Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 5, 1905

— Twenty Christmas-day homicides in Louisiana and Mississippi were reported in a press dispatch from New Orleans, December 26.

— Twenty workmen on the Chicago drainage canal were injured, three of them fatally, by an explosion of dynamite near Lockport, Ill., December 26.

— Seven men were killed and ten injured by a collision of passenger-trains on the Southern railway, near Mauds Station, Ill., December 25, the accident being due to the blunder of a tower operator.

— The breaking of the long drought in western Pennsylvania, December 24, brought work to 25,000 men who had been thrown out of employment by the closing down of mines and the tying up of river traffic by low water. The property loss from the drought had reached the proportions of $1,000,000 a day.

— A Budapest dispatch states that Premier Tisza, of Austria, announced at a disorderly sitting of the Chamber of Deputies, December 28, that the chamber would stand adjourned until January 3, on which date a speech from the emperor would be read, dissolving the parliament, preparatory to a general election. It is predicted that the coming election will be accompanied by serious riots.

— Reports from the far East show that the Russian and Japanese armies facing each other in Manchuria are in winter quarters, and that no serious fighting is contemplated there for the present, the weather being now too cold for active military operations. At Port Arthur the Japanese have been making steady progress, and an intercepted letter from one of the garrison shows that the latter is now reduced to almost the last point of resistance, and has abandoned hope of relief.

— To keep up the price of cotton, which declined to the lowest point reached in several years, on the receipt of the Census Bureau's ginner's report indicating a record crop of over 12,000,000 bales, cotton growers in the South have decided, it is stated, to burn 2,000,000 bales. The projected conflagration was started at Port Gaines, Ga., December 28, where cotton bales were piled up and burned in the streets while a mob paraded around the pile with much noise and ceremony.

— Renewed atrocities by Turks in Bulgaria are reported from Sofia. A recent dispatch says: 'Reports from Adrianople indicate a recrudescence of persecution and excesses by the Turks against the Bulgarians. The Bulgarian government has notified the foreign representatives of these excesses, and requested that they communicate with their respective governments, calling attention to the possible consequences, and notifying them that Bulgaria declines to accept the responsibility.'

— An insurrection against the authority of the United States is in progress in the island of Samar, one of the Philippine group, the nature of which is indicated by the following dispatch from Manila, received December 25: 'A detachment of ninety men has reached Dolores, island of Samar, where it is re-enforcing Lieutenant Abbott, who, with forty men, was besieged by a force estimated to number 4,000 Pulajanes with sixty rifles. The arrival of the re-enforcements is considered to have relieved the situation. A hundred of the headquarters guard left Manila for Samar on Friday, and they probably landed to-day. The main body of the Pulajanes is now heading for the east coast, in which direction they have destroyed the telegraphs.'

— Conflicting reports as to the character and probable effect of the czar's ukase issued in reply to the memorial of the zemstvos petitioning for a more liberal form of government, are received from St. Petersburg; but there seems good reason to believe that a substantial modification of the existing autocracy is intended by the czar. A newspaper summary of the prospective changes which will be referred to the council of ministers for an early report, is as follows: '(1) A just and equable enforcement of existing laws, with a view to securing the harmonious administration of all the courts; (2) zemstvo organization, with a view to giving the widest latitude and autonomy to the various district zemstvos, calling additional zemstvo representatives where required, and creating smaller zemstvo units capable of dealing directly with the local needs of the peasants; (3) equality of all citizens before the law, this touching the much mooted question of peasant equality before the courts; (4) arranging a scheme of workmen's assurance, for the benefit and protection of factory workers throughout the empire; (5) to secure citizens against arbitrary arrest, and to accord immunity from harsh action of the police, except in the cases of persons known to be conspiring to commit overt acts against the stability of the state; (6) the religious freedom of all subjects of the empire without respect of creed or manner of worship; (7) for rescinding all unnecessary repressive laws, leaving in force only those designed for the protection of peasants and for the benefit generally of subjects of the empire; (8) to accord the fullest possible measure of liberty to the press, and the removal, as far as possible, of the various restrictive laws.'

— From present indications it appears that the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine by the United States is likely to react upon the latter power in a manner not contemplated when that policy was first decided on and proclaimed to the world. The Monroe doctrine pledges the power of the United States to prevent European powers from seizing any of the territory of the American republics. Some of these republics are negligent and dilatory in meeting their obligations to European powers, and the latter powers find the Monroe doctrine a serious hindrance to the collection of debts from the American republics by force. The result is that they look to the United States to guarantee the payment of these obligations, and President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress, with other prominent American statesmen, has declared that the republics protected by the Monroe doctrine must meet their obligations to other powers. Just now England, Germany, and Italy are pressing Venezuela for the payment of money due and promised by the Venezuelan government, and the indications are that the United States may be forced to bring pressure on Venezuela to secure the desired action on her part, and that Venezuela is preparing to resist such pressure by force; in other words, that the United States may be forced into war with other American republics to collect the debts due from them to European powers.