the invention of some sort of craft that will counteract the dangers of German sub- marines. Up to the present, her light cruisers have been relied upon for that work. England will undoubtedly commence the construction of a submarine flotilla that shall as far as possible, counteract the Germans, but the sea is so large that its fogs and its tempests make it almost impossible to patrol. When the calmer weather comes, it is not unlikely that an effort will be made to circumscribe the whole German submarine system to as narrow a locality as possible. If Germany now endangers England, it is not unlikely that before long Russia will attack Germany. Germany is now in control of the Baltic sea, and still maintains her commerce with the Scandinavian countries. The Russians, with an adequate system of submarines, might even become a greater menace to that part of Germany's trad- ing than Germany is to England on the open sea. Germany is very concerned lest the United States should undertake the construction of submarine boats for sale to European countries, especially to Russia. For the present, England no doubt will be compelled to furnish a number of war vessels to escort her merchant ships beyond the reach of the German submarine. It may here be said that the sub- marine is a vastly greater factor in the present war than airships. The latter are merely auxiliaries, at the best. The submarine may become a dominating agency of war. Its possibilities, experts tell us, have barely begun. Only a year ago it was an experiment; today it has been developed into one of the most effective means of warfare that has ever been discovered. Its secrets have been guarded by the Germans for a number of years, as they realized it would be the most effective means which that country could invent to combat the naval power of Great Britain. Joseph M. Tanner. The great war in Europe continued unceasingly during the month with little change. The British authorities announced that 147,000 men constituted the loss of Great Britain during the past five months. Taking this figure as a basis it isclear that more than 500,000 men have been lost in the battlefields during the first five months, which means about three thousand each day. It is no wonder that the Ger- man emperor should express himself, as he did recently, that "the losses have been discouraging." On January 24th, a British squadron, composed of five large battle cruisers and a number of smaller vessels, met a German squadron of four battle cruisers and a number of smaller craft somewhere in the North sea near the Frisian islands. The British ships were superior in gun power and the contact resulted in the German ships withdraw- PASSING EVENTS 471 mg into the protection of their mine fields. One German ship, the "Blucher," was sunk and the British battle cruiser "Lion" and the destroyer "Meteor" were damaged by the Germans and towed into port. This battle was celebrated in London as a great victory, while Berlin declared that at least one British cruiser had been sunk, and considered the honors equal. Up to January 19, no material change was reported in Poland or Galicia. The Russians were reported ad- vancing steadily through Bukowina. In the west, on January 14, Kaiser Wilhelm was a spectator of the German success in which his army captured the heights of Vregny and drove the French across the Aisne. The French claimed that the floods compelled them to cross the Aisne. The Germans, in the west, particularly in Belgium, held up the conflict on the battle line's extremities. On January 18, a fleet of German aircraft bombarded the English towns of Yar- mouth, King's Lynn, and other parts on the Norfolk coast. Consid- erable damage resulted and four lives were lost. — January 21. British aeroplanes bombarded Zeebrugge, Burges, Ostend, and Essen. German aeroplanes bombarded Dunkirk. — January 26. Turkish outposts reached the Suez canal and fought at Elkantara. — January 28. Russian torpedo boats sunk many Turkish vessels in the Black sea and bombarded Trebizend. — January 29. Germans destroyed a French regiment in the Ar- gonne forest. January — German submarines sunk the British steamships 30. "Kilcoan," "Ben Cruachan," and "Linda Blanche," the Irish sea. in January — German submarines torpedoed the British steam- 31. ships "Tokomaru" and "Icaria" off Havre, which were carrying food to the continent. The Russians claim sweeping victories over Otto- man forces in the Caucasus, and at Tabriz. February 1. — Both Russia and Germany claim success in several severe engagements northeast of the lower Vistula. — February 2. Great Britain notified Washington that hereafter all foodstuffs from America, destined for Germany, Austria or Turkey will be regarded as conditional contraband. Preparations are made in England to fit out a "mosquito fleet" to detect the presence of sub- marines along the coast and to sein for floating mines. — February 4. The German Admiralty announced to the world: "The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole of the English Channel, are declared a war zone from and after Feb- ruary 18, 1915. "Every enemy merchant ship found in this war zone will be de- stroyed even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and passengers. "Also, neutral ships in the war zone are in danger, as in conse- quence of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British govern- ment on January 31, and in view of the hazards of naval warfare, it 'can not always be avoided that attacks meant for enemy ships endan- ger neutral ships. "Shipping northward, around the Shetland Islands, in the eastern basin of the North Sea, and in a strip of at least_ thirty nautical miles in breadth along the Dutch coast, is endangered in the same way." — February 10. The United States government sent a note to Great Britain, making friendly observations on the use by British ships of neutral flags, and at the same time dispatched a communication to Germany, inquiring what steps will be taken by German naval com- manders to verify the identity of ships flying neutral flags in the re- cently proclaimed zones of war around England and Ireland. The Jitney, a new word in the language, has appeared in Salt Lake City and Ogden; more than a word; it is an auto bus in it is competition with the street railways. The idea is working east from the extreme west, and according to a coast paper here is an estimate of the business the jitneys were doing late in January: Number Daily City Cars Receipts San Francisco 300 $2,400 Transbay cities 450 3,600 Los Angeles 1,050 8,400 Portland 75 600 Seattle : 500 4,000 Totals 2,375 $19,000 Ogden and Salt Lake City commissioners are figuring out whether to permit the jitneys, and if so, what the regulations shall be. The Utah Legislature met in the new state capitol on Thursday, February 11, 2 p. m., and had as their guest David J. Palmer, Com- mander-in-Chief of the G. A. R. It is expected that all the state offices will be opened by August 1. Improvement Era, March, 1915 Two Dollars per Annum with Manual Free Entered at the Post Office, Salt Lake City, Utah, as second class matter Joseph F. Smith, ) Editors Heber J- Grant, Business Manager Edward H. Anderson, J Moroni Snow, Assistant TABLE OF CONTENTS Portrait of Dr. John A. Widtsoe Frontispiece Winter. A Poem O. F. Ursenbach 377 Bringing the Farmer to School.Illustrated. .Lon J. Haddock, B. S . 379 The Prophet's Last Letters B. F. Cummings 388 My Prayer. A Poem Minerva Pinkerton 393 The Life Message of John Ruskin Alfred Lambourne 394 Origin of the Brown South Pacific Islander.John Q. Adams 393 Illustrated. I Guy Coleman 401 The Toiler. A Poem tab Thoughts on the Origin of Life Robert C. Webb.. 402 Maxims and Wise Sayings J. B. Ball 416 Anthon L. Skanchy—VIII-X Dr. John A. Widtsoe....... 417 The Girl Who Came Back. A Story Elizabeth Cannon Porter. . 425 Teaching in the Home Charles B. Felt 434 New Map of Europe Dr. Joseph M. Tanner 445 Shape of Tree Trunks and Branches Delbert Parratt, B. S 448 — Editor's Table Work for the Dead The First Presidency 451 Boys in the Office of Deacon 452 The Boys' Half Acre Contest 453 Donations to War Sufferers 454 The "Era" Story Contest 455 Messages from the Missions 456 — Priesthood Quorums' Table Suggested Les- son Outlines for the Deacons P. Joseph Jensen 460 — Mutual Work Suggestive Ward Report ' 462 Elimination of Dead Material Preston D. Richards 463 Monthly Consultations Claude Richards 464 On Teaching Walter A. Kerr 464 Contests, 1915 466 Passing Events 467