THINK OF IT! WHY NOT?
Edestone, in the meantime, through Sir Egbert Graves, had communicated
with the King of England, politely calling His Majesty’s attention to
what he was doing, and begging that he would call upon his Allies to
stop all hostilities, and intimating that the same treatment would be
meted out to any who declined to comply with His Majesty’s request.
He also suggested that it was his sincere hope that His Majesty would
call to a conference the representatives of the nations of Europe to
discuss the settling of all questions that had caused the war, or had
grown out of it, as well as the possible methods of securing for the
world perpetual peace.
He stated that he would put at His Majesty’s disposal the Little Peace
Maker if it were necessary in order to accomplish this.
He intimated that, if it were perpetual peace that was sought, much time
and many lives would be saved if all would, of their own accord, each
for himself, do what he was doing for Germany as fast as possible,
namely, destroy all ships and implements of war.
This raised a storm of protest, and international notes burned the ether
of space as they flashed back and forth. Even the United States entered
the controversy, seeming to have at last found something sufficiently
threatening to her interests and insulting to her dignity to cause her
to take her place with the other nations of the world.
Edestone was inundated with communications from the different nations,
drawn in the most bombastic manner; for although they must have by this
time realized that they were absolutely in his power, they were unable
to set aside the boastful method of addressing their fellow-men which
they had inherited from their savage ancestors, who, standing half-naked
around the council fire, tried by this method to throw terror into the
hearts of their listeners.
To all this he made but one reply, which was that nations which came
together for the purpose of sincerely discussing universal peace must
come absolutely unarmed, and those who refused so to do should be
disarmed by force. When these protests finally took the form of an
approaching coalition of the nations of the earth for the purpose of his
destruction, his answer was to take possession quietly of two or three
of the largest plants in Europe, which he forced to run to replenish the
Little Peace Maker with munitions of war.
After a diplomatic correspondence had gone on, extending over several
weeks, and Edestone had punctuated his demands with an occasional
sinking of a battleship or destruction of a powder plant belonging to
the nations who stood out against him, after he had visited all of the
principal capitals, and representatives of the Governments had come on
board to discuss with him, his terms were finally agreed upon, and the
date for this great meeting was fixed. He declined to negotiate with
any, other than the absolute heads of the respective Governments, and
after much discussion all precedent was set aside, and it was agreed
that the conference should be held on board of the Little Peace
Maker. Franz Josef I., Emperor of Austria; Wilhelm II., Emperor of
Germany; George V., King of England; Nicholas II., Czar of Russia; the
President of the French Republic; Mr. Cockadoo of the United States of
America, together with a company of lesser lights, all with suites in
keeping with their rank, were there received and entertained by him.
Lawrence, accepting the position of Room Clerk, took great pride and
pleasure in seeing that everyone was properly installed. This was not,
however, his official position, as Edestone had turned over to him the
task of answering the great volume of communications that he had
received from amateurs, fanatics, ladies, and criminals, and it devolved
upon him to answer these and also to provide for the entertainment of
the representatives of the Anarchists, Socialists, Organized Labour, and
Suffragettes.
To the Anarchists, in answer to their inquiries as to where they were
now to obtain their explosives with which to continue their campaigns in
the future, and without the use of which they could secure for their
arguments no attention, he made no reply.
To the Socialists, he said that the best that he could do for them was
to provide an overflow meeting at the foot of the stairs; the Emperor of
Germany had refused to sit down with the traitors, as he called them,
and for once Edestone agreed with the Imperial contention. There,
Lawrence assured them, their point of view would be given serious
consideration; in fact, he himself expected to have the great honour
of addressing them and the Prohibitionists, the Anti-Vivisectionists,
the Cubists, the Futurists, the Post-Impressionists, and the Reds.
To Organized Labour, Edestone wrote that he would represent their
cause. Descended as he was from a long line of honest labouring men, who
had succeeded without the assistance of an organization of lazy and
inefficient ones combined under dishonest leaders, he assured them that
he would insist upon their rights, and that under the new regime,
honesty, efficiency, and sense of responsibility to those who employed
them would be recognized and rewarded in a manner beyond their wildest
dreams. This could not, however, be accomplished, he said, except by
forcing the dishonest, lazy, and inefficient into their rightful
position, that of a worthless by-product in this great world of
recognition of true merit.
To the Suffragettes, Lawrence extended a most cordial invitation, but
stipulated that no representative would be received who had not borne
and raised twelve children, or were willing to appear at the meeting
without their hats, with hair cropped close to the head.
The date selected by Edestone was the Fourth day of July; the place, in
order to offend no one, was the beautiful valley of St. Nicholas in the
neutral country of the Swiss, and the Little Peace Maker, painted and
polished, was floating about twenty-five feet from the ground. About
one-quarter of her length from her stern, leading from an opening in her
bottom, ran a great flight of stairs which rested on a platform at their
foot. This was constructed in a manner similar to the cradle upon which
she was seen to rest by the King of England and his Cabinet. In this
manner she was connected with the earth but absolutely insulated.
To reach this platform one had to walk up four or five steps, which were
made of hard rubber, over which was laid a thick red velvet carpet,
which continued across the platform and up this most impressive flight
of stairs and disappeared into the opening in the Little Peace Maker.
Bands were playing, children were laughing, but not one soldier was to
be seen.
The Royalties, as they arrived, were received at the foot of the stairs
by Edestone and conducted to their apartments where, surrounded by their
secretaries and servants, they might live entirely alone, or could, if
they desired to do so, mingle with the rest of the distinguished
company.
When the great day arrived, and these Royal Potentates were seated in
their places, which had been arranged with great consideration for their
extreme sensitiveness on the subject of precedent, an exact science,
Edestone, dressed in his simple yachting costume, walked slowly up
through the aisle, on either side of which were seated Royalties, each
in his favourite uniform of ceremony, soon to become as old-fashioned as
the tattooing on a savage’s face. With perfect composure and
self-possession he took his place as Chairman of the Board and called
the meeting to order.
Then in a perfectly businesslike manner he explained the object of the
meeting, which he did with the greatest consideration for his
distinguished listeners, but there was in his voice a ring of
confidence, which they all knew was due to the fact that the suggestions
that he made would certainly be put into effect, and whereas they came
to discuss, they remained to agree.
He first briefly outlined the Utopian condition of the world as it would
be after his first suggestion had been carried into effect, and all
arms, ammunition, ships of war, and all destructive agencies had been
destroyed.
He then laid down some new principles and relegated some of the old to
the scrap-heap.
He scoffed at the theory of majority rule, equality of man, and
perpetual peace through brotherly love.
Why should the majority rule, if the minority were more intelligent?
Why should all men be considered equal in intelligence, if not in weight
and height?
Why should dried-up old women be able to do something that young men, in
their full health and strength, had been unable to accomplish?
He then established a very limited ruling class, which he called, for
the lack of a better name, the Aristocracy of Intelligence, over which
he placed a head with absolute power, backed with sufficient force to
see that its wishes were carried out.
He then finally laid before them the plan of administration which he
proposed, which was that the entire world should be run by a Board of
Directors, of which, for the present, he sincerely hoped that they would
allow him to hold the humbler position of Chairman, while the President
and glorious head should be selected from some of the distinguished
monarchs within the sound of his voice.
He then very diplomatically explained that the form of government would
be based upon the administration of the great corporations of America,
which was his extremely polite method of informing them that the
Chairman of the Board was the power, and the President was but the icing
on the cake.
He stated that history taught them that all wars had come about on
account of three things: Race, Religion, and Riches.
He suggested that the Race problem might be entirely solved by
segregating the races of the world, and giving over to them a portion of
the earth sufficiently large to support them in comfort in the climate
and surroundings to which they were accustomed, in which section they
should speak their own language, and were entitled to indulge in their
own forms of religion, customs, and superstitions, and there and there
alone they were supreme, and then only on matters of the administration
of their own allotment of the earth, but were subject absolutely and
entirely to the ruling of the Board of Directors as to their
international policies.
The title of the portion of the world allotted to them was based not
upon the claims of any barbarian of antiquity, fanatic of the Middle
Ages, or the war lords of modern times, but upon the decision of the
Board of Directors, which would annul all previous titles and be final
and irrevocable.
If at any time any one or group of these left the portion of the earth
to which they had been restricted, they lost all of their rights as
citizens of the world, and while visiting the other sections must bow
absolutely to the will of those whose hospitality they were accepting.
In the case of those nations who had no home, and who had been parasites
on the nations of the earth for thousands of years, it was proposed that
they purchase from the country now holding the cradle of their birth a
home sufficiently large to accommodate their ever-increasing numbers
under the hygienic and healthful condition of the countries which they
swarmed.
Religion, he said, which had for so many years been the cause of wars
and tumults, numbered by actual count up into the thousands, were in his
opinion sufficient in number to satisfy all who were not wishing for
personal aggrandizement or accumulation of wealth to create
others. Therefore, he stated, that all religions which had been
established up to the beginning of the nineteenth century might be
allowed to continue, but all others, being drawn on rather too
scientific and financial lines, were to be eliminated.
Coming to the last, and, as he expressed it, the cause of the present
war, namely, Riches, he showed that in the new form of government
competition would be eliminated, the interest of the whole being
controlled by one head with power to police, and greater profits to all
would accrue by the elimination of waste of time and money and by the
efficiency of a single administration.
He then suggested that a grand and international festival be held, at
which the combined fleets of the entire world be gathered together in
the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and there, as a bond of good faith of
all, in the midst of universal rejoicing, they should be consigned to
the bottomless depths of absolute and eternal darkness.
In the meantime, Lawrence was addressing an assemblage of Reds,
I. W. W.’s, Prohibitionists, and other thoughtful members of society. To
these he was serving grape juice and patent medicines. The percentage
of alcohol in these beverages quieted the nerves of most, but rendered
the Prohibitionists quite hilarious. They listened with much attention
and applauded violently the scheme which he outlined before them.
“You should be allowed,” he said, “to settle in the middle of the Desert
of Sahara, where you could all live in beautiful glass houses, and where
the soil produces no stones of a throwable size. There will be no
saloons there, clubs or dinner parties, but drugstores with their
alluring lights will decorate every corner. There with your palates
parching with pain your motto should be ‘Speak Easy’ for the sake of the
Cause. The lives of the inhabitants will be regulated by priestesses and
preachers, and to them will be submitted the most intimate affairs of
the family. Yours will be a maternal government; to each member of every
family the Government will daily, after taking the temperature, issue
canton flannel underclothes of the proper weight to be worn during the
day. Alarm clocks set by the Government will be issued to all. Your
food, your cooking, and your babies--if you have any, and God grant that
you may not in such a dry place!--will all be according to the canons of
your religion. Should you at any time find that the inhabitants are
drying up and blowing away, you can recruit from the malcontents of
other portions of the globe.”
With the Anti-Vivisectionists he was most sympathetic. “Ladies and
cranks,” he said. “I, too, am very fond of dogs, but as it is absolutely
necessary for the progress of science to make experiments upon living
subjects, I call upon you to volunteer for this work for all portions of
the body except the brain; for that portion I am creditably informed
that the doctors would prefer to use wood pulp.”
This was received with violent protestations of disapproval by the
Cubists, the Futurists, and the Post-Impressionists, who claimed that
this was entirely unnecessary, as they were able in their pictures to
reveal the most secret workings of the brain, and that upon their
canvases they laid bare for the study of the scientific world all that
it was necessary for it to know.
To the representatives of the Allied A.M.L.Q. American Architects, he
expressed his most sincere thanks for the kind expression of their
approval and offer of assistance, and in recognition of their
co-operation, he gave them entire charge of the competition for the
laying out and decorating, with befitting whirlwind monuments, hot air
fountains, and castles in the air, the great Edestone aerial highway
which was to encircle the globe.
Aloft Edestone, on the other hand, was having more trouble with his
audience, for his speech when finished was received with loud
protestations of disapproval, rendered in the most kingly and imperial
manner by this group of cousins, first cousins, double first cousins,
and half-brothers. Fortunately, however, for the welfare of the great
mass of the people of the world, they were well represented by the
strong, serious, and intelligent-looking men who sat at the elbow
of this consanguineous group, some of whom had by a process of
intermarrying degenerated into mere effigies of the strong men from
whom they were descended. These powers behind the tottering thrones
of Europe realized and bowed before the inevitable.
FINIS