Improvement Era, November 1929

THE IMPROVEMENT ERA 3SE Vol 33-41 NOVEMBER, 1929 No. 1 Europe in the Melting, Pot CAN this be Europe? How it has changed from the Eu- rope of my childhood or of my student days, thirty-one years ago! Of course, the narrow, cob- blestone streets, the crowded, queer houses, the cramped mode of liv- ing, the grimy poverty, the social strata, and the weight of castled and cathedraled centuries — the face of Europe — are still here, much as in the past. The difference is one of outlook and attitude, of hope and fear, of the spirit, but as real as wood or stone. The change is remarkable. The spirit of tolerance, new and pervasive, is startling. A genera- tion ago "Mormon" elders in Ger- many divided their time between being in jail and keeping out of jail for the crime of being "Mor- mons;" today, they have the use of magnificent schoolhouses in Ber- lin for Sunday meetings. Then, according to the British press, mag- netic "Mormon" elders exported English girls to an "immoral" place in the American West; today, the same papers publish respectful interviews with said elders, and comment upon the splendid achievements of the State of Utah; and one paper is now publishing, serially, a life of Brigham Young, written by one of his daughters. There are those who would gladly flay or burn a "Mormon," but their voice is thin, and they are of the class who indiscriminately would like to flay or burn some- body. HTHE spirit of tolerance is not confined to "Mormonism." It has entered every concern. The old barriers of prejudice have crumbled. It is conceded, though ever so re- luctantly, that good may "come out of Nazareth." A European can now, at the comfortable close of By DR. JOHN A. WIDTSOE President of the L. D. S. European Missions and a Member of the Council of the Twelve. i i i i y day, look over his country's bor- der into his neighbor's land with- out wheezing and bristling. There are yet selfish nationalism and na- tional selfishness enough to be dan- gerous, but the feelings of the masses of the people are mellowing before the sun of tolerant under- standing. The cocksureness of the Euro- pean is passing. "After all," he seems to say, "my country may not be the only one under the sun." The Briton is pondering deeply, "Perhaps the British lion is not the only animal with sharp teeth." One is not now crowded off Ger- man sidewalks by self-sufficient,