--- 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: 24 number: 8 published: 1921-06 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* 24, no. 8 (June 1921): 758–765.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2408unse 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: improvementera2408unse start_page: 758 end_page: 765 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1921-06) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2408unse publication_year: 1921 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 1921, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Passing Events The oldest person in the United States was buried at Milwaukee, Wis., April 6. Her name was Bridget Harney. She died, April 4, at the home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, 118 years old. She was born in Ireland in 1803. Idaho's tobacco license law is in full effect. As a result many tobacco dealers have dropped out of the business. In Bear Lake county they have been reduced from twenty-four to fourteen, says a Montpelier dispatch dated May 8. The German cabinet resigned, May 4, as a result of its failure to obtain the services of the United States government in behalf of Germany on the indemnity question. Fehrenbach, the chancelor, was requested to continue in office until a new ministry could be organized. Excommunication from the Church of five members of Mr. Cudmundson's colony at East Tintic, in addition to those formerly dealt with, has been found necessary, according to an announcement published April 19. They are: Thomas D. Nesbit, Levi G. Metcalf, Jr., Mrs. Mary Warren Metcalf, Mrs. Ella Hafen and Mrs. Delia Hafen Whyte. Augusta Victoria, former empress of Germany died at Dorn, Holland, April 11. Born October 22, 1858, at Dolzig, she was the oldest daughter of Grand Duke Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg and ranked as a princess of Schleswig-Holstein. Her early childhood was spent at Kiel. She married the then Prince William of Prussia on February 27, 1881. Panguitch stake presidency was reorganized, March 13, when Elder W. J. Henderson was sustained as president, to succeed the late Elder J. M. Henrie. Elder W. T. Owens, Jr., was appointed first counselor and Bishop J. Nephi Henrie second. Elders Rudger Clawson and Richard R. Lyman, of the Council of Twelve, were in attendance. Napoleon Bonaparte was honored in France, when the 100th anniversary of his death on St. Helena was observed May 5. Marshal Foch, in an address at the tomb of the illustrious exile, paid a glowing tribute to his character and achievements, in the name of militarism. In the outskirts of Paris anti-Napoleon meetings were held, at which internationalism was preached and militarism denounced. TJie Columbia treaty was ratified, April 20, by the U. S. Senate, by a vote of 69 to 13, eleven more than the necessary two-thirds. It provides for the payment by the United States, of $25,000,000 to the South American republic for the loss of the state of Panama, through the revolution of 1901, and the prompt recognition of the new republic by the United States. Senator Lodge declared the ratification was "part of a great national foreign policy" contemplated by the president. PASSING EVENTS 759 Mrs. Mary Titcomb Free, a pioneer of 1849, died at her home at Forest dale,May 4. She was born in Berkshire, England, February 17, 1838 and crossed the ocean at the age of five years with her parents, after they had joined the Church The family crossed the plains by ox team and reached Salt Lake in 1849. In 1855 Mary Titcomb was married to Preston b Free : 0f thls umon thir teen children were born, eight of \„ , whom are still living. An ancient temple has been unearthed at Rerras, Thessaly, by Greek archaeologists, according to a dispatch from Athens, April 5. The structure is said to be in an excellent state of preservation, and as large as the temple of Jupiter at Olympia. The bronze inscriptions establish the date of 400 B. C. Numerous tablets have also been found bearing indications of laws and institutions of an ancient civilization. This is the second temple which has been discovered within a month, the first having been found near the city of Volo. Alfred Solomon, died at his home in Mill Creek, April 17, at the age of 85 years. Death was due to general debility. Mr. Solomon was a native of Truro, England, where he was born September 10, 1836. When sixteen years of age he joined the Church and emigrated alone to this country. He drove the head yoke of oxen across the plains in Captain Jesse B. Martin's company, arriving in Utah in 1857. He made his home in Salt Lake City, until about eleven years ago, when he retired from active business and moved to Mill Creek. A Russian Jewish state has been established, according to a dispatch from Danzig, dated May 5. The dispatch said: "An official declaration by the White Russian government of the independence of White Russia, as a white Russian Jewish state, was published today by the Reval People's Daily, says a dispatch from Reval." "White Russia" is a district between Warsaw and Moscow, containing about 4,500,000 inhabitants, principally in the governments of Smolensk, Vitebsk, Minsk, Mogileo, and Chernigov. The district has the reputation of being in a less developed state than any other part of European Russia. Lower wages are demanded by the managements of ninety-three railroads in a "drive" begun April 18 before the United States railway board. Although the majority of the roads were asking for only authority to reduce the wages of common labor, clerks and shop employees, all requested that the decision of July 20, 1920, under which the last increases in railroad wages were granted, be set aside. They also seek abrogation of the United States railroad administration's ruling which classifies labor and fixes differentials. Nine asked for authority to reduce wages, from engineer to crossing flagmen. Sheep and cattle froze to death in the southern parts of Utah, during the cold, stormy weather experienced there during the latter part of April, according to reports published April 25. More than 1,000 head of sheep were frozen to death at Newhouse and Blackrock due to the blizzard. The sheep were shorn a few days before the storm and were as a result unable to stand the extremely cold weather. Similar losses were sustained to a greater or less extent at Milford, Modena, Lund and several other communities in the heart of the sheep and cattle country in Millard and surrounding counties. A disastrous tornado broke in the evening of April 15 in the northea6t section of Texas and the following day swept over part of five states — 760 IMPROVEMENT ERA into Georgia. Ninety-seven persons were killed, and hundreds suffered injuries, while the damage to property was estimated at millions of dol- lars.In Arkansas on many plantations in Miller and Hempstead counties, was destroyed, newly planted crops washed out, practically every building orchards ruined, roads and bridges damaged, while telephone and telegraph wires were almost all destroyed. Railroads report traeks washed out at many places. At the University of Arizona, located at Tucson, there are some twentyfive or thirty students who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who reside in various stakes of Zion located in that state. The students are a great help to the local branch of the Church, particularly in the Mutual Improvement Association meetings, in which they take a very active part in the programs, socials, entertainments, etc. Frequently they invite to the Church ten or more of their fellow students who are non- "Mormons," many of whom are also taking part in the Y. M. M. I. A. E. Odell Peterson. Emmeline B. Wells' funeral services were held at the Tabernacle, April 29, and the esteem in which the departed pioneer woman was held, was evidenced by the large attendance, the profusion of floral offerings, and the beautiful music and addresses that were features of the exercises. President Heber J. Grant presided, and President Anthony W. Ivins offered the invocation. The speakers were Mrs. Clarissa Williams, Dr. George W. Middleton, Dr. Seymour B. Young, Bishop Charles W. Nibley, Elder Orson F. Whitney, President Charles W. Penrose, and President Heber J. Grant. Benediction was pronounced by Bishop T. A. Clawson, and the grave was dedicated by Elder Rulon S. Wells. American participation in European conferences was decided on in a cabinet meeting May 6, and a note informing the allied powers of this decision has been forwarded to London. Col. Harvey, United States ambassador in London, has been assigned to the supreme council of the allies; Ambassador Wallace in Paris, to the council of ambassadors, until relieved by Mr. Herrick, and Mr. Roland W. Boyden, now serving as American commissioner at Paris, to the reparations commission in connection with the German war indemnity. Adminitration officers explain that Col. Harvey will sit with the premiers of Great Britain, France, and Italy, and the representatives of Belgium and Japan, as the personal representative of President Harding and not of the American government. Elder Orson F. Whitney goes to Europe, where he will succeed Elder George Albert Smith as president of the European mission, according to an announcement made April 2, by the First Presidency. William A. Morton, now in the general superintendency of the Religion classes, is to accompany Elder Whitney to the mission field to give missionary service on the Millenial Star. President Smith has been in charge of the mission for the past two years, succeeding Elder George F. Richards, who held the post during the greater part of the world war. President Smith, despite poor health, has retained charge of the mission during the post war period, and his wife, Mrs. Lucy W. Smith, member of the Y. L. M. I. A. board, has presided over the women's activities of the mission. The extraordinary session of the 67th congress convened April 11. The following day President Harding delivered his message. He paid special attention to tariff and tax revision; declared in favor of a merchant marine; asked for an emergency tariff; declared in favor of reducing operating expenses of the railroads, and recommended the enactment of budget leg- PASSING EVENTS 761 islation and congressional inquiry into lynching and race relations. On the problems involved in the declaration of peace, he reiterated his former declarations in favor of the total rejection of the league covenant in the Versailles treaty, and suggested a peace declaration by congressional resolution. He, further, declared the American aspiration to be "an association of nations, based upon the application of justice and right." Wilford Woodruff, a son of the late President "Wilford "Woodruff, died at a hospital in SaltLake City, May 6, at the age of 81 years. He was born May 22, 1840, in Montrose, Iowa. For years he lived in and near Nauvoo, 111. When young Woodruff was only 6 years of age his parents went to Winterquarters, where he remained with his mother while his father journeyed across the plains with the pioneers who reached Salt Lake valley under the leadership of Brigham Young on July 24, 1847. The family started for Utah in 1849, arriving in Salt Lake on October 14, 1850. In October, 1867, he marrried Emily Jane Smith. With his wife he went on a colonizing mission to St. Thomas, Ariz., and returned in 1871 to Salt Lake, going on a similar mission to Randolph, Rich county, in 1877. For years he gave his time to ordinance work in the Salt Lake temple. The firststate house in Utah, probably the first in the intermountain country and possibly the oldest still existing west of the Missouri river is undergoing repairs in order that it may remain in existence as an interesting relic. The building is the old President's office adjoining the Beehive House on east South Temple St., which was the office of President Brigham Young from 1852 to 1858, while territorial governor of Utah. The old building was also the office of the presidents of the L. D. S. Church in the following order: Brigham Young until Aug. 29, 1877; John Taylor until July 25, 1887; Wilford Woodruff until Sept. 2, 1898; Lorenzo Snow until Oct. 10, 1901; Joseph F. Smith until April 4, 1917, when the Church President's office was removed to the new Church office building. The lumber addition built as an additional story in the rear of the old structure is being demolished. This will leave the building in exactly the form it was as the first state house. The addition was built for storage purposes. Elder C. N. Lund of Mt. Pleasant, Utah, died at his home, May 7, 1921. Funeral services were held in the North Ward chapel in that city, May 10, attended by about 2,000 persons, who had come from all parts of the country, to pay tribute to his memory. He was born in Sest, Ribe, Denmark, January 13, 1846, and came to Utah in 1868. For many years he was active in the Church and State. In 1884, he was elected mayor of Mt. Pleasant and was re-elected twice. In 1890 and 1894 he was a member of Territorial legislature, and when his last term expired, he was elected a justice of the peace. In May, 1890 he was appointed bishop of Mt. Pleasant ward. In 1896 he became president of the Scandinavian mission, and in 1900 was made the president of the North Sanpete stake, which position he held for fourteen years. On his release he was ordained a patriarch. Dr. Franklin S. Harris, the new president of the Brigham Young University, isone of the well known educators in the state. He is a former B. Y. U. student, taught in the Juarez academy in Mexico, and at Cornell university, has been for 10 years faculty member of the U. A. C. and five years head of the experiment station of that school, having taken out his Ph. D. at Cornell University. He is president of the American Society of Agronomy, chairman of an association of all directors of ex- 762 IMPROVEMENT ERA periment stations in the United States, past president of the Utah Academy of Science, and a member of many other societies. Last year he was asked by the government of Greece to go to that country to aid in the reorganization of its agriculture and industrial activities and has been invited by the Canadian Pacific railway to assist in its colonization work. He is the author of four well known books and of a number of articles and bulletins on scientific subjects. Dr. Harris will be succeeded by Professor William Peterson as director of the Utah experiment station, Logan, and Dr. F. L. "West succeeds Prof. Peterson as director of interior instruction. Boy Scouts saved girl front drowning in Emigration stream. On April 28, Dorothy, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Welte, 1063 little Emerson Avenue, while attempting to cross the stream on a pJank, lost her balance and fell into the water. Hearing the screams of the child's playmates, Carl Waldvogel, Jr., ran to the rescue, but because of the heavy plush coat which little Dorothy wore at the time, she quickly sank from sight. While Charles Amott was searching along the banks of the stream for a sign of the child, his comrade saw a tiny hand stretched upward out of the water close to the bridge. He plunged into the icy water and was speedily joined by his friend, Charles. Together they held the child's head above the water, and had almost succeeded in getting her up the steep embankment when Mrs. George Amott, hearing the frantic cries for help from Dorothy's companions, rushed from her home near by, and, by. standing on the bridge and reaching down, was able to assist the boys in lifting the dead weight of the unconscious child from the water. When urged to accept a reward of money offered by the grateful father and mother of the little girl, the boys both declined, saying that 'A Good Turn Daily" was one of the mottos of the Boy Scouts. Haywood fled to Russia. A number of I. W. W's, including Haywood, who, in 1917, were convicted of tresaonable agitation for the obstruction of the country's war plans and who were to have begun serving their sentences in jail, it was reported on April 21, had escaped. They were at large on bonds given a year ago, pending an appeal. When the sentence was confirmed by the supreme court, some of the men reported to federal officials, but Haywood, it was said, had gone to Russia. Haywood's record shows that he was once tried for his life and that he has been arrested and jailed many times. That he escaped the gallows fifteen years ago was chiefly due, in the judgment of detached observers of the trial, to simple human inability on the part of the jury to believe that one man could have plotted such a series of fiendish crimes as were imputed to him by Harry Orchard, the self-confessed principal in the particular murder for which Haywood and other officials of the Western Federation of Miners had been brought into the dock. For about fifteen years Haywood was a leading figure in the Western Federation of Miners, an organization whose career was said to have been "marked by a trail of blood" from the Coeur d'Alene district, near the Canadian border, all the way to Cannanea, across the Mexican frontier. Dr. George H. Brimhall, who, for many years, has been connected with the Brigham Young University, Provo, has been honorably released, and is to be succeeded by Dr. Franklin Stewart Harris, director of the experiment station of the Utah Agricultural College, Logan. Dr. Brimhall, now 69 years of age, has been connected with the Brigham Young University as student faculty member and president, having been appointed head of the school Jan. 3, 1903. He was educated in the Salt Lake, Cedar Fort, Spanish Fork and Provo public schools and mastered PASSING EVENTS 763 many of his lessons while teaming and herding to gain a livelihood. After leaving the Brigham Young University he was a teacher in the Young Men's Academy at Spanish Fork, was superintendent of the Spanish Fork schools, superintendent of Utah county schools, superintendent of the Provo City schools, and faculty member of the Brigham Young University, holding the chair of psychology and pedagogy. He has also been president of the Utah State Teachers' association and holds the degrees of bachelor of pedagogy and doctor of science and didactics. He has long held a promiment place in Utah as a public speaker, writer, and Church worker, and is one of the oldest members of the Y. M. M. I. A. general board, also a member of the general board of Religion classes. President Brimhall was chosen president-emeritus, to have charge of the seminary work of the Church schools, the appointment effective at the beginning of the next school year. John Burroughs, the famous naturalist, died suddenly, March 29, on a train near Kingsville, Ohio. The body was taken to his home on the banks of the Hudson, a few miles north of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where he has lived since 1878. The interment was held April 3, the eighty-fourth anniversary of his birth, at Roxburg, in the Catskill mountains, near where he was born. He had spent the winter in California and was returning from there when the call came. He was born in 1837. In 1863 he went to Washington with something of an inclination to enlist in the Union army, but he decided to seek a government office. It is related that with only a few of his poems as credentials he walked into the treasury department and asked for a job. It was agreed that his vernal verse really smelt of the woods, and smacked of sincerity. He would be a safe man to watch the treasury vaults. He agreed to take the place. At a little desk, facing the huge iron vault, where he kept tab on those who went to handle the $50,000,000 stored there, he began writing of the birds, to relieve his homesickness. The result was his first book, Wake-Robin. The titles of his books included Winter Sunshine, Locusts and Wild Honey, Fresh Field, Indoor Studies, Birds and Poets, Signs and Seasons, The Light of Day- Religious Discussions from the Standpoint of the Naturalist, Literary Values and Ways of Nature. On his seventy-fifth birthday he said: "Growing old is a kind of letting go. The morning has its delights and its enticements, the noon has its triumphs and satisfactions, but there are a charm and a tranquility and a spiritual uplift about the close of the day that belongs to neither." The German reparation problem is still engaging the earnest atten- tion of the world. A request from the German government that the and United States intervene in the role of mediator between Germany April 21. the alllied powers was promptly answered in the negative, on however, ex- In declining to accept the invitation, President Harding, proposals that pressed the hope that Germany would promptly formulate would present a proper basis for discussion. Should Germany, he said, bringing the take this course, the American government would consider negotiations matter to the attention of the allied governments, in order that may speedily be resumed. The allied reparations commission announced transfer the on April 19 that Germany had been given until April 22 to branches as gold reserve of the reichsbank to its Coblenz and Cologne commission. Ihis security for reparations, as previously demanded by the it became known that France had a force Germany refused whereupon men, in addition to the 80,000 on the Rhine, reacy to move on of 100,000 present- Aclmg on the suggestion of President Harding that proposals ing a proper basis for discussion be formulated, the German government, 764 IMPROVEMENT ERA on April 25, offered to pay to the allies two hundred billion gold marks, as against the 226 billions demanded by the Paris agreement, subject, however, to certain conditions, which, according to expert opinion, reduced the actual offer of Germany to half of the total sum demanded. The French government, therefore, declined to consider it, and on May 2, Secretary Hughes issued a statement to the effect that the American government had declined to take any further action on the German proposals, because the allied governments did not consider that they afforded a satisfactory basis for discussion. On the same date it was announced that the allied governments had given Germany until May 12 to fulfil her financial obligations. In case of failure on the part oi Germany, the Ruhr district would be occupied. Germany came to terms. In the early part of May, the dissatisfication in Poland, on account of the outcome of the plebiscite in Silesia and the stand taken by the interallied plebiscite commission, broke out in open rebellion. On May 5, Adalbert Korfanty, the Polish plebiscite commissioner in upper Silesia, assumed the leadership of the rising. In Germany it was charged that the Poles had violated the sovereignty of Germany, and in military circles a war with Poland was being considered. Edward Douglas White, chief justice of the United States supreme court, diedMay 19 at a hospital in Washington, where he submitted to an operation May 13. He was 76 years old. He occupied the bench for a number of years. In 1891, however, he took his seat in the United States senate, having been elected as a Democrat from Louisiana. "While serving in the senate he was appointed by President J?aft in 1910 to be chief justice of the United States supreme court, and took his seat December 19 of that year. The oath of office was given by Justice Harlan, who had been a Union soldier in the civil war, while Justice White had been a Confederate. Wnt. S. McCornick passed away, May 18, at the Holy Cross hospital, Salt Lake City, at the age of 84 years. On May 3 his right leg was amputated, and he seemed to stand the operation quite well, but he grew gradually weaker until death came. Mr. McCornick was born near Picton, Ontario, Canada, September 14, 1837, a son of George and Mary (Vance) McCornick. He worked on the farm until he was 21 years of age. In 1860 he went to' California and two years later to Virginia City, Nev., and thence to Austin, Lander county, where he engaged in the lumber and contracting business. It was while in Austin, 1869, that Mr. McCornick first became connected with the banking business. The First National bank of Nevada failed in 1869, and Mr. McCornick, then a leading Nevada lumberman, was appointed its receiver. Mr. McCornick came to Salt Lake City, May 5, 1873. A month afterwards he formed a partnership with A. W. White, establishing a private bank on Main street, near where the Boyd Park Building now stands. The firm was known as White & McCornick, until the latter purchased the interest of Mr. White and the bank became known as that of McCornick & Company, with Josiah Barnett, now deceased, as the silent partner. For almost half a century McCornick has been one of the leading figures in the financial and industrial circles of the West. According to an announcement, the assets and deposits of the McCornick Bank were transferred to Walker Brothers, Bank rs, an arrangement that was favorably commented on in business circles. Franklin K. Lane, former secretary of the interior, died at a hospital at Rochester, Minn., May 18, 1921. Death was due to an attack of angina pectoris. Mr. Lane was operated on May 6 for gallstones and appendicitis and was said to be recovering, when heart disease, from which he had suffered from time to tin»e during the last eight months, developed, and ended PASSING EVENTS 765 his earthly career. Born near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, July 15, 1864, the son of a Canadian doctor, who removed to California during the boy's childhood, young Lane was educated at the University of California, from which he was graduated in 1886. Upon leaving college he engaged in newspaper work. In 1889 he was admitted to the bar of California, and from 1897 until 1902 served as corporation counsel of San Francisco. He received the Democratic vote of the state legislature in 1903 for United States senator. Appointed a member of the interstate commerce commission by President Roosevelt in 1905, later becoming chairman, Mr. Lane was serving in that capacity when he was made secretary of the interior. © Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. WORLD'S LARGEST SEARCHLIGHT TO ILLUMINATE ENTRANCE TO THE GOLDEN GATE A 500,000,000 candle power searchlight, the most powerful in the world, whose rays have been seen for 70 miles is undergoing final tests on a searchlight range at the plant of the General Electric Company, Schenectady, N. Y., before shipment to San Francisco, where it will be installed on Mount Tamalpais, at the entrance to the Golden Gate. The light is ten feet higlh, and weighs nearly three tons and has a 60-inch lens. It is said that a man standing ten miles away from the light could read a newspaper; ten feet away, he would be able to set fire to a paper by means of it. .When installed at the Golden Gate, it will shoot its rays out across the Pacific Ocean and give the first indication to incoming steamers that land is near. The photo shows the searchlight, connected at the right with a switchboard, much the same as it will look when installed on the Coast.