--- 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: 20 number: 12 published: 1917-10 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* 20, no. 12 (October 1917): 1115–1122." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera20012unse 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: improvementera20012unse start_page: 1115 end_page: 1122 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-10) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera20012unse publication_year: 1917 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 1917, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Passing Events Illlllllllllllllll Illinium a amii iiiiiiiii ni i i i ii i i i ii ii ii PASSING EVENTS! Wheat prices have been fixed by the government at $2.20 a bushel at Chicago, for number one northern spring wheat. Canada passed a draft bill on August 8, by which It is expected than one hundred thousand additional soldiers will be drafted. The American Red Cross has been put on a military basis. This arrangement will exclude undesirable persons from the theatre of war. The American transport liner Minnehaha was sunk on her way home from England, Sept. 7 off the Irish coast. Of her crew of 140, 50 were lost, Queen Eleanor of Bulgaria died in Sofia September 12. She was born in 1860, and later married Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria who ascended the throne in 1908. War expenditures in the United States during August, including loans to the Allies, increased until they were more than $24,000,000, every day, or a million dollars an hour. A constitutional amendment for nation-wide prohibition passed the Senate of the United States on August 1. The House leaders agreed to defer consideration of this amendment until the December session. The mission from Japan, headed by Viscount Ishii, arrived in the United States August 13 to discuss the closer cooperation of the two coun- tries in war activities. Involved in the issues are ship construction, and the increasing of the ship tonnage in the Atlantic and Pacific by the Japanese. The new national army of 687,000 men began mobilizing September 5, when a first contingent left, to be followed by others Sept. 19, and 30. The remainder will be called in October sometime, and the national army will be trained at sixteen cantonments. The first Utah contingent left for Camp Lewis, American Lake, Wash., on Sept. 5, and the second two weeks later. All exports to neutral countries were placed under strict government control on August 27 when President Wilson issued a proclamation which became effective on August 30. This is done to the end that Germany shall get no supplies from this country, either directly or indirectly that will aid it in waging war. Later, gold shipments were included. China, having declared war against Germany, is equipping her army with modern air fighting machines, and her army is rapidly nearing the modern stage. The troops are being equipped with modern war imple- ments, and the organization of the army is going on in a modern way as- sisted by French officers, and others of the Entente Allies. The national army recruits of Utah and also throughout the whole country were made the participants at various times and places in banquets and farewell parties throughout the country. On Labor Day the Tooele contingent, composed of 114 men in all departments of the government service, were given a banquet in Tooele, with appropriate patriotic services, and in Salt Lake on Sept. 18, the boys were feted. Shipbuilding in the United States is going on with great energy. On 1116 IMPROVEMENT ERA the 24th of August contracts were ready to let for 1,272 ships, aggregating nearly 8,000,000 tons, a large part of which will be completed during the present fiscal year. This is in addition to the two million tons of shipping now building in American yards and taken over by the emergency cor- poration. The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company will divide its profits with the farmers, for the season of 1918. The first contract for raising beets that year will be made on the basis of seven dollars per ton, and then, after certain deduc- tions, it is figured that the division of profits with the farmer will amount to about $1.87 per ton leaving the farmer $8.87 per ton for his beets for the year 1918. War prisoners captured by the Entente Allies from April 9 to August 22, on all fronts, numbered 167,780, of that total 89,878 were German soldiers, captured in about equal numbers by the British and French. The others were Austrians, captured by the Italians and Russians. Since the beginning of the war the British alone, in all the theatres of the war, have captured 131,776 prisoners and have lost 43,000. Three leading Utah boys recently received commissions at the training camp at the Presidio. They were: Lieut. Vaughn M. Cannon, 23 years of age, son of Mr. and Mrs. George M. Cannon; Major Mark Y. Croxall, 40 years of age, and Lieut. Moses F. Cowley, 24 years of age, a son of Mr. and Mrs. M. F. Cowley. All three are well educated, and each of them has filled a mission, the first to England, the second to the Southern States, stnd the third, a four years' mission in the Hawaiian Islands. The West Point class members of 1918 were graduated from West Point August 30. Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, distributed the diplomas to 152 men of that class. The officials of the military academy hastened the graduation by a course of intensive instruction and training. The war, and the consequent need of as many officers for the army as can be secured, impelled the officials to this action, hence the graduation a year ahead of time. After a short furlough they will be assigned to duty with the army as second lieutenants. When Mr. Herbert C. Hoover was made administrator under the pro- visions of the new food control bill on August 10, he immediately gave notice that he should proceed at once against food speculators and those guilty of profiteering. He made a special point on the fixing of the price of wheat of the 1917 harvest, and named Pres. Garfield, William's College, as chairman of a commission to determine the price, which was later set at $2.20 per bushel. Other products will receive attention later. Sugar came under thet regulation Sept. 15. The Call to Service is the title of the latest Utah Agricultural College illustrated booklet which deals on the value of practical education todny, and particularly on the subject of college education during war time, and the service that our agricultural college is prepared to give to young men who desire to take advantage of the opportunities offered in this splendid institu- tion to prepare themselves to render the most effective service in the times of need that will follow the declaration of peace. The first American officer to give his life in the war was First Lieutenant Fitzsimmons, of Kansas City, who was killed when a German airman bombed an American hospital in France on Thursday, September 6. The war de- partment on September 10 reported the first casualties sustained by com- batant forces of the United States at the French front. The report said that PASSING EVENTS 1117 Sergeant M. G. Calderwood and Private W. F. Brannigan of Company F, 110th Railway engineers were badly wounded by a bursting shell. The weather for August, according to the local United States weather bureau, Salt Lake City, shows that there were eighteen clear days, thirteen partly cloudy, and that there were three days only with one-hundredth of an inch or more of precipitation. Of the phenomena there were auroras on the 8th and 9th. Hail on the 9th, and thunder storms on the 9th and 26th. The total precipitation for the month was .71 of an inch. The highest temperature was 92 degrees on the 9th, and the lowest 57 degrees on the 28th. Dr. Richard von Kuehlmann, former ambassador to Turkey, succeeded Dr. Zimmerman as imperial secretary for foreign affairs on August 6 when numerous other changes in the Imperial and Prussian ministries were iu~de. The significance of that appointment lies in the fact that Dr. Zim- merman has been a vigorous opponent of ruthless submarine warfare. Addressing the Reichstag on August 23, he said in his maiden speech: "A policy based on might and not on right is doomed to failure from the be- ginning." Donald B. McMillan, the explorer who has been absent in the arctic regions for four years, returned late in August to the United States. Many times during his long stay in the arctic circles he was reported lost in the snow and ice of the far north, and three relief parties had been sent for him. His search for "Crocker Land" proved that the much discussed new con- tinent was not there, and was nothing but a mirage. He made extensive surveys and did much scientific work in the interior of Greenland and north of Ellesmere Land. That France is failing in man power has been generally advertised in notices of the war. A declaration by Monsieur Andre Tardieu, in Washing- ton, who is the high commisioner of the French republic, denies that France is failing in man power. He says that it has three million soldiers in the fighting zone, its greatest strength since the war began; this is exclusive of men in the colonies, or in training elsewhere; where it had only 300 heavy guns when the war opened, it has today six thousand with ample ammuni- tion, in addition to 800 that it has given to its allies. President Woodrow Wilson made reply to the peace plan of Pope Bene- dict on August 29. His reply pointed out that a return to virtually the con- ditions before the war would not mean an enduring peace. Further, that the object of the war is to deliver the world from the menace of a cruel and perfidious military autocracy, and that the United States, although the victim of intolerable wrong, seeks no material advantages. Peace must rest on the will and purpose of the people of Germany rather than on the unre- liable word of its present government. Germany took Riga, a leading Baltic sea port of Russia at the mouth of the Dvina early in September, following the great headway that they made against the Russians in August. The Russian soldiers fre- quently retired precipitately in many places without any effort at all in defending their country. However, in places strong efforts were made to counteract the attacks of the Germans, but which appeared to fail. The taking of Riga is said not to be an indication that Petrograd will fall into the hands of the Germans. While it endangers the capital, it is said to have litlle significance in military value. Secretary Lansing, on September 8, made known from Washington how the Swedish legation in Argentina acted as a secret means of communication 1118 IMPROVEMENT ERA between the German charge d'affaires in Buenos Aires and the Berlin foreign office, transmitting information of the sailing of Argentine ships and direc- tions for their destruction by submarine. Official despatches of Count Luxburg, the German charge d'affaires at Buenos Aires, were printed. Up to the time of this writing no satisfactory answer officially has been made by Sweden to the perfidy of their officials. Argentina has handed the Ger- man charge his passports, and on the 12th there were serious anti-German riots, with fire and destruction of German property in Buenos Aires. Paul M. Sorenson, whose parents live in Spanish Forfc, Utah, enlisted in the United States Navy, April 16, 1917, just before he was 16 years of age, by special permission. He has been promoted to a responsible position, and on August 10, 1917, wrote his parents a letter from which the following extract is taken: "Who is braver than the Red Cross nurses who have left comfortable homes to go to the front and care for the needy? Who is braver than the mothers who have given their sons and husbands to their coun- try? There are no greater heroes on earth than the mothers, and among them none is more worthy than mine who taught me at her knees to love and obey God. It is her teachings that have saved me so far from temptation, from which so far I have come out victorious, thank God. Now that our nation has been plunged into war, it is the duty of every man, both to himself, his God, country, and parents, to keep him- self 'physically strong, and morally straight.' It is going to be that more than anything else which will help us to win. We are told that five hundred clean young men in a battle are worth ten thousand reeking with disease." "Wheat, wheat, wheat, and yet more wheat," is the slogan that should be adopted for the harvest of 1918," declares the Utah State Agricultural College. The country has been called on to produce more wheat than it has ever before produced; for our Allies in battle need bread in order to carry on the war most effectively. The country's reserve of wheat has gradually been decreased by the increased demand made on it from Europe, and if we supply their needs we must increase our production. This can be done by better methods in the land that has ordinarily raised wheat, and by adding new areas that have not previously raised crops. Utah is pri- marily a fall wheat area, and if the 1918 crop is to be increased to meet the request of the government for increased production, work will have to be done at once. "We do not advocate plantjng land this fall that has not been well prepared," say the College experts, "but we believe that farmers should make arrangements to raise as much wheat as their conditions will justify. A little extra work in getting the land in good condition will pay much more with the present high price of wheat than it has ever paid before." Great activity on the Austro-ltalian front was experienced during the latter part of August, at which time simultaneous attacks by the Entente Allies were made on the western front in France and Belgium which gen- erally were favorable to the Allies. During this time attacks were made on the Russian front by the Germans, who later captured the city of Riga, an im- portant port and naval base on the Baltic sea. The Tentonic forces in Aug- ust pushed their way into northern Muldavia and captured there, many prisoners. The Canadian troops continued during August to slowly force the Germans out of the district of Lens which is the coal center north of Aras, in France. PASSING EVENTS 1119 Italian forces have been winning in the Carso and along the Isonzo, and the Italian army has been steadily driving back the Austrians from one mountain peak to another, slowly battling their way to victory. Filled with joy at the glorious prospects of victory over their foe of centuries, well may the Italian nation be glad, for the fighting men of Italy have cov- ered themselves with glory in their battles above the clouds. General Cadorna is conducting a successful drive against Trieste, and a combined Anglo-Italian naval force is operating in the Adriatic and the Gulf of Trieste where Austria's navy was in great danger of destruction. The arrival of a contingent of American troops in London, August 15, gave the English an opportunity to express their enthusiasm over America's entry into the war. The American troops marched through the streets and avenues of London, passing before the King at Buckingham Palace. All Copyright Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. along the route they were welcomed by cheering thousands, while the Stars and Stripes flew from almost every flag pole. In the Parliament Buildings which they passed American liberty had long since found a defender in Lord Chatham who eloquently upheld the American cause during the revo- lution. On the 15th of September a German general offered 400 marks for the first American soldier, dead or alive. At Houston, Texas, on the 25th of August, negro troops of the 24th U. S. Infantry engaged in a race riot. The troops were later recalled, and the riot is proof that the quartering of negro troops where there is any considerable colored population, especially in the South, is a mistake. Captain J. W. Mattes, Battery A, Second Illinois Artillery of Chicago, was killed while trying to remonstrate with the negro soldiers who were firing on the civilians and the soldiers. While doing so he was scalped, his body v. as mutilated, and his right arm was cut off and chopped with bayonets. During the riot twelve white men, civilians, police officers, and National 1120 IMPROVEMENT ERA Guardsmen, were killed and a score of persons, men, women and children were wounded. The negroes had been quartered at Houston to act as guards during the construction of a camp. New Minister from Switzerland, Jean Adolph Sulzer. The new Swiss Minister to the United States, and the Swiss Mission arrived in United States in August, at an Atlantic port. He comes here to succeed Dr. Paul Ritter. With Dr. Sulzer and his family, came the Swiss Mission to the United Slates of which he is the head. Among its members are John Syz, National Counseler of Switzerland, Lt. Col. Staempfli of the Swiss Army, and Prof. William Rappard. Copyright Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. The photograph taken on their arrival shows from left to right: Lt. Col. W. Staempfli, John Syz, Andrew Marcuard, Professor William E. Rap- pard and John, George and Frederick, the young sons of the new Swiss minister. Colonel M. M. Kaighn, a well known Salt Lake citizen, and formerly department commander of the G. A. R., and Lieutenant-Colonel on the staff of General U. S. Grant, died at his home in Salt Lake City, Utah, on August 21, 1917. He was born in Blockwood, New Jersey, March 30, 1843, graduated from George Washington University, District of Columbia, and was a private in the 149th Pennsylvania infantry. He was wounded under McClellan, and later was detached for work iri~*the diplomatic and secret service under the state department at Washington. Being a law clerk in the Department of the Interior, he was assigned to the United States land office in Utah, in 1874. Afterwards he became general counsel for the Un- ion Pacific Railroad, and was appointed receiver of the United States land office after leaving the railroad, by President Roosevelt. PASSING EVENTS 1121 National farm tractor demonstration at Fremont, Nebraska, showed how to increasefood production. The demonstration brought home to the thousands of people who attended it the great assistance those machines can render in farming. They will be of vital importance in speeding up the production of foodstuffs now that the burden of helping feed our Allies rests on the farmers of America, besides that of feeding our own people at home and our soldiers fighting abroad. The tractors at this show did everything Copyright Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. that horses can do on a farm, and they did it better, and faster. One tractor pulle.d three plows with ease, another performed the feat of discing and sowing the seed at the same operation. Still another driven with lines like a horse drew a binder. The one shown in this photograph is pulling the disc and harrowing the ground at the same operation. America has got to increase her production of food to insure victory. The use of machines like this tractor is an important means to that end. Judge Charles C. Goodwin, editor of Goodwin's Weekly and formerly editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, died in Salt Lake City, September 1, 1917. Mr. Goodwin was born in Riga, Monroe county, New York, April 4, 1832, and spent his boyhood in Genesee valley, near Rochester. In 1852 he left for California where he went into the lumber business in Marysville. He also taught school and studied law, and was admitted to practice, in 1859. In 1860 he crossed the Sierras to Nevada where he became interested in a quartz mill. After the admission of Nevada as a state he became judge of the second district court, at Washoe, near Virginia City. In 1869 he became interested in journalism and then mining, and in 1874 became the editor of the Virginia Enterprise. He came to Utah in 1880, and became associate editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, with which paper he was connected from that time until 1901. He was a member of the Utah Constitutional Conven- 1122 IMPROVEMENT ERA tion of 1895. After leaving the Tribune, in 1902, he established Goodwin's Weekly of which he was the editor until his death. He was an eloquent writer, caustic and able; no newspaper writer in Utah has ever had greater command of language, nor written with greater fluency. His early antag- onism for the "Mormons" was modified into peaceful toleration and in many instances to admiration long before his death. The Japanese Mission. In sending a mission to this country Japan is evidently reversing her former policy in the matter of aid rendered in the cause of the Allies upon European soil. After Japan had succeeded in wresting the province of Shantong from Germany and had driven the German ships from the sea, she rested upon her laurels and was satisfied to remain in a position in which she had found herself after she had gained such a valuable possession of the German empire. However, since then new conditions have arisen. Perhaps the most important of all is the entrance of the United States into the war. This country at the outset announced its mission in declaring that it did not seek any material advantage, that it was not fighting Germany with the expectation of any indemnity, that it was purely a war for the preserva- tion of democracy and the rights of the people of the world. Before this, it was barely understood that Japan was willing to fight in Europe provided she was given a second consideration; that England might give her certain possessions which she held in Asiatic countries in compensation for her services in Europe. But apparently no offer came either from Great Brit- ain or France. . The question then was held in abeyance. Japan did not enter the war, but later on China became one of the allied nations, offering active assistance, and placing herself at the demand of the Allies so far as her resources went. Then again, Russia has had a revolution, her position on the eastern front is weakened; she needs assistance. It may be said that she has soldiers enough, but it must be remembered that the fighting line from Riga in the north to the Danube in the south is a long one, reaching nearly a thousand miles; that there is opportunity for enormous fighting along this front; that the Japanese might give encouragement to the Russians, might inspire them to renewed vigor, might fight in certain sections where they have the peculiar adaptability for the kind of war they would be re- quired to carry on. On the other hand, Russians may not care to have a foreign army within her domains. Certain imaginary dangers could easily be foreseen from such an event. We are, therefore, under these circum- stances, naturally at sea as to what Japan will do. Will she fight? Will she take her army of something like 3,000,000 men into active operation? It would indeed be a most humane thing if every available army in the world were put onto the German front, either on the east or the west, until Ger- many is broken down and made to capitulate. Heretofore the trenches be- tween the contending powers have been too nearly equal. Something must be done to make the conflict more decisive, more certain to leave Germany absolutely free from every doubt as to what will happen to her. Then, too, Germany may be given to know th?t every day that she unnecessarily pro- longs the war, an additional burden will be cast upon her. She may be told frankly that she must surrender, and surrender unconditionally, if she hopes for peace with any consideration whatever from the allied countries. The world, therefore, is watching the Japanese mission to the United States with unmeasured concern. What will be done? Are the Japanese coming to ask for cooperation in the manufacture of munitions of war, or aid in doubling railroad facilities between Manchuria and the Russian front? These are indeed interesting times. They are full of speculation, and the world is deeply interested in what will be done during the coming year to overwhelm the forces of the Central Powers and compel them to surrender. — Joseph M. Tanner.