Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1917 — WORLD’S EVENTS IN SHORT FORM [ARTICLE]

WORLD’S EVENTS IN SHORT FORM

BEST OF THE NEWS BOILED DOWN TO LIMIT. ARRANGED FOR BUSY PEOPLE Notes Covering Most Important Happenings of the World Compiled In Briefest and Most Succinct Form for Quick Consumption.

U, S. —Teutonic War News The first American shot of the war against Austria was fired on {tie Italian front when Representative Tinkham of Boston, pulled the string of a 1.49 millimeter gum hurling a shell across to the Austrian lines. • • • A division of regular cavalry, the first the American army has had since Civil war days, is being formed at El Paso, Tex. Officials ilt Washington Baid the step was in preparation for eventualities abroad. • • • Gunners on an American merchant Bhlp which arrived at an Atlantic port from Archangel. Russia, declared they encountered a German submarine and destroyed the U-boat by gunfire. Germany has massed on the western front her greatest army of the war, Secretary Baker declared at Washington In his weekly war review. To meet this menace the United States must speed up its military preparations, the secretary adds, with a warning that the enemy Is preparing to put into execution In France plans he has been maturing since the peace negotiations with Russia permitted the massing of men on the western front for that purpose. • • • Foreign Dispatches received at Geneva by way of Vienna report that the, sultan of Turkey is seriously ill. • • •

German greed has overreached itself again. Supremely arrogant over the manner in which the Russian bolshevik! fell in with its proposals for an armistice, the German high control, Washington learned, has demanded peace terms which bld fair to unite all Russia into a potent anti-German force. Winston Spencer Churchill, minister of munitions, spoke at Bedford, England, on the allies' war aims. He said the situation was more serious than it had been rea -on: Me three months ago to expect. His address was a warning against premature peace and an Indorsement of President Wilson’s statement of war aims embodied in his recent speech to congress. • • • The district in Russia comprising the provinces of Orenburg, I fa, Perm and Samara has declared its independence, according to word received at Copenhagen. They are the sections in which the Cossacks are legion. • Information has been received by the Portugu’-se legation in Madrid confirmatory of previous dispatches that the revolutionary movement in Portugal had been successful. Dr. Sidonio Paes, former Portuguese minister to Germany, has been named president of a provisional government. » ♦ •

Washington Wads of red tape, bickering by the war munitions board, snail-pace proceedings in congress, and unwillingness of manufacturers to “take a chance" on contracts without government funds actually available —all these conditions were revealed to the senate military affairs committee at Washington as the causes of low speed in equipping America’s armies. They were brought out in testimony of Major General Crozier, chief of ordnance. • » * President Wilson issued a proclamation at Washington reducing the alcoholic content of beer brewed after January 1, 1918. to 2% per cent by weight and prohibiting the use in the manufacture of malt liquors of more than 70 per cent of the average amount of foods, fruits, food materials and feeds used in such manufacturing during the one-year period ending on that date. ‘ ♦ ♦ * A comprehensive investigation into the entire national military situation, including the progress being made by the war department in organizing training and equipping the new army, was ordered by the senate military affairs committee at Washington. It is the intention of the committee to call Secretary of War Bake.- and other high officials. • • • Food Administrator Hoover will Issue at Washington a supplemental food card within a few days to the 12,000,000 food conservation signers, announcing that the food administration’s sugar rationing plan “for the United States provides for three pounds of sugar per month to each person during '.he coming year. All regular and National Guard officers must undergo medical ; as well aa efficiency examinations, Secretary Baker said at Washington, of severe conditions of warfare abroad.

Government control of the railroads for the period of the war, but continued private operation, were the features of the plan for dealing with the transportation crisis which President Wilson discussed at Washington with the members of the railroads’ war board. • • • Domestic An embargo on all export freight, except for the United States government, on all railroads reaching North Atlantic seabord ports, was ordered by the general operating committee at New York. > * * * Frank J. Kus.ack, his wife and Mrs. Hanora Madagan, his mother-in-law, were found asphyxiated by gas in their home at Chicago. • • •

An unidentified negro charged with molesting woman residents of Blairtown, a suburb, was taken from the city jail and hanged to a bridge north of Rock Springs, Wyo. • • • Thirteen of the negroes of the Twenty-fourth infantry, U. S. A., found guilty of complicity in the riot and mutiny at Houston August 23, were hanged on the military reservation at Fort Sam Houston. Tex. Only army officers and Sheriff John Tobin of Baxter county were present when the sentence was carried out by so’dlers from the post. • ♦ * With two plates of her bow stove in the steamer Presque Isle, carrying coal from Cleveland to Milwaukee, is hanging to Centerville reef, nine miles north of Sheboygan. Wls. She went aground in a storm. Her crew was taken" off. < * * • Counterfeiting schemes said to involve more than $1,000,000 and whose ramifications' Included Europe, South America and the United States, were disclosed at New York when William J. Flynn, chief of the United States secret service, announced that a plant had been seized and that the final arrest of those involved was made.

• • * A dollar spent unnecessarily immediately becomes an ally of the enemies of the United States, I rank A. Vanderlip, chairman of the nat'onal war savings committee, declared at Cincinnati in one of the opening addresses of his two weeks’ speaking tour in behalf of the war savings stamp campaign. • * • European War News A slight increase in the losses of British merchantmen by mine or submarine hi the last week is noted in the admiralty statement issued at London. Fourteen vessels of more than 1,600 tons were sunk, as well as seven trader that tonnage. ♦ * * The semi-official German news agency says demobilization of the Russian forces has begun and that peace nego-

tiations, restricted to the Russian front, have been authorized. • • ♦ • The Austrian battleship AV ien was torpedoed and sunk, according to a Vienna official statement received in Amsterdam and forwarded to London. Most of the crew were saved. The battleship Wien displaced 5,512 tons and was laid down in 1893. ♦ ♦ * The German attack east of Bullecourt was repulsed by the British except at one point, according to Field Marshal Haig’s report to London. The Germans suffered heavy losses, many dead being left behind on their retirement. The Germans captured 500 yards of front line trench. * * ♦ Dispatches received in London show that the counter-revolt against the bolshevik! regime in southeastern Russia is gaining momentum. Already the I movement is spreading fqnlike from the chosen bases northward, northeastward and northwestward, while preparations are hastening to extend it southward into the Caucasus. • « * Rome dispatches to Washington confirming earlier reports of a lull after the fierce fighting in which the Teutons I failed to break through the Italian lines say that Austro-German commander sacrificed hundreds of thousands of his best men without improving his position. \ ♦ ♦ ♦' Protected by their own artillery fire, and whenever possible under cover of night, the French forces have gradually taken over their allotted positions on the Italian front and today face the Austro-Germans in full strength. ♦ * * I A Reuter dispatch to London from Petrograd says the Pravda announces the first collision between the maximalist troops and from 3,000 to 4,000 troops wider General Kornfloff, armed with machine gtfns, at Tamanovka stattan.