--- 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: 11 published: 1915-09 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* 18, no. 11 (September 1915): 1034–1038.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18011unse 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: improvementera18011unse start_page: 1034 end_page: 1038 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18011unse 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 A new rebellion in Haiti broke out on August 5, and on August 6 American naval forces took possession of the office of Port au Prince. One Haitian was killed. A flood in Erie, Pa., on August 3, caused great property damage and two thousand persons lost their homes in the disaster. Twenty- five lives were lost. The flood was caused by a cloud burst. Harry K. Thaw, the young millionaire who murdered Architect Stanford White some nine years ago, was adjudged sane by a jury in New York on July 14, ending a nine-years' controversy in the courts. The Japanese cabinet, headed by Count Okuma, resigned July 30, in consequence of well-substantiated charges of corruption and bribery made against Count Oura. The emperor on the 9th authorized Premier Okuma to withdraw his resignation and form a new cabinet. The Panama Canal was used on July 16 for the first time by United States battle ships. On that day the "Missouri," ''Ohio," and "Wisconsin" passed through on their way to the Exposition at San Francisco where three or four battle ships are already gathered. Crops in the United States, according to government estimates given for 1915, will be very large. The wheat crop will be worth more than a billion dollars and the corn crop will be valued at two billion. There will be a record crop of rye, white and sweet potatoes, and tobacco. The potato crop promises to exceed any former record by 103,000,000 bushels. Three billion bushels of corn, one and a half billion of oats, and a billion bushels of wheat, are in prospect, for the year. The American Bar Association opened its thirty-eighth annual convention at ten o'clock August 17, in Salt Lake City, with more than 1,200 members in attendance. The meeting was held in the Assembly Hall. Governor Spry and United States Senator George Sutherland welcomed the bar and bench to Salt Lake City. Among the visiting mem- bers are noted men from all parts of the United States, including Sen- ator J. Hamilton Lewis of Illinois, and Ex-president William Howard Taft, who arrived in Salt Lake City on the 18th, and was heartily welcomed. Hon. Elihu Root was chosen president of the association. The wireless station at Sayville, Long Island, was taken over by the government of the United States on July 9, and is now being operated by officers of the United States navy. The reason for taking it is that though nominally American it is chiefly owned by German electrical companies, and was virtually controlled by the German government and run by German military officers. Our gov- ernment, therefore, held that the station violated the povisions of the Hague convention against the establishment of belligerent wire- less stations on the soil of neutral nations. A new railroad is about completed between Larissa and Saloniki. about seventy miles, which opened for traffic in August. It has been completed by Greece through the northern mountains, and connects them with the great roads that penetrate the rest of Europe. The government has been enabled to do this since the Balkans drove the Turks out of Macedonia. The traveler can now go by rail from Paris to Athens in sixty hours, and mail between England and India can go in one day less than it has ever gone before. It is reported that America supplied the locomotive engines and the rails. Galveston, Texas, was struck on the 16th by a tropical storm and tidal wave, the wind increasing to a velocity in the afternoon of be- tween sixty and seventy-five miles an hour. Thousands of people left Galveston, fearing a repetition of the catastrophe of 1900. The damage to property is estimated at fifteen milllion dollars. During part of the time the city was under five feet of water. The storm also passed over Houston and other coast cities. The death list will exceed one hundred, and outside of the Galveston losses there will be another loss of at least fifteen million dollars, the total being estimated at over thirty million dollars. The water mains in Galveston were broken, and on the 18th fires were raging uncontrolled in consequence. Four of our missionaries laboring in Galveston reached Houston safely on the 20th. The losses in the great war, about the first of August, the end of the first year of the war, in both men and money were enormous, according to a table compiled from official statistics and reckoned by the Red Cross and other relief organizations. The "New York Inde- pendent" learns that the grand total of killed in the ten nations that were in the war during the year amounted to 2,408,000; the wounded 5,155.000; prisoners and missing 1,802,000; making a grand total of 9,365.000. The Allies out of this number lost 1,503,000 in killed; 3,355,000 wounded, and 1,302,000 in prisoners and missing, making a total of 6,160,000, or nearly twice as many as Germany and her allies lost. The greatest loss in killed and wounded was in Russia where 800,000 were killed and 2,000,000 wounded. In Mexico the condition of affairs changed once more on the 31st of July when General Gonzales, the Carranza leader, re-occupied the city without much opposition. Food and supplies were very scarce. It was announced on August 2nd, in Washington, that the ambas- sadors of Brazil, Argentine and Chili, and the three senior ministers from South and Central America, those from Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala, had been invited to confer with Secretary Lansing with a view to uniting on a plan to restore order in Mexico. The meeting was held for this purpose on August 5th, on which occasion Secre- tary Lansing laid before the diplomats the suggestions for action in Mexico prepared by President Wilson. The plan is to recognize a provisional government, and to forbid the exportation of arms to any faction opposing it. The Portneuf stake was organized at Downey, Idaho, on the oc- casion of the Pocatello quarterly conference held on August 14 and 15 The stake was divided along a line running east and west between McCammon and Onyx. The southern part of the old stake with Swan Lake formerly of Oneida stake, forms the new stake of Portneut, and the northern part remains in Pocatello. The wards in the Portneut stake are Cambridge, Downey, Garden Creek, Grant Lava Lava Hot Springs Marsh Center, McCammon. Virginia, Woodland, Arimo and Swan Lake The remaining wards in Pocatello stake are Inkom, Pocatello 1st and 2nd, Tyhee, American Falls, Neeley, Rockland, Meadow and Crystal branch. George T. Hyde was made president of the Portneuf stake, with William W. Henderson and Swen F. Johnson counselors, and Guy Gittings superintendent of the Y. M. M. I. A. The presidency of the Pocatello stake is as follows: Wil- liam A. Hyde, Noah S. Pond and Finn H. Berg. The superintendent of the Y. M. M. I. A. is J. Wyley Sessions. President Francis M. Lyman and Elder James E. Talmage of the Council of the Twelve attended to all matters connected with the change, representing the First Presidency. The "Eastland" carrying Western Electric employees and their friends on an excursion, capsized at her dock in the Chicago river, on July 24th, with 2,480 people on board, hundreds of whom were caught in her hold or between decks and drowned. Approximately twelve hundred people were dead or missing. It is one of the world's greatest excursion boat tragedies. An investigation was held, and the captain and several of the officers owning the boat were indicted and held answerable for the disaster. At' the Exposition in San Francisco, Illinois Day was to be celebrated by the governor, militia and Illinois people, on the 24th, but upon hearing of the disaster the governor and a number of the leading men with him chartered a train and went to Chicago immediately. The flag was placed at half-mast on the Illinois building, and the celebration postponed. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, who paid Salt Lake City a visit in July, visited western Canada on his return, and we are informed by Frank C. Steele, of Raymond, that his sojourn in the great Canadian prairie land, "though regretably brief, was sufficiently extended for the Colonel to capture and hold the Canadian heart." At Moose Jaw a young private, a big, strapping six-footer, chanced near the Colonel's car. "Jump- ing out, Teddy grasped the fellow's hand and shook it warmly, shouting something like this into the ear of the pleased but bewildered soldier: 'I like the looks of you Canadian chaps. You will make mighty fine soldiers.' That was enough. Like lightning, the incident stirred the fertile imagination of the scribes and editors, great and small, who wove all sorts of stories around it." People came from all directions to meet the trains as the Colonel passed over the country. "He de- livered many short, encouraging speeches from his car, and the home- steaders, cow-boys, and storekeepers, not to mention their good wives and children, applauded and were pleased." Mr. Steele remarks that somewhere "between Moose Jaw and Swift Current a pack of steers recently imported from Texas actually smiled, in recognition of Teddy, through the car window." Lewis S. Hills, veteran banker and financier, and for many years president of the Deseret National Bank, died July 21, 1915. He was born March 8, 1836, in South Amhurst, Mass., and was educated in the public schools and in the high school of Springfielo, Mass. In 1862 he came to Utah settling first at Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he clerked in the land office. He and William H. Hooper and Horace S. Eldredge started a private bank in Salt Lake City, under the name of Hooper, Eldredge & Company with a capital of $40,000. In 1872 the firm was incorporated under the national bank act as the Deseret National Bank, and he became cashier, which position he occupied until 1892 when he was made president of the institution which posi- tion he held until May 1, 1911, when he retired. He was a very quiet man In his business ability people had great confidence, as a man upon whose word men could readily rely. He was fond of home, and thought very much of his family. The Great War. July 9. — General Louis Botha commanding the British colonial troops in South Africa receives the surrender of the forces in German southwest Africa. July 12. — The German cruiser "Koenigsburg" which had sought refuge on the eastern coast of Africa since last September, has been totally destroyed by the British. July 13. — The German attack in the Argonne forest results in a gain of the French of a half a mile over a front of three miles. — It is announced that the British Al/2% loan has brought new sub- scriptions of nearly three thousand millions. July 14. — The British House of Lords adopted the registration bill previously passed by the House of Commons under which all able- bodied men will be registered and classified, undoubtedly a preliminary step to conscription. — During June forty-two merchant ships were sunk by German submarines. — Mr. Bonar Law, the British secretary fci the colonies estimates that 450,000 square miles of German colonial possessions have been occupied by the Allies. July 15. — Germany announces the occupation of the strongly fortified city of Prasznysz, in northern Poland, — A miners' strike ties up the great coal industry of Wales. This strike was amicably settled on the 20th. — It was announced that the Austro-Hungarian government had sent a note to Washington protesting against the shipment of munitions of war into the enemy's country as not in consonance with our neutrality. July 16. — Germany begins a new offensive against Russia with Warsaw as a probable objective, Field Marshal von Hindenberg com- manding the German armies from the north, and Field Marshal von Mackensen those from the south. July 17. — The Italian crusier "Guiseppe Garibaldi" was sunk by an Austrian submarine. July 19. — British official figures relating to British interception of American cotton for German or neutral North Sea ports show that since March 11, sixty vessels have been retained and cargoes of twenty- five valued at $3,500,000 have been purchased by arrangements with American shippers. July 20. — The German advance on Warsaw from the north, west and south, reaches within twenty to twenty-five miles of the city. July 21— Germans invest Ivangorod, and have taken sixty thou- sand Russian prisoners since July 12 when the drive on Warsaw began. July 22. — General Ian Hamilton reports steady though slow pro- gress by the Allies on the Gallipoli peninsula. July 23. — The Germans storm the fortresses of Rozan and Pultusk on the Narew river. July 24. — The sinking of a French and a British steamer and four British trawlers marks the resumption of German submarine activity. July 25. — The American tramp freight steamer "Leelanaw" was sunk by a German submarine off the Orkney islands the crew escap- ing. The vessel carried contraband cargo of flax from Archangel, Russia, to Belfast, Ireland.— There was a clean sweep in the Russian war office of the men responsible for the present shortage of_ ammu- ntion in Russia. — Berlin announces that the Germans have in hand over 1,500,000 Russian prisoners. July 27.— English official statements to July 18 announce the Brit- ish naval losss as 9,106, and the total military casultities as 301,891. July 28. — Berlin announces that up to July 25, 229 British vessels have been sunk by German submarines, also thirty other hostile ships and twenty-seven neutral vessels, carrying contraband. Six neutral craft were torpedoed by mistake. July 29. — The German advance upon Warsaw was resumed after having been checked by the Russians on the 28th. July 30. — The Germans and Austrians capture Lublin. The Rus- sian government announces the evacuation of Warsaw. July 31. — The Pope issued a letter to all belligerents urging peace. Holland provides for a great increase in her army. August 1. — The Czar re-affirms his pledge of autonomy for Poland. August 4. — Warsaw was evacuated by the Russians, on account of the lack of ammunition. The bridges over the Vistula river were blown up. The Bavarian troops, under Prince Leopold, were the first to break through the forts of the outer and inner lines of the city's defenses. The next step will be the German emperor's triumphant entry into the Polish capital, soon to be followed by the announcement of a united and semi-autonomous Poland — embracing not only the territory wrested from the Russians but the Austrian crown land of Galicia. August 7. — A report from London declares that Sweden may throw in her lot with Germany and Austria. — A report from Berlin says that the troops were welcomed to undamaged Warsaw as liber- ators. August 8.— The Turkish battleship "Barbaressa," of 9,900 tons dis- placement, formerly the German warship "Frederick Wilhelm" was sunk by a submarine of the allied powers. A majority of the 600 of- ficers and men were saved. August 12. — The Baltic flank of the German armies are reported as having attained the banks of the river Dvina, near Riga, with Petro grad less than three hundred miles away in a direct line. The Ger- mans announce that Germany must cut her way through to Constanti- nople; and the Balkan situation is beginning to look serious. August 16. — In a note to Austria, the United States firmly but politely declines to accede to the request of the Vienna government that the export of arms to the Allies be stopped. August 17. — The British transport "Royal Edward" was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. There were' 1,350 troops on board and 220 other persons, only 600 of whom were saved. August 18. — The Germans capture Kvona, one of the crucial points in the Russian defensive in the north; and the road to the Vilna, War- saw and Petrograd railway is now open to the troops of Emperor William. August 19. — A German submarine sank the ocean liner "Arabic," carrying some 480 passengers and crew. Eight people were drowned, including two Americans. The ship carried between ten and fifteen million dollars of American securities. Among the list of American survivors is A. Hulme Nebeker, of Logan, Utah, who was returning from a two-years' mission in Liverpool, where he had acted as confer- ence president. August 20.- — A German submarine sank the Bristol liner, "New York City," and a number of other smaller vessels; it was reported.