---
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: 29
number: 6
published: 1926-04
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* 29, no. 6 (April 1926): 608–611."
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2906unse
  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: improvementera2906unse
start_page: 608
end_page: 611
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1926-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera2906unse
  publication_year: 1926
  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 1926, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Passing Events

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(T?assin'k Event The Famous Shakespeare Memorial Theater at Stratford-on-Avon, Eng- land, was almost totally destroyed by fire, March 6, 1926. The new South Gate ward chapel was dedicated Feb. 28, 1926, in the presence of a large audience. President Heber J. Grant gave the dedicatory address and Stake President Joseph J. Daynes also spoke. The invocation was offered by Joseph Anderson, and benediction was pronounced by A. H. Woodruff. Harry C. Jessen was appointed city engineer, Salt Lake City, March 1, 1926, to succeed Sylvester Q. Cannon, who resigned, when he was appointed presiding bishop of the Church. Mr. Jessen is a Salt Lake City boy, 37 years of age. He has been connected with the city engineer's office since 1911, and has been acting city engineer since Aug. 1, 1925. Sir Henry Lunn, an English capitalist, has dedicated most of his fortune to the cause of peace, says a New York dispatch, March 1. The World Alliance for International Friendship made the announcement, and the recipient is the newly established Sir Henry Lunn Trust Foundation. Sir Henry also intends giving lectures, free of charge, in behalf of the cause of peace. The new tax reduction bill became the law, when President Coolidge had signed it, on Feb. 26, 1926. Two pens were used. The president, when through with them, gave one to Senator Reed Smoot and the other to Representative Green. It is feared that the tax reduction will cause a deficit of $100,000,000. But that much might be saved by cutting down unnec- essary military expenses. Senator Reed Smoot, Utah's Senior U. S. Senator, was the object of an ovation at a banquet at the Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C, on Feb. 24. The chairman suggested that all present arise as a mark of appreciation of the work accomplished by Senator Smoot on the revenue bill, which carries a cut of $387,000,000, which reduction will benefit all classes of tax-payers. All present arose and cheered the Utah senator. Brigadier General Briant H. Wells, son of the late Daniel H. Wells, will become assistant chief of staff of the U. S. Army, to fill the place now occupied by Major General Fox Conner, it was announced in a dispatch from Washington, Feb. 13, 1926. General Wells was born Dec. 5, 1871. He participated in the San Domingo campaign of the Spanish-American war of 1898; the Philippine insurrection, 1898-1901, in addition to the World war. He was a staff officer of the supreme war council from January to July, 1918, and a mem- ber of the joint army and navy planning commission from 1920 to 1921. He also served on the joint army and navy board for two years beginning in October, 1921. He was appointed commander of the infantry school at Fort Benning in November, 1923. Mrs. Edna Lambson Smith, wife of the late President Joseph F. Smith, passed away at her home in Salt Lake City, Feb. 28, 1926, following an accident the preceding Wednesday, when she fell and fractured her skull. She was born March 3, 1851, in Salt Lake City, the daughter of Alfred B. Lambson, a Utah pioneer of 1847. For more than forty years Mrs. Smith was president of the women workers of the Salt Lake temple and for a number of years she served as a member of the general board of Primary associations. She is survived by four children, Mrs. John F. Bowman, Alvin F. Smith, Miss Emma Smith and Mrs. Arthur Smith Jenson, all of Salt Lake;

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PASSING EVENTS 609 one brother, Alfred Lambson of Lester, Idaho, and two sisters, Mrs. Albert Davis and Mrs. Julina Smith, both of Salt Lake. She was the mother of the late Hyrum M. Smith, apostle of the Church. Elders were ordered out of Mexico according to a letter from Secretary of State Kellogg to Representative Boylan of New York, dated March 6, 1926. He says that it has been reported to him that Elder Ralph E. Brown of the Church of the Latter-day Saints was ordered to leave on February 20 by the municipal authorities of Tula de Allen, state of Hidalgo, and that the follow- ing "Mormon" missionaries from Ozumba, state of Mexico, have been given ten days by the municipal authorities in which to leave the state. No men- tion is made of their leaving the country. The names of parties, as near as I can make out, are Owen V. Call, Daniel H. Higginbotham and one other person whose name I cannot make out from the dispatch of Salt Lake City, and Alton S. Hays of Provo, Utah. Ambassador Sheffield is doing all he can for these and other Americans who have been ordered to leave on the grounds that they are teaching school in violation of Mexican law. A disastrous snowslide occurred on Feb. 17, 1926, in Bingham can- yon, in the Highland Boy District, by which 1 7 private houses occupied by miners' families, and the McDonald, a three-story frame boarding house, were swept from their foundations. For several hours previous, there was a heavy snow storm, and on the morning of the tragedy, a rumble was heard, then came an all-enveloping mist, a terrific crash, and the houses were demolished and many precious lives crushed out in the wreckage. The slide started from the top of Sap Gulch, and proceeded a distance of two miles to the main canyon. In the McDonald boarding house more than sixty persons, of which about fifty were miners, were trapped in their rooms. Fire broke out in the ruins and added to the horror. Many bodies were badly burned before they could be taken out of the debris. The avalanche is, as far as known, the most disastrous in the history of the state. A wireless telephone message between London and New York was trans- mitted on March 7, 1926. Part of the message was an Associated Press dispatch, and that was the first news story transmitted across the ocean by wireless telephone. The London talkers were at the British general postoffice. Their words were carried by wire to the broadcasting station at Rugby and thence broadcast 2900 miles across the Atlantic to a receiving station at Houlton, Me. From Houlton they came by wire 600 miles to the listeners in the American Tele- phone & Telegraph offices at 24 Walker street. The replies went from the Walker street office by wire to the broad- casting station at Rocky Point, L. I., across the Atlantic — 3300 miles by this route — to a receiving station at Wroughton, England, and thence by wire to London. The 7th of March happened to be the 50th anniversary of the day on which Alexander Graham Bell received his patent on the telephone instrument. Charles Ellis Johnson, passed away recently at San Jose, Cal., and was buried there on Feb. 23, 1926. For many years he has been well known among Utah business men. Mr. Johnson was a son of Joseph E. and Eliza Saunders Johnson, the former a pioneer of southern Utah and a resident of St. George. He was born in St. Louis, Mo., March 21, 185 7, and was carried much of the dis- tance across the plains in the arms of his mother, who walked practically all of the way. His youth was spent in St. George, where he married Ruth Young, a daughter of Brigham Young, in 1879. Moving shortly thereafter to Salt Lake, he worked for a number of years in the Z C. M. I. drug store. Later, with Parley P. Pratt, he established the Johnson-Pratt Drug company. In the late '80's he entered the photo- graphic business and conducted a studio on West Temple street for nearly thirty years. In 1904 he accompanied Madame Mountford to Palestine, where he made thousands of photographs in the interest of the Jerusalem

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610 IMPROVEMENT ERA replica at the St. Louis fair. In 1917 he moved to San Jose, where he became connected with the old Tucker studio. He continued the photographic busi- ness until the time of his death. Mrs. Margaret Curtis Roberts, wife of President B. H. Roberts of the Eastern States mission, passed away in New York, Saturday morning, March 13, 1926, at 6:30. Mrs. Roberts was the daughter of the late Theodore Curtis, Utah Pioneer, and was born about 75 years ago. When a young woman she was graduated from the Women's Medical college of Pennsyl- vania in 1887 and for upwards of 35 years she practiced medicine in Salt Lake. She will also be remembered as teacher of the Relief Society class of nurses and as a Church worker in many other capacities. For many years she was a member of the general beard of the Y. L. M. I. A. On receipt of the sad and unexpected news, President Heber J. Grant immediately wired a message of condolence. Mrs. Roberts was the mother of nine children. Surviving are only one daughter, Mrs. Joseph W. Neville, 36 S Street; one brother, Theodore W. Curtis, literary man of 'Boston, Mass., and a sister, Mrs. Ellis Shipp of Salt Lake. Mrs. Roberts attended the West Pennsylvania conference in Pittsburgh on Sunday, March 7, and spoke to more than 60 women, at the 1:30 p. m. session, delivering a valuable message on the duties of women, and their problems. Of this we are informed by Harold G. Clark, president of the conference. The funeral services were held in the 18th ward chapel, Salt Lake City, March 17, Bishop Thomas A. Clawson presiding. The speakers, President Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, Orson F. Whitney and Rulon S. Wells, paid eloquent and sympathetic tribute of love and respect to the departed sister, and spoke tender words of condolence to the bereft husband and the mourning friends. President Charles W. Nibley, President Rudger Clawson, and Elder Richard R. Lyman were among those present. A quartet composed of Margaret S. Hewlett, Pearl K. Davis, Hyrum J. Christensen and Professor A. C. Lund furnished sweet music. Elder J. Golden Kimball offered the invocation. Professor Willard Weihe rendered a violin solo. Elder Levi Edgar Young pronounced the benediction, and the grave was dedicated by Elder Charles H. Hart. The Council of the League of Nations met at Geneva, in extra session, March 8, for the special purpose of considering the application of Germany for membership in the League. It turned out, however, that the representa- tives of Brazil, Spain, and Poland came instructed to demand for their respective countries permanent representation in the Council of the League, and that other delegates were opposed to these claims. This clash of inter- ests and the temporary absence of M. Briand, on account of the cabinet crisis in France, caused the meeting to adjourn and give the ,sub-committees an opportunity to try to find a way to harmony and unity. On Mardi 13, it was decided to refer the entire question of Germany's admission to the League to the Assembly, which convenes on March 16, it having been impossible to reach an agreement. The Assembly of the League of Nations adjourned on March 7, 1926, without having passed on the application of Germany for membership in the League. The program, as agreed on at Locarno, Oct. 19, 1925, was not carried out, owing to the stubborn refusal of the Brazilian delegate to vote for Germany, unless Brazil, too, be given a permanent1 seat on the Council. No one believes that the Brazilian delegate was anything but a pawn on the chess board, but whose was the invisible hand that moved him, for the evident purpose of wrecking the League? That is the important question. The application of Germany for admission will be taken up again in September, if nothing happens to prevent it. The Council, in the mean jtime, will, through a commission consisting of delegates from the countries represented in the Council, and from Germany, Argentina, Poland, China and Switzer- land, study the question of the reconstruction of the Council.

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We are pleased in sending our sincerest regards to all in Zion. We wish the Era added success. It is indeed a source of encouragement, help, and inspiration to us. — Elder J. Leland Anderson, Trondhjem, Norway. * * * I am always pleased to express appreciation of the Era. I feel toward it, as I would feel toward a dear friend of many years acquaintance. But in many ways it is more than a dear rfriend, for it has inspiration for every need and mood. — Andrew M. Anderson, principal L. D. S. Seminary, Cedar City, Utah. * * * Leslie D. Burbidge, president of the Waikato Conference, New Zealand, says: "We appreciate the instructions received in the Era, and enjoy reading the experiences of our fellow-laborers in other lands. We extend best wishes for the future success of the Era." * * * I feel that you are entitled to hearty congratulations for the splendid publication you are putting out for the Church. It is really the best piece of literature we have, without a single exception, and a bound volume of the Era is surely a valuable acquisi- tion to any library. — James H. Wallis, Executive Secretary Utah Public Health Association. IMPROVEMENT ERA, APRIL, 1926 Two Dollars per Annum Entered at the Post Office, Salt Lake City, Utah, as second class matter Heber J. Grant, IvA't Melvin J. Ballard, Business Mgr. Edward H. Anderson. £ Moroni Snow, Assistant. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1 103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized on July 2, 1918 CONTENTS Religious Service in Aspen Grove, Wasatch Moun- tains, Utah Frontispiece Not Now, O Lord, Not Now! A Poem Alfred Osmond 521 The Logic of the M. I. A. Slogan J Dr. Joseph F. Merrill 523 Oratory, Poesy and Prophecy — II Orson F. Whitney 530 Welcome to April. A Poem Mrs. Otis Geise 533 Some Essentials of the Successful Teacher Dr. J. E. Greaves 534 What Are We Working For? Joseph S. Peery 538 The Salt Lake Fairy Shrimp. Illustrated Harold L. Snow 539 Before the Arrowhead Trail Israel Bennion 542 Six Reasons for Paying Tithing George S. Bunker 545 The Largest Mound in America. Illustrated Golden H. Black 547 Mussolini, and Europe's Need of Peace J. M. Sjodahl 549 Tobacco Users as Fanatics Will H. Brown 551 The Boy Voice Charles Kent 552 A Rustic Romance. A Story Silas L. Cheney 553 Joseph Smith, and the Great West — VIII I. K. Russell 560 The Home. Advanced Senior Lessons XX-XXII 567 Ye Shall Answer for Yourselves Dr. James E. Talmage 1 — 573 Prayer Dedicating the Land of South America to the Preaching of the Gospel Elder Melvin J. Ballard 575 My Prayer. A Poem Bessie Burnham 577 Where the Ends of the Empire Meet. Illustrated.— Prof. H. R. Merrill 578 Dream, O Youth. A Poem Irvin L. Warnock 580 The Woman on the Rock. Illustrated Grace Wharton Montaigne 581 Having No Vision They Perished O. B. Peterson 584 Messages from the Missions. Illustrated 586 Editors' Table — Do You Want to be a Slave? 595 Books __, 597 Priesthood Quorums 598 Mutual Work 601 Passing Events 608