p. 20 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 28, 1909

Current Mention

— Both houses of the Tennessee Legislature passed the State-wide prohibition law over the governor’s veto on January 20. This act makes the bill a law.

— According to the decision reached by the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads, on January 13, it will require $234,000,000 to pay the expenses of the postal department during the present year.

— The United States Supreme Court, on January 19, affirmed the decree of the State courts of Texas, imposing a fine of $1,625,900 on the Waters-Pierce Oil Company of St. Louis, and ousting it from that State, on the charge of violating the Texas anti-trust law.

— The United States military appropriation bill for the fiscal year 1910, as reported to the House by the committee on military affairs, provides for an expenditure of $98,295,406. This is about ten million less than the estimates, and nearly four million more than the expenditures for the present year.

— Through the influence of President Roosevelt the anti-Japanese legislation in the California Legislature has been delayed for a time. It is felt in many quarters that the passage of the proposed legislation at this time would be likely to result in serious consequences. A certain portion of the press in both Japan and the United States is making much of the incident.

— Secretary of the Interior Garfield, in asking the chairmen of the Senate and House appropriation committees for a further appropriation to enable his department to protect the government against fraudulent land deals, makes the statement that approximately $110,000,000 worth of lands in States west of the Mississippi have been fraudulently acquired within the past two years by certain corporations and individuals.

— January 20 fifty-three workmen lost their lives through the explosion of a quantity of powder on one of the wooden cribs which had been erected to facilitate the building of a submarine tunnel under Lake Michigan, near Chicago. The crib was one and one-half miles from shore, and the explosion set it on fire. As soon as possible tugs were sent to the rescue of the men; but more than half of those employed had been either burned to death or drowned before help could reach them.

— Earthquakes continue in the devastated portions of Italy and Sicily almost hourly. There have been numerous shocks also at Smyrna, Turkey. Six hundred houses were destroyed there, and eight persons are reported killed. Mount Colima in Mexico is still in eruption, and a severe earthquake shock has been experienced in that region. The eruption of a volcano in one of the Philippine islands has let loose a mountain lake that has caused much destruction to farms below. A few persons are still being taken out alive from the ruins of the Italian cities. Those latest recovered had been buried twenty-two days. It is reported that of those rescued and receiving treatment in hospitals, five thousand have died.

— Wireless telegraphy demonstrated its immense practicability on January 23, when two steamers, the “Republic” of the White Star Line and the “Florida” of the Lloyd-Italiano Line, collided in the Atlantic Ocean, south of Nantucket Light, in a dense fog. The “Republic,” at once, by means of the wireless telegraph, sent distress messages, which were caught up by a station on shore, and quickly repeated by the more powerful batteries of the shore station. Vessels of three different lines at once headed for the disabled steamers, and the passengers were all safely transferred and brought to land, with the exception of four, who were killed when the vessels collided. The “Republic” went down after the arrival of the other vessels; but the passengers of both vessels were brought to port by the “Baltic” of the White Star Line.