Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 2, 1905

— The cotton crop of the United States will this year, according to the report of the National Ginners’ Association, not be over 10,000,000 bales.

— A battle between the “railroad lobby” and friends of President Roosevelt’s program of railway-rate regulation, has been in progress at Chicago. This is considered the paramount issue now before the country.

— By order of Governor Hoch of Kansas, 513 cases of beer and 6,000 bottles of whisky were publicly destroyed at Fredonia, Kan., October 23, in the courthouse square. A report states that green grass upon which some of the whisky flowed was completely killed by it in a few hours’ time, thus furnishing “striking testimony of the quality of liquor now being sold in Kansas.”

— At Santiago, Chile, opposition by the people to an import tax on Argentine cattle resulted in serious rioting, October 23, about 500 persons being killed or wounded.

— European reports state that an entente between Great Britain and Russia, in which France also shares, has become an accomplished fact, being the result largely of the efforts of the French ambassador at St. Petersburg, who exerted himself to prevent an alliance between Russia and Germany. The latter country now finds itself isolated from European alliances.

— One of the most exciting election campaigns ever known in New York City is in progress there, the central figures in the contest being Mayor McClellan, the “Tammany” candidate, W. R. Hearst, the newspaper proprietor, and District-Attorney Jerome. The campaign of Mr. Hearst based on a platform of municipal ownership of public franchises, has developed a surprising strength of sentiment in that direction among all classes of the people. The “good government” party seems to have been left hopelessly in the rear.

— Rioting and bloodshed are expected in Philadelphia on election day, a fierce contest being now in progress to prevent the old “machine,” whose rule was broken by the reform forces led by Mayor Weaver, from returning to power. The “machine” is making a life-and-death struggle to regain control of the city, and as the election machinery is still mostly in its hands, there is a prospect that it may succeed. Forty thousand illegal names have been recently stricken from the poll books in that city, this being an indication of the wholesale frauds which have been practised there under “machine” domination. An attempt is being made also to stir up religious feeling in the controversy, based on the fact that a good many of those dismissed from the public service by the reform party are Catholics, while Mayor Weaver is superintendent of a Baptist Sunday-school. The Protestant clergy of the city are taking a very active part in the contest.

— A suit for damages has been begun at Chicago which will determine the liability of the construction company which built the Iroquois theater in the matter of the dreadful catastrophe in which 600 lives were lost in December, 1904. The suit is brought by a woman who was severely injured in the theater at that time, but escaped with her life, and is the first suit that has been begun by victims of the occurrence. The bill of the plaintiff alleges that the building ordinances were grossly violated by the theater proprietors; that there was no flue pipe in the roof over the stage; that the exits were not properly marked; that there was no automatic sprinkler, and that the appliances for extinguishing fire were grossly inadequate. This suit is regarded by lawyers as of great importance, since hundreds of other suits, aggregating millions of dollars in damages, have been brought, and the evidence given and the verdict to be rendered in this first trial are of momentous consequence to all concerned.