ITEMS OF INTEREST June 3, 1911 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

At Lake Mohonk, N. Y., scholars, diplomatists, business men, and labor representatives met last week for the seventeenth annual conference on international arbitration inagurated by Albert K. Smiley in 1895. The hundreds of guests who have accepted Mr. Smiley's hospitality meet this time under conditions which promise great things for the peace movement throughout the world. A comparison of the programs of 1895 and 1911 shows clearly that the arbitration movement has now enlisted the services of many who once felt disinclined to take the cause seriously. As education has advanced, as business has expanded at home and abroad, as American industrialism has risen to a height not dreamed of some years ago, financiers and workingmen realize more and more that wars must be made to cease if prosperity is to continue.

The new public library building, the cornerstone of which was laid nine years ago, was dedicated in New York May 23. The building is said to be without an equal in the world among those dedicated to the convenience and instruction of the public, for size and cost. It holds shelf room for 3,500,000 volumes; it has floor space of 375,000 feet, as against 326,000 feet in the Congressional Library at Washington, and it has cost for erection more than ten million dollars, a figure which, when all details have been attended to, may rise to twelve million dollars. The land on which it stands—fronting two blocks on Fifth Avenue, between Fortieth and Forty-second streets—was last valued at twenty million dollars.

The Wisconsin Legislature has passed a law having for its purpose the abolition of "logrolling," or vote swapping, in the enactment of state laws. The law provides that any member who agrees to support the bill of another member on condition of receiving help for his own bill, will be guilty of a felony and subject to imprisonment or fine. A penalty is also provided for a member of the Legislature who agrees to support or oppose a bill on condition that the Governor approve or veto any particular measure, or that the Governor shall appoint or remove any person from public office.

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