--- 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: 33 number: 1 published: 1929-11 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "*Improvement Era* 33, no. 1 (November 1929). Salt Lake City: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, November 1929." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3301unse 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: improvementera3301unse curator_note: Internet Archive issue scan; advertising omitted. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1929-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3301unse publication_year: 1929 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 1929, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # 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,