p. 21 | Red Cross Ends Noncombatant Relief in Europe

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 31, 1914

Red Cross Ends Noncombatant Relief in Europe

— The American Red Cross Society at its tenth annual meeting held recently, decided to discontinue relief work among noncombatants in the European war, and to confine its efforts to the care of sick and wounded combatants in the various armies engaged on both sides of the struggle.

— An apparatus has been invented by M. Schorn Fredrickson for photographing the stomach. The apparatus has been tested, and it successfully photographs the interior of the stomach. This will prove of invaluable service to the surgical profession, because it will enable the doctors to locate cancers, ulcers, and other abnormal affections. The picture is taken by way of the mouth.

— The United States spent during the fiscal year 1913-14, for the construction of new ships for the navy, $26,135,389.42, according to the annual report of Paymaster-General McGowan, just made public. Maintenance of ships in commission (other than receiving ships), including pay of officers and men, cost $39,435,733.13. The bill for repairs to ships and equipage was $7,802,229.58. For maintaining receiving, prison, and station ships the cost was $6,178,747.43. Maintaining navy yards and stations cost $13,559,825.53.

— The new war revenue law went into effect on December 1. It has been necessary for the Bureau of Engraving to prepare plates for eighty-one separate and distinct kinds of war revenue stamps. These range from one-eighth-cent stamps, measuring one inch by seven eighths of an inch, to be attached to proprietary remedies, to the $2,950 stamp, measuring six by ten inches, for use in enabling manufacturers of cigarettes to pay their special war revenue tax. More than 500,000,000 stamps have already been issued by the government under the new law.

— The final session of the Sixty-third Congress opened December 7. The President's message urged economy in appropriations, conservative action on army and navy appropriations, enactment of a safety-at-sea law, rural credits measure, and favorable consideration by the Senate of the Jones Philippine independence bill. The President also seeks enactment of the Alexander bill permitting the government to subscribe to the capital stock of a corporation which shall operate a line of merchant vessels flying the American flag and sailing from American ports. The government would reserve the right to use the vessels in time of war.

— Asserting that for the first time since its organization by Benjamin Franklin, the Post-office Department is on a self-sustaining basis, Postmaster-General Burleson submitted to the President recently his annual report. It records enormous growth in the department's business because of the parcel post and postal savings bank divisions, and recommends a program of postal legislation to increase the scope of the department's activities. Mr. Burleson features his report with an estimate that a surplus of $3,569,545 will be shown for the fiscal year of 1914, when all claims and charges have been met. On that showing he bases his declaration that the department “has been securely placed upon a self-sustaining basis.”

— It is discovered by a student of the latest census that there are in the United States 13,515,000 persons who were born in other lands. This number would equal the population of Belgium and Holland, or of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland combined. “We have one sixth as many Canadians as there are in Canada, and one-half million more Germans than the city of Berlin; enough Irish to make four Dublins, and enough Italians to make three Romes.” In the decade from 1900 to 1910 5,250,000 persons came to the United States for a place of permanent residence.

— Grave controversies between nations of South America and the belligerent countries of Europe recently led to the calling of a conference of the governing board of the Pan-American Union. Before this board, which consists of the diplomatic representatives of twenty American republics, with the Secretary of State of the United States as chairman ex officio, will come the various suggestions which have been made by Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and Ecuador for a stronger assertion of the rights of neutrals and the exclusion of belligerent warships from the waters of the Americas.

— A national Forward-to-the-land League is the latest movement on a large scale to help in the solution of the problem of the unemployed in the cities, and of that of waste land in the country. The object of the league, in a word, is threefold: First, to give the man without money a chance to earn the first payment on his farm; second, to give the man who has no knowledge of farming a scientific training; and, third, to help men to help themselves. Cooperating with philanthropists in this league are the heads of twelve government bureaus in Washington, as well as influential business men and prominent social workers.

— Woman suffrage is now in force in eleven States of this country. Equal suffrage was adopted by Wyoming in 1890, by Colorado in 1893, by Utah in 1896, by Idaho in 1896, by Washington in 1910, by California in 1912, by Arizona in 1912, by Kansas in 1912, by Oregon in 1912, by Nevada in 1914, by Montana in 1914. In Illinois women have the full suffrage for all offices and measures fixed by statute, including Presidential electors. In twenty-one other States they have partial suffrage. In the election of November 3, Nevada and Montana voted to give full suffrage to women, and Ohio, Missouri, and North and South Dakota voted against it.

— It is practically impossible to disentangle the Mexican skein, so effectually have the strands been enmeshed. Utterly contradictory dispatches follow one another with regularity, so one does not know what to believe. About the only certain thing is that the embroilment continues, growing apparently worse every day. Villa, Carranza, Gutierrez, and Obregon are much in the news. Carranza has established his headquarters at Vera Cruz, Villa is in the field, with the Gutierrez capital at Queretaro, and Obregon is in control of the old capital city. While late dispatches from Mexico City are to the effect that everything is quiet there, the advice is added to Americans to keep away from the place.