Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1914-09-05
Grief and Worry Over Outbreak
in Europe Hastens End
of POntiff.
NEWS OF DEATH CAUSES
SENSATION OVER WORLD
Head of Catholic Church Had Prayed
for Peace Since War Cloud First
Appeared-Sisters Present
at Bedside.

Rome.-Pope Plus X died at 1:20
O'Clock in the morning of bronchial
complications. He had been i'll sew
eral days but alarming symptoms did
not develop until the day before.
Throughout the day Doctors Mar
chiafava and Amici devoted their ut
most energies to stimulating their pa
tient and keeping him alive. The car
dinals were notified of the pope's
grave danger and some of them who
entered the sick room described i'm
pressive and heart-rending scenes, es-
pecially when the pontiff, rousing him
self from time to time, spoke. Once
he said:
I'm ancient times the pope by a
word might have stayed the slaughter.
but now he is impotent-"
Prayers were said by thousands and
the bells of the churches sounded
when the sacrament wa~ exposed upon
all the affairs
When the court learned of the pope's
condition there was the deepest con-
Germ. King Victor Emmanuel person
ally informed Queen Helena and the
news was communicated to the queen
mother.
Prepared for End.
by Monsignor Zampini, sacristan to
his holiness, amid a most touching
scene The sisters of the pope and his
niece were overcome with grief Car
dinal Merry del Val knelt by the side
of his bed, where other cardinals
Joined him, the members of the house
hold intoning prayers
The dying pope in a moment of lu-
cidity said
Now l begin to think as the end is
approaching that the Almighty in His
inexhaustible goodness wishes to spare
me the horrors Europe is undergoing
Wednesday was one of the most
anxious days in the history of the
papacy The whole world knew that
the pope was indisposed, but it was
supposed that he was suffering from
his usual ailment-gout- Up to noon
even the members of the household
were unaware of the seriousness of
the developments.
Change Was Sudden.
Almost without warning came the
word that the pontiff was at deaths
door.
All day his agony continued. At
times he revived and was able to say
a few words, but hope of saving MIN
finally was abandoned. Several times
throughout the city and at the palace
the rumor spread that the end had
come, only to be denied later.
In the presence of Cardinal Merry
del Val, the papal secretary, and Car
dinals Ferrata, Cagiano and Bisleti,
and the two sisters of the pope,
bulletin on the condition of the pontif
was posted early in the afternoon on
the Swiss guards stood watch A
great crowd outside gazed with grief
stricken faces up at the pope's cham
Der on the second floor, where the
windows were closed with shades.
At the commencement of the Eu-
ropean crisis he had addressed an ex-
hortation to all the Catholics of the
world, asking them to lift their souls
toward Christ, who alone was able to
aid, and he called upon the clergy to
offer public prayers.
Shocked by Warfare.
The break between Austria and Ser
via from the first became a source of
great grief to him, for the Vatican was
most friendly toward both nations
He was inexpressably shocked, he
said, at the assassination of Archduke
Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Aus
trian throne, who, like all the Haps-
burgs, was an ardent Catholic, and
was sympathetic toward little Servia,
with which the Vatican had but re-
Gently concluded a friendly concor-
dant.
The pope's views on peace, en-
bodied in an allocution delivered at
the consistory at which he created
thirteen new cardinals last May, con-
stituted such a remarkable document
that the Carnegie Peace union, found
ed in February by Andrew Carnegie,
with an endowment of $4,000 0es de-
cided to begin among the clergy of
the Roman Catholic church it's educa-
tional activities in behalf of disarma-
ment and arbitration.