p. 21 | Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 25, 1907

Current Mention

— The House of the Illinois Legislature has passed an anti-cigarette bill making unlawful the selling of cigarettes or cigarette papers in Illinois. The bill now goes to the Senate.

— All the regular liners running between New York and Great Britain are going away only partly filled with cargo nowadays, because the railroads have not the cars to bring wheat, oats, rye, and barley.

— All parties in Cuba express satisfaction with Secretary Taft’s announcement that Cuban elections will follow a taking of the census. Municipal elections will probably not be held before September 15, and the presidential elections later. It is not probable that the Americans will evacuate the island before 1909.

— The Immigration Bureau has been informed that hundreds of Japanese have arrived in Mexico, destined for the United States. Scores are being smuggled across the border. Information also comes that many Japanese are arriving in Honolulu, where they take passage to British Columbia, expecting to get across the northern border of the United States.

— Justice Gould, of the District Supreme Court, decided recently that the “treaty funds,” which are made up of moneys appropriated by Congress annually to carry out treaty stipulations of the government with the Indian tribes, can not be legally used by government officials to pay for the education of the Indians at sectarian schools. Practically all the Catholic Indian mission schools, as well as many Protestant educational institutions operating among the Indian tribes of the West, will be affected by the decision, and some of them will find their revenues seriously interfered with hereafter.

— The California and Chile earthquake disasters have been repeated in Mexico, but with less loss of life. Between midnight and 1 A. M. of Monday, April 15, severe shocks were felt over the southern half of Mexico, the center of the disturbance (which lasted four minutes) seeming to be about 200 miles south of Mexico City. Latest advices say the death list will reach more than a hundred, but not all sections have yet been heard from. A tidal wave was experienced at Acapulco on the west coast. Repeated shocks have followed, and a sulphurous odor is causing discomfort to the survivors. On the seventeenth earthquake shocks were reported from various parts of Eurasia, as Spain, Turkey, and Transcaspian Russia. On the eighteenth shocks were felt at Manila, and the Puyahue volcano on the border between Argentina and Chile is in very active eruption, causing the inhabitants of mountain villages to flee for safety. Large areas are covered with lava, and many cattle have been killed.

— A menacing French naval demonstration is taking place off Mogador, Morocco, and the general situation is grave, owing to the resentment of the Moors over the French occupation of Oudja. Native opinion is unanimous that France is seeking to pick a quarrel with Morocco in order to make further annexations of territory.

— The Florida Senate has adopted a joint resolution to declare the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the federal Constitution void, and to disfranchise the negro in Florida. As the house is overwhelmingly for the resolution, the question of the legality of the amendments in question will go before the United States Supreme Court.

— President Bonilla of Honduras has surrendered, one of the conditions being that he leave Central America. He was taken by an American gunboat to Salina Cruz, Mexico. A conference between representatives of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Salvador is in progress at Amapala, Honduras, which it is thought will terminate the war, as the Nicaraguan troops are being withdrawn from Honduran territory. There is a uniform desire on the part of the Central American republics for a permanent peace conference to be held in Washington, where special envoys from each of the republics shall negotiate a treaty for lasting peace.

— At the Peace Congress Andrew Carnegie was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor by the representative of the French government in appreciation of his work for peace and his gift of the palace at The Hague. The congress also adopted resolutions recommending, among other things, that The Hague conference shall hereafter be a permanent institution; that The Hague court shall be open to all the nations of the world; and that the coming conference shall draft a general treaty of arbitration providing for the reference to The Hague court of such international differences as can not be adjusted by diplomacy.

— For some weeks the management of the great railroad systems of the country has been prominently before the public. In the investigations made by the Interstate Commerce Commission, E. H. Harriman was called to testify, and his manner of acquiring control of so many Western roads is severely criticized. Many of the State legislatures are enacting railroad laws, and already in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Wisconsin they have laws requiring low passenger fares, generally two cents a mile. Similar laws are pending in Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Such general legislation is thought to have been largely responsible for the sudden drop in stocks in Wall Street Market recently. At all events, J. P. Morgan had an interview with the President, and arranged for conferences between President Roosevelt and prominent railroad presidents. The money market has become more firm; and the railroads in numerous instances are adding to freight rates to compensate for the forced reduction of passenger fares. Different leaders predict that the final settlement of the difficulties involved will be some form of federal control of the railroads of the country.