News and Miscellany

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 11, 1915

News and Miscellany

Notes and clippings from the daily and weekly press

— The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America reports that there are in the churches of the United States at present 38,708,149 members. There was a membership gain of 763,087 last year. The Methodists led all other denominations in this respect.

— A summer home in the heart of the Rocky Mountains for the Presidents of the United States, built and presented to the nation by the citizens of the twenty-two States west of the Mississippi, is projected by citizens of Denver. Six hundred and forty acres of land on Mt. Falcon, fifteen miles west of Denver, has been given as a site, and a considerable part of the $1,000,000 which it is purposed to spend in the construction of the building and the development of its surrounding park, has been subscribed. The formal laying of the corner stone is to take place as soon as President Wilson can find an opportunity to attend the ceremony in person.

— The Panama Canal has been open for public use six months. The total of the tolls collected since the opening has been a trifle more than $2,000,000. In January 98 vessels passed through the canal, 44 going west and 54 going east. Altogether they carried cargoes aggregating 500,000 tons.

— The Pope prepared a prayer to be used in all the French churches on a recent Sunday. The prayer was printed in many of the periodicals of the country. But the journals containing the prayer were all seized and taken out of circulation by the police. The motives for the seizure seem to have been born of a fear that the prayer for peace might have a disquieting and depressing effect on the people of the French Republic.

— Of a total of 2,973,890 square miles in the United States, 2,236,062 are prohibition territory. The population of the United States is 91,972,266. Of this population 48,118,394 persons now reside in territory in which the liquor traffic is outlawed. In other words, about eighty per cent of the area of the United States is under prohibition, and approximately fifty-four per cent of the total population of the country resides in this territory.

— The historic Liberty Bell, on which rang out the news of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, is to be heard across the continent—this time by telephone. Efforts to have the relic shipped to the exposition have failed, the fear being expressed that the crack which developed while the bell was ringing out the tidings of the birth of the United States as a nation, might be extended by the shaking it would receive in the long trip.

— The United States Revenue-Cutter Service, organized when Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, passed out of existence January 24, and was replaced by the United States Coast Guard. This change carries into effect the provisions of the law recently passed by Congress and signed January 28 by President Wilson, whereby the Revenue-Cutter Service and the Life-Saving Service are merged into one organization. By this law the new service becomes a part of the regular military establishment of the United States, and in time of war it passes under the direct control of the Navy Department.

— All agencies engaged in Belgian relief must occupy themselves for the present with the immediate tasks of providing bread for the total population of Belgium, and of supplying all food for one fifth of that population, which is wholly dependent upon charitable aid, according to the second report of the relief commission sent abroad by the Rockefeller Foundation to investigate the effects of the war upon noncombatants. These relief measures, the commission estimates, will necessitate an expenditure of about $6,600,000 a month. Of the total Belgian population of 7,000,000, the report states, eighty per cent are able to pay for their bread, but the grain from which to make the bread must be purchased in foreign countries, transported into Belgium, and distributed under the protection of the American government, to the communes. About 60,000 tons of grain monthly are required for the feeding of the population.