p. 22 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1906

Current Mention

— The revolutions in Santo Domingo and Ecuador are reported to be at an end.

— A serious famine exists in three northern provinces of Japan, affecting a population of 2,700,000. Both the rice crop and the silk crop in this district have been failures.

— President Loubet has retired from office as the head of the French republic, and M. Clement Fallières, president of the French Senate, was elected by the National Assembly as his successor.

— The revolution in Russia is practically at an end, and an era of terrorism and assassination has been instituted in its place. The czar does not dare to participate in the annual ceremony of blessing the waters of the Neva in St. Petersburg, and for the first time since 1732 the Russian monarch will be absent from the ceremony.

— A great triumph for the papacy in Japan is reported from Rome. Bishop O’Connell, of Maine, who was sent as papal envoy to the mikado, has returned and reported to the pope the complete success of his mission, and reports that Japan will soon send a special mission to the pope. The mikado decorated the papal envoy with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, and according to the bishop’s testimony was greatly gratified that the first European envoy after the war should come from the pope.

— The remarkable development of the Argentine republic, in South America, is indicated by the fact that its capital, Buenos Ayres, has just passed the 1,000,000 mark in population, though thirty years ago it had less than half this number of inhabitants. Argentina has an area about equal to that portion of the United States east of the Mississippi River, yet its population is less than that of the State of Pennsylvania. In proportion to population its exports are much greater than those of the United States.

— The attitude of Morocco at the convention of the European powers which began at Algeciras January 16, is thus stated by the leader of the Moroccan delegates to the convention: “Morocco will submit to the united action of the congress, not because she recognizes that the powers have any moral or legal right to interfere with her internal affairs, but simply because she must bow to superior force. If any attempt, however, is made to interfere with or to insult our religion, Morocco, as the oldest independent Moslem government in the world, will repudiate the council and fight united Europe if necessary.”

— A commission from Porto Rico, including the mayor of San Juan, has arrived in Washington to petition President Roosevelt for a more liberal form of government in that island. They present a memorial prepared and adopted in a convention of the officers of the insular municipalities. It represents that the government established since the American occupation is not as liberal as that which existed before. They particularly object to the governor’s council, composed, on the majority side, of Americans who can veto everything that may be proposed by the so-called popular branch of the insular legislative body.

— The principle of the open shop has been adopted by the leading organization in the steel industry in this country, known as the National Association of Erectors of Structural Steel and Iron Work. This association does ninety-five per cent of the structural iron work in the country, both in shops and on buildings, and employs about 50,000 house-smiths on buildings and 150,000 men in the shops. The action taken, therefore, affects 200,000 men, and means that the labor union known as the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers and all the local unions in the various cities are no longer recognized.

— It now appears probable that the beef trust will escape from the legal net which the government has sought to draw around it in the federal court at Chicago, under the plea of immunity, which the trust claims was promised it at a previous investigation by government officials. The trust contends that it is being prosecuted on evidence which it previously gave under promise of immunity, and it is believed by those representing the government in the trial that this plea will be upheld by the courts. There is a dispute between Attorney-General Moody, and Commissioner Garfield of the Department of Commerce and Labor as to which one of them is responsible for the government’s defeat.

— A report from a colporteur of the American Tract Society, states that in Ponce, Porto Rico, a false prophet has appeared, representing himself as the re-embodied spirit of St. John the Evangelist, preaching in the villages of the district, and that a great many people follow him. The report states that “at times he preaches some Bible truth, at other times the contrary. He commands people to follow him and to wear three crosses hanging from their necks, so that Satan may not carry them away. In this manner a great number of the country people follow him, something like 3,000, leaving their houses and their labor. He announced a service, and there met to hear him about 10,000 people.”