Current Events 
U. S. A. 
CJ Denouncing the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill on the ground that 
many of its rates were fixed by a process of logrolling, Senator Sim¬ 
mons, of North Carolina, who is the ranking Democratic member of the 
Committee on Finance and was chairman of the committee during the 
Wilson administration, added that upon a basis of comparative prices 
the rates of the pending bill were 40 to 50 percent, higher than those of 
the Payne-Aldrich law. The measure continued to be a subject of bitter 
debate, with the public suspecting that political self-interests were at the 
base of the issue. q No movement for furthering the advance of women 
throughout the Americas has heretofore approached in importance the 
gathering in Baltimore where the Pan-American conference was at¬ 
tended by delegates from many of the republics, and plans were laid for 
carrying forward the programme having to do with woman’s status in 
politics, the home, and in business. America duly celebrated the three- 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Moliere, the American Academy 
of Arts and Letters taking the lead. The commemoration exercises 
were attended by two of the “Forty Immortals” of the French Acad¬ 
emy, Maurice Donnay and Andre Chrevillon, as well as by Marshal 
Joffre, and Jules Jusserand, the French Ambassador. Considerable 
interest attached to the lectures on spiritualism delivered in New York 
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is a confirmed believer in the doctrine 
and exhibited spirit pictures the genuineness of which he vouched for. 
Both the press and the public treated the advent of Sir Arthur with 
respect, while many clergymen of various denominations took excep¬ 
tion to his statements as entirely too problematic. €J Within recent 
weeks many new inventions have added to the reputation of the United 
States as a land of opportunity. Foremost may be considered the 
development of radio communication, one improvement following an¬ 
other in rapid succession. That of Major General George O. Squier 
shows how an ordinary electric light system may be utilized for the dis¬ 
semination of radio messages. Major General Squier is Chief of the 
Signal Corps of the U. S. Army. The problem of how to supply light 
without heat has been solved, according to Professor E. Newton Harvey 
of Princeton University. Professor Harvey solved the problem by 
studying the luminous property of animal life, such as that of the fire¬ 
fly and the glow worm. This glow is produced by the oxidation of 
luciferin, forming oxyluciferin in the presence of another substance 
which the inventor calls luciferase. €JBy a donation of $100,000 to 
Bowdoin College, Frank A. Munsey, publisher of the New York 
Herald, assures that institution of the endowment of $600,000 which 
President Sills and the trustees were seeking. 
