Current Mention

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Nov 26, 1903

— Christian Science has won a victory in the State of Ohio. The Ohio supreme court has declared that believers in Mrs. Eddy's doctrines have a right to refuse to call a physician to treat a child who is under age.

— The ruins of twenty-two Macedonian villages were viewed by a correspondent of the London Times recently during an eight days' tour in the vicinity of Lake Ohrida. These ruins testified to the havoc wrought in that country by the Turkish troops.

— The president of Switzerland, M. Deucher, was the intended victim of an anarchist plot, the discovery of which led to several arrests at Milan. The anarchist selected to kill the president surrendered to the police at Lugano, Switzerland, making a confession in which he stated that his courage failed him at the time when he was to have committed the deed.

— Senator Dubois, of Idaho, having championed in Congress the movement in opposition to the seating of Senator-elect Reed Smoot, of Utah, Mormon “apostle,” the threat is made by the Mormons that the Idaho senator will be turned out of Congress at the next election of senators, the Mormons being confident of accomplishing this because they hold the balance of power in that State.

— The thirtieth annual convention of the National W. C. T. U. was held at Cincinnati, closing November 18. Action was taken at the convention opposing the seating in Congress of United States senator and Mormon “apostle,” Reed Smoot, “on the ground that his highest allegiance is given to a government other than that of the United States,” and calling for an anti-polygamy amendment to the national Constitution; also expressing the pleasure of the W. C. T. U. in the closing of the gates of the coming St. Louis World's Fair on Sunday, and in efforts being made to purify that city; declaring their opinion that all women of the United States should be allowed to vote on equal terms with the men; and authorizing a memorial to Congress to prohibit the importation of opium into the Philippines. Among the reports of department superintendents was one by Mrs. E. N. Graham, stating encouraging facts in reference to the attitude of railway officials in the United States toward temperance on the part of their employees. Twenty-five saloons in Cheyenne had been closed through an order from the Union Pacific Railway forbidding its employees to enter them. Over 200,000 railway employees are now wearing the railroad temperance button. A protest was adopted against attacks which are being made on the compulsory teaching of temperance in the public schools. Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, of Maine, was re-elected president of the national body.

— It is instructive to note the reasons, or what are given for reasons on the part of those responsible, for the existing street railway strike in the city of Chicago. According to statements from an authoritative source, the question of wages was only indirectly concerned, the street-car companies offering to submit this question to arbitration. What the labor union demanded in addition to an increase of wages was this: “That every employee of the company shall belong to the union, and that every non-union employee of the company either be compelled to join the union or be discharged; that the employees of the company have the right to control what is known as the ‘routing’ of cars, which includes the assignment of men and the selection of the working hours; that no employee of the company be discharged from its service without the consent of the officers of the union, who are to be judges of the conduct of the employees of the company.” This amounted practically to a demand that the management of the street railways be turned over to the labor union, the railway companies retaining the privilege of paying wages, taxes, and other fixed charges, and of responding in suits for damages and paying judgments. The people of Chicago have been put to the inconvenience and expense of a strike because the railway companies refused to consider these preposterous propositions. It is hoped that the strike may be settled by arbitration.