It is believed by scientists that the planet Mars may be striving
at this moment to communicate with us. Lines of light are seen
on her surface--on the border of that part of Mars known as Lake
Iscarie--and men of learning believe that the Martians are trying
to signal our earth.
Possibly they are trying.
Of this you may be sure: Sooner or later we shall communicate
with all the planets, and perhaps through the giant sun receive
news of outside solar systems.
We have lived comparatively but a few hours on this earth. The
civilization on Mars is millions of years older than our own.
Although we are still primitive savages, we have done wonders
already.
We can talk instantaneously with a Chinese sitting cross-legged
on the under (or upper) side of our earth. We can send a message
around the earth in a few seconds.
Of course we shall talk to Mars as soon as we get out of our
cradle down here.
Look into an ordinary cradle where a week-old baby lies nursing
his wrath or trying to talk to his toe. There are around him
eighty millions of other human beings--fourteen hundred
millions if you count all on earth--and he, the baby, cannot say
one word to any of them. He does not even know his own mother.
Like humanity on this earth, he is busy growing up. He has not
had time to spread out and get an interest in his surroundings.
His liver must get small--at the end of his milk diet. His legs
must get straight and strong. He must learn to creep and walk.
After a period as extensive in his life as a thousand centuries
in the life of the race, he begins to talk to those about him.
We do not believe that the time has yet come for us to talk to
the Martians, or to the inhabitants of any other older planet.
They may possibly be signalling to us up there, as a man
inexperienced will signal to a new-born baby or even try to make
it understand what he says.
It is probable, however, that Mars, far advanced in science, as
superior to us as we are to new-born infants, would use the light
only to attract our interest and let us know that when the time
comes we have an old brother planet anxious to chat with this
baby earth.
It will be most interesting when the talking time does come. The
men who have lived, studied, experimented millions of years ahead
of us will be able to tell us many things that we need to know.
Like the baby in the cradle, we are compelled now to discover
everything for ourselves. Our old brother Mars, as soon as we
can understand, may help us to take giant steps forward, just as
a younger brother, as soon as he can speak, is taught by his
elder in one of our families. ----
It will be interesting, also, to observe how we shall probably
reject the good advice given us, as the young person here rejects
the words of experience.
Suppose we could talk to Mars, and suppose the wise old people up
there should tell us that millions of years of experience had
made clear the fact that making money is a foolish occupation.
How many of us would cease striving for money? The very
scientist giving us the message would patent his interstellar
talking process and die happy with a huge fortune.
How cheerful also will it be a million or so years hence! We
shall then be like a very young child among the planets. Two of
the older worlds will be talking, and we shall be permitted to
listen, but not to interrupt.
We shall hear questions put as to our origin and destiny.
We know now that the sun, flying through space, is dragging us
toward some unknown spot in the universe. Our older brothers in
space will have definite ideas as to where we are going and
why we are going there.
It will be interesting to follow their speculations, and
occasionally, if permitted, to offer our feeble little ideas, as
the smart boy occasionally speaks up before his elders.
Our future as one of a family of planets freely communicating
with each other cannot be doubted.
He must have a dull imagination who believes that the eternal Law
regulating matters here has put such limits to our possible
development as would shut us out from a share in the big solar
family life to which we belong.
THE GOOD THAT IS DONE BY THE TRUSTS
THE MAMMOTH MADE OUR FIRST PATHS THROUGH THE FOREST
Every big movement in this world in some way or other does solid
good in the long run, however irritating it may be before it is
understood.
The saddest period in a child's life is undoubtedly the period of
teething. If you saw a baby for the first time and didn't
understand that period, you would denounce the cruelty which
inflamed its gums, upset its digestion, kept it awake, condemned
it to incessant torture. But we all know that a full set of
teeth under the control of the child is to reward the suffering
of teething, and this reconciles us to the teething age.
We tell you--and we don't want you to forget this--that all the
trust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us
constitute a teething process through which we must pass. The
result will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and
controlled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the
teething baby. ----
You will realize that individuals must at first do that which
nations do later.
The despotic, irresponsible rule of the savage chief, of the
able individual fighter, was a forerunner of the present system
of government.
We have now taken the governing power from the individual,
bestowing it on the whole people, but at first we had to have our
Attilas, our Napoleons and Alexanders. ----
As individual control of the government has been superseded by
collective control, so individual control of industries will be
followed by collective control. That is the natural order.
Why does not the government take full charge at once?
Why does not the hen lay a hen all covered with feathers, instead
of laying an egg? Everything must have its crude beginning and
its perfect ending, for on this basis we are organized.
The French government to-day makes millions from the national
control of the match industry. But a solitary individual working
in Batavia, New York State, had to create the match and make his
little money out of it before the French government could take it
and make its millions.
That same French government derives millions from its tobacco
business, incidentally giving the people good tobacco cheap
instead of poisonous tobacco dear. The red Indian dodging bears
and using his squaws as slaves had to start that great tobacco
industry before the French government could get it.
Don't waste your time and energy joining the thoughtless crowd
that howls against trusts. Use your vote and your voice to put
those trusts under government control as soon as may be. Be glad
that an old Vanderbilt had brains enough to build great railroad
systems. Don't denounce him or begrudge him the fortune he made.
His work was worth the money.
Let us say to his little descendants the pee wee Vanderbilts of
to-day:
"You have had enough now. Although you have done nothing,
we shall pay you generously for what your great-grandfather
did, and with your kind permission, or without it, we shall
transfer these roads to the people whose patronage gives
them value." ----
In due time this pleasant message of just appropriation will be
delivered to all the various trust owners. They will all be well
paid for their work. They deserve to be, for they have done as
individuals the work which the collective commonwealth could not
do.
But they will be made to see that they cannot forever keep what
they have created. If a man invents a steam engine worth to the
world at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his
property only seventeen years, under our patent laws. Shall we
allow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep
the proceeds of his energy for himself and his descendants
forever? ----
We had almost forgotten the mammoth mentioned at the top of this
article. That mammoth, dead and forgotten, is the forerunner of
to-day's trust. The mammoth was hated by all created things
around him. An accidental blow from his left hind foot would
break up any family in existence.
But his vast weight and power ploughed the first paths through
the swamps and forests. The paths made by the mammoth through
unexplored tracts were a great boon to half-savage man. In fact,
man followed along those paths after awhile and learned how to
kill the mammoth very neatly.
The trusts are marking out organized paths through the hitherto
chaotic, disorganized systems of industry. Those paths will be
useful to all men through all time. The trust will be killed
when his day comes, as the mammoth has been killed.
Let us be patient meanwhile, and not forget that, though a
monster, he was a monster absolutely necessary and very useful.