THE
Lunarian Professor
AND
His Remarkable Revelations Concerning
the Earth, the Moon and Mars
TOGETHER WITH
An Account of the Cruise of the
Sally Ann

BY

JAMES B. ALEXANDER
AUTHOR OF THE DYNAMIC THEORY, THE SOUL AND ITS BEARINGS
AND OTHERS

Minneapolis, Minn.
1909

COPYRIGHT 1909
BY
JAMES B. ALEXANDER

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

The reader will please remember that this visit and revelation of the Lunarian Professor took place in 1892, seventeen years ago, and some of the predictions are already due of fulfillment or of apparent progress in that direction. For example he gives Minneapolis a population of 1,780,000 in the year 1925 only sixteen years from the present. This is worse than Walton. But I do not feel at liberty to alter the Professional utterances. If I should begin to do this I would never know where to stop. There will doubtless be found other predictions at variance with our ideas, especially as to the time in which the fulfillment should take place. Time is the most uncertain element concerned in prophetic utterances. Give a prophet time enough and he will successfully predict you anything you like. “All things come to him who waits.” But I have not the assurance to change anything the Professor has said and I am not prepared to aver that the truths as they appear to common mundane mortals are to be preferred to the errors however manifest of so illustrious a prophet—just as we accept the dicta of Moses or St. Paul—when we are entirely sure they do not know what they are talking about. Our Professor is probably wrong in regard to the settlement of some of the questions taken up by him, but to tell the honest truth, I am too ignorant of the disputed points to contradict him. If he says black is white it is safer for me not to talk back. But when it comes to plain statements of facts, concerning the present conditions on the Moon and Mars, in which, from the abundance of personal knowledge there remains no license to draw upon his imagination for his facts, I implicitly trust the Professor. I never saw a pair of eyes so full of honesty for their size, or of as large capacity for honesty as his. Even there, however, some of his statements are liable to be contradicted. For example, the theory of the hump or protuberance on the hither side of the Moon, which had some currency among our astronomers 40 or 50 years ago appears later to have been abandoned by at least some of them, but we should not allow mere theory to counter-balance the testimony of a competent eye witness.

It may seem strange that the Professor has made almost no mention of the great Japanese-Russian war. But as this war settled nothing, did not even settle what there was to be settled it may be considered as a mere incident in the discussion of the real question at issue. This is only my conjecture of the reason of his silence.

The point of view assumed by a Prophet is of little consequence compared with what he sees. Some say, back-sight is more reliable than foresight, and that, considered as a magazine of facts, history is preferable to the imagination. But back-sight is history, and like good liquor it requires aging and maturing. The association of the imagination supplies these effects. History must be read with the help of the imagination even for present use; still more if the inquiry embraces a glance into the future.

Si quaeris futura, circumspice. If you would know the future look around you. That which has been will be. All things have ever been under the domination of evolution and they ever will be. Therefore, let the imagination explore its trail, and you are at once a prophet.

CHAPTER I.
An Outing.

Let me see. It was six (6) years since I had an outing. It seemed a long time and it was long enough to obscure the conviction I had once arrived at that the average outing is on the whole more of a bore than a pleasure and that its principal value consists in making a fellow satisfied with his ordinary work and glad to get back to it again. I am tolerably sure that I should have reached the same opinion even if I had not been the victim of a certain wretched adventure that happened away back in my “courting days”. On the occasion referred to I had taken my best girl for a little rowing and fishing on Brush Lake. We had not proceeded far when she “got a bite”, and it nearly drove her wild with excitement, she stood up in the boat and from her frantic exertions I judged she had hooked nothing less than a six pound bass. At last she pulled it out with a horizontal sweep, and whirling around with it, the middle of the line struck my head with such force as to send the fish revolving around my neck five times, and wound up by inserting the hook in the end of my nose and leaving the fish dangling and flapping against my face—a ridiculous little Sunfish not over three inches long. The excited lady dropped her pole and made such a violent lunge to secure her prize that she upset the boat and left us both floundering in the water. Amongst the fifteen or twenty spectators on the shore was Aquarius Jinks, whose father was a fisherman and had brought him up to think no more of jumping into the water than a water spaniel. So in he jumped and in a jiffy he rescued my lady and took her to the nearest house to get some dry clothes. As for myself, I was getting out all right in spite of the embarrassment of the choking line, my lacerated nose and that wretched fish that did not for a moment let up its frantic struggling and flapping. In addition to this I had the misfortune to be encumbered by the clumsy assistance of a fat German saloon-keeper, who by the help of the pole, which had now floated near the shore, drew me up, amid the jeers of the crowd, that now by the barbarous custom of the times, I was obliged to “treat.”

This exposure laid me up for six weeks with the chills, and about the end of that time there was a wedding—my girl married that Jinks, who took this perfidious advantage of me. I felt very sore for a long time in the region of the diaphragm. The poets usually designate the heart as the particular organ affected in such cases, but I am persuaded it is the semi lunar ganglion or solar plexus, probably the former, from the fact that the victim is apt to be affected by semi lunacy. But that is a question of physiology.

Although I never had another such disastrous experience, yet as I said at first, the average outing with its accidents, fatigues and discomforts, had on the whole, left no very favorable impression on me. Yet I had made up my mind after an interval of six years to try one more. My literary work had tired me out, and a trip, if it gave no pleasure, would hurt at least in another place.

August the third, 1892, found me installed in a cottage, at Cottagewood, at the eastern end of Lake Minnetonka. My plans were simple. I had a gun, a boat and fishing tackle, but of these I intended to make small use. I would rest most of the time, and lie under the trees and read or loaf as I saw fit. I would buy my food of such kind and in such condition as to take but little time for its preparation, for I intended to “keep bach” for which I was qualified by more or less previous experience. If at any time I wanted a square meal, I could take a row around to the St. Louis hotel, or if the wind were favorable could sail over to the Lafayette, or to Excelsior. In short, I meant to rest and take it easy; do nothing at all to-day, that I could put off till to-morrow. I thought this all over the first day and in accordance with the programme proceeded to make myself as lazy as possible. I succeeded well. It requires but little effort to become lazy when one is in the afternoon of life. During a week my activity was reduced to a minimum; I saw but few people, although I had neighbors only a few rods away concealed by the thick brush, that grew between us. Once a dog came and after looking around, trotted away. As I sat or lolled on a rustic bench near the lake, the drowsy monotonous lapping of the water against the shore kept me for hours on the border land of sleep, just in that condition in which one does not know whether the motions of his brain are dreams or waking thoughts, and in which he often dreams that he is dreaming. The sound of the distant puffing of a steam yacht or the merry laughter of a sailing party, that occasionally ricocheted to the shore rather directed than disturbed the train of these passive activities.

The exhausted body or brain is like a machine that has run too long without being oiled. It goes with reluctance and with damaging wear and tear. But when we are thoroughly rested, the motives that before were unable to move us, now set us going with the greatest facility.

After the rest and quiet of a week, I began to feel an impulse to do something or to go somewhere; and a short debate settled that I would take a trip by sail and oar to the upper lake. As I did not intend to hurry and might be gone two or three days, I laid in a stock of provisions accordingly; with such cooking apparatus as a coffee pot and frying pan. Nowhere is a cup of coffee, a slice of ham, crackers and cheese so relishable as when they satisfy real thirst and hunger alongside a camp-fire of dry sticks. Then perhaps I might shoot a duck or hook a croppy. At night the sail stretched over a fishing pole could be formed into a shelter tent, something like the “dog tents” Uncle Sam gave us for shelter in the southern campaigns in the early sixties. In short I intended to make a regular cruise, and as my boat was named Sally Ann, this trip should be known in history as the cruise of the Sally Ann.

It was a fine morning when, all things ready, I hoisted sail. The wind was from the southeast and I started off before it at an exhilarating speed, steering northwest. In a short time I came abreast of Big Island, when turning west skirting its north shore, I soon got becalmed, the island cutting off the wind. I was obliged to take the oars, but as I dallied and loitered along, it was a full hour before I passed the island and caught my breeze again. I was here steering southwest across the wind and heading for the narrows, and the canal leading into the upper lake. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this lake, no matter at what point the view is taken. At this place looking northeast over the stern of the boat, the village of Wayzata partly obscured by Spirit Island, appeared as if seated in the water half a mile away, though in reality it is five miles. On the southeast within a mile, was the Lake Park hotel and beyond it, half a mile further and across the entrance to Gideon’s Bay, a part of Excelsior could be seen climbing its picturesque hills, while along the piers at the bottom of their slopes, were numerous steam and sailing crafts of various kinds, besides a fleet of row boats.

As I approached the entrance to the canal, I observed standing on the south bank, a man with a gun in his hand and dressed in outing costume, whose figure and attitude reminded me of someone I had seen before. “Can it be possible,” I said to myself, “that that is Allan Ocheltree?” By the time the boat touched the land, I had made sure that it was and I sprang ashore to greet him. The recognition and gratification at meeting were mutual. Our friendship for each other, was always the closest friendship either of us had. We had been room-mates and class-mates for four years at college, and our temperaments and tastes were like complementary colors, of such harmonious contrast as to fit each other to a T. In our class we were to each other like the two end men of a minstrel troup; he at one end—the head end—and I at the other. It is singular how people, like drift wood on the stream of time, are at times drifted toward each other and float along together till some eddy or obstruction in the current separates them, and hurries them off in diverging directions, perhaps to meet again farther down the stream, it may be more than once. Sometimes a leave-taking under circumstances, that seem to forebode it to be the last and clothe it in gloom, and sorrow, is nevertheless not the last by many; while a cheerful good-by with a light hearted “ta-ta-old-fellow-see-you-to-morrow,” may prove the beginning of a separation destined to endure for years—perhaps forever.

The Ocheltree family and my ancestors, were from the same Scotch-Irish stock, were friends and neighbors near Belfast and emigrated to Maryland about two hundred and thirty years ago, settling at first in Somerset County. A few years later they moved north into Cecil County, and from there in 1760 a large emigration took place to Mechlenburg County, North Carolina. Among these emigrants, were Duncan Ocheltree and my grandfather’s Uncle John. These two were friends and neighbors in the new settlement and when the revolutionary war broke out, they both adopted the patriotic cause. The Mechlenburg declaration of independence was adopted and signed May 20th or 31st, 1775, by a convention of which John was secretary, and it was supported by Duncan. But in 1780, Lord Cornwallis overran the state and captured Charlotte, the county seat of Mechlenburg, and Duncan, believing all was lost, hastened to turn Tory and make his submission to his lordship in order to save his wealth of which he had acquired a goodly share. This was a bad break and he made it worse by the supererogatory zeal of a new convert, in harassing his former friends and piloting the red-coated foragers to their hay stacks, hen roosts and pig pens, not sparing his old friend John. But the triumph of Cornwallis was short; in a few days, he was obliged to evacuate Charlotte and then Duncan realized that he had placed himself in a very bad position. As the British troops were packing their knapsacks preparatory to decamping from Charlotte between two days, Duncan determined to throw himself upon the generosity of his former friend John, and so under cover of the darkness he rode out to his farm-house nine miles in the country. John, who was two miles off in the patriot camp, was sent for. Duncan surrendered his sword and begged his old friend to forgive bygones and advise him what to do. John’s sympathy for him at that stage of affairs was not particularly tender as may be supposed, but nevertheless his advice was no doubt the best possible. He said: “Ocheltree, neither your life nor your property is safe in Mechlenburg. The Whigs will take both. Your only safety is in instant flight. I advise you to reach the Yadkin before daylight.” He took the advice. And so they parted. Four generations later like two stray straws on a flood, Allan Ocheltree and I were floated into the same class room at school. Did it make any difference to me or to him that his great grandfather, made a bad guess seventy years before? Not a bit. Every man’s ancestral tree is just the same height as all the rest, his lineage is just as long and his pedigree must contain practically the same number of terms whether we reckon back to Adam or to the Ascidian or to original protoplasm. Not a member of the long line made himself or the circumstances surrounding him, and in no two cases were these precisely the same. The circumstances that made Confucius or Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Columbus, or Washington never happened to anybody else. It was no fault of the obscure ancestors or descendants or cousins near and remote of those worthies that these circumstances never surrounded them. On the other hand it cannot be ascribed to the merit of the long line of those belonging to the dead level of the average, in size and in quality, that they have been missed by the untoward circumstances that selected certain individuals to be in one respect or another conspicuously below that dead level.

After quitting college, Allan and I occasionally ran across each other, but the last meeting before this, occurred in 1876 on Arch Street, Philadelphia. He was interested in an exhibit in the great exposition, and being then in a great hurry made an appointment to meet me next morning. I kept the engagement, but he was not there. I knew urgent business had turned up to prevent him, and after I returned to my home I received his letter saying so, and appointing another hour. This letter had missed me at my hotel and followed me to Illinois. Here then, we were having our reunion sixteen years after it was due. But now we could make up for lost time for neither had engagements that required attention for a week at least. It was speedily arranged that Allan should accompany me and that we should carry out together the plan I had proposed for myself. He wrote a note for his boarding house keeper in Excelsior, saying he would be gone some days, and gave it to a rowing party going to Excelsior, that we shortly after fell in with, and who cheerfully consented to deliver it. The wind was still from the southeast, but light and we slowly sailed westerly and south-westerly passing successively the state fruit farm and Sampson’s place lying on our left, and Spring Park on our right, had in a short time reached Howard’s Point that juts a third of a mile into the lake from the south shore. We sailed through the strait between this and picturesque Rockwell’s Island with its attractive summer hotel, and restful looking surroundings, and turned southwest toward Smithtown Bay.

We entered Smithtown Bay, but did not go to the end of it, for the wind was not favorable, and as we turned west toward the highlands of the upper lake I fell into a reminiscent mood. Up to this time we had occupied ourselves in admiration of the delightful scenery and in such careless chat as occurred to us, sometimes taking a pull at the oars, when we entered a locality becalmed by being screened from the wind, and sometimes pulling in the fish line that dragged over the stern of the boat to see why we never got a bite. But here the memories that crowded upon me completely absorbed my attention and I became silent. I had tramped all over this country in 1877 in the selection of a route for the Minneapolis and Northwestern Narrow Gauge Railroad, and so was familiar with the topography, not only of the upper lake, but of the whole route from Minneapolis to Hutchinson. The first preliminary line surveyed from Hutchinson to Minneapolis in the latter part of November, 1877, passed along the foot of the high bluff just in front of us, but the line was not finally located till October, 1879.

When I explained to my friend how the line passed south-easterly along the foot of the bluff, at the edge of the water, except where it dodged behind Hoflin’s headland, and then swept around the head of Smithtown Bay turning north-easterly toward Excelsior, “I declare,” he exclaimed, “there never was so romantic a place to locate an excursion railroad. So attractive a line ought surely to have been built. Why wasn’t it?”

“Well,” I replied, “it was a case of infanticide.”

“How was that?” he asked.

“You’ve heard of treacherous midwives and nurses and murderous baby-farmers being subsidized to strangle an unwelcome cherub as soon as it is ushered into the world?”

“Yes, was it a case of that sort?”

“This infant was born healthy and vigorous after what might be called a rather protracted period of gestation—some thirty months. It had no less than twenty-one nurses in the shape of directors, which number was four times as great as it should have been and one over.

“When there is such a mob of officials, the management usually devolves on a few of the more active and interested. That active minority in this case somehow either had from the first, or acquired, a greater interest in killing this enterprise to please its rivals than in carrying it out in good faith.”

“How did the line run west of here?” he asked.

“It passed northwesterly along the foot of the bluff yonder, on the top of which you see Smith’s stone house, then along the shore just in front of the “hermitage”, and a quarter of a mile beyond that it turned toward the west and cutting through the ridge of the peninsula that separates the upper lake from Halsteds Bay, it skirted the south shore of that bay, and thence bore in a generally westerly and northwesterly direction, through Minnetrista township to St. Boniface and thence to Watertown.

“Halsteds bay itself is so secluded as to form practically a separate lake and a beautiful one too.”

“Suppose we sail up along this shore,” said Ocheltree, “I am quite interested in the place.”

We turned the nose of Sally Ann toward the northwest and sailed slowly before the very light wind. We passed Crane Island lying upon the right—a sort of lying-in hospital and nursery strictly sacred to the use of Cranes only, whose occupancy dates back of the earliest settlement of the country, and whose title has been secured to them by an act of the legislature, against the claims of all featherless bipeds. Further on, upon the mainland, is the hermitage and just in front of it the grave of Halsted, who many years ago, lost his life in the lake so sadly and mysteriously. A short distance beyond the hermitage, I pointed out the place where the survey left the shore of the main lake and cut across to Halsteds bay. We concluded to go on to the strait leading into that bay and sail around to its south shore. To reach the strait involved sailing north a mile and then over half a mile west. As the wind was still favorable this was soon accomplished. But when we reached the strait, we could no longer use the sail, and were obliged to have recourse to the oars. Inside the bay there was but little wind, and that was against us, as our route now lay due south. A little over a mile of rowing brought us to the south shore of the bay. Here the bluff covered with timber and underbrush slopes down to the water’s edge. Along the foot of this slope, I pointed out to Ocheltree the position of the narrow gauge survey. “It is a wonderfully romantic place for a pleasure road,” said he.

It was now considerably past noon, and our exercise had begun to tell on us both somewhat and to suggest a rest and something to eat. Accordingly we pulled the boat up on the beach, and got out some cooking utensils and provisions. I started off to collect some dry sticks to make a fire and Allan took a pail and proceeded along the shore to find a deep place or a boulder from which he could dip up clear water for our coffee. We happened to go together for a few rods, when glancing up the slope a short distance, I discovered a stake sticking in the ground. I gave an exclamation of surprise and quickly ran to secure it. It proved to be what I suspected, one of the stakes of the narrow gauge survey. “What have you found, old fellow?” Allan asked. I told him, and it seemed surprising to both of us that that frail bit of a pine stick should have survived the storms and accidents of thirteen years. We had used for stakes on those surveys common plastering lath; one lath four feet long being cut in the middle made two stakes. This was such a stake, an inch and a half wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. It owed its exceptional preservation to the fact that it was full of pitch and to its protected position. It had been driven in a slanting position, partly under the body of a large fallen tree, that lay over the point where the stake should have been set. The number of the stake had been written with red chalk, on the side that had happened to come underneath and so was largely protected from the rains. But it was now illegible, four red blotches being all that remained.

A person walking through our Minnesota woods will often meet with a little mound of earth, alongside of which he will see a cupshaped depression in the ground. The depression marks the spot where at some time in the past there stood a noble tree, and it indicates that the tree yielding to the force of an ancient tornado was toppled over, and, pulling its roots out of the ground drew up with them a cubic yard, more or less, of earth. Afterwards when the roots began to decay the earth was dropped in a heap beside the hole. There was such a mound and hollow at the west end of the rotten log in question, showing that it had been overthrown by the fierce assault of a western hurricane. The mound was old, well rounded by the action of the weather and covered with a mat of grass. I sat down on this mound in a half reclining position, with the stake in my hand, and tried again without success to make out the number[1]. A solitary mosquito was singing about my right ear, and persisted in returning and constantly evaded my efforts to capture it. Directly however, its wings became still, and unaccountable stupor appeared to steal over me, my head drooped over toward the left till it touched the grass and for a moment I was unconscious. But it was only for a moment for a new consciousness almost immediately supervened. It was a consciousness composed chiefly of subjective sensations, although I hold that even subjective sensations, very often in an unperceived manner, receive their direction and stimulation to activity from objects around us. But that is a question of psychology. At all events the sensations, I am about to relate were the most remarkable I ever experienced, and at the time were not accompanied by the least intimation, that they were not purely objective.

CHAPTER II.
The Professor.

First there was a loud singing noise in my right ear, pitched in a high key. Presently this pitch became lower and the sound resembled the rattle of rolling car wheels on a track, and they seemed to be approaching. I suddenly realized that they were advancing to the place where I lay, and greatly startled, I sprang to my feet. I was none too quick, for a train of four cars rolled rapidly over the very spot where I had lain. I saw they were filled with gay well dressed people evidently on a pleasure excursion. As I gazed after them toward the west along the gleaming rails, I remembered there was no locomotive with the train. Of course not, thought I, the road is run by electricity. But there was no overhead wire and no trolley. O, I see, these cars are propelled by storage batteries that they carry with them. I felt no surprise at this, nor at the fact that the road had been built after all, for it all seemed to be a matter of course. Turning toward the east where the line penetrated the ridge that lies between the bay and the lake, I saw on the edge of the cut the tall white mile post so illuminated by the direct sunshine that the number 24 in large black figures could be made out, although the distance was a third of a mile or more. While I was still gazing in that direction I suddenly became aware of a strange looking object coming through the cut and around the curve. It was a four wheeled vehicle something like a hand car, but it was not being “pumped” nor were there any handles for propelling it in that way.

The idea suddenly came to me that this car like the first I had seen, was propelled by a storage battery concealed somewhere about its anatomy. But the interest created by the car was quickly eclipsed by that inspired by its occupant; and a more remarkable creature I never read about or dreamed about. He sat bolt upright on the seat at the rear end of the car and while he was at a distance, I took him for a rather stiff dignified and odd specimen of a man. But as he approached and I got a better opportunity for observing details, I directly came to doubt if he could be a man at all. When I first saw him, I observed what seemed to be a large fan-like appendage projecting from his back, which I then took to be some peculiar garment streaming out behind. But as he approached, this appendage separated into two, and spreading out to the right and left acted like brakes against the wind and rapidly checked the speed of the car, reminding me of the action of the wings of a bird, when it alights. In short to my great astonishment it turned out they were wings. I instinctively stepped back two or three paces to allow this strange apparition to pass, but to my surprise the car stopped directly opposite to me and its occupant with a slight flutter of the aforesaid wings, hopped lightly out of it and stood beside the track so near to me, that I could have touched him. For a moment or two he busied himself with some arrangement about his car, the nature of which I did not observe, as my attention was absorbed chiefly by himself.

In the description, that I shall now give of him, will be included a number of details that I did not observe at first, but which showed themselves during the progress of our interview. The large wings mentioned above were at least six feet in radius, and each was nearly a semicircle. They could be folded like a fan and when in that position they lay down along his back from his shoulders to his heels and when fully extended reached from his heels to a point nearly five feet above his head. They were of a soft semitransparent, but thick and tough membranous material, full of veins and nerves and supported by stiff elastic ribs, radiating from their articulation at the shoulder to the circumference.

Besides these wings, he had two other pairs similar in texture, but much smaller. One pair was attached just in front of the principal pair and ordinarily they were directed upward beside his head and reaching above it. But he could also extend them laterally, so as to cover his face, as well as the back of his head and did so repeatedly while he was with me, apparently to shield himself from the rays of the sun. The other two were attached just below the main wings and extended downwards alongside of the body to the feet. But they too were extensible laterally and could be made to cover the entire lower half of the body. In short, these four minor wings were equivalent to clothes, and the numerous nerves by which they were traversed, indicated that they were also delicate organs of the sensations of heat and touch.

In addition to these wings, there were six other limbs, two of which were legs and two were arms, in much the same position in which they occur in man. The third pair of limbs were attached to the thorax between the arms and legs, and were ordinarily folded across the thorax. I came to the conclusion these limbs could be used either as hands or feet as occasion required, but while he was with me he made little other use of them than to occasionally give me a sly poke with one of them—usually the right—in the side—usually the left side—about the position of the second rib from the bottom. As these gestures always came about in connection with some humorous or ludicrous idea, it occurred to me in a whimsical way to call these limbs his jokers. His head was immense, possessing, I should say, double the capacity of the largest human head. The top part was globular, and the lower part, which might be called the face, was long and wedge shaped, tapering down to the jaws. The jaws were strong and well set with teeth and worked laterally instead of vertically as with us, and the slit forming the mouth was vertical and in the middle. There was no chin. The eyes were placed just above the mouth and at the base of the upper dome shaped portion of the head. They were of enormous size fully two inches in diameter, half globular and set far apart, forming as it were the corners of the face. They were not movable as ours are, because every part of the surface of the eye was equally good to see with; and their position enabled their owner to see three-fourths of the horizon without turning his head. The face had not one particle of expression or mobility to it, but this was compensated a hundred times by the expression of the eyes. Their usual expression, when at rest, was one of supreme kindliness and benevolence with a slight element of humor. But when the mind was in activity, the eyes beamed with good natured wit, were suffused with tender sentiment or flashed with intellectual brilliancy to a degree I would never have imagined possible. Under each of the wings there was an opening leading into the body, those of the middle wings being nearly three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and the others very much smaller. All were protected by movable lips. I soon discovered that these were for the purpose of breathing, the air being constantly inhaled and exhaled through them. I have no doubt the lining membrane of these breathing tubes was sensitive to odors and was therefore an organ of smell. As to ears, there was one plainly to be seen on the upper part of each arm, and I observed him move his arm in the proper directions to catch the sound. In the long conversation I had with him I cannot say that I heard any articulate voice. There was a slight humming noise, rising and falling in very agreeable musical cadences, and these appeared to accompany the enunciation of his ideas and thoughts when he addressed me. When I spoke to him, I used articulate words in plain English and he appeared to hear in the ordinary way. But his thoughts came to me like waves or pulsations and appeared to be injected bodily into my brain without any distinct sensation of hearing them. In short I directly came to perceive that it was a case of the telepathic transfer of ideas, experiments in which are known to most people, but which was in this case vastly more complete and perfect than I had ever imagined possible. In the report of the conversation between us that I give herein it is to be understood that I do not quote his language, but give the impression of his thoughts upon me in my own language, and the best I have been able to do, I am sensible, forms a very inadequate dress in which to set off the beauty of his sentiment or the strength of his reason.

When my visitor had finished whatever arrangement he was making with his car, he turned partly around and I saw he had in his hand a small spool of copper wire, two strands from which connected with the car. Next he performed some slight manipulation with his coil of wire, the nature of which I could not make out, but which produced the surprising result, that the car slowly rose from the track continuing upward till stopped by the wire, then my visitor drew it gently to one side and pushing a stout iron pin into the ground, he attached the spool and coil to it and left it there, picketed out, precisely as a cow-boy pickets his mule, except that the car floated in the air gently pulling on its tether. I had for some moments been casting about in my mind for some appropriate manner in which to address my singular visitor. The more I observed his actions, the higher my opinion rose of his character, abilities and position in the scale of existence. Royal and aristocratic titles, such as Your Majesty, My Lord etc., are very awkward in the mouth of an American and seemed by no means sure to be appropriate in this case. Then I thought of our American titles, General, Colonel, Major, Judge, Squire, Governor, none of which of course would do. But the surprise and curiosity excited by this performance of picketing the car in the air would in another minute have overcome the tension of diffidence and doubt and I should have addressed him as something, even if no better title than plain Mister occurred to me.

But he saved me this necessity, by opening the conversation himself. He seemed to know what I had been thinking of.

“A title of address,” said he, “should be significant of facts. It is ridiculous to call a man Honorable, because you have sent him to the legislature, or to congress, or another person ‘Majesty’ whose understanding is below mediocrity. You may call me, ‘Sir,’ which title as you know means simply an older person and I will call you by some title, that means young—if it means quite young, it will still be very appropriate, eh?”

This was accompanied, by a queer, but decidedly jolly and good natured expression of the eyes and a gentle poke with his right middle hand described above.

“Then,” said I, “you think you are the older. The fact is, I am so well preserved, that almost everyone rates me ten or fifteen years younger than I am, and perhaps you do.”

“I am nineteen,” he said.

“Why,” I exclaimed, “I am more than three times that old.”

“Nevertheless, I am very much older than you,” he replied.

“You talk in riddles,” said I, “I don’t understand you.”

“Well, I will explain. You understand, that every race is made by its environment and the same is true of each individual of the race.”

“Certainly, that is my pet theory.”

“Well, the environment of the race is in reality, the environment of every individual in it, for every individual inherits the impress made upon the race during all past ages. For this reason a human infant just born is a being of far greater experience than a mature elephant; the experience of the race is his and it is expressed in the structure of his brain and body. In like manner an individual of our race has the long life of his race behind him and is older at birth than a human being is at 80, because our race has a vastly longer history and experience than yours.”

“Your idea is ingenious, but yet it must be admitted that a mature elephant knows more than a new born human infant.”

“That depends on what you mean by knowledge,” he replied. “The most knowing person has no knowledge when he is asleep, but he possesses the potentiality of getting it when he wakes up, and when he is awake, his knowledge extends only to the things about which his brain is active for the moment, while as to other things, the most that can be said is that, he may possess the potentiality of knowing them when the activity of his brain is directed to them, by appropriate stimulations. In like manner the potentiality of all the knowledge belonging to his race, slumbers in the new born infant; and as he gradually wakes up in the process of his growth and development, this knowledge, upon proper stimulation of the brain, flashes into view. Therefore everything depends upon the race to which one belongs. Our race had already reached a high degree of cultivation before yours was distinguishable from four footed beasts.”

My disposition to generalize, unwittingly influenced no doubt by my early Sunday School education, here led me to make an observation, that a moment later I perceived to be crude and ill considered. It was to the effect that this great age to which his race had attained, had made their superior mental development possible and had given the time necessary for their physical evolution through and from the human form.

His answer to this was a loud and prolonged, ha ha ha! That is to say, I heard nothing quite like that, but was impressed by a sensation that his mental state exhibited in human expression would be laughter loud and long.

Said he; “the conceit of the human race is the laughing stock of all our people, but you are a very young race and you will know a great deal more when you get older. Individuals of our race and kindred races have visited the earth, and allowed themselves to be seen. And descriptions of them have been attempted by some of your ancient seers.

“The human race having become dominant on earth, they have entirely overrated their importance and not only fancy that they will some day own the rest of the solar system, but imagine that they will sprout wings and develope into beings like us; but any of you that have studied natural history and your new theories of evolution, ought to know that beings having twelve limbs could never be evolved from a race having but four. The only possible evolution by which your race could ever possess wings, would be the conversion through use and habit of your arms into wings, which has actually occurred in the case of your bats and birds.

“The families on earth that are related to and resemble us are the insect tribes. In fact we trace our origin back to an ancestry, which according to many of our best scientists is exactly parallel with that of your insects, and they alone of mundane inhabitants could ever expect to evolve a posterity at all like us, and they never will, for the conditions on earth will forever keep them in a subordinate position to the present dominant race.”

During this speech, notwithstanding its intense interest to me I was becoming impatient and nervous with the apprehension that he might leave me without telling me where he was from and how he made that car of his disregard the law of gravitation. In the solution of this last riddle especially I could readily see a utilitarian outcome of overwhelming importance. I am afraid that my questions were put with an undignified eagerness and precipitancy, which no doubt he observed, for he first proceeded to say that he had much information to communicate to me and was glad to see me desirous of receiving it.

“You understand the law of the attraction of gravitation”—I nodded assent—“but you know nothing of the repulsion of gravitation.” Indeed I did not. I had never heard of such a thing.

He continued: “All polar attractions are accompanied by repulsions. This you see in magnetism and in electricity, and it is equally true in gravitation. The force with which bodies fall toward each other consists merely of the difference between the attractive and the repulsive force. Ordinarily the attractive force takes hold of the near ends of the molecules of ether contained in solid or fluid bodies, and the repulsive force affects only the further ends of the same molecules, so that by reason of the difference in the distances over which these two forces operate the attractive force always over-powers repulsion. But we have discovered a way by which the action of these forces is reversed, so that the work of repulsion is performed on the near end of the molecules and attraction on the further end, and then attraction being the weaker of the two, the body, as a whole, is repelled. We imitate in fact the action that takes place when the attraction between two electrified bodies turns to repulsion. Repulsion also takes place between the sun and the tails of comets. The comet’s tail is attracted toward the nucleus of the comet and at the same time repelled from the sun. We have not been able to make bodies discriminating like that in their attractions.

“But,” said I, “it must take as much power to make this change as the changed condition yields after it is made and I cannot see where you get the power; you cannot make something out of nothing.”

“Very true,” said he, “but the resistance to the change is in reality—very small, and it is accomplished, even by neuro-magnetism in a wonderfully simple manner. The proportion of force required to do it is no greater than that required to move the slide valve in the steam chest of one of your steam engines, by which the enormous force of the steam is alternately shifted to first one end and then the other of the cylinder. We can generate the force required for this, in our own tissues and it accumulates in electric organs possessed by us similar to those of your electric eels. I will show you.”

With that he reached out and touched me on the mouth. There was a flash and a sensation as if a coal of fire had touched me, and a smart shock passed through my limbs. I was easily enough convinced that he possessed large electric storage capacity, and he told me he could give me a shock 100 times as strong as the one I had received. I was willing to take his word for that. But I was by no means satisfied with his explanation of the reversal of the forces in gravitation. It seemed to me to involve a mechanical fallacy and I half suspected he purposely avoided giving me the true explanation. Although I have since given the subject considerable thought I have not been able to clear it up. Theorize as I might however, there was the fact that gravitation was somehow suspended, in the case of the car.

I said to him earnestly, that I would give anything I possessed to be able to understand and apply these principles as he did.

“I have no doubt at all of that,” said he, “but it is our secret, and I could commit no more heinous act of treason against my people or our planet, than by divulging it.”

“For goodness sake,” I exclaimed, “tell me what planet you inhabit, and what harm could result from giving this invaluable information.”

“My home is the moon,” he said quietly, and I have ever since wondered how I came to receive the announcement without the slightest degree of surprise as if it were an every day occurrence to meet people from the moon.

“The discovery you wish me to reveal to you, was made by our ancestors over a million years ago,” he went on, “the population of the moon was then as great as the planet would support in comfort, and its regulation and maintenance had been reduced to a strictly scientific basis. It was seen at once and soon experimentally proved that our people could by the use of this principle easily visit the earth, and if the discovery should be communicated to the earth people, there would be nothing to prevent flooding the moon with an undesirable horde of adventurers, who would like a swarm of seventeen year locusts proceed to lay claim to everything in sight and seriously disturb the lunar peace and prosperity. And so the communication of this secret was forbidden on pain of the terrible punishment of projection.”

My inquiring look showed that I did not understand this, and he continued.

“Projection is the extreme penalty of our laws. In it the criminal is locked up in a spherical shell of cast iron having two small glass windows and furnished with compressed air in alumina flasks, and food sufficient to last from a few days to two years according to the severity of the sentence, the larger amount of food going with the more severe sentence. After he is fastened in, the repulsion of gravitation is turned on and the ball instantly projects itself into space bounding off at a terrific speed. Yet no matter what direction it takes it can never come into collision with any body whether planet or sun, but whenever it approaches one it is instantly repelled, and thus it continues to be hurled from one to another forever, and the longer the criminal lives to perceive and reflect that he is an outcast from all worlds, the greater his punishment is supposed to be. It is a theory of some of our scientists that a projected person continues to be repelled from sun to sun till at last he reaches the edge of creation and is hurled completely out of the universe. However this may be, the friends of a projected person never know where he is.”

“I hope,” said I, “that you are not often under the necessity of inflicting such a terrible punishment as that.”

“No one has been projected for over forty years, but 500,000 years ago the punishment was frequently resorted to.”

“In traversing the space between the earth and the moon, I suppose you will first move by repulsion from the earth?”

“Yes, I use repulsion for the first part of the journey. This gives me a rapid send off from the earth. My speed constantly increasing till I reach the distance of 216,000 miles from the earth, at this point the repulsion of the moon—which by the way is exerted against me from the time I leave the earth—is just equal to that of the earth, but the momentum acquired by that time carries me almost home, the moon’s repulsions constantly diminishing the speed and at last bringing me to a stand still or sheering me off to one side. It is then necessary to turn on attraction, which causes me to approach the moon with a speed which is easily checked and regulated by using repulsion when necessary.”

“The terrific speed with which you travel or fall, as we might say, from one planet to another, I should think would overpower you—take your breath away.”

“We have to guard against this, while we traverse the atmosphere, both at this and at the other end of the journey, but once clear of the atmosphere we fall through empty space without the slightest sensation of motion and realize that we are going only by the rapid decrease in the apparent size of the globe we are leaving and increase of the one we approach. It is impossible to conceive a more thrilling experience than is conveyed by the perception of the growth in a few hours of your earth from a ball six feet in diameter as it appears to us at the start, to the vast and illimitable expanse of variegated beauty it gets to be before we reach it.

“On the journey, it is necessary to guard against the blistering heat of the sun’s rays upon the side on which they fall, and the intense cold which we encounter on the shady side; and we must look out that neither ourselves nor any of the loose articles we carry in the car such as our flasks of compressed air, our food etc. are repelled from the car and allowed to fall to earth or moon by their ordinary gravity, for the change to repulsion only applies to the iron part of the car and not other things. It cannot be applied to wood or to animal or vegetable tissue etc. We guard against all these contingencies by having a stout cover over our car, supported by steel hoops, when we are on an intermundane trip. When we travel on the ground, this is folded up and not used.”

“Then I suppose the wheels of your car come into use when you travel on the ground, for I can see no use for them in your “intermundane” journeys.”

“That is true. This car I have with me is my ordinary carriage at home. It is a railroad car as you see by the flanges on the wheels. Railroads with us are public free highways, built and maintained by the state. They have from four to twelve tracks. Every person who is qualified by his education and training to manage a car is furnished with one by the state. The propelling power is nothing but gravity either in attraction or repulsion, the former being used on down grades and the latter on up grades, the car having rollers that hook under a flange at the top of the rail to prevent the car from rising bodily from the track.

“The surface of our planet is very rough, but still the grading for roads is light, as it is possible to ascend grades of 100 per cent or even steeper. Level grades on our roads are always avoided, and in districts where this cannot be done, we use electric roads.

“The cars are so constructed that different parts are electrically insulated from each other, by which means a part of the car can be placed under the influence of attraction and the rest under that of repulsion. This is done on down grades. The weight of the load and of part of the car pulling down and the weight of the rest of the car holding back. It is always arranged to have the car heavier than its load, and the driver can regulate the force used by balancing one against the other, so that a car of many tons shall press on the rails with the weight of only a very few pounds. Thus the wear and tear on road beds and rails is almost nothing and the roads are practically everlasting.”

CHAPTER III.
The Moon and Its People.

“I am amazed,” said I, “to learn that the moon is inhabited and by a race apparently more advanced than our own. Our astronomers have assured us that the moon is a desolate played out barren world without air or water; totally unfit for inhabitants.”

“The astronomers could only report what they could see, and the side of the moon visible from the earth is as they describe it, but they have never seen the further side and never will, for that side is always turned from the earth. But the population of the moon is not far from half that of the earth and the people live in greater comfort. But there is no population living on the surface on the hemisphere facing the earth—I see this puzzles you,” he said.

It certainly did. “Do you mean that the Lunarians live under ground?” I inquired.

“I will explain. The moon is a much lighter body than the earth bulk for bulk, a cubic yard of it containing on an average only six tenths as much matter as an average yard of earth. The reason of this is that a very large part of the moon’s bulk is made up of interstices, caves and openings. Now it is a remarkable fact that the hemisphere of the moon facing the earth is much lighter than the further one, so much so that the center of gravity is 33 miles further from this side of the moon than from the further side. This fact has been suspected by some of your astronomers. The consequence of it is that the sea has all gone to the further hemisphere, and the near hemisphere is in the highest place, about 33 miles above the level of the sea. It is much as if a concave cap, the material of which is 33 miles thick at the center and tapers to zero all round the rim, were fitted on to a sphere. This rim is at the edge of the moon, as seen from the earth. Our atmosphere like yours, gets lighter as we ascend and is too thin to support life at a height of five miles, so that the great plateaus of our hither hemisphere are over 20 miles higher than any appreciable atmosphere. So you can see the impossibility of life on the hither surface of the moon if you reflect a moment what the conditions would be on a mundane plateau 33 miles above the sea level. Your highest mountains are only between five and six miles high, and you know the impossibility of either vegetable or animal life at even that altitude.

“On the earth such elevations are regions of perpetual snow, and the hither surface of the moon would be such a region if it possessed water and an atmosphere. But while the surface on this side is uninhabitable, there are immense tracts of underground space, that have been converted into habitable territory. This underground country lies so far below the surface that it is practically near the sea level throughout. It is approached at all parts of the rim of the cap just described, and there are many thousands of tunnels entering it all round this rim, especially in the equatorial parts of the moon. A great amount of labor has been expended, not only on these entrances, but on the internal cavities to which they lead; but compared with the work performed for us by nature, our own labor is but an insignificant item—hardly so much as the labor of your race in fitting up the earth for your residence. The entrances are all volcanic craters, and the vast cavities to which they lead, were excavated long ages ago by volcanic action. The material blown out of the volcanoes, mostly fell upon the hither side of the moon increasing the bulk of the cap; most of the volcanoes being on this side. But even the material thrown from the lateral regions was drawn this way by the attraction of the earth and after describing a longer or shorter curve, fell on the hither side of the moon.

“Nearly all the moon’s volcanoes are on the hither portion, the volcanic region occupying about two-thirds of the whole surface of the moon. The weight of bodies on the hither side is appreciably less than on the further side. These facts are supposed to be due to the earth’s attraction neutralizing that of the moon and having resulted in building up the vast protuberance or table land (of light and porous material) on this side, the latter is often called, by us the “Mundane Hump” in recognition of the earth’s instrumentality in its formation. The interior continent is often spoken of as the “Pocket” by the people on the further side; or sometimes as the “Chest”, and the “Hump” is called its Lid.

“The further side of the moon is called the Exterior Continent, but often humorously designated by the people of the “Pocket”, as the Out-door Continent.”

“But,” said I, “what a strange life it must be in those underground cavities. I suppose of course you can have nothing better than artificial light there?”

“True,” he said, “our light is mostly artificial, but it is made as bright as we can bear it. It is electric light, but it is regulated to be quite equal to sun light and it never goes out. There is no night in the underground country, as there is outside.”

“This is wonderful!—But where do you get the power to furnish this light? Have you got waterfalls and coal beds down there?”

“We have many waterfalls, but do not utilize them to any great extent for their power and we have a considerable amount of coal, which however we do not use for fuel, but reserve for food purposes, to be drawn upon as may be required.”

“Is stone coal what you have to eat then?” I here broke in. With exasperating deliberation, he gave me an admonitory poke with his right joker.

“One thing at a time—one thing at a time. You wanted to know where we get power to turn into electric lighting. It is the power of gravity. If one of your perpetual motion cranks understood the secret of the use of the repulsion of gravitation, he could contrive a perpetual motion in an hour and a half. We have many forms of such machines that have been in use for ages. One of these is the pendulum machine. This consists of a pendulum weighing from a few pounds to many tons and so contrived that when it reaches the lowest part of its swing it automatically turns on the repulsion of gravitation, which reinforces its momentum on the ascending part of its arc, enough to compensate for the work done by it and the friction of the machine. Another machine is the oscillating balance. This consists of weights at each end of a beam balanced in the middle and so governed by an automatic shunting apparatus, that one of the weights is under the influence of attraction while the other is under that of repulsion. When the former has reached the bottom of its oscillation and the latter the top, the force is reversed in each and so the motion is perpetual.

“Another machine is the Automatic hammer, which is a literal hammer though it may weigh many tons. The end of its handle is confined by a stationary wrist, while the hammer rises and falls under the effect of repulsion and attraction automatically alternated by shunting apparatus. Then we have the vertical parabolic railway; which consists of two steep inclined tracks, meeting each other at the foot. A car runs alternately down one and up the other on much the same principle as the pendulum machine. There are numerous other machines, but they all operate on the same principle, just as you have many forms of water wheels, all operated by the weight of water. So you see our power costs us nothing at all after the machine is built, except for the oil for its lubrication. As these machines have been known and used by us for many thousands of years, you may readily perceive what changes we have been able to make in all those conditions of our planet, that relate to our comfort and general purposes. You may add to this, that any exertion we make relating to the movement of heavy bodies, is ten times as effectual as the same exertion made on earth. Water and air with us are only one-sixth as heavy as on earth, and the average soil and rocks one-tenth as heavy; so that our laborers handle wheelbarrows holding a cubic yard of material as easily as yours do their little barrows containing two or three cubic feet.”

Here I interposed again. “You speak of your atmosphere being only one-sixth as heavy as ours. That agrees with what our astronomers have told us, and they have pointed out that even if there is such an atmosphere, on the moon, animal life like ours is not possible there, because the air is too thin.”

“Your astronomers do not consider that animal life and activity depend, not on the amount of air the animal is surrounded by, but by the amount of it he can use. The fishes in your waters have less air to the cubic foot of space than we have, yet are active, but if you take them out of the water and surround them with ten times as much air as they had, they nevertheless die, because they have not lungs suitable for breathing it. But furthermore it is not the amount of air that is of such consequence to animal life, but the amount of oxygen. Your air consists of about 21 parts of oxygen to 79 of nitrogen, and mixed with it is a considerable amount of carbonic acid and other impurities. In our air the proportions of nitrogen and oxygen are about reversed, and there is a far less amount of carbonic acid gas. There is also a much greater quantity of ozone, which as you know, is a concentrated and more active form of oxygen. And so on the whole, when I take a breath of air here on your earth, I get but a slightly greater quantity of oxygen than at home.”

“Then you are not greatly inconvenienced in being transferred from lunar conditions to those of earth?”

“Well, not with respect to breathing, but when we are at the surface of the earth we are greatly oppressed by the weight of your atmosphere and by our own increased weight as well. Ten or fifteen minutes is as long as we can stand it at one time. But we can get speedy relief by ascending ten thousand miles or so, and when we have come to earth to make extended studies of things here, we are compelled to interrupt them by frequently going up and remaining awhile.”

I had become not only intensely interested in the extraordinary information communicated by my visitor, but greatly fascinated by his person and presence; and his last speech made me painfully apprehensive that I was about to lose his company, and so I expressed the wish that if he felt obliged to go up stairs to recover himself, he would return and continue the interview as soon as possible. He replied that he would be compelled to return home as soon as he left me, but added that he would remain with me for a considerable time longer, observing that he felt exceedingly glad to impart information to so willing a listener. I could not at the time reconcile his intention of remaining a considerable time longer with what he said about not being able to remain at the earth’s surface more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, as I thought he had already considerably exceeded that. But not wishing to lose time by having him reconcile his observations, I hastened to get back to the thread of his discourse, by asking what sort of food the Lunarians live on.

“The Lunarians are exclusively vegetarians and live chiefly on grains and grasses and leguminous plants in some degree resembling those on earth, but of an entirely different habit, for they all or nearly all, mature in the period of one-half of a lunar month or about fourteen of your days. But this will not seem so surprising, when you reflect that we have continuous sunshine without night during the whole time. Of course this observation applies only to the exterior continent on the further half of the moon. Our plants were all developed on that side and became adapted to the seasons there, and they generally retain their habits of growth since their introduction to the interior continent, or Pocket. But in many cases, by changing the conditions of nourishment, new varieties have been developed, having a longer or shorter period of growth. Much more than half of our food products are produced under extremely artificial conditions. The artificial heat we require for cooking, for warmth etc., is produced by means of electricity and so is our artificial light; moreover, we do not allow any organic matter, such as dead bodies, dead trees or vegetables or any sort of refuse or excrete matters, to rot either in the open air or in the ground, and the manuring of the soil is strictly forbidden. Our air therefore is very poor in carbonic acid gas, (or carbonic dioxide), which constitutes almost the sole food required for the growth of plants. In fact about all that the air gets of this gas is that thrown off from our lungs in breathing. To use this up, we cultivate various air plants that grow with little or no roots and yet cover the ground with an agreeable carpet. Some of these are eatable. All organic matters, when they become refuse, are carefully collected in great air tight and powerful tanks, in which they are heated under an enormous pressure until their original organization entirely disappears. The dimensions of the tanks are reduced during this process by the gradual forcing in of the walls, which are made movable for that purpose, and when the contained material has become reduced to about the consistency and constitution of your ordinary lignite or soft coal, it is forced through a number of cylindrical holes on one side of the tank, by which it is moulded into round sticks of coal, and is then ready to be used over again. The whole process is an imitation of that by which mineral coal is produced in nature, both on the earth and the moon, except that it is accomplished artificially with us in about 50 hours, while nature takes thousands of years for it. The fluids and nitrogenous and other volatile substances pressed out, are secured and saved by proper absorbents. These together with the coal are used by our food growers in producing their plants.

“The planting is all done in vats or chambers with air tight roofs. The bottom of a vat is covered with a few inches of soil specially prepared and appropriate for the plant intended to be sown. After the seeds germinate the vat is covered and the inside is brightly illuminated with electricity and filled with carbonic dioxide, obtained by burning a proper quantity of coal in a retort, which is also accomplished by electricity. All the conditions necessary for rapid growth are supplied to the plants and they are forced forward to maturity without any pause or delay, such as takes place in the growth of plants on earth, through the intervention of cloudy or stormy weather, too much or too little moisture, too much or too little heat, the darkness of night etc.

“The same method of cultivation prevails to a great extent on the exterior continent, although as the sun shines on that continent about 350 hours at a time, which constitutes the length of the day there, the vats are often merely covered by air tight glass roofs and the sun is the growing power instead of electricity.”

“I understand now,” said I, “what you meant by saying you reserved your mineral coal for food purposes. You draw on it only when the steady supply of artificial coal fails?”

“That is correct.”

“But if you rigorously save every particle of your organic matters to be reconverted into food, I don’t see why it should ever fail unless your population increases. But you have not informed me on that subject.”

“The control of the reproduction of the population has been in the hands of the state from the remotest antiquity,” said he; “and no increase in the total number has ever been permitted unless there had already been an increase in the means of supporting the population by the discovery of improved methods or new appliances. The tendency and policy has always been to allow the population to keep up near the limits of the means of support, and occasionally it has crowded a little too close. Then there are occasional losses by fire and a more or less steady unavoidable waste of food materials in their ordinary handling. Some are lost in the sea. But as long as there is a store of mineral coal to draw upon, no such losses can entail more than a temporary inconvenience. One thing that has a considerable effect on the food supply, is the change in fashions, that often takes place in a manner that the authorities cannot foresee or provide for.”

“Then fashion holds sway in the moon as well as the earth! Well, I am surprised! But as your clothes appear to grow on you I don’t see how fashion can interfere very much, or how it could affect the question of food.”

“Fashion with us has nothing to do with dress. As you say, nature has provided us with a dress at once suitable and beautiful. Whatever faults we have, personal vanity is not among them. Our attention is but little absorbed in ourselves, but is constantly directed to others and to the service of the community. If anyone should betake himself to personal frills and ornaments, I fancy he would be told he was getting like the Earthlings, and, he would be advised to go up and live on the Hump, so he could be near the people he was trying to ape.

“But there is much variety and change of fashion with us in the construction and ornamentation of our buildings, grounds and resorts, and the fashion prevailing in relation to the transmutation of the dead is making a steady inroad upon our total food supply.”

I wondered what he could mean by the transmutation of the dead—but said nothing, awaiting his explanation.

“You may have thought,” he went on, “that our dead were utilized and turned into lignite like other effete organic substances.”

“Certainly,” I said, “that disposition of a useless body is preferable to any method that prevails on earth. Here as soon as a man dies his presence becomes so intolerable to us, that we are obliged in self defense to consign him to earth. Even then the corruption resulting from dissolution is disseminated through the soil contaminating the water supply and starting epidemics of diphtheria and typhoid fever, besides occupying room that sooner or later is begrudged to him. Cremation is certainly an improvement on inhumation, but even that is a considerable expense, and when it is over, we have only a handful of raw mineral ashes left. The best part of the man has gone off in smoke and we have not three or four pounds of good coal left to show for him as you have. And then it ought to be a source of gratification to the defunct himself if he could know it, that his ‘corpus’ was turned to some useful account.”

He here turned his vast eyes upon me with such a deep expression of mild and sorrowful reproach, that I instantly felt as if I had made an exceedingly flippant speech and had said far too much or much too little, but he gave me no time to amend it.

“We are much more sentimental than that,” he said; “our dead are not cremated in the manner practiced on earth, but are totally disintegrated by electricity, and turned into their component elements. No portion of their substance is lost or dissipated, but the material is all conserved and caused to form a new organism. The fashion originated many ages ago, to use the materials to grow some common sort of a plant or shrub from the seed, such as something resembling your grass or fern or some cereal. This was done in the garden vats I have described to you. Plants grown under these circumstances or any circumstances for that matter, very often sprout or grow into forms differing slightly from the normal. Taking advantage of this, our botanists have produced food plants having a wonderful concentration of nourishing qualities in small compass and accompanied by the least possible quantity of waste products. And in like manner our undertakers have developed a great variety of plants to be grown from the constituent materials of the dead. It was formerly the fashion to preserve only a portion of the plants, thus grown. A few leaves were distributed among the friends of the deceased and pressed in herbariums for preservation. But the growing veneration for ancestors and consideration for each other together with the prevalent belief among us that we are formed in the very image of the Deity, finally brought about the practice of preserving entire, the plants produced by transmutation. Thus there is already a vast accumulation of these vegetable representatives of deceased Lunarians, and our economists point out that if this goes on, we will be compelled to constantly draw on our natural food reserves, and that finally these will all be consumed and everything eatable will at last become transmuted into these sacred and inviolable forms. In short the living race will finally become transmuted into dead dry plants. These arguments of the philosophers have as yet had no effect on the people and their priestly leaders. They denounce the philosophers as being unfaithful to the religion and traditions of the race, and as advocating cannibalism.

“They say: ‘you would reduce us to the level of the necrophagous Earthlings, who from time immemorial have consumed the elements of their ancestors and friends and enemies alike, with beastly indifference’.”

“But,” I interrupted; “you know they are mistaken in this opinion of us. Only a few savages on earth are man eaters.”

“True,” said he, “but what they mean is, that from your manner of disposing of the dead, when they become decomposed, their elements are dispersed in the air and absorbed by the soil from which they pass into plants and finally become your food. I have heard a Lunarian say he would starve rather than eat a grain containing a molecule of nitrogen or carbon, that had once formed a part of one of his ancestors.”

“Well, I think that is the culmination of scrupulosity. I am glad such phenomenal squeamishness does not exist on this planet.”

“I do not defend it nor approve of it,” he replied, “any more than you do. But still I think your complacent congratulations of your own race rather out of place. You are quite as much under the dominion of indefensible ideas as we. For example, you have an ancient book whose doctrines and precepts you think you must accept and obey whether they are agreeable and suitable or not, although the men who gave them, have been dead two or three thousand years, while scarcely two of you agree as to what the precepts are and each generation has a different interpretation of them. You have a sect that believe that your Deity is mortally offended with all who do not submit to be immersed under water, while others think he will be satisfied with their having a few drops sprinkled on the face. You have sects that believe your Deity is greatly displeased to see people hopping around on their legs, or dancing as you call it, while one sect employ dancing as the most satisfactory mode of worshipping him. You have a sect that believe that pictures, music and ornaments, and coats with collars that turn down are offensive to the Deity, and who think he is best pleased with silent worship, while others think he likes to be flattered in loud speeches and louder songs addressed to himself, and that he is indifferent whether coat collars stand up or lie down. You have a sect that believe that buttons on the clothes are offensive to him and who therefore fasten their clothing with hooks and eyes. All these sects and many more equally absurd, get their various contradictory notions from the same book, and they adhere to them with such tenacity that in many cases they would die rather than give them up and would if they dared, murder other people for not accepting them, and in times past have done so in thousands of instances. In former times it was a common opinion, that your Deity had an arch enemy called the Devil, who opposed, bothered and thwarted him in the most provoking manner, and among other things inspired and aided thousands of unattractive old women to turn themselves into wolves, cats and other beasts and to become witches, and in these conditions to attack and injure their neighbors and bring strange diseases upon them. For these offenses these old women were judged by your sacred books and were burnt by the thousand. And yet many of the men of this generation, while still holding to the sacred books, have not only repudiated witchcraft, but even the devil himself, and an attempt to burn a witch would now be met by an insurrection. Then you have a sect, or a nation rather, of people, who claim that they are the peculiar favorites of your Deity, who chose them from among all the nations and set them apart as his own, and ordered them to practice a certain peculiar mutilation on the bodies of their children as an evidence and seal of his promises to them. No one of these people would consider himself entitled to hold up his head if it were not for his mutilation. Notwithstanding the claims of these peculiar people are admitted by the rest, no people on earth have been so despised, persecuted and maltreated as they. For over 2,000 years they have been kicked and cuffed about the earth, robbed, driven repeatedly from one country to another, and have never in all that time possessed the sovereignty of a single township. Then again your race believe they are made and formed in the very image and likeness of your Deity, yet you conceal that likeness with garments as if ashamed of it, and such are your notions of propriety that if a man should show this divine likeness in public, naked or even half naked, he would be sent to prison, or a mad house. And then consider the fashions of these garments. Those whose business it is to make clothes, constantly demand changes in the fashion, so as to secure more employment and profit for themselves, and whenever certain ones, who have appointed themselves to be the leaders, say the word, everybody feels obliged to procure new clothes of such sort as these leaders require, notwithstanding those they already have may be good, useful and becoming, and that those prescribed, may be hideous, unsuitable and unhealthful. Many of you are actually so infatuated with this bondage, that if you could not comply with its requirements, you would regard life as of no account.”

During the delivery of this tirade, the flashing eyes of my visitor showed how much his feeling was enlisted in the subject and during the whole time I continued to reproach myself for having started him off on such a rampage, by an unlucky, if not impertinent remark of my own. I was made to recall the adage that people who live in glass houses, should not engage in throwing stones; and it was forcibly shown me how very much “human nature” the Lunarians possess, since while he was willing to point out, criticise and condemn the follies of his own people, he would not allow an outsider to do it. I was greatly relieved when he paused and gave me an opportunity to change the subject, which I did with a precipitancy, that evidently amused him and brought back the good natured expression that habitually possessed his eyes. In fact I believe that the change I had observed was due to intellectual activity and was not accompanied by any real feeling of resentment or passion. Said I, “One of our wise men has expressed the opinion, that the people of the earth, are “maistly fules,” and I believe that most other wise men agree with him. So I beg you will waste no more of your precious time in arraigning our race, but go on with your intensely interesting and instructive account of your own race and your remarkable planet.” He thereupon goodnaturedly resumed.

“Organic existence must everywhere be to a great extent the same. The elements that enter into the composition of organisms, are subject to certain laws of chemical affinity, that demand their own conditions, and will not operate when these conditions are absent. The chief of these are furnished by the radiations of the sun in our solar system and no doubt by those of the stars in other systems. These radiations impressed upon organized materials become light and heat and where they are either in excess or deficiency organic development is not possible. These conditions obtain throughout the solar system, and no doubt in every system composed of the same sort of elements. But of the solar system we can speak with some confidence, for we have been able to visit a considerable part of it.

“The inhabitants of the different planets differ from each other in the same way that the various animal races of earth differ from each other. You have on earth four sub-kingdoms of intelligent animals; vertebrates, articulates, mollusks and radiates. These have all been evolved from a common worm-like ancestry, and each form possesses the potentiality of receiving an equally high development, both physically and mentally. The development of any of them in all cases depends upon the way they are impressed by their surroundings and the proper surroundings can develop high intelligence in either of the forms. On earth the highest development has happened to the vertebrate branch, but with us the articulates have always been the dominant branch, while the vertebrates have never attained to a condition above that of your salamanders and small lizards. The ascendant race with us as with you has always contributed to keep the others in the background, by destroying the most advanced and aggressive of them and pursuing them till none but the smallest, weakest and most harmless of their tribe remain. Indeed until this is done, the position of the ascendant race is not secure. Your own race has had experience of this in the struggle with and subjugation of other races. In the early history of the earth, it was for a long time doubtful whether it was to be dominated by the human family or by a tribe of reptiles. At that ancient period, a tribe of reptiles had become developed that walked erect on their hind legs, and whose fore limbs supported wings and terminated in excellent hands, having four fingers. There were several related families of these animals, some of which were almost or quite the equal of man in intelligence. The final triumph of man over these advanced reptiles, was due to his superior compact social organization. While they relied on their superior personal prowess and often fought single handed, men always fought in bands, and hung together in all their enterprises. The reptiles being finally vanquished and the tribes most advanced and most to be feared having been exterminated, the rest had two modes of escape. They could use their wings and thus by flight keep out of the way of their enemies or they could hide by crouching down in the grass and weeds and making themselves as small, sly and inconspicuous as possible. Some pursued one of these courses and some the other. The descendants of those that flew away gradually became developed into the birds as you now have them; while those that resorted to hiding and crouching down, were thus deprived of the opportunity to use their limbs generation after generation and so the limbs gradually became shrunken and useless, finally disappearing completely, or almost so, causing the body to come down flat on its belly on the ground, and thus were produced the serpents as you now have them.”

“No doubt,” said I, “the serpents originated in that way. They formerly possessed limbs, because many species still have the rudiments of them. In some cases these remnants show themselves like little hooks on the outside of the skin, while many others are covered up by the skin and are not seen at all. But all that retrogressive adaptation by which they lost their limbs, must have been practically completed before our race possessed any semblance of their present form and condition.”

“The earth,” he proceeded, “was full of contending races, and of course the backset that was imposed on the snakes, was contributed to by others, as well as men, but the latter were among the last and as regards the particular family of reptiles in question, the most formidable and effectual opponents. Some of your ancient traditions and literature contain allusions to this contest, the reptile being styled Nachash. You preserve an allusion to this ancient competition, in the legends of the Devil, who represents the reptile, and is often called the serpent etc. I recall this history, only to show you that the essential qualities of predominance do not inhere in any particular animal form. Your planet escaped the final domination of a reptile instead of a mammal, by only a little. As you have already perceived the dominant race on our planet is an articulate.”

CHAPTER IV.
Life In and On the Moon.

“I confess,” said I, “that you have demonstrated the possibility of a development among the articulates quite equal at least to that of mammals. You must have animals of some sort in your seas and lakes; what do you do with them?”

“We have some large soft bodied animals, something akin to your large mollusks and others having a cartilaginous frame, but we have no bony fishes. These animals are sometimes caught and turned into food products, the same as other organic refuse, but never eaten directly, as we are vegetarians. The amount of water surface on our planet is quite small compared with yours. The seas are narrow, but of immense depth. Indeed, some of them are known to have passages communicating directly through the planet and connecting the waters of the exterior continent, with those of the “Pocket”. The fluctuation of the tides takes place bi-monthly, with enormous force through these “bores.” When the moon is between the earth and sun the tide rises on the exterior continent, and when on the opposite side, it rises in the interior continent, the amount of the rise being very great in the neighborhood of these “bores,” but inconsiderable elsewhere.”

“Your climate I suppose is very different from ours—of course it must be.”

“Yes certainly, and the climate of the interior continent differs greatly from that of the exterior. On the polar regions of the exterior continent, we experience the extreme change of seasons, that occur on earth, from a very cold winter to a very hot summer—all in the space of about 29½ of your days or 709 hours. In the equatorial regions, however, the extremes are greatly tempered by the winds, which always blow toward the position of the sun, by the great evaporation that takes place during the day, and by the fact that the air of the equatorial belt is both higher and denser than that in the polar regions. In many cases, the upper air is charged with heavy clouds, that remain suspended all night or all winter, as you choose, and these prevent the land from becoming very cold.”

“Vegetation must come on very rapidly during your little summers,” I observed.

“Yes, it does. We have grasses that grow from the sown seed and mature their grains in eight days. But, we have others, whose habit requires that they be sown about midwinter, and they are harvested in midsummer. Other plants are annual, dropping their leaves soon after darkness sets in and putting forth new ones again as soon as daylight returns. Our food plants are, however, chiefly raised artificially in both the exterior and the interior continents. The farms are often immense buildings covering several acres and consisting of from ten to twenty stories, each story comprising a farm. As our space can thus be multiplied indefinitely, and as we can raise twelve or more crops a year in the same space, you see a single acre can be made to be equal to one or two hundred. It is not necessary to use this degree of economy of room in all cases, and so, many farms consist of but a single story on the ground, and often on the exterior continent only the suns rays are employed instead of electricity to furnish energy for the growth of the crop. Even this method gives us about 13 crops a year. The artificial methods are generally preferred, however, as they are far more certain and reliable. In the interior continent of course these methods prevail exclusively.”

“It seems strange,” said I, “that the spaces in the interior continent, should be great enough to hold any considerable population. We have on earth some large caves, but put them all together and they would not afford shelter for the inhabitants of a small city.”

“The caves that are at present accessible to you, are small and due to the action of water. All springs, by carrying out mineral matter in solution from below the surface, are constructing caves, and much more extensive ones than might be supposed. But those formed by the action of volcanoes, your explorers have had little opportunity to study, and, but few probably have any adequate idea of the sizes of the holes left under the surface, by the ejection of materials by volcanoes.

“Some of your scientists estimated that the volcano Krakatoa, in the East Indies, during a couple of days in August, 1883, discharged a cubic mile of materials. The volcano has had a great many eruptions in times past, and has thrown out a great many cubic miles. The materials composing the mountain itself, have all been thrown from its crater, and the same thing has happened in the case of all the volcanoes on earth, of which there are thousands. The spaces left in the crust of the earth by this process, have amounted in the aggregate to hundreds of thousands of cubic miles. Many spaces thus formed, have been filled again by melted materials pressed up from below, by the pressure of the crust upon the melted interior. But a vast amount of empty space yet remains and will continue to be added to for millions of years to come. As the earth grows older and colder, internally, the crust will become thicker and more unyielding, so that as new subterranean spaces are formed by volcanic activity, fewer of these will be filled up again and the final aggregate of them will doubtless in time reach millions of cubic miles. The spaces comprising the “Pocket” continent of the moon, above the sea level, are estimated by us to amount to about 1,500,000 cubic miles.”

“This then,” I observed, “must give you a continent in there of something like 1,500,000 cubic miles, supposing the space to be a mile high.”

“Yes, but that is not the shape of the interior. The ground floor of our continent at or near the sea level is only about 800,000 square miles, and it consists of thousands of separated chambers, varying from a few rods to many miles in extent, and of every conceivable shape, some being circular or oval, some long and narrow, and straight or crooked. There are a great many of the long narrow sort, extending in some cases as much as 400 miles, widening in some places to as much as ten miles and again narrowing down to half a mile. These are nothing less than cracks in our planet. They run in many directions, often intersecting each other, and they extend far down toward the center and upward in some places eight or ten miles before the sides arch together in a mighty dome. There are water marks high up the sides of these great chambers showing the sea level to have been much higher in ancient times than at present, and the action of the water on the sides has greatly widened the spaces, the materials being washed into the bottomless fissures, that extend toward the center of the planet.”

“How do you account for the changes in the sea-level?” I inquired.

“As the moon cooled off, a great deal of water was taken up by the rocks, while crystallizing and thus chemically united with them, a great deal more was absorbed by them mechanically, by their pores, while a still greater quantity occupies large fissures and chambers, penetrating in all directions through the planet communicating with each other and connecting the interior waters with those of the exterior continent. The action of the water has greatly contributed, not only to the enlargement of the spaces in the interior continent, but to the creation of a pulverized soil and pleasing landscapes. The chambers that are inhabited, are of course all connected with each other, but besides these, it is quite certain there are great numbers of very extensive ones in the masses of materials that bound the inhabited chambers. Artificial tunnels are constantly being cut into these walls and so new countries are often discovered and connected with the rest and opened for settlement. In addition to those chambers that come down to the sea level the aggregate of the area of which I told you is about 800,000 square miles, there are vast areas situated at higher levels in the material, that bounds the sea-level chambers. These elevated areas are at all heights from one-fourth of a mile to four or five miles above the sea-level. There are known to be many above these, but they are not habitable, on account of lightness of the air. The elevated chambers are connected with each other, and with the lower ones, by means of sloping passages at all grades. In some cases chambers are located directly on top of the thick roof of others and are reached by long and circuitous routes. In a number of cases, the walls of sea-level chambers, after closing in almost together to form an arch over them, widen out again above and thus form other chambers above, and sometimes these stories continue one above another until the surface of the hump is reached, where the openings appear sometimes as channels, and at others, as circular craters.”

“No doubt,” said I, “the craters that our astronomers see in such vast numbers on this side of the moon communicate with your interior continent.”

“Yes they do.”

“Then is it possible, that they sometimes see down to your interior habitations? They report some of these craters, as appearing to be many miles deep.”

“They cannot see down to our habitations, for two reasons. In the first place, although the craters connect with the vast labyrinth of passages and chambers below, with few exceptions they bend and subdivide into numerous dividing branches long before they get down to a habitable level. In the second place there are perpetual clouds standing in all those passages, that lead to the surface of the hump, at various elevations of from two or three to eight or ten miles above the sea level. Of course it is not possible to see down through these—nor up through them either—except when they are cleared away for a special purpose, as is done sometimes for the benefit of our astronomers.”

“They sometimes look out through these craters then, do they? How do they get rid of the clouds?”

“I will describe one of the craters used by the astronomers for an observatory. It is the shape of a funnel with a diameter at the surface of the hump of twenty-five miles. From there it tapers rapidly inwards till at a distance of about 29 miles below the surface, it has narrowed down to a mile in diameter. This is the entrance, down to what was originally a vast dome shaped chamber. This chamber is now filled to the roof on one side, by material poured down through the funnel, while on the other side the material consisting of volcanic ashes, scoria, rocks etc., slopes down for three miles, the over-arching dome finally closing down to it leaving only a few narrow passages through into other chambers. Well up on this slope and nearly under the center of the great funnel, our astronomers established their observatory. This is for the special purpose of examining the earth, which is always in sight from this point, and as it rolls itself over every twenty-four hours, without apparently moving out of its tracks, it is seemingly on exhibition for our sole benefit. As we revolve around it every month we are enabled to see both poles alternately, while the whole of the equatorial parts can be seen every twenty-four hours.

“We are thus enabled to make far more complete and perfect maps of the earth, than you have yourselves. We have powerful telescopes. The one at the funnel observatory I am telling you of, can bring the earth within forty miles.”

“If it brought it eleven miles further it would stop up the funnel and become invisible, wouldn’t it?” said I.

His eyes expressed a slight gleam of humor, which I fancied was tinged by a shade of compassion, as he recognized this for a joke, and then he went on:

“As to the clouds—they are cleared away whenever we wish, by means of artificial thunder storms. Metallic conductors have been put in place up the sides of the lofty chambers, and at the proper heights are fixed with their poles pointing across the space, the positive on one side and the negative on the opposite. Heavy electric discharges are then made, the spark which is often one-fourth of a mile long traversing the cloud and speedily condensing it into rain. The observatory, I have spoken of, is too high to be often affected by clouds, but when the funnel is hazy, it can soon be cleared out. There are several observatories on this side of the moon situated like this one, and their chief business is the examination of the earth, which is our most interesting celestial object, and which can never be seen from the external continent, except at its extreme east and west ends, from which position it is seen low down on the horizon.”

“It must be extremely handy,” said I, “to be able to produce a shower whenever you wish. The formation of these clouds however presupposes great evaporation.”

“Yes, evaporation takes, place from the numerous sheets of sea water in the various chambers, the aggregate of which is estimated at about 120,000 square miles. There is more or less of this sea water in almost every one of the sea-level chambers. Besides the evaporation from these bodies of water, more or less evaporation occurs from every one of the industries in which water is used, and so the aggregate is very considerable. But it is always nearly uniform in quantity, in the interior continent. As the suspended moisture comes into contact with the upper walls and roofs of the lofty chambers, it is being constantly condensed, and the fresh water thus formed trickles down the walls and slopes in drops, rills and brooks, and finds its way through the ground and porous rocks. Many underground streams are formed that find their way into the high-level chambers, which are thus supplied with pure water. The inhabitants of others have supplied themselves by tunnelling through into the upper parts of lofty chambers, that have their floors at the sea-level, and thus they tap the clouds themselves.”

“Our astronomers tell us that some of the Lunar craters are 60 or 80 miles in diameter or even more, which indicates that an enormously greater amount of volcanic action has taken place on the moon than on the earth. How is that?”

He replied, “Our opinion is this: The volcanic action in the moon toward its close and final cessation, was enormous. The planet had already been completely honeycombed by former convulsions and the seas had poured themselves into the underground openings, until there was almost as much water below the surface as above. This water kept up a continual contention with the melted interior, resulting in still greater explosions, sending out enormous quantities of volcanic matter, forming cones in some cases twenty-five miles high and over 100 miles in diameter. The enormous weight of these volcanic cones in many cases proved too great to be supported by the crust, that separated them from the interior cavities their materials had been blown out of, and so they broke through—that is the central part of the cones broke through, leaving a margin of their bases all around, standing like the walls of a crater. But these are not the original craters, as you can see. If they were, they would be on top of elevated cones of enormous height, which they are not.”

“This view appears to me very plausible and I feel the more interested in the subject, because the idea constantly impresses itself upon me, that the earth is repeating the history of the moon. According to our theories of evolution the two bodies separated from each other, when they were in the condition of hot expanded gases, and as the moon contained only 1/81 part as much matter as the earth, it cooled down and became a habitable world, many millions of years before the earth. Since you have been talking to me, the impression has constantly grown upon me, that your moon history is really an anticipation of our own, and it becomes the more interesting on that account.”

His eyes expressed extreme satisfaction, as he replied that he was glad that I had seen that point.

“We have in one of the provinces of the interior continent, an immense university, devoted to the study of mundane affairs, past, present and future. The duty is assigned me of holding a professorship in this university, in the college of ‘Mundane Prognostication’. As this college has been in operation for over 100,000 years, we have had abundant opportunity to verify our system of prognostication, and you would be surprised at the accuracy with which our predictions have been realized in your history. Of course, we could have done nothing, but for the basis our own history gave us to work on.”

“Well,” said I, “I can’t say that I am sorry to know that my time will be out long before the earth reaches the conditions that makes it necessary for the inhabitants to retreat underground. These spaces below must indeed be queer places to live in, for it don’t seem like they would be exposed to storms, as if out of doors, and yet not cosy and homelike, as if in a house, and I don’t see how they can be otherwise than cold damp and gloomy—that is, viewed from the stand point of earth. Am I right?”

“No,” he replied, “you are not. Those abodes, as we have them fixed up on the moon, you would regard as more delightful than anything you have on earth, and as equalling your dreams of paradise. There are as you suppose no storms and no extremes of temperature. There is always a very light breeze blowing, half the time in one direction, and half in the other. This is caused by the action of the sun on the external continent, as it progressively passes over it from east to west. There is always fog and cloud at all the entrances to the interior continent that prevent the radiation of heat and help preserve an even temperature within. All the inhabited chambers are made as bright as sunlight by immense and numerous electric lights, which are placed with reference to the best, effects both from a utilitarian and an artistic point of view. They are generally placed at great elevations, and are often arranged to imitate the constellations of the heavens, so that looking up, one may see a portion of the sky as he would see it from the external continent, and by traveling about among the various interior provinces, he can see the whole of it. In some of the chambers, the lights are made to represent the members of the solar system and each one is caused to make the movements properly, belonging to it, the whole constituting a planetarium on an immense scale—in some instances—several miles in diameter and three miles above the floor.”

“I can well imagine the glory of such scenery and such possibilities,” said I, “but I do not see by what mechanism you can accomplish such results.”

“You must remember,” he replied, “that we have resources, that your race does not possess. With you a great many things would be practically out of the question that with us are very easy. In the first place, we are a flying race as you see, and this means a great deal on the moon’s external continent, and still more in the internal continent, where on account of the attraction of the earth and the hump, our weight is much reduced without a corresponding reduction of strength. The fluttering and flying about of crowds overhead is one of the pleasing features of our life.

“In the second place, the power of neutralizing the gravity of metals, as I have explained to you, enables us to erect works miles above the ground more easily than you do at the surface. In fact the works erect themselves and the most we do is to tether them at the proper height to keep them from going too far. When motion is required to be given them, the globes of light are sometimes attached to a car that is made to run on a single rail elliptical track, which may be suspended at any elevation and reduced to a minimum weight by proper adjustments of its gravitation, the light globe being either suspended from the car or floating above it. The elliptical orbit is inclined enough to enable gravity to propel the car. An automatic shunt turns on repulsion when the car reaches the lowest part of the orbit and it is then forwarded on the up grade portion, shunted again at the top and so on perpetually. Another machine often used is a hollow cylindrical stem suspended from the dome, having a series of wheels, concentric with the cylinder, one above another and caused to revolve horizontally at different rates, by clockwork inside the cylinder. Globes of light are suspended by long wires to these wheels, which by their revolution, at varying rates, cause the globes by centrifugal motion to describe large or small orbits as desired. All sorts of eccentric and peculiar motions are imparted to the globes by variations in the regularity of the revolutions of the wheels, the spheres falling toward the center when the motion is slow and flying outward when it is fast. The mazes of a cotillion are often imitated, and the performance is called the ‘dancing of the spheres’. This is also accompanied by music, sometimes by local bands situated on the ground playing in concert with the movement, at other times by immense instruments operated by the same machinery that drives the spheres.

“It is not difficult for you to imagine the beauty and grandeur of some of these overhead scenes. Of course the power used is electricity, and it is used liberally and freely since its cost is merely nominal. Heat as well as light is supplied through the same means and used for all purposes, domestic, industrial and public. Our houses are very tasteful and often highly ornamental. The architecture is light and graceful and suited to a mild and quiet climate, for we have the pleasant air of your tropics without their storms or excessive heat. A slight sprinkle of rain is all we ever have in the shape of a storm in any part of the interior continent, and these sprinkles are rendered periodical by artificial means. There are no wide agricultural tracts with us, nor densely populated cities, but the population is distributed in towns, and continuous villages line the roads, each of which is devoted to some principal productive industry. There are principal streets that run miles, passing through and connecting these towns, and often bending so as to make a complete circuit. The streets are wide and we are always furnished with a number of rail tracks, and paved with a hard smooth material—sometimes stone and sometimes iron or alumina. The only vehicles used on the streets, besides the rail cars are light, private and pleasure carriages, propelled by storage batteries. The roads that unite the various internal provinces to each other and to the external continent, are chiefly the gravity roads, that I have already described to you. In some cases to save room, the roads are built in stories, one track above another. The work shops and farms, are situated conveniently near on streets parallel to the main thoroughfares, and their products are conveyed from them, and their materials to them, on roads laid on those streets.”

“I should like to know something about your social and political arrangements, your industrial economy and your form of government,” said I. “If the government controls the increase of population, I suppose it must control labor and production; and consumption too—how is that?”

“The sort of control, which the government exercise is almost exclusively advisory. There is no government control in the sense of the term as used on earth. All productive labor is expended for the creation of common property, to which, when created, every individual has equal title. Not the slightest compulsion however is put upon labor, nor the least prohibition upon consumption.”

“Do you mean to say that nobody is obliged to work, and yet everyone can take what he wants from the common stock?”

“Yes.”

“Then yours is an angelic race, truly. We have not anything like that on this earth, and I reckon, we never will have.”

“The human race, as a whole, is not yet like it, although the tendency is certainly that way and it would be rash to predict it never will be, but there are other and older races on earth, that you overlook. Consider our relatives the Bees; did you ever see a lazy bee or one that wanted more than a reasonable share of the common property?”

“Yes,” said I, “it has become instinctive with them to work and their wants are likewise, only such as instinct dictates.”

“Instincts,” he replied, “are only crystallizations of reason. They are habits become hereditary to such a degree that the person is liable to fall into them with little or no teaching. I know that the people of the human race pride themselves greatly on the assumed fact that they act from reason, while other animals act from instinct, but the fact is, that 99 out of every 100 good acts that human beings perform, are done through instinct or inherited disposition to do them, while only one is reasoned out. And your teachers appear to understand that your instincts alone are to be depended upon to produce good actions, since they always depreciate and throw suspicion on good acts not done from the “heart” that is, not done from instinct. They give little or no credit for such actions, and strive by cultivation of the emotions to substitute disinterested impulse or in other words instinct, for mere calculating reason. Now, we Lunarians have long since passed this stage. Lazy Lunarians are as impossible as lazy bees. To work is instinctive with us and so is consideration for the rights and dues of the rest, and as everyone can be relied on to obey his instincts, it is not necessary to watch any one to keep him from plundering the public or shirking out of his duties.”

“There have often been socialistic communities with us,” said I, “that have endeavored to live on the principles you speak of. But their lives have been of the most monotonous dead level sort. There is no chance for individuality or for the development or exercise of the superior talents, which some are certain to possess in a higher degree than others. They are merely little despotisms and endure only while their leaders are people of exceptional ability. We do not regard such a state of society as desirable even if it could be made permanent.

“With us,” he replied, “the greatest liberty is accorded to the individual, but so well grounded is our predisposition to work for the benefit of the community, that no one has any fear or suspicion that another is not doing what he ought, or is able to do for the common good. There are extensive colleges for art, literature, science and invention, accessible to any according to their several tastes. If a person thinks, for example, that he has the conception of a valuable invention, he is admitted to the college of invention where there is every facility and appliance for developing the idea and constructing the machine or instrument. In these colleges there are depositories of models something like your patent office, and professors are on hand familiar with physics, chemistry and kindred sciences to advise and assist the inventor. As they are all working for the good of all, the inventor is not afraid his idea will be stolen, he finds the assistance he gets invaluable, and is often saved the useless labor of doing something that has been done already or attempting something in contravention of the principles of physics and therefore impossible. An invention, when made, is the property of the public, and if it lightens labor in any direction, it allows it to take on greater activity in some other direction.

“All articles that can be produced in quantities by machinery are distributed to everybody desiring them, but individual works of art as great pictures and statuary and rare and curious things, are placed in public art galleries, libraries etc., accessible to all.”

“Well,” said I, “this is extremely pretty and no doubt it works all right with you wise Lunarians, but I cannot help imagining what sort of a mess we should make of it on earth, if we adopted the same policy. I admit that many of us are workers by instinct or at least a semi instinct, that controls us after some habit got by practice, and it is also instinctive with us to care for the young and those who are helpless from disease or old age, but there are plenty of people with whom it is equally instinctive never to do a lick of work if they can help it, and at the same time their instincts allow them to help themselves to the proceeds of the labor of others without any limit, except that of forcible restraint.”

“The trouble with you,” said he, “is that you have no control over the production of your people. You are like the civilized Indians, that once inhabited some of the western parts of your country, who were constantly threatened and invaded and finally exterminated by wild and barbarous neighbors, except that they were physically too weak to help themselves.

“It is true your civilization is now in little danger from foreign savages, but you allow yourselves to be steadily invaded by fresh generations, of them born in your midst, and the crudeness and injustice of your political and social conditions, are such as to give but slight encouragement to the development of the unselfish instincts in anybody. Wealth carries power and power commands respect. Your wealth is distributed without justice, sometimes by accident and to those who are merely lucky, at other times to those who are simply selfish greedy and unscrupulous, and generally least to those who create it, and so luck and greed become prominent objects for your attention and emulation. How very young your race is and how much you have to learn!”

CHAPTER V.
“Mundane Prognostication”—The Profile of Time.

“You said something about a college of “Mundane prognostication,” you have on the moon where you study our affairs and forecast our future. I should be infinitely gratified to know what your learned college has figured out for us—if it is no secret.”

“It is no secret at all,” he answered, “and I shall be glad to give you such insight in your future, as our profiles in their present condition afford.”

With this he drew from a receptacle something like a pocket under his right lower wing, a cylindrical roll of paper three inches in diameter, and ten inches long, exactly resembling a roll of profile paper, such as civil engineers use in plotting the profile of a survey for a railroad. Familiarity with such things together with the idea that he intended handing it to me, caused me almost involuntarily to reach out for it, but he retained it in his own hands and began with great dexterity unrolling it, holding the scroll in his right hand, while with his left he rolled up again the unrolled end. As he held these two rolled ends in his front hands a yard apart with that length of the profile open between them, he used his middle pair of hands to point out the various marks and lines on the paper to which attention was directed. I could not help observing what a vast advantage one has with four hands instead of two. When we hold a profile thus, there is nothing left to point with, but the nose.

In plotting the profile of a railroad survey, the engineer uses paper several feet long and 8 to 12 inches wide, covered with fine horizontal lines, running the whole length of it and ruled so close together, that there are from 20 to 50 lines to the inch. Then there are other lines drawn across the paper at right angles to the first, and one-fourth of an inch apart. These last represent distances of 100 feet each; or “stations;” while each of the spaces between the horizontal lines is called a foot. Having the survey of a line of stations with the relative height of each, ascertained by a leveling instrument, the line is plotted on this paper so that its distance from the lower edge of the paper at each station corresponds with the height of the ground at that station. The irregular line thus formed is a fac simile of the surface of the ground with its vertical undulations and irregularities. The engineer then draws a grade line on this profile of the ground, that indicates the position of the surface of the road bed, as he intends it to be when finished. In some places this line is above the ground line and this indicates that here is to be a fill. In other places it runs below, and this shows a cut.

Now the profile that the Lunarian Professor of “Mundane Prognostication” held in his multiple hands (I shall call him the Professor hereafter) very much resembled in appearance that just described, except that instead of only one there were several profiles on this one strip of paper, one above another. In each one there was the irregular surface line accompanied with the more or less straight grade line showing cuts in some places and fills in others. The professor explained these profiles to be graphic exhibits of the state of various human institutions and conditions as they appeared during a continuous term of time beginning in the past, and extending into a far distant future.

After examining these profiles a short time, I had little difficulty in getting the ideas intended to be conveyed by them. They will be readily understood without much explanation. Thus the line of “muscular development” is shown in the remote past as being almost up to grade, but as gradually falling below it in the course of time, then rising again and coming almost to the grade line about the year 2500, but after that gradually falling away again. Selfish instinct, which has always shown heavy cutting, comes down nearly to grade, about the year 7200. While altruistic instinct that regards the common welfare and has been below grade, always, but at times higher than at present, is seen to rise and come to grade about the same time. Health has always shown a fill, often a large one, but gradually rises almost to grade about the year 2500. Crime has always been a cut, but disappears in the future about the same time as theology.

Peace, which is a condensation or composite of all the rest and the end for which they all exist, has always been a fill and always must be until human actions become absolutely instinctive and unconscious, which they never can do until men have been acted upon and molded by habit by every stimulation possible to their environment. Reasoned acts are those which arise from stimulations, that are new or unusual to us, and new stimulations will continue to come as long as knowledge increases or continues to be pursued, or to be thrust upon us. If the accumulation of knowledge should stop, actions would finally become instinctive, and unconscious. This would be complete absence of misery, and also absence of happiness, but perfect peace. So the grade line of Peace is a dead level. Above it is the ragged line of misery always a great cut, and below it is the line of happiness always a fill, somewhat lighter than the cut above the line, and terminating in grade soon after it.

I inquired of the Professor, the principle, upon which predictions of the future were worked out. He replied, that the principles were exceedingly simple, although the actual working out of any scheme of the future involved the consideration of such a vast number of details and conditions, as to render it a labor of magnitude. “Prediction,” said he, “is only past history, projected forward. If we know precisely what happened in the past, our knowledge will include the antecedent causes of the events. Events beget events, and they succeed each other as one generation succeeds another. Knowing the character and condition of one generation and the modifications that have been made in it by its environment, we have the principal data for estimating the character of its successor and so on. The principal uncertainty we encounter, is in the prediction of changes in the environment itself. Thus the invention of a self portable power like steam made the invention of railroads possible and the construction of railroads completely changed the environment of the succeeding generations.

“Now it is difficult to forecast just what particular turn invention will take, but it is not impossible, because inventions constitute a race with generations one begetting another. Knowing all that is known to-day makes it possible to see what this knowledge will lead to to-morrow. The trouble is for one to know all that is known. As I have already mentioned, our own Lunarian history greatly aids us in our study of your future, for we have passed through an experience, which, while it is different from what yours has been or will be, is parallel and comparable with it. And making due allowance for the difference in physical structure of the two races and considering that we are 500,000 years older than you, we have only to consult our past in order to get your future, or something much like it, for many generations to come.”

“These profiles of yours, Professor,” said I, “are evidently the result of much learned detail work and they are of extreme interest and value to the philosophical and scientific student. But to common people the details themselves are more interesting, because they are more easy to be understood and come nearer to the common life. Could you not favor me with some of the future history of our planet and especially of the United States and of the State of Minnesota. Any of the facts that you have prognosticated and from which you have deduced the generalizations that you embody in your profiles, would be of great interest.”

He seemed a little disappointed at this request, as no doubt his habits of thought had made him familiar with and attached to the comprehensive and wholesale treatment of these questions, and he looked upon the detailed story as a means to an end and containing but little interest in itself. But it is easier to generalize from details, than to construct the details. However he complied, observing that he would be compelled to get these details in part from his memory, which however would be prompted and refreshed by the general profile he held in his hands.

“I will take my stand,” said he, “at about the year 2,000 of your era, and then by looking forward and backward along these lines, I think I can recover the principal factors that have entered into their make-up. This will also allow me to give you the descriptions in the past tense as events that have been accomplished up to that time and from that date we will also look forward, for the events subsequent to it.”

It occurred to me that he must be tired of holding the profile so long between his outstretched hands and so I offered to hold it for him awhile, or at least hold one end of it. At that he shifted the rolls from his front to his middle pair of hands, by which maneuver he gave me to understand that he had abundant resources for resting himself without outside help. How I did envy him that extra pair of hands.

He then began as follows:

“The close of the 19th century, was remarkable as being a turning point in American affairs and the beginning of a new era. Previous to that time the United States had been a nation very much to itself. It had kept aloof from the politics of the rest of the world and had no policy in regard to it except to prohibit European nations from meddling in affairs of the western hemisphere or acquiring any further possessions in it. But before the century was out public opinion was accustoming itself to the idea that the foremost nation of the earth ought to take a more active and influential part in the general affairs of the world. The first thing designed to give weight to the influence of the country was the development of a powerful navy. It is power that inspires the consideration and respect of others. It was a favorite idea with many of the leaders of political thought that arbitration might become the last resort in the settlement of international disputes instead of the ancient plan, by which the contestants temporarily laid aside such civilization as they might have acquired, reduced themselves back to barbarism in murdering each other, destroying property, plundering commerce, and often spending more money several times over than the matter in dispute was worth. But even these statesmen saw that a plan favoring peace would come with much more force and authority from a nation having power to enforce it by war, and so all were glad to see the great navy built.

“As the public lands became transferred to private ownership and prices steadily went up, attention was turned to the sparsely settled territories of neighboring countries, and the elements of a great party in favor of their annexation were developed in the ranks of all the parties, at the same time the theories of the land tax advocates received additional attention, especially from mechanics and the manufacturing classes. They reasoned that the increase in the value of land ought to belong to the state instead of to the people who had bought the land, and if the state had that increase, the interest on it would support the government and taxes could be abolished. The enormous amounts raised by taxation came at last from labor, they said, part of it in the way of tariffs on goods imported and consumed by workers and part by direct taxation on the products of labor and even on the means and appliances—tools shops and factories—by which wealth was produced. This mode of taxation they said was, as far as it went, a ban placed upon industry and a penalty upon the creation of wealth. They proposed therefore to take all the taxes off from the products of labor and seize the rents of land or so much of them as might be required for the support of the government, in that way getting the interest on the increase in the value of the land that had taken place since it passed into private hands and which they denominated “unearned increment.” This agitation began in your day—you must remember it.”

The expression “in your day” had at first a singular effect on me. I had quite unconsciously but thoroughly entered into the spirit of the Professor’s method and had gone forward with him to the year 2,000 and followed closely his discussion of things that happened 100 years ago—from that standpoint. The sudden realization that my day had gone by, was startling—“Yes,” I said to myself, “that is so, ‘my day’ has gone by, my existence has been continued over a space during which I have not lived. Memory has nothing to say of it. It is as if I had slept it away. Well if one is asleep, one day to him, is as 1,000 years—aye, eternity!

“What can hurt him who is asleep? Nothing, unless it wakes him up.”

All this flashed through my brain in an instant and then my attention suddenly returned to what the Professor had been saying. “Remember it? Yes I remember it well. In my day there was a society in Minneapolis called, I think the Single Tax League, devoted to this agitation. Their ideas were those of Henry George, as set forth by him in his able book called: ‘Progress and Poverty.’”

“Yes, well, to the labors of this persistent and aggressive society are to be attributed in a great measure, the radical change in ideas of political economy that soon came about. After much discussion, petitioning of the legislature, agitation in the newspapers, the organisation of auxiliary societies, the presentation of the subject in labor associations etc., the working classes in the cities and even the landless laborers on farms were persuaded that their interests lay in the abolition of all taxes, except those on land. It was not long before these classes constituted a majority by reason of the rapid growth of the cities. As soon as they found themselves in power, they proceeded to get the constitution of the state amended to enable the legislature to release all classes from taxation except those who possessed land. In your day, about half the taxes had been raised from land and the other half from the buildings and improvements on the land and from personal property. It was estimated that relieving the latter half, would simply double the tax on land and so make it about four per cent on its valuation. It was argued that the farmer would experience no change at all, because the additional tax put upon his land would no more than equal that taken off his houses, barns, stock and tools. The only persons who would lose by the single tax would be the speculators, who held unimproved land and were waiting for the labor and improvements of their neighbors to raise its value, so they could sell out and get an increase in value which they had done nothing to earn. As these people were looked upon as a sort of parasites, they were not regarded as having any rights in the matter that need to be respected. All that was necessary in their case was simply to out-vote them. The benefits of the new system it was expected would fall upon the industrial classes especially and directly, but would be shared by all. Manufacturing industries relieved of the repression of taxation, would bound forward like a spring suddenly released. Nothing would any longer artificially limit the production of wealth and the great stimulation it would receive would result in making even articles of luxury so common as to place them within the reach of everyone.

“The land speculating class, while admitting that the rest of the people would be benefitted by the single tax, claimed that it would be done at their expense and unjustly. They had bought the land and paid for it and the state had got the money. With this money, and the interest on it, the state had built the university, the state capitol, the penitentiary, the charitable institutions and innumerable school houses. In other words, they had given the state the interest on their money and taken in lieu of it the anticipated increase in the value of the land. Moreover, they had paid taxes on the land as they would have done on the money, if they had retained it. And so they maintained that the increment in the value of the land was not unearned. It was simply the interest on their money which would have brought a like profit if it had been invested in mining manufacturing, banking or steamboating. They admitted that in some cases this profit had been greater than that derived from other sorts of investments, but in many cases it was far less. They said the single tax meant a confiscation of the land and the resumption of it by the state that had once sold it; because it would very soon, if not from the first, take the entire amount of the rent which would make the fee of the land worthless to the owner. It would no longer be possible to mortgage it or to sell it and the owner would lose his investment and be reduced to a mere tenant, who could hold it only as long as he paid the rent to the state the same as any other tenant, and if it were unimproved, the owner would have no inducement to pay the rent and would simply abandon it. In view of that, they said, that the state should at least pay back the purchase money it had received with interest at the rates prevalent during the time that she had possessed it, or failing that, she should postpone so radical a change or make it gradual by annually increasing the assessment upon land and diminishing it upon other property, and thus consume at least thirty years in making the transfer complete.

“The impatience of the tax reformers would not allow any such postponement as this. They said they did not propose to wait a whole generation to have this wrong made right.

“They said the state never had any right to sell the land in the first place. The people’s ownership therein was inalienable and any pretended sale was void the same as the sale of the property of a minor for taxes, or the sale of a stolen horse. The real owner had a right to take his property wherever he could find it, without compensation to the pretended owner who happened to be in possession as a party to a fraudulent sale. So they held that the people could take possession of their land if they saw fit, but they agreed that it would be better policy, to leave the claimants in possession and merely take all the rents except a small percentage to be left in the hands of the claimants as compensation to them for collecting and paying over said rents to the state. These rents moreover were to be called taxes instead of rents.

“The majority having without serious effort brought about a reconciliation between their logic and their interests, proceeded to put their conclusions into operation. The constitution of Minnesota was amended in due course and the new plan put into execution with much growling and protest on the part of the land owners, but without violence or serious trouble, all the rest of the country looking on with great curiosity.

“The effects very soon began to show themselves. Nearly the whole tax being removed from shops and factories, profits and manufacturing became at once very considerably enhanced. This induced numbers of manufacturers to emigrate from other states and from Europe to Minnesota, and so the population and wealth of the cities increased with unexampled rapidity. By the year 1925, the population of Minneapolis had reached 1,780,000 and that of St. Paul, was over half as great.”

“Then,” said I, “the cities must have grown solidly together and formed a continuous town.”

“Not at all,” he replied, “University and Como avenues, became continuous streets, with good residences. But both cities became compactly built up with tall and substantial buildings for offices, dwellings and factories. Nearly everybody that paid rent lived in flats. These buildings were ten to 16 stories high, fire proof, furnished with elevators, electric heat and light. In connection with many of them, were cook shops, in which the tenants could get their provisions cooked at cheaper rates than they could do it themselves, and save their own time for other employment. A great many women who in your day, would have been kept at home all day to cook the meals for a small family were enabled to seek profitable employment in various kinds of shops factories and offices, or had their time for recreation or leisure.

“Cooking became a regular profession and people no longer cooked for themselves to any greater extent than they doctored themselves. Kindergartens were likewise attached to these great co-operative dwellings, in which those too young to go to school, were looked after in the absence of their parents.

“As mechanics and people of moderate incomes could live not only cheaper, but far better in these buildings, than in separate homes at long distances from the business and industrial centers, as well as enjoying far better opportunities for society amusement etc., they soon came to adopt that sort of life exclusively and separate residences continued to be maintained only by the rich. The growth of the cities continued for many years to be confined to the large spaces that in your day were left vacant far within the corporate limits. People owning such property, were anxious to get it improved so as to get their taxes back in the rents of buildings. Those owing suburban lands and lots soon found that it would be useless to improve them as people would not occupy them till all the more central lots were occupied. Much dispute arose as to the way in which such property should be taxed. At first the assessments of valuation on the lands were as high, as they had been before the adoption of the single tax plan. But it was soon found that the land no longer possessed such value. The value had been prospective or speculative, and people had paid as tax far more than the land would rent for, and held it and paid taxes on it for what it was expected to bring in the future. But now so much of the speculative value was taken out of this suburban land that the owners refused to pay the taxes in many cases, and nobody would buy it at the tax sales because the tax was more than the rent for agricultural purposes, and to buy for the future was like leasing property and paying rent on it for some years before occupying it.”

“But,” I interposed, “the single tax people in Minneapolis disclaimed the intention of taking a full rental of the land in the way of taxes, but only enough to support the government, and thought that four per cent of its value would do that. As money was then worth 6 per cent and rents would average about the same the owner would clear 2 per cent. This they said would be sufficient to make the owner retain his interest in the property.”

“Yes,” he answered, “that was their notion, but the events turned out very differently.

“When the tax was two per cent and the rents, six per cent, the owner got clear the equivalent of six per cent on two thirds of the value of the property. But when the tax was increased to 4 per cent, he got the equivalent of six per cent on only one third of it. Thus his net income being reduced to one-half of what it was, the selling and buying value of the land was likewise reduced one-half. This made no difference to the tenant paying rent, he still had to pay the same, but, two-thirds instead of one-third now went to the state. But within the corporate limits of Minneapolis, St. Paul and other cities, there was a great amount of unused land, that produced no rent. This unused land constituted about three-fourths of the total areas of those cities and represented one-third of their total land valuation. The very first assessment of the new tax was the signal for the reduction in the value of all this property, fifty per cent or more at once, and every acre was immediately thrown upon the market. By the time of the next assessment the assessors were obliged to recognize this depreciation, and so all this land was returned at half or less than half of what it had been. The loss of tax money thus sustained had to be made up by a higher rate, and the second levy was placed at 5 per cent instead of 4 per cent. This worked a further reduction in the values of unoccupied lots and by the time of the third assessment these lots were estimated as having only the value of farm or garden lands; and so it became necessary to still further increase the rate of taxation, which was now established at six per cent.

“In the meantime it began to be discovered that the owners of improved lots had lost all the money they had invested in them. A certain person who had bought a lot on Nicollet ave., for $40,000 and erected a building on it at a cost of $40,000 more, did not for two or three years discover any great difference in his tax, because although it was transferred from the building to the lot the whole amount was nearly the same. But after the tax assessment reached six per cent, the building was burned down just after the expiration of the insurance policy. The gentleman thought he had lost half of his property by neglecting the insurance, but in reality, he had lost it about all. He could not mortgage the lot for enough to build a house, nor even for enough to pay one year’s tax. Nor could he sell it for one-tenth of what he gave. It was his only on condition that he continued to pay a full rent for it and this he could not do unless he could rebuild. Even if he rebuilt, his net income would be only the interest on the cost of the building, he would get no return for the lot, or at best, but little. Thus the owner found himself no better off than a lease holder. He simply had the first right to pay the rent for his lot in the way of tax. And so it came about that if an owner could not immediately build something on his lot that he could rent to advantage, he simply defaulted on his taxes. The selling of vacant property for taxes became impossible except those lots wanted for immediate improvement, and not even those if several years’ taxes were in arrears. So the collection of back taxes became impossible on all vacant property.

“The effect of the single tax on farming land was much the same. Not over seven-tenths of the arable land in the state was under actual cultivation. Large tracts were held by nonresident speculators. When the increased tax came to be levied, these lands were all thrown on the market. The depreciation in prices of these lands at first brought a considerable access of population, but this soon became checked, because the farmers found that on account of the loss of taxes on these lands, the rates had to be increased and the additional burden fell on the resident farmers. These in almost all cases owned considerable land they did not cultivate, but were saving for speculation or for their children. Often a farmer owing 160 acres, cultivated, but 40. As the burdens fell heavier on this class, they commenced throwing up the uncultivated parts of their farms, so that from these various causes in a few years almost three-fourths of the arable land was without claimants, and of course yielded no taxes. The farmers, then found themselves greatly reduced in wealth, the lands they had counted on as belonging to them, now being thrown out as commons; and even for the acres they cultivated they paid more in the way of taxes than would have been considered a fair rent in Wisconsin or Iowa. Their net wealth was in fact reduced to their buildings, live stock, and tools.

“The lands themselves, they could neither sell nor mortgage. It was not practicable under these conditions to compete with the farmers in adjoining states, and so in a few years, the markets of Minneapolis and St. Paul came to be supplied chiefly from adjoining states. Many of the farmers ruined and disgusted, gathered up what they could and left the state. Others moved into the cities, which were booming, and went into other business.

“There now began to come into the rural districts of the state, two classes of settlers or rather occupants of a different character. The first of these were drovers with herds of cattle from adjoining states. They drove their cattle about from place to place, over the abandoned lands, but never settled anywhere and as cattle were not taxable, and they claimed no land, they paid no taxes. They also escaped taxes at their legitimate homes in other states, because their cattle were conveniently away at assessing time.

“The other class of new occupants that came in, were poor squatters. These brought little or no capital, and no enterprise or ambition beyond enough to supply the essentials of existence. A family of this kind would alight on an unoccupied spot, construct a cabin or a dug-out, cultivate four or five acres of grain and potatoes, and eke out the rest of a living with a few cows and pigs. Little or no tax could be collected from them, and of course little or no public improvements, such as schools, bridges, roads etc., were accomplished where they squatted in any considerable force. In short, it gradually came about that the inhabitants of the rural districts did but little more than sustain themselves. And the state ceased almost entirely to be an exporter of agricultural products. The cities however suffered nothing on this account. They got their supplies largely from the neighboring states, and they became large producers and exporters of manufactured articles, competing in that respect with some of the famous manufacturing towns of Europe; and they became enormously wealthy.

“The question of taxation was however always a difficult one. The lands near the centers of the towns of course were the most valuable. But lands were never sold—only the buildings—and any given lot came to be valued by the kind of building and the amount of business on it. So assessments finally had to be fixed by an arbitrary rule—the rates decreasing at a fixed ratio according to distance from the center of greatest business activity. The rule had a tendency to verify itself by compelling the most valuable business to be done in the places subject to the highest rates, since the less valuable could not afford it. By this rule the rates in the suburbs were low, and since the buildings paid no tax, it often happened that a millionaire living in a $100,000 house paid little, if any more than a laborer living in a $300 shanty. But in the course of time it came to pass that notwithstanding the general prosperity, there were many who were wretchedly poor, made so by bad management, extravagance, indolence, ill health, dissipated habits, disappointment and ill luck. These became squatters in the vacant lands around the outskirts of the cities. They paid no rent and no taxes. It was found that it was useless to evict them as nobody could be found with money who could gain anything by paying their taxes, as long as there was plenty of unoccupied land. There also came to be a positive sentiment against eviction of the poor and so this non tax-paying class constantly increased and finally included many who were able to pay, but who shirked out, satisfying their consciences by the plea that the government had no right to discriminate, and exempt some and not others. These ideas expanded and finally crystallized into a political creed to the effect that a poor man ought not to be taxed for a spot on which to exist and bring up his family. Thus it came about that neither the very poor; nor the very rich whose property was chiefly in fine buildings, stocks, bonds and other personal effects, paid any considerable amount of the taxes.

“The taxes were paid by such of the farmers as had still too valuable improvements to justify their abandonment, and by the mechanics and merchants whose business and whose residences were packed in tall buildings on small areas of ground in the cities.

“The great stimulation of the growth of the Minnesota cities, and their apparently great prosperity, attracted the attention of the whole world and aroused the spirit of emulation in the cities of the United States and of the northern states in particular. In most of the northern states, the city populations controlled the politics of the states, and there developed a violent mania for following the example of Minnesota. There was much opposition from the conservative classes, and the people were warned that a policy that might benefit a small section of the nation, was not necessarily good for all. But it was held by many to be simply a measure of self defense for cities to compel their states to adopt the single tax, since those where this was done, not merely flourished, but flourished at the expense of those who remained under the old method. For they attracted from them, their manufacturing establishments and this was naturally followed by their wholesale trade. The result was that in a few years, all the northern states and several of the southern states adopted the single tax. The effect was not so marked in those that came into the plan among the last; but the first experienced much the same stimulation and rapid growth that distinguished the Minnesota towns, so that in a few years the majority of the population had crowded into the cities. This effect was brought about by the action of two causes. The first cause was the superior attractions of the cities as places for profitable employment and as places for the enjoyment of life. The cities rapidly became socialistic in their policy, and constantly extended the scope of the functions of the government. The municipality soon acquired the ownership of the lighting plants, the water works and street car lines. These were run at first as speculative enterprises, the cities selling light and water to private individuals, but the people soon demanded that these things should be free as the public libraries, schools, university and parks, were in your day. And this was gradually brought about, the cities furnishing at first so much water and so much light and so many street car rides free to each person, and at last taking off all limits, only making the citizen responsible for unreasonable waste. Then the populace demanded free amusements and entertainments and these were provided in the form of the concert, lecture, theater, circus etc. All these things cost money and the tax rates kept getting higher and higher. These were paid in the form of rents on the land, the buildings stood on and of course at once transferred to the rents paid by tenants for rooms, flats, shops, stores etc. Rents soon became higher than they had ever been known before the adoption of the single tax. To lighten these rents in the cities, it was now proposed to increase the rents of lands in the country.”

CHAPTER VI.
Confiscation of Lands.

“The former owners of these lands had now been practically dispossessed. Many of them had gone to the cities and engaged in more profitable business than farming. Many who were mortgaged had been sold out, bankrupted and ruined, and had settled down into the condition of peasants. The lands were now regarded as the property of the state. This process of the transfer of the lands to the state went further in Minnesota than the other states, because she was the first to adopt the new plan of taxation. After the other states adopted it, the advantage their farmers had over those of Minnesota was lost. Rents under the name of taxes were levied, farming rendered unprofitable and the uncultivated portions of the land abandoned by their owners. The few southern states that did not go into this new plan could not reap much advantage from their position, because their products were different from those of the northern states and could not replace those whose cultivation was repressed.

“Agricultural products fell off to such an extent, that in a few years the United States ceased to be an exporter of them. The cities having gained control of the states, it came to be a political theory that each state was a community, and that the lands abandoned or forfeited for taxes belonged to the Community and therefore came indirectly under the control of the cities. From this position it was an easy step to the idea that the taxes—or rents as they were designated—of the “people’s lands” might be spent where most beneficial to the majority, that is, in the cities. It was attempted to be pointed out by the more conservative that this was class legislation. But the radical progressives replied that it was in line with the theory of the single tax which was class legislation if anything could be. And they asserted that the adoption of the single tax carried with it an endorsement of the principle of class legislation when demanded by the interests of the majority. Whether their reasoning was sound or not they carried the day, and a great stride was taken toward the centralization of power and population. It now happened that when more money was wanted it was raised, not by increasing the rents of city lots, but those of farming lands, and after a time the principle revenues came to be derived from them. Although the exportation of grain, flour, beef etc., had practically ceased, still the people had to eat and their food had to be raised on the land. The business of farming gradually took on entirely new features. Large operators took large tracts on lease from the state at prices determined periodically by appraisement fixed in proportion to the needs of the state. Lands taken on these terms were guaranteed to be kept free from the competition of squatters, so that the lands remaining vacant were cleared of squatters, or else the latter were restricted to a mere garden patch. Thus the country was no longer occupied by farmers residing on the lands with their families as in former times. The agricultural districts were inhabited only by a poor and thriftless class of peasants and during the summers by the employes of the large contract farmers who made their headquarters and resided with their families in the cities. In the winter, only such hands as were required to care for the stock remained in the country, the rest all flocking to the towns.

“One result of the increased rentals charged for the agricultural lands appears not to have been anticipated. That was the great rise in the cost of food. Of course the rents of the lands were simply added to the cost of the production of grain and other foods, and finally were paid by the consumer. It came to be seen after a time that the public revenues raised out of the agricultural lands were finally paid by all the people in proportion—not to their wealth or ability, but to their appetites and the amount they consumed—so that a laboring man with a vigorous appetite paid more to support the state than a dyspeptic millionaire. And a poor man’s family of six or eight ravenous offspring contributed many times as much as the scanty and sickly progeny of the exclusive aristocrat. It speedily became a cause of great dissatisfaction and disappointment when the poor and the working classes found out that the fine promises of the single tax had so far failed that instead of lightening their burdens it had increased them. And that the confiscation of the lands of the farmers instead of adding to the prosperity of the common people had increased the already plethoric wealth of the rich. A school of politicians now arose who declared that the taxation of land was the taxation of the poor man’s bread and butter and was all wrong. Instead of farming land paying the bulk of the taxes they said it ought not to pay any. Every facility and encouragement ought to be given for the production of cheap food. People ought not to be taxed on what they consume, but on what they save. Neither labor nor the laborer should be taxed, they should be made as free and unhampered as possible for the production of wealth. But when wealth was once produced then it should be taxed wherever found and a necessary portion of it taken as the revenue of the state. The laboring classes were in a mood to listen to this logic whether sound or not. The lands having passed out of private hands, however, there was no disposition to allow them to pass back to them again. And the new party advocated state superintendence of the lands and free occupancy by private individuals of such amounts as each could actually cultivate to advantage. As the population and demand for land increased, the amounts allotted to individuals was to be cut down proportionally, and a grade or standard of cultivation and quantity of production was to be exacted, and the state was to fix the prices at which the products were to be sold. Eventually it was proposed that the state should be the purchaser and distributor of these products so that speculation in them should be prevented. The advantage possessed by some on account of their nearness to market would be equalized by the state paying a less rate for their products than for those further away.

“Taxes for revenue were then to be levied upon every piece of personal property that could be found of every sort whatever including buildings. In the cities a graded rent for lots was to be assessed according to locality, beginning at zero in the vacant suburbs and increasing toward the center of greatest activity and demand. A thoroughness in assessment and the employment of methods that were called by their critics, “odiously inquisitorial,” were to be adopted, but the fact was the mass of the people were drifting rapidly toward socialism in their ideas, and they asserted that the “inquisitorial methods” were alright. They said, it was high time to know how much wealth people had and how they came by it, and that reluctance to tell on the part of the possessors of it indicated that either they had acquired it by questionable methods, or wished to avoid the fair responsibility, that its ownership entailed. They went further and declared it was high time that more scientific processes were discovered and put into practice for the equitable distribution of wealth. A thousand men contribute to the production of $1,000,000 of wealth, all of which is gobbled up in a few weeks or months by the scheming of a single “financier.” The board of directors of a railroad, a mining company or a manufacturing company, may issue to themselves certificates of watered stock for which they pay not a cent, and which represent wealth having no existence, but which they are in a position to compel the public to make good. A gang of speculators may get up a corner on wheat or cotton or stocks of some sort and artificially raise the price while they unload at the advanced rate thereby securing wealth they never earned. Combinations and trusts in oil or sugar, screws, nails, coal, whisky, gas-pipes or binding twine, arbitrarily advance the price of the articles whenever they want more money, and thus take as many thousands or millions from that patient ass, the public, as they see fit without a pretense of returning an equivalent. All these things the politicians of the new school declared must be stopped. They said people should not be allowed to secure wealth without in some way earning it, and if they had managed to secure it without rendering an equivalent for it, it would be no more than right to confiscate it for the benefit of the public at whose expense it must have been acquired. The party advocating these ideas rapidly came into power and proceeded to put their views into practice. It was found after much discussion and some experimenting that people would not work and do their best unless they were paid better for their best than for their worst. The experiment of making the state the buyer and wholesale seller of all articles that could be made the subjects of combines and trusts was found to work well. The state did not at first undertake to manufacture or produce anything, but monopolized its transfer from producer to consumer. For example the producers of anthracite coal were required to sell their product to the government, and it was unlawful for them to sell to anyone else. The price of mining, handling and transportation and the selling rate were each fixed by a board of arbitration and remained fixed till the conditions changed. There was no such thing as striking among the hands, for if they were dissatisfied all they could do was to leave and allow others to take their places. If no others were willing to do the work it was an indication that the rate was too low and the board of arbitration raised it. It had been settled before this that the mine owner had no royalty rights. These were regarded as the property of the state. So if the mine owners attempted to combine to raise the price to the state or from perverseness refused to furnish the amount required their properties were placed by the state in the hands of receivers to be worked till such time as the matters in dispute were regulated.

“Other mining industries, and the production of coal-oil, sugar and other articles capable of control by trusts, were regulated and handled in similar manner by the state. As to railroad, telegraph and express properties, they all passed into direct government ownership before the middle of the twentieth century.”

The Professor pausing here for a moment to shift his profile, I ventured to say that I had in my day anticipated this move on the part of the government, but many people had been unable to see how it could be carried into effect without simple confiscation, because they said it would bankrupt the country to buy the roads etc., and pay their value for them.

“There was no difficulty at all in the matter,” the Professor continued, “the owners of the roads received for them all they were worth, and yet they did not cost the country a dollar. First the government had the roads appraised on a capitalized basis, in which account was taken of the actual value in cash of the property as it stood regardless of the amount of stock and bonds outstanding against it. Next, account was taken of its power to earn money.

“The government now provided for the issue of consolidated railway bonds guaranteed by the government. These all bore the same rate of interest, three per cent payable annually. They were in five series, due in 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 years respectively, an equal amount of each. They were in denominations of $20.00, $50.00, $100.00, and $1,000, with coupons for the interest attached, the lower denominations payable at the earlier dates.

“These bonds were issued in exchange for the railway securities on the following terms. Bonds at their face value were allotted to each road to the amount of its estimated cash value, plus its net earnings for that one year next preceding the passage of the act of purchase. Many roads earned only enough to pay their running expenses, and these received only the amount of their appraised valuation. For the purpose of the distribution of the allotment of the purchase bonds to the holders of the railway securities in any given case, account was taken of the market quotations of the several sorts of stocks and bonds at a date one year previous to the act of purchase, and the value of each person’s holding thus ascertained. Then the purchase bonds were distributed to the individuals pro rata to these values. When seven-tenths in interest of the proprietors of any road accepted the terms of the government purchase the other three-tenths were obliged to accede or lose their interests.

“A few roads held out for a short time, but after the ice was broken they all at once became eager to transfer their properties to the government. The railway consols at once became popular and were rated above par, the government guaranty making them in reality national bonds. A new cabinet office—secretary of transportation—was created. All the employes on the roads from the superintendents of transportation down, held their places under civil service rules, and this branch of the administration never came under political conditions, but was managed upon strictly business principles like the post office. The income from the roads, from the very first year not only paid the interest on the railroad consols, but yielded a handsome surplus that was annually laid aside in safe investments to serve as a sinking fund for the redemption and cancellation of the bonds as they should mature. Before the end of the twentieth century one-half of these bonds had been retired and great reductions had been made in passenger and freight rates and the service had vastly improved over what it was in your day. Strikes, freight and passenger rate wars with their terrific waste and demoralization of business were things of the long past. Many other leaks of railway earnings were stopped when the roads became the property of the government. Many small pieces of road became consolidated under one superintendence; hordes of directors, presidents, vice presidents, general managers, general agents, solicitors of business and other officials were dispensed with; many of whom under the former regime, not only drew salaries for supposed services, but absorbed besides in various mysterious ways, vast wealth that of right should have gone to the stockholders.

(The above figures I have worked out to accord with the Professor’s suggestions—as he did not give details. I have put the average value of the roads at $45,000 per mile which is much more than it would cost to replace them.)

“I suppose,” said I, “that these bonds, especially those of the lower denominations would circulate to some extent as currency.”

“They did, and those of the $1,000 denomination were used as the basis of paper currency. But now at the close of the twentieth century over half of these bonds have been retired and the currency based upon them withdrawn. The railroad, telegraph, transportation, express, and car companies have all disappeared and the entire business is conducted by the general government. All of the roads will soon have been entirely paid for and the rates for the transportation of passengers, goods and messages are reduced almost to actual cost of the service including wear and tear. You would doubtless be surprised by the schedule of prices. For example, passenger rates for ten miles or under three cents, 20 miles five cents, 50 miles ten cents, 100 miles fifteen cents, 200 miles 25 cents, 500 miles 50 cents and greater distances at the same rate provided it is a continuous ride in the same train.”

“In my time,” said I, “electricity was being introduced as the motive power on railways. Did it prove successful?”

“It did, eminently so, and entirely superseded steam locomotion, although steam stationary engines were used principally, throughout the century. But when we come to look forward into the twenty-first century, we shall find some remarkable changes. But we have not reached that yet.”

“I am curious to know how the currency question was settled. After the retirement of the railway consols, I suppose they fell back on gold or paper based on it, did they?”

“The use of gold and silver money was never discontinued entirely, and both were coined. Near the close of last century, the free coinage of silver was strongly demanded by the people and strongly opposed by the financiers. Finally they compromised. The government gave up the task of maintaining the parity of the metals at any ratio, but coined both.

“The silver “dollar” with its fractions, half quarter and dime was coined in quantities to accommodate the business. Silver was made a legal tender for limited amounts. This gave silver the character of “fiat money,” or money that is legal and current at inflated values. They made gold the standard of value. In this they were right. There could logically be only one unit of value. But the debtor class strenuously opposed the plan. They said it worked great injustice to them, because their debts were contracted at times when money bore inflated values; when for example silver was intrinsically worth only half as much as gold. These debts were therefore now payable in money twice as valuable and twice as hard to get as that for which they had gone into debt. In other words they paid back twice as much as they fairly owed and the creditor received twice as much as he fairly loaned. There can be no doubt this is true of debts of long standing. But most debts were not affected materially by the rise in the value of gold, because they were not contracted at its bottom value, but at various grades of value while it was on the ascending movement. However as long as it was rising the creditor class was reaping an unjust advantage over the debtors. The government issued bank notes; some based on silver and some on gold; each kind redeemable in the metal on which it was based. The quantity of this paper money was regulated by the national legislature so as to insure a circulation in proportion to the volume of business. The extended use of bank checks has furnished a substitute for or supplement to the currency. When the currency question was finally felt to be settled, the conditions were practically accepted and the producing class was set to work, and in an incredibly short time, replaced the wealth that had been abstracted from them and more. Then came an era of speculation and the scattering of wealth. Obligations rashly incurred in flush times, had to be met when times became tight. This led to panics and the whole routine had to be repeated about so often. But panics could not be entirely eliminated by doctoring the currency, because currency is not the only factor. No matter how much currency a man has, he is not likely to buy articles he does not want. If mechanics have spent their time in the production of something the public do not require or a surplus of what they do ordinarily require, there will be difficulty in disposing of the product. If two classes of mechanics each make things with the expectation of selling them to the other class, and they turn out to be such things as are not wanted in either case, there is sure to be stagnation of exchange and consequent suffering. Where all are working in ignorance of the requirements of others there are sure to be produced many things for which there will be no demand. This had been partially recognized by the government in your day and commissioners were appointed to collect statistics and make estimates in regard to the production of and probable demand for certain farm products. As the government became more intimately the servant of the people its services in this direction were greatly extended and inquiries covered many other departments beside that of farming. The government itself became a large consumer in operating its railroads, telegraphs, etc. Additional mileage had to be constructed to meet the growing business besides the renewals on account of wear and tear. By the publication in advance of the probable demands on the various sorts of industry it became possible to estimate approximately what amount of and what kind of product could be disposed of. A still more fruitful source of financial trouble was to be found in the spirit of recklessness and extravagance with which people spent their money when times were prosperous or booming. It seemed so easy then to get money and to pay debts that many thought it hardly worth while to do it, if there appeared a chance for a profitable speculation, and so instead of paying old debts they were very likely to incur fresh ones. But as the state became more and more involved in business affairs, it was able to advise what products would be in demand, when it was advisable to use caution and economy and when activity would be rewarded. The functions of the state as a medium of exchange between the producer and the consumer became rapidly extended, and before the close of the century it became the chief and in many things the only buyer and seller of the products in most common use, as well as the sole factor in all monopolies and in banking, insurance, and public amusements. It had not yet gone into manufacturing or farming except to the extent necessary to prevent combinations and private monopolies.”

“I think I can see the advantage of this,” said I, “they probably held to the principle that competition is necessary to keep men up to their best in exertion and industry.”

“That is correct,” he replied, “until work becomes an instinct it is necessary to stimulate exertion by the better rewards that extra industry can procure. The socialists in your day proposed no plan that calculated sufficiently upon the selfishness of the individual. They expected that everybody would accept the position assigned to him and work faithfully for the good of all. But it was too soon to expect this. Your race is very young. It is not so long since your ancestors ceased to depend on the spontaneous productions of the earth for their sustenance, and began to supplement them by their own exertions. With some of your races work is beginning to be instinctive, but there are yet enough in every nation, who, by their hereditary aversion to exertion are ready to shirk out of labor and make the burden of the instinctively industrious intolerable. Your race is too young yet, here at the close of the twentieth century, to take on the purely instinctive socialistic conditions as we Lunarians have them.”

“You think then that socialism to be successful must be instinctive as it is with the bees?”

“To be permanently successful it must be founded upon such an instinct for industry, that makes it more agreeable for a person to work, than to be idle, or to be merely amused. That is, the individual must love work for the sake of the work rather than for the reward that is to come after it. It is indeed true that only the stimulation of the reward at the end could ever have created or kept up the habit of work until it became instinctive, and it is true that if this reward at the end should habitually cease to be realized to at least some degree, the instinct for the work would in course of time become undone—unwound as we might say. The expectation of the reward if it is as constant as the work, would naturally become a part of the instinct. But there are often disappointments as to the reward, while the work itself remains constant, so that this part of the instinct learns to be satisfied with smaller and smaller results until finally the necessaries of painless existence in which the working apparatus is kept in proper operating order are all the reward that the instinct requires.”

“Then,” said I, “in this supreme ideal of socialistic instinct, I understand you, that the individual lays aside all expectation of personal enjoyment, or the possession of anything in the way of luxuries or superfluities. It seems to me such an existence must be a very narrow one.”

“The possession of superfluities,” said he, “does not contribute at all to enjoyment of life. That is why they are superfluities. A luxury, however, is something that gives or is supposed to give unaccustomed pleasure, and it presupposes conditions or times in the ordinary life of the individual in which he fails to get perfect returns of happiness or satisfaction. But suppose there are no such times or conditions, and that he has no possible desire that his habitual work does not satisfy. Then his work is his luxury and no diversion to any unaccustomed function would procure so great a luxury. As to such existence being narrow, it all depends on the breadth of the work. If the work is circumscribed, the life is narrow. If the work is wide, diversified and complicated, then so is the life, whether it be accompanied by the elements of contingency and uncertainty of mind as with you or the assurance of settled and triumphant success as with us.

“All the same however true socialistic conditions are not realized to a nearly perfect degree up to this close of the twentieth century, although the advance toward them has been what the conservatives of your day would have regarded as alarming. In all cases where honest competition in the production of anything can be maintained, it is the policy of government to refrain from interference; but if the articles produced are necessary to consumers or are required as materials in the production of other goods that are, and the manufacturers of such things form trusts or combinations for the purpose of increasing the price, the government appoints receivers for such business and has it operated long enough to ascertain the cost of producing the article. The price is then fixed by the government.”

“But what if the parties decline to sell at the prices fixed by the state?”

“They do not decline unless they want to go out of business,” he replied, “because when the state interferes in such cases it amounts to notice to the parties that the state is ready, as an alternative, to undertake the business itself, when it speedily destroys extortion by furnishing the required product at a fair price.”

“It would seem then,” said I, “that the state has become a large factor in the business of the country, and there has been a great centralization of power.”

“That is true,” he answered, “there has been a remarkable evolution and yet a perfectly natural and logical one. The very first principle on which a state is organized is the defense and protection of all—the weaker as well as the stronger members—against a common external foe. The second principle which is easily derivable from the first is the protection of the members of the society from each other. Under this principle the weaker will be protected from the stronger, first in his person, second in his property. It was the theory of many in all former times that the functions of the state ought to end there. Some said, that to go any further would contravene the wholesome natural law of selection, and interfere against the survival of the fittest. Nature left to herself, would put down and finally exterminate the weakest of the race mentally and physically, leaving always the strongest and best to survive, and so constantly improve the race. But if that consideration were to prevail there should never have been any protective organization of tribes and states in the first place. If when a community were attacked each individual ran away or hid as best he could, the enemy would catch and destroy the less swift and strong and the less shrewd and wary, and so select the best for survival. But under the organization, they stand together, and if the enemy is beaten off, the weak and inferior members are saved with the best. The only consideration on which this is right must be that the weaker members of the society are worth more to the state than they cost, and therefore to the extent that they are protected by the organization they are selected by nature in this roundabout way for survival, for the benefit of the state.

“The further defense of the weak against the strong within the social organization, must be on the same principle. And this principle having been admitted there is no logical end to it short of protection against every advantage the strong or the superior or the more wary can possibly take or attempt. In a civilized society the oppression of the weak is no longer so much from personal violence or robbery, but it takes the more subtle form of absorbing their wealth under forms of law and business formulas, so that in such a society the weak and unwary are valuable to produce wealth, but are robbed of it, practically by a few.

“If the state would get the benefit of the exertions of its members, it must protect them from these depredations, whether they are perpetrated under the forms of highway robbery or of the laws of trade. In short the protection of the individual by the state cannot logically terminate till it prevents everyone from acquiring property he has not earned and rendered a fair equivalent for.”

“Then ought it not also to protect society against the extortions of anyone who would compel it to pay too much for something he alone could produce?”

“Of course that is included in the first.”

“Well then, does not that imply also that the state shall insure a fair return for the work of every individual to himself?”

“No,” said he, “that does not follow, unless the individual performs such work as the community wants. If a man is free to do as he likes, and he must be, he may sometimes choose to do something of no use to anyone else. Then of course no one else should be obliged to take the useless thing and pay for it. But if a man has nothing to do, the state should upon his application furnish him employment and pay him for his work when done under instructions.”

CHAPTER VII.
Women’s Rights.

“I suppose there has been a change in the position of women since my day?”

“In politics and in business, there is now no distinction on account of sex. A woman may be president or governor of a state, a senator or judge. Women are to be found in every department of business, and are fully as successful as the men. This materially disturbed the organization of the family, as it was before your time. The man was then the legal and often the actual head of the family, and both the wife and the children were supposed to be under his authority within certain limits. But as the sphere of woman extended and she became better educated, she soon passed the condition in which she was content to be subordinate to the man. She insisted upon and of course secured a position of equality as to legal rights and equal authority in the family. In your day the principal occupation of women was in domestic life, keeping the house and rearing the children. As women became interested in wider activities, many of them began to seek ways of avoiding family cares. Co-operative house-keeping was tried in many cases, kindergartens taking charge of the children.

“The state had for a long time asserted an interest in the education of children, first providing the means of education, then making it compulsory. Finding that some were kept from school from the inability of parents to provide books, the state provided books to those who needed them. Then because the pride of those who accepted this bounty, was wounded by this advertisement of their poverty, it became necessary for the state to furnish books to all children, both of the rich and the poor. Next it was found that want of suitable clothes kept some from school that ought to attend, and so the state commenced to supply school clothes to them and by a similar process of evolution finally came to supply a school uniform to all children. It was also perceived that the interest of the state in the individual did not end when it had taught him the three R’s and the two G’s; in fact it had only fairly begun. It was all important to the state to know whether the child she had educated was going to employ his talents for good or for ill. It was expected he would carve his way and make his living, but if he were not given an opportunity to learn an honest vocation, was it certain that he would not drift into a dishonest one? It was seen to be the duty of the state to see that every youth of both sexes were given such opportunity to learn some trade or occupation. This became the more necessary on account of the trades unions and combinations amongst working men who naturally were anxious to prevent their ranks from being crowded and jealously threw obstacles in the way of apprentices, so the state found it necessary to care for the individual until he had attained the equipment essential for his self support.

“At first the state schools of trades were simply free to all; later they became compulsory, following the experience of the common schools. Scholars in the common school were educated with reference to the trade they fancied, and when they entered the trade school they were on trial for a limited period and were sorted according to their ascertained aptitudes. It became a necessary branch of the supervision of the state to ascertain the proper proportion of workmen required for each branch of business and when this proportion was being seriously disturbed by unequal selection by the scholars themselves, it was restored by state selection on examination according to aptitude.

“So much of the care and education of the youth having thus been assumed by the state, the way was opened for more. It was said that half the people who had children did not know how to bring them up properly; and teachers often complained that the example in bad manners, deportment, language etc., that the children got at home to a great extent neutralized the good lessons in these things they received at school.

“The kindergartens became by almost insensible degrees enlarged in the scope of their functions. At first, as in your day, they were merely stopping places for the children during the day, they going back to their parents to spend the night. As the mothers came to be more and more engrossed in affairs away from home, the kindergartens extended their care over the children, furnishing them their meals, then their lodging, then medical attendance as well as education and amusement, finally assuming all the care and expense of maintaining and rearing them. At first the expense was paid by the parents, but was gradually assumed by the state by degrees till it finally became responsible for all. The advantage of these public nurseries was at first of course most marked in favor of the poorer classes. But as their functions and scope developed, the care and training of the children became more scientific, their powers, tastes and aptitudes were more thoroughly brought out. The wealthier classes at first objected to having their children reared in association with the plebians. But the children of plebians were no longer plebian when removed permanently from the influences of their parent’s homes; and they turned out a larger percentage of successful men and women than those of more comfortable position. In physical and mental ability they were superior, and in morality at least equal to the others. It was seen that these kindergartens were better adapted for the care of children than even the better equipped homes, and they received the patronage of a constantly increasing proportion of the people. At first there was nothing compulsory in this patronage. Parents left their children when it suited them, and took them away when they chose. But after a time this was outgrown. It came gradually to be understood that the state—that is the whole community—was really as much concerned in the destiny of the growing generation as the parents; and it was said that it was better that the children should have the constant care and attention of those intelligently qualified and perfectly equipped, than that their development should be interrupted when the caprice of parents craved them only for pets and playthings. So the selfishness of parents in this respect was gradually outgrown in favor of the more important welfare of the children. But economy as well as sentiment supported this evolution. The cost of caring for the children by the state was vastly less than under the old system, and it no longer fell with such crushing weight on those least able to bear it; for it was notorious that the poor were the most prolific. With the better care they received the mortality amongst the children was greatly reduced and a far greater proportion reached maturity. Another important consideration in the state nursery system was the cultivation of the democratic sentiment amongst the children, and the destruction of exclusiveness and aristocratic ideas and feelings.”

“From what you say,” said I, “it appears that the state has undertaken to take care of the race during their age of helplessness, from infancy to manhood.”

“That is correct,” he answered, “the state takes the child as soon as it is weaned, sometimes before, and keeps and provides for it every day till it is prepared to be selfsupporting. Every one is taught a trade or a profession according to its bent and the demand for services in the several callings, it being the policy of the state to so regulate these things that the value of services is about the same in all callings.”

“Then can a mechanic make as much as a doctor?”

“About the same. As soon as any difference is observed, more are encouraged to enter the calling that tends to the higher pay, and so made to preserve the uniformity.”

“Well, if the state begins when the child is weaned, to take care of it, why should it not begin before—a long time before in fact? For ante-natal influences are often of the most powerful kind; and when they are mischievous, no amount of subsequent education is able to neutralize or rectify them. That was all thought out in my day by the more advanced thinkers.”

“O they have “maternity hospitals” and “Homes for Ladies” and all that sort of things—of course—but what you mean; not yet. That is still in the future—but we shall find it by and by in a way that will surprise you.”

“Well it seems to me, to get even where they are they must have met and solved some rather difficult riddles,” said I. “For example in my day there was a desperate struggle between Protestants and Catholics in regard to the religious education of the children. The Catholics hated the public schools, because they were “godless.” They insisted on having their children brought up in their own faith. They wanted a share of the public money so they could have schools of their own and mix their catechism with the rules of grammar and the rule of three. How did they ever settle this difficulty—or did they settle it?”

“O yes,” he said, “they settled it, or rather it settled itself. At first the Catholics and in some places the Lutherans and other sects of Protestants insisted on maintaining their own schools, kindergartens etc., but the state institutions were so far superior to what these sectarians could furnish, that the laity broke away from the control of their priests in this respect and followed their interests in putting their children under the care of the state. As however the state monopolized more and more of the pupils’ time, it was conceded that if the whole population was not to become “godless,” it would be necessary to allow religion to be taught in these public institutions in some form. So they compromised. The different religious bodies were allowed to hold Sunday schools and classes for religious instruction of the pupils in the creeds professed by their parents. The children were also taken to church according to the same rule. This was at first made compulsory if desired by the parents, but after a time compulsory attendance upon religious instruction was remitted at the age of 12 and the pupils were allowed to choose their religion. This arrangement preserved the proportions of the sects to each other fairly well, but in the meantime there arose conditions that made this preservation of small moment. These were such changes in the spirit and feeling of the members of different churches toward each other, and such a liberalizing of creeds that all were brought together and became not only tolerant, but even cordial toward each other. The schools themselves did more than anything else to bring about this result, for as the older scholars were given their freedom of choice, it gradually became a fashion or fad amongst the pupils and finally a part of the regular curriculum to attend each other’s meetings and interchange ideas and arguments. As the ability grew amongst all, both the young and old, to reason more justly and logically, all sides became less tenacious of the dogmas they found themselves unable to prove. When these were lopped off from the various conflicting creeds their professors found themselves all standing on practically the same platform of facts and plain human duties. The things they differed on were mostly mere hypotheses. They still continued to differ, but no longer regarded their differences of such vital consequence as formerly. It came to be generally admitted as absurd that the future post mortem condition of men should depend on their intellectual convictions regarding unprovable metaphysical theories.”

“Doubtless the bringing together of the children of all creeds and educating them in each others notions had much to do with this liberalizing process; had it not?” I asked.

“It had of course, but the education of the children together, was itself a result of a liberalized public opinion. The fact is the human mind was constantly undergoing a process of expansion and growth. It could no longer be satisfied with the crude and childish notions of former generations, and was outgrowing them as children outgrow the fables of the nursery. Until men got capacity, argument and logic were of no avail. Education in the great facts and discoveries of science and philosophy gave them capacity.”

“From what you say, I should suppose there has been a great modification of creeds?”

“There has been. No church remains the same either in theory or practice that it was in your day. Several of the minor protestant sects have entirely disappeared.