ITEMS OF INTEREST September 3, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Before the year's outing season is over nearly half a million persons will have sought recreation and health in the national forests of the United States. The total last year was 406,775. With the finest mountain scenery and much of the best fishing and big-game hunting in the United States, the national forests, made more and more accessible each year through protection and development by the Government, are fast becoming great national playgrounds for the people. The use of the forests for recreation is as yet in its beginning, but is growing steadily and rapidly-in some localities at the rate of one hundred per cent per annum. The day seems not far distant when a million persons will annually visit them. Several of the natural wonders and landmarks of interest in the national forests have been set apart as national monuments, among them Cinder Cone, a great lava basin in California; the Gila Cliff Dwellings, extensive remains of a prehistoric race in New Mexico; the Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona; Jewel Cave, South Dakota; Lassen Peak, the terminus of a long line of extinct volcanoes in the Cascades; the Pinnacles, a collection of remarkable jagged peaks in California, and the Tonto, a group of prehistoric ruins in the Tonto forest in Arizona. The Big Trees, Glacier Park, the Petrified Forest, the Oregon Caves and numerous other phenomena, serve to attract other hosts of visitors. The Government has cut 9,218 miles of trail, laid out 1,236 miles of road, and strung 4,851 miles of telephone lines.

A writer in Everybody's Magazine proposes that candidates for office pledge themselves on this set of questions; If elected to Congress will you vote for Cannon for speaker? to take away from the speaker the power of appointing committees and to give it to the House? to revise the tariff again, so that it will represent only the difference in wage cost of production between the United States and foreign countries? to authorize the interstate commerce commission to regulate rates on the basis of a physical valuation of railroad properties? to authorize the interstate commerce commission to limit the issuance of stocks and bonds to the actual investment? for the direct election of United States Senators? for a recognition of the postoffice department, and the appointment of a permanent director of posts? for a bill to prevent the Government from selling any more of its mineral deposits, the same to be leased at adequate rentals and for moderate periods? for a bill to prevent the Government from selling any more of its existing water-sites, the same to be leased as above?

Since the Lincoln design was substituted for that of the "Indian head" more than a year ago, 171,669,529 of the cents have been struck to Aug. 1. The Philadelphia mint, which makes all the copper coins, has been turning them out at the rate of six hundred thousand per day. Yet not only has this enormous output had no appreciable effect in displacing the old-style cents, but it is positively known that nearly thirty millions of the new Lincoln coins have passed out of circulation altogether—28,479,000, to be exact. These were the first series issued, which bore the initials "V. D. B." of the designer, Victor D. Brenner.

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