News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 13, 1916

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The one hundredth anniversary of the introduction of gas for lighting purposes was recently celebrated in Baltimore, Md. It is said that Baltimore was the first American city to use gas for illumination and to incorporate a gas company.

— In order to protect the name of the organization from exploitation, a bill for incorporating the Boy Scouts of America was recently signed by President Wilson. Among the concerns that have already appropriated the name is a tobacco house which recently offered “Boy Scout” cigarettes for sale.

— The launching of a campaign to close all Chicago saloons in 1917 was announced on June 16 by the Dry Chicago Federation, which is composed of about fifty organizations interested in the abolition of the liquor traffic. A petition for an election next spring under the local option law is to be circulated.

— America’s superdreadnaught, the “Pennsylvania,” the largest battleship afloat, became a part of the United States Navy on June 12, when she was placed in commission at the Norfolk Navy Yard. The ceremonies of the occasion were impressive and patriotic, and were witnessed by a number of invited guests and naval officers.

— Miss Helen Keller, deaf and blind, is now taking singing lessons from a professor of the New England conservatory of music. It was only after months of patient effort that Miss Keller learned to talk, and even now her enunciation is not wholly clear. She is extremely sensitive to music, which makes her body “sing like a wind harp,” she says.

— And now the grave of Mohammed is brought into the news through the European war, and Mecca itself has become a point of battle. Arabia is in arms, in revolt against Turkish rule, and, according to late dispatches, the holy city of Mecca has been captured by the natives, who are striving to throw off the yoke of the Turk. Medina, which is about 250 miles from Mecca, and in which is the tomb of Mohammed, is closely besieged. The Arabs have been agitating this revolt for years, it being the outcome of what is known as the Pan Arab movement, which aims at the abolition of Turkish misrule, oppression, and maltaxation; at the ejection of the Turk from the whole of the Arabian peninsula, and at the formation of a great confederation of Arab tribes.

— By the recent annexation of the two new suburbs, Los Angeles, Cal., now covers the largest area of any city in the United States. New York stands in second place, with 314 square miles, 23 square miles less than Los Angeles; while Chicago is third, with 198 square miles.

— On June 15 the representatives of railroads in the United States notified the heads of the railway employees’ brotherhoods and their 800 delegates, assembled in New York City, that the railroads had refused their demands for an eight-hour day and time and a half for overtime, and asked that the issue be submitted to federal arbitration, preferably by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The labor leaders refused to submit the issues to arbitration, and said they would proceed to secure authority for declaring a national strike of 350,000 trackmen and yardmen.

— The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has been making a study of the cost of education, and finds a notable tendency to increase. In the ten years of its history the foundation has kept records of the charges made for tuition by representative universities and colleges. It has been found that the charge has increased by about one fourth. The report says the tendency to increase was active ten years ago, but was checked by the general financial disturbance of 1907. Since that time it has developed steadily, so that the last four years represent more than half of the advance during the decade. The past year, following the recent examples at Columbia and Yale, the fee at Princeton has been increased from $160 to $175, and next year the Harvard fee of $150, which has remained unchanged since 1869, will be increased to $200. The representative or median fee has increased, during the decade, from about $80 to approximately $100 a year, and the tendency to advance fees is progressing.

— One of the most interesting phases of the political conventions recently held is connected with the handling of the reports sent out to the various newspapers of the country. Never before has so much “copy” been sent out from Presidential conventions. As many as 600,000 words left Chicago in a single day. While this is in itself 200,000 words fewer than were wired the day Colonel Roosevelt reached Chicago in 1912, the week’s total far exceeded that of four years ago. It requires executive ability of a high order to handle all this telegraphing. Convention operators were brought to Chicago and St. Louis from all parts of the country. Many of these were selected because of their special familiarity with the needs and methods of particular cities. Wires are run directly from the convention hall to the large newspaper offices, sometimes as many as half a dozen different operators being at work sending dispatches to a single paper. The number of correspondents this year was unusually large, newspapers in small cities and towns from nearly every State sending special representatives to Chicago and St. Louis. This is indicative, of course, of the widespread interest that the political campaign has developed this year, and also of the standard of efficiency that has been reached in the handling of great gatherings by the telegraph companies. It took 200 operators to handle the Chicago conventions, and 150 to take care of that at St. Louis.