Page:EB1922 - Volume 32.djvu/1048

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1010
WHYMPER—WILLIAM II. OF HOHENZOLLERN

The Belgian Government awarded him the Civic Cross of the First Class (1919). He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

An. excellent account of the German occupation is given in his Belgium; a Personal Narrative (1919). His other writings include The iith District: a Story of a Candidate (1902) ; Her Infinite Variety (1904) ; The Happy Average (1904) ; The Turn of the Balance (1907) ; Abraham Lincoln (1909, in the Beacon Biographies) ; The Gold Brick (1910); On the Enforcement of Law in Cities (1910; enlarged form, I9J3) ; The Fall Guy (1912) ; Forty Years of It | (1914, a description of " democracy's progress in a mid-western city ") and Walt Whit- man: How to Know Him (1920).

WHYMPER, EDWARD (1840-1911), British explorer and mountaineer (see 28.617), died at Chamonix Sept. 16 1911.

WHYTE, ALEXANDER (1837-1921), British divine (see 28.617), retired from the ministry of Free St. George's in 1916, and from his position as principal of New College, Edinburgh, in 1918. He published The Apostle Paul (1903) and Thirteen Appreciations (1915). He died at Hampstead Jan. 6 1921.

WILBERFORCE, ALBERT BASIL ORME (1841-1916), English divine (see 28.630), died May 13 1916.

WILBRANDT, ADOLF (183 7-1911), German novelist and dramatist (see 28.631), died at Rostock June 10 1911.

See E. Scharrer-Santen, Adolf Wilbrandt als Dramatiker (1912), and Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog, XVI., Totenliste 1911, p. 84.

WILEY, HARVEY WASHINGTON (1844- ), American chemist, was born in Kent, Ind., Oct. 18 1844. He was educated at Hanover (Ind.) College (A.B.i867; A.M.i87o), Indiana Med- ical College (M.D.i87i), and Harvard (8.8.1873). He was professor of Greek and Latin at Butler College, Indianapolis, (1868-70); state chemist of Indiana and professor of Chemistry at Purdue University (1874-83); and chief chemist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1883-1912). He was elected pres- ident of the American Chemical Society in 1893, and from 1899 was professor of Agricultural Chemistry at the George Washing- ton University. He frequently represented the United States in scientific meetings abroad. He was specially interested in pre- venting food adulteration, and antagonized many food packers by opposing the use of benzoate of soda as a preservative. In 1911 his enemies urged his dismissal from the Department of Agriculture on the technical charge that an expert in his depart- ment had received recompense exceeding the legal rate. Later in the year President Taft wrote a letter wholly exonerating Dr. Wiley, but failed to take the obviously proper steps to remove from the Department a hostile member, with whom Dr. Wiley had to come into constant contact. Accordingly, Dr. Wiley resigned in 1912. Henceforth, he devoted himself largely to the cause of pure food by lecturing and writing.

His numerous publications include The Sugar Industry of the United States (1885) ; Principles and Practice of Agricultural Analysis (1894-7; revised edition, 1906-14); Foods and Their Adulterations (1907; third edition, 1917); Influence of Food Preservatives and Artificial Colors on Digestion and Health (1904-7, with several collaborators) ; 1001 Tests of Foods, Beverages, and Toilet Accessories, Good and Otherwise (1914); The Lure of the Land (1915), and Beverages and Their Adulteration (1919). He also edited a series of Health Readers for Schools in 1919.

WILLARD, DANIEL (1861- ), American railway official, was born at North Hartland, Vt., Jan. 28 1861. He graduated from the Windsor (Vt.) high school in 1878, studied for a year at the Mass. Agricultural College, Amherst, and in 1879 began his railway career as track labourer in Vermont. He rose to fireman, then to engineer, and for twenty years held various positions on several roads, including the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie in its early days. In 1899 he was made assistant manager of the Baltimore and Ohio R.R., and two years later assistant to the president of the Erie R.R., of which he soon became first vice-president and general manager. From 1904 to 1910 he was second vice-president of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R.R., and after 1909 was also president of the Colorado Midland and vice-president of the Colorado and Southern. In 1910 he was elected president of the Baltimore and Ohio. In Oct. 1916 he was appointed a member of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, and the following March chairman of the commission. After

America's entrance into the World War, he was appointed in July 1917 a member of the special committee of the Council of National Defense to secure mediation in case of strikes on war contracts. In Nov. 1917 he was appointed by President Wilson chairman of the War Industries Board, charged with devising and expediting means of producing the Government's industrial requirements for effective warfare. In Jan. 1918 he resigned in order to devote personal attention to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After the Government had taken over the railways as a war measure a Federal manager displaced him as operating head of his road, but he remained president in charge of its corporate affairs, in which position he continued when the U.S. Government gave up control of the railways.

WILLARD, EDWARD SMITH (1853-1915), British actor, was born at Brighton Jan. 9 1853 and first appeared in The Lady of Lyons at Weymouth at the age of sixteen. He toured first with E. H. Sothern and then joined various stock companies, coming to London in 1875 and playing Antonio in The Merchant of Venice with Charles Rice in 1876. After a varied experience in Shakespearean and other plays he was engaged by Wilson Barrett in 1881 for the Princess's theatre, London, and until 1886 played leading parts in many melodramas, the most notable amongst them being "The Spider" in Henry Arthur Jones's The Silver King. In 1889 he produced Jones's The Middleman at the Shaftesbury theatre, London, afterward taking it to Amer- ica. He played Professor Goodwillie in Barrie's The Professor's Love Story in 1894 at the Comedy theatre, London. After 1903 he acted only in America, repeating these and other roles; but in 1911 he played Brutus at the Gala performance of scenes from Julius Caesar at His Majesty's theatre, London. He died in London Nov. 9 1915.

WILLCOCKS, SIR WILLIAM (1852- ), British engineer, was born in India in 1852 and educated at Roorkee College, India. From 1872 to 1807 he was engaged successively in the Indian and Egyptian Public Works Departments. He designed and carried through the Assuan Dam in 1898, and for this work the C.M.G. was conferred upon him, followed by the K.C.M.G. in 1902. His most important undertaking, however, was the irrigation of Mesopotamia, begun in 1911 at an estimated cost of 26,195,000. The scheme provided for the irrigation of 3,500,000 acres. His published works include Egyptian Irrigation (1889); The Irrigation of Mesopotamia (1905) and From the Garden of Eden to the Crossing of the Jordan (1918). In Jan. 1921 he was put on trial before the Supreme Consular Court of Egypt on a charge of sedition and criminal libel, on account of statements made by him impugning the trustworthiness of the data concerning the Nile irrigation published by Sir Murdoch Macdonald, adviser of the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works. He was found guilty March n, and on April 16 he was bound over to be of good behaviour for one year.


WILLETT, WILLIAM (1856-1915), English builder, was born at Farnham, Surrey, in Sept. 1856. He made a name for himself in London as a designer of beautiful houses; but his chief claim to fame was his conception and promotion of the system of " daylight saving." Though scoffed at in his lifetime, his idea was taken up and put into practice in 1916, and honour has been paid to Willett's memory, which was denied to him in life. He died at Chislehurst March 4 1915.


WILLIAM II. OF HOHENZOLLERN (1850- ), German ex-Emperor and ex-King of Prussia (see 28.667). When the hour of the downfall of the German Empire and the Prussian dynasty, following upon the military collapse of Germany, arrived in Nov. 1918, the ex-Emperor's flight to Holland bore in the eyes of his countrymen the aspect of a pitiable incident, rather than of a tragic climax. For a considerable portion of the rest of the world, which had frequently overestimated his personal, as distinguished from his official, significance, his conduct and bearing on the eve of the war, throughout its course, and at the moment of his country's disaster, may indeed have come as something of a revelation. There followed a series of disclosures as to his exploits in previous years, above all that piece of personal diplomacy, the Treaty into which he tricked the still