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THE STORY OF THE WORLD A THOUSAND YEARS
HENCE
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CHAPTER I
FORETELLING THE FUTURE
IN this unique “Story of the World a Thousand Years Hence,” I shall
endeavor to show by simple words and attractive illustrations how our
much advanced posterity a thousand years hence will likely think, live,
work, play, educate, court, dress, mate, cook, eat, drink, co-operate,
raise and train children, build, pave, farm, manufacture, communicate,
travel, invent, and do many other things too numerous to mention in a
brief forecast of a thousand years.
Foretelling the Future from the experiences of the Past is not such a
difficult feat for a competent Sociologist as many seem to think.
Prevision, looking into the future, is the only way that we can make use
of our education. That is what the Astronomer does when he predicts
eclipses; the Electrician when he installs a power station; the
Housewife when she kneads her dough; the Author when he writes a book;
the Farmer when he plows, sows and reaps his field. They all judge the
Future by the experiences of the Past.
This carefully deduced Forecast is, therefore, not intended as a mere
_guess_ or random _prophecy_, but as cautiously formulated deductions
drawn from the known Laws of Progress during the Past, and then extended
a thousand years into the Future. Interpreting the Future by the Past is
thus merely broad GENERALIZATION; a question of intelligent Foresight; a
problem of knowing Natural Laws and their general operation.
GEOLOGIC CHART
(Fig. 1)
[Illustration:
Cenozoic Man
Time Monkey
Mesozoic Horse
Time Bird
Crocodile
Frog
Fish
Bee
Paleozoic Snail
Time Worm
Starfish
Coral
Sponge
Amoeba
Moneron
Archaean Time
This Chart shows a vertical column of stratified, sedimentary rocks
twenty miles thick, with which the earth in an average is covered, and
which required some 130,000,000 years in forming.
]
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II
EVOLUTION
IT behooves us to take an optimistic view of human affairs no matter how
cruel and discordant they may still seem from a present viewpoint. We
are surely marching in the right direction, upward and onward, for every
thoughtful observer is aware that we are living in a _Progressive_
World, a world in which we know more today than we did yesterday, and
will know more tomorrow than we know today, a world of progressive
culture and refinement.
We are all aware that the progress of the world in many directions
during the last thousand years has been remarkable, and we have every
reason to believe, as I shall point out, that the progress of the next
thousand years will vastly outstrip that of any previous ten centuries,
for progress is itself progressing.
As may be seen by the Geologic Chart, Fig. 1, Evolution has already been
busy for millions of ages. In the organic world, it began its
progressive development in accordance with the Law of the Survival of
the Fittest way back of the single cell, and out of it slowly evolved
the Plant and Animal Kingdoms with all their multiplicity of Forms and
Functions with the present man as the crowning model of physical and
mental development so far evolved, and that this Evolution will continue
immeasurably further, there can be no doubt.
Man as a distinct human being has likely existed and slowly developed in
body and mind for more than a million years, so that we are now very
much superior to our primitive ape-like ancestors, and posterity will
also be vastly superior to our present generation.
As the Reader may see by referring to the Geologic Chart, the fossil
remains in their ascending scale are approximately indicated where they
first successively appeared on Earth. There were no worms when the
sponge first appeared, no birds when the fish was the dominant creature,
and no Man when the bird first made its appearance. It required millions
of ages to produce these progressive changes from the one to the other
by the Laws of Slight Variations and the Survival of the Fittest.
We must also bear in mind that every creature from the lowest to the
highest must possess at least so much _mentality_, so much Mind, whether
we call it Instinct or Reason, that it can procure (1) food, (2) some
sort of protection and guidance, and (3) reproduce its kind. With less
Mentality the species would have to become _extinct_. This shows that
Body and Mind of all creatures, including man, work and develop together
for their mutual benefit. If there were no Body to feed, guide and
reproduce, there would seemingly be no use for Mind.
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III
OUTSIDE OWNERSHIP
MOST people, even many posing Economists and Sociologists, seem to think
that human society is necessarily so complex and so discordant that we
can never hope to get it running harmoniously. They say the poor, the
criminal, the courtesan, the profiteer, the superstitious, the gambler,
the drunkard, the thief, the militarist, the scheming politician, the
deceptive diplomat and the stupid, heartless rulers, we have always had
and always will have.
This erroneous idea, I desire to dispel by showing that the introduction
and operation of ideal Civilization is real simple, easy and pleasant
when the right persons use the right things in the right way, and the
higher the civilization the simpler it becomes, as a result of unity of
thought and action. The strife, discord and complexity of human affairs
begin when one individual, group or nation strives to get or control
something from another individual, group or nation by monopoly,
superstition, special privilege or armed force. It is always a question
of non-aggressive self-ownership or aggressive _outside_
ownership—liberty or compulsion.
The strife and discord resulting from outside ownership creep in like
this: The parents want to own and control the child until it is 21.
Later the child objects to this outside ownership for it naturally wants
to own and control itself. Then the battle between the parents and child
begins. In like manner does the teacher claim to own and control the
pupil; the minister the church members; the master his chattel slaves;
the feudal lord his serfs; the employer his employees; the landlord his
tenants; the gods their devotees; the compulsory government its
subjects; and lastly but by no means least as the rapidly increasing
number of divorces plainly indicates, under the give-and-take marriage
regime, the husband claims to partly or wholly own the wife, and the
wife the husband, instead of each owning himself or herself.
In all such cases, the parties thus owned invariably object to this
outside ownership unless the owned are very dull and stupid, and the
more intelligent they become, the stronger grows the objection, for in
the very nature of things, all self-respecting men, women and children
are continually striving for complete SELF-OWNERSHIP instead of some
sort of compulsory _outside_ Ownership, and the same is also true of
Nations.
As civilization advances do we realize more and more that the two great
enemies of mankind are Superstition in its various forms, and Outside
Ownership, that our beliefs should be founded on demonstrable facts, and
that no one is good enough to own and control another; that a home that
has a “head” or a “boss” in it is no longer a fit place for an
intelligent person to live.
We may thus see that reason, justice, liberty and friendly mutuality can
easily remove all sociologic strife and discord, if the right persons
use the right things in the right way, and how this may be done in a
very pleasant and harmonious way forms the interesting story of the
following Forecast. The whole problem is thus a question of further
Education and Culture.
But in order to interpret the future progress correctly, we must always
make our predictions in accordance with the fundamental desires and
wants for which living creatures are ever striving. In the case of Man,
these fundamentals are: That we all naturally desire to be healthy,
strong and handsome, to enjoy the widest range of liberty, abundant
prosperity, a large store of mentality, congenial sociability,
continuous new experiences, interesting discoveries, plenty of leisure
for amusement and recreation and mutual freedom to love and be loved. In
brief, to live the longest, happiest Life, and that we can do only when
we live in harmony with Nature’s Laws which we should all learn to know
and obey to the best of our ability, so as to get the most out of life
worth living for. Evolve our heaven here on earth.
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IV
CITYLESS AND COUNTRYLESS
THE World a Thousand Years Hence will be practically a _cityless_ and
_countryless_ World. The people, instead of living in crowded, noisy,
unhealthy and immoral cities and in lonely, isolated country homes, as
we now do, will then live in social groups on large Landed Estates
(Modern Paradises), where they are surrounded by beautiful flowers, pure
air, fresh water, life-giving vegetation and a host of congenial
Co-operators as equal partners, and all have their daily work in, or
near their homes. There is no longer valid use for the existence of
cities. Formerly when people had to wall themselves in for protection
cities were useful, but that time is long past.
Briefly stated, each group of refined men, women and children
Co-operators lives in a beautiful Co-operative Mansion with public
kitchen, dining room, laundry, nurseries, etc. All the members of the
group are equal partners and co-operate industrially, domestically and
also largely parentally in the way of raising and educating the
children.
Every man, woman and child worker (and every able-bodied person is a
worker), whether married or single, also personally draws his or her own
pay checks for the co-operative labor each performs for the Association
or Co-partnership, whether that labor be industrial, domestic or
exclusively parental.
It is not difficult to see that such harmonious co-operation makes every
man, woman and child free and independent financially, industrially,
socially and parentally, and that each worker under such favorable
conditions of industrial and domestic co-operation can easily produce at
least $10 worth of wealth in a three-hour workday at pleasant
self-employment of his or her own choice. The method of working in
Modern Paradise is highly efficient and remarkably productive, but not
_rushing_ as we now have it under the profit-grabbing wage-system.
Men and women as equal owners work side by side, often as lovers, which
turns work into delightful play. Intelligence, freedom, efficiency and
universal prosperity are combined in the highest conceivable degree in
Modern Paradise as we shall now further explain on the theory that the
easy obtainment of material subsistence is the basic principle of human
welfare and approximate contentment.
CO-OPERATIVE LANDED ESTATE
(Modern Paradise)
(Fig. 2)
[Illustration:
This big Farm is crossed in the center by firmly-paved boulevards. The
white strips on both sides of the boulevards are each a 1,000 feet
wide, for garden, orchard, greenhouse, play-schools, nut-bearing
forest, vine-clad trees, etc. It is the nucleus of Ideal Democracy.
]
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V
CO-OPERATIVE FARMS
THIS large Co-operative Farm (see page 21) on which a group of 500 or
more intelligent men, women and children live and work and play as equal
partners is four miles square and contains about 10,000 acres of fine
land.
The big Farm is crossed in the center by firmly paved boulevards. The
white strips on both sides of the boulevards are each a 1,000 feet wide
for garden, orchard, nut-bearing forest, vine-clad trees and many other
useful and artistic things. There is also a very large greenhouse
covering acres of fertile land with non-breakable glass. This extensive
greenhouse, with its beautiful flowers, rich vegetables and luscious
fruit, keeps the summer right near the home, no matter how the snow
flies and the wind blows outside.
At the boulevard crossing in the center of the big Farm are the four
large buildings: The Co-operative Mansion, in which the 500 or more
Co-operators live. The Model Factory in which they do their
manufacturing. The Universal Warehouse, in which they store their
accumulated wealth of farm, garden, factory, orchard, greenhouse, etc.
The Hydro-Electric Power Station with which they generate cheap
electricity for heating, lighting, cooking, welding, running the
factory, automobiles, trucks, tractors, ships and airplanes.
As we shall see in future paragraphs, in the not distant future, it is
almost certain that we shall discover how to generate abundant
electricity automatically without the use of animal, fuel or water
powers by the direct SOLAR ENERGY constantly streaming in vast
quantities from the Sun to the Earth.
CO-OPERATIVE MANSION
(Fig. 3)
[Illustration:
This Co-operative Mansion is built on a new style of architecture. It
is 400 feet square on the outside and has a 300-foot open court in
the center, which makes every room a _front_ room having large
outside windows. In the winter, it is heated with electricity. In
the summer it is mechanically cooled and every department is
thoroughly ventilated, night and day, winter and summer.
]
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VI
CO-OPERATIVE MANSIONS
THE particular style of Co-operative Mansion shown on the preceding page
is 400 feet square on the outside and has a 300-foot Open Court in the
center. It is six stories high and comfortably accommodates about 100
families or 500 men, women and children, besides ample accommodations
for visitors. The Mansion may, however, be of any size to accommodate a
larger or smaller number of Co-operators.
Part of the Co-operative Mansion is designed for public departments,
such as a cheerful, public, electric kitchen, a beautiful dining room,
an elegant hall or theater for all kinds of plays, concerts, lectures,
movies, indoor prize contests, etc.; a large library, laboratory,
physical and astronomical apparatus, printing and binding outfits,
artistic art and photograph gallery, museum, conservatories, a large
department store, various public parlors, billiard hall, ice and roller
skating rinks, cold storage, the most convenient laundry ever installed,
a first-class restaurant open all day and evening in which members and
visitors can get any kind of meal and have it served in any way; have it
even brought up in anyone’s private room, but a specially prepared meal
in the restaurant always costs much more than a similar meal in the
public dining room where many other like meals are served. If two or
more want a private meal, they can retire to one of the alcoves in the
dining room.
Complete mail, water, elevator and phone systems. Sanitarium, public
nurseries, kindergartens, instruction halls, public conversation rooms,
commercial department and many other conveniences which a progressive
Association might from time to time desire.
Every member from the youngest to the oldest has also a large private
apartment in the Mansion which affords the occupant the most seclusive
privacy when desired. The Mansion is heated with electricity in the
winter and mechanically cooled in the summer with a thorough system of
ventilation, so that the future buildings will have no chimneys; and the
apartments may be made as silent as the tomb, when the occupant wants
complete quiet.
FLOOR IN CO-OPERATIVE MANSION SHOWING
PRIVATE APARTMENTS, ETC.
(Fig. 4)
[Illustration:
(A) is the 300-foot open court; (B) private apartments; (C) 10-foot
halls; (D) public nurseries; (E) public toilets; (F) self-running
elevators; (G) suites of three and five room apartments; (H) large
compartment for five roomers. Everybody can thus easily be
accommodated in the matter of an individual or family home in the
Co-operative Mansion.
]
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VII
FLOOR IN MANSIONS
ALL the apartments of the Co-operative Mansion are elegantly furnished
and equipped with sending and receiving radio sets, private bath and
musical instruments, if the occupant desires them, and every man, woman
and youth does the cleaning and housekeeping of his or her own apartment
which makes for general domestic order and cleanliness. There are
janitors for tending to the Public Departments.
Every man, woman and child has thus a private apartment at which no one
calls personally unless specially invited by the occupant. When the
occupants feel socially inclined, they then either go down to the public
parlors or other public gatherings or they invite congenial friends to
call at their private apartment—their real home. There is also an ample
supply of fine spare rooms and other elegant accommodations for visitors
and sightseers who are permitted to visit a day or two at intervals.
I believe that no habitation has ever before been designed which has so
many elevating influences, so many high-class conveniences and such
interesting and influential sociability as this unique Co-operative
Mansion offers to every one of its inmates whether owner or visitor.
As the Reader will notice, every room is really an _outside_ room having
at least two large outside windows in it. It is, indeed, designed,
built, and operated on the refined principle of complete SELF-OWNERSHIP
IN IDEAL DEMOCRACY; on the basis of health, wealth, freedom and
happiness.
ONE HUNDRED COTTAGE SITES
(Fig. 5)
[Illustration:
This drawing shows how the 500 members _could_ live in 100 family
cottages on large residence lots located around a large public
square instead of all living in one Co-operative Mansion. (A) is the
large square on which the _public_ buildings—store, school, power
station, playgrounds, swimming pool, theater, etc.—could be located;
(B) boulevards; (C) walks; (D) 100 cottage sites; (E) public parks.
The size of the public square would depend on the width of the
residence lots.
]
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VIII
COTTAGE SITES
BY referring to the drawing on page 33, we may see that such a village
mode of living and working as equal owning partners could in most
respects be immensely superior to that of our present co-operation as
employers and employees.
It would entirely dispense with the slums, skyscrapers, wage-system,
exploiting commercialism, isolated country life, and would very largely,
if not entirely, abolish vice and crime, but would fall far short of
producing the same degree of efficiency, comforts, conveniences,
personal liberty, means of education and congenial sociability of the
Co-operative Mansion by a group of refined Co-operators.
The 100 family cottages would have to have 100 kitchens, cookstoves,
refrigerators; dining rooms, cellars, furnaces, parlors, libraries, etc.
In the Co-operative Mansion, there would need to be only one of each of
these.
More than 100 cooks would have to work and drudge in the 100 kitchens.
The cottage life would not only leave women and children as lonely
kitchen, laundry and nursery toilers, but would also leave them
financially dependent on the income and generosity of the man as now. If
the husband dies or spends his income for booze and tobacco or elopes
with another woman, the wife and children are usually in a lonely,
precarious plight. No intelligent woman should any longer be satisfied
with such a lonely, toilsome, precarious method of living and working as
the family cottage inevitably imposes on women and children.
With domestic co-operation, more than seventy-five of the cottage cooks
and housekeepers could enter the fields of productive industries where
they could become free and independent by personally drawing their own
pay checks as equal partners of the association. This domestic
co-operation of the Co-operative Mansion would not only cut the average
workday in two, but would also greatly enhance the health, freedom and
pleasures of cultured life by working side by side as personal friends
or lovers in fine Co-operative Mansions instead of toiling early and
late in family cottages and lonely country homes.
TWELVE ADJOINING MODERN PARADISES
EACH FOUR MILES SQUARE
(Fig. 6)
[Illustration:
The heavy black lines passing through the center of each Paradise
represent firmly-paved highways or boulevards. The four black
squares at each boulevard crossing represent the four large
buildings of each Modern Paradise.
]
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IX
ADJOINING PARADISES
THE sketch on the foregoing page shows how any number of such Modern
Paradises may be harmoniously joined, and that by the addition of every
new one, all would derive far-reaching benefits by reason of further
division of labor, extension of fine boulevards and by expanding the
fields of trade, education, amusements and sociability. The whole
country may in time be so blocked off as more and more of the people get
ready for that higher and more harmonious life.
Instead of having the country platted off into square-mile sections
containing 640 acres and surrounded by usually poor dirt roads as we now
have it, the Modern Paradisers will have the country divided off into
blocks four miles square containing about 10,000 acres, and each crossed
in the center by firmly-paved highways.
I can visualize with my mind’s eye that long before the close of this
Thousand Year Forecast the country will be criss-crossed with
firmly-paved highways, beautifully fringed with orchards, gardens,
lawns, parks, lakes, playgrounds, fountains, play schools, nut-bearing
forest, and at every four-mile boulevard crossing there would be four
artistic buildings where tourists, travelers, sight-seers and freighters
can dine and lodge at cost of production the same as at home. The world
is then run on the basis of mutual SERVICE instead of grasping Profit.
When we live a really civilized life, everybody will then be strong,
healthy, wealthy, free and happy, and all without resorting to
exploitation by profit, interest, rent or taxes.
Under such conditions of universal ownership, all the Modern Paradises
would naturally vie with each other in the matter of producing the
finest and most attractive scenery along their respective boulevards, so
that the passers-by would continually see _new_, beautiful scenes as
they passed along on foot, vehicles or airplanes. Every Modern Paradise
keeps up its own eight miles of boulevards in fine shape.
On these firmly-paved highways, electric automobiles, large busses, and
convenient trucks of all kinds and sizes best suited for the particular
traffic will almost entirely supersede the railroads, street cars and
draught animals. Delightful pleasure and valuable information will then
naturally result from travel and sight-seeing of all kinds.
For a party of congenial friends to tour 10,000 miles in a large
electric bus or other automobiles over firmly paved highways, would then
be a mere incident of frequent occurrence, or for a couple to honeymoon
for a month or two in a fine car when the bride pays her own bills would
naturally be a great pleasure to both; for independence means pleasure
and power.
We may thus see that the present generation has not yet started to
really live an intelligent cultured life, and what will it be a little
later on when we know how to get our Motive Power for driving autos,
trucks and airplanes as well as all other machinery with the direct
power that continually comes from the Sun to the Earth in endless
quantities.
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X
MOTIVE POWER
A GLIMPSE over the History of the Past shows that the Motive Power, the
mechanical energy, which Man uses at different ages for doing his work,
is always a powerful determining factor of advancing Civilization.
The Motive Power so far used by Man has been either _muscular_ or purely
_mechanical_. The Muscular Power manifests itself when men or animals
perform work; the Mechanical, when the steam and gasoline engines, the
water wheel, the windmill and the electric current do work.
But nowhere seems there to be a _creation_ of power or energy, only a
_transformation_, and its original source practically all comes from the
Sun, as we see it in the growth of plants, evaporation of moisture, the
flow of rivers, the movements of animals, the atmospheric breezes, etc.
The Muscular Power of Man or Beast comes from the food they eat, and the
solar energy coming from the Sun causes the plant to grow. In like
manner, does the steam engine derive its power from the fuel—wood, coal
and crude oil—which it uses to heat the water into steam, and this heat
is merely liberated _past_ sunbeams that came to the earth millions of
ages ago. The same is also true of the gasoline engine. So with the
water wheel and the windmill. The Sun evaporates the water into clouds,
and later it again falls as rain or snow which feeds the running rivers
and drives the water wheel. Again, the Sun heats the air unequally in
different localities which causes a breeze, and this wind drives the
windmill. All this is only TRANSMUTATION of one kind of Power into other
kinds, with the Sun as its ultimate source.
The Dynamo is a machine which generates Electricity which may be used
for heating, lighting, welding, cooking, running automobiles, factories,
trains, trucks, ships, tractors, lawn mowers, airplanes, etc.
But the Dynamo merely converts or transforms the energy or power of the
engine or water wheel into the rotating Dynamo which generates the
electric current from the surrounding air.
We may thus see that we are everywhere surrounded by millions of
electric Horse Power which we have already discovered to generate at any
spot on Earth by rapidly rotating a Dynamo, but to make the Dynamo
rotate still requires costly fuel or scarce water power.
But by looking over the progress of the Past, we have every reason to
believe that some genius will, in the not distant future, stumble on to
a method of generating Electric Current in abundance for almost nothing
with some Chemico-Electric Generator automatically operated by the
endless stream of solar energy which is continually pouring from the Sun
to the Earth, day and night, winter and summer.
We want to make our Chemico-Electric Generator work automatically in
some such way as the green leaf of the growing plant or towering tree
make use of the solar energy in organizing and building their tiny or
huge bodies out of the soil, water and air with which they are
surrounded.
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XI
COMING ELECTRICITY
ELECTRICITY in some form will, no doubt, be the Motive Power of the
future for a long time to come unless some better Force is discovered.
At present we have eight great Electric Inventions: The Dynamo,
Automobile, Motor, Light, Range, Heater, Storage Battery and the
Telephone. Some of these eight will undoubtedly become useless in the
future and the remaining ones will be vastly improved, and many
important new ones will also undoubtedly come in from time to time.
If we succeed (which I think we undoubtedly will do) in inventing the
suggested Chemico-Electric Generator which automatically applies the
concentrated Solar Energy to machinery the same as the Dynamo and
Electric Motor now apply the electric current to machinery, then we will
no longer have use for the Dynamo, Electric Motor and Storage Battery
Cell. Perhaps a small Chemico-Electric Generator will then always be
automatically charged with Electricity by the impinging Solar Energy to
the maximum limit to run an automobile, tractor, factory, heating plant
or airplane indefinitely, so that an airplane can fly straight up and
down and stay up for a day, a week or a month without landing and with a
speed of likely more than 500 miles an hour. When the blizzard is
coming, two or three hours’ flight toward the Equator will then bring us
among the flowers again. Eat breakfast in Chicago at twenty degrees
below at 9 a. m., and lunch at noon in Los Angeles, Cal., or St.
Augustine, Fla.
We will then fly around the Earth in any direction in less than 50
hours, and various colored lights and signals will serve as guides, but
when day leisure and amusements are so plentiful, there will be little
night work in Modern Paradise. A ship on mid-ocean will continue to
receive its Motive Power from the Solar Energy as fast as it uses it
without ever landing for fuel. But when the airplane is thus perfected,
few if any ships will then remain, and seasickness will be unknown.
The Automobile in its various forms and styles for riding, freighting
and tractor farming will, no doubt, develop into one of the greatest, if
not the greatest of all mechanical inventions. In 1896 there were only
four automobiles in the United States. Now (1923) there are over
12,000,000, and in a few years there will likely be more than twice that
number, and electricity in some form will undoubtedly be its future
Motive Power. Some genius will also, no doubt, soon invent a cheap,
durable, reliable TIRE. Then with all the paved highways, the perfected
Tire and the self-charging Chemico-Electric Generator, the Automobile
will be approximately perfect.
All other inventions will also undoubtedly be vastly improved from time
to time, and numerous new and better ones will continue to come in as
the years pass. But mechanical Progress is not all GAIN. It also brings
with it enormous waste, as the old is being superseded by the new as in
the case of Motive Power. We have come from the dog kennel to the ox
pen, from the ox pen to the livery stable, from the livery stable to the
roundhouse, from the roundhouse to the power plant, from the power plant
largely to the filling station, and from the filling station, we may at
any time in the near future swing to the direct Solar Energy
automatically generated perhaps by some Chemico-Electric Generator as I
have suggested.
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XII
SOUND NATURALISM
AS Civilization advances, will Naturalism continue to eliminate all
forms of Superstitious Mysticism in the future as it has been doing in
the recent past, and this will tend toward _uniformity_ of thought and
conduct, for Science, unlike Superstitious Mysticism, is everywhere the
same the whole world over. Hence, the more naturalism the more
uniformity and harmony of thought and action.
Science starts out with the postulate that the Universe (including
everything that is as a whole) seems to be an _eternal, everactive,
self-operating_ MECHANISM. That the Mind of all animal organisms
including that of Man seems to be merely Brain (nervous system)
Activity, which slowly evolved in accordance with the Law of the
Survival of the Fittest, and apparently only for the sole purpose of
guiding, protecting, reproducing and conducing to the welfare and
happiness of the _physical_ Organism during its natural life here on
Earth, the same as the heart evolved for the purpose of Circulation.
That the physical death of all Creatures including that of Man seems to
be nothing more or less than an _eternal sleep_ or endless suspension of
individual consciousness.
But the MIND (brain motion) as well as the ultimate particles of the
Body of all animal beings including Man are nevertheless “immortal” in
their _disintegrated elements_ of eternal and indestructible Matter,
Energy and Motion. In that sense, Mind, whether of Man or other
creatures, is as “immortal” as Body. That Nature in her operations seems
to be neither wise nor ignorant, kind nor cruel, and seemingly without
design or designer. That her Evolutionary Adaptations seem to be the
_chance results_ (Fortuitism) of the operation of Natural Law rather
than the outcome of _purposive_ adaptation. That this “orderly
succession of events,” as we call it, seems to be itself a “chance
result” of some endless chain of Cause and Effect.
That Nature merely builds, thrills as love or hate, gives birth, kills,
burns, ravages and destroys in a certain order which we call Nature’s
Law with which we must learn to live in harmony in order to get the most
out of life worth living for, for every violation of a natural function
is a violation of a natural law, and every violation of a natural law is
attended with pain, the very opposite for which all sentient Creatures
are continually striving, for the chief aim of life is to live the
_longest happiest_ LIFE. We are thus continually seeking to bring into
consciousness _pleasurable_ SENSATIONS and keeping out _painful_ ones.
Hence, the fundamental ethical standard is, that every act that is
conducive to welfare is a _good_ act, and every act that detracts
therefrom is a _bad_ act.
Every act of all creatures from the lowest to the highest including Man
is, therefore, always fundamentally selfish (egoistic) in compliance
with SELF-PRESERVATION as the first Law of Nature. The term Altruism is
not only a misnomer and confusing, but no world could be run
harmoniously on altruistic principles; on principles that we would
continually do more for others than for self. All that we need to know
on this important point is that our highest _individual_ self-interest
can not be attained without _all others_ are equally free, prosperous,
intelligent and happy. We have thus partially learned that the pursuit
of _self-interest_ results in the general benefit of _society_, and this
mutual benefit resulting from promoting self-interest has evolved us
into social beings. But we must still go much further.
The posing Altruist is naturally a whiner. He wants to be thanked and
repaid. The Egoist, on the other hand, says that the Recipient of his
favors owes him nothing; that the giver has already received his reward
in Pleasurable Sensations by the very act of giving to the needy, which
eased the giver’s mind and therefore made the giver as well as the
receiver happy, but the Egoist also says that we need justice instead of
charity, because charity never goes to the root of the evil.
Hence, in the future, everybody will be a firm believer in Evolution and
the Mechanistic Theory of Life and Conduct; for a knowledge of Evolution
makes one _wise_; it teaches how all things developed by natural Law. A
thorough mental grasp of the Mechanistic Theory of Life and Conduct
makes one _kind_. It teaches that all creatures including Man are mere
living MACHINES operated by ancestral and personal ENVIRONMENT; that we
are like musical instruments, as we are played upon so must we respond;
that the old menacing theory of “free will” is not supported by a single
fact.
After we once thoroughly understand that important principle, we treat
all creatures kindly, and when we want to change or improve them, either
physically or mentally, we seek to change their _environment_, and with
that well-adjusted environmental change will come that desired
improvement, and not without that.
As Mr. Herbert Spencer, the great philosopher, truly says, it is true
that we can do as we desire, but we have nothing to say about the coming
and going of our desires. They come and go without our bidding in
accordance with our _previous make-up_ and our _present environment_.
They are the inevitable _antecedents_ that impel the present and the
future. No sane person can desire that he would rather be sick than
well, poor than prosperous, miserable than happy.
AUTHOR’S KITCHENETTE
(Fig. 7)
[Illustration:
This is the Author’s combination kitchen, dining room and bedchamber
in his bachelor’s suite of two rooms. In this room, he cooks, dines
and sleeps. He also does all his own housekeeping, even his own
house cleaning, and his rooms are always as neat, clean and orderly
as any parlor; but bachelorhood of either man or woman is very far
from being an ideal life. Domestic co-operation on a large scale is
the only open road to freedom, economy, leisure, convenience,
efficiency and sociability.
]
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XIII
VEGETARIANISM
IN the future, Man will undoubtedly accustom himself to live exclusively
on a vegetarian diet, because it is healthier, cheaper, much cleaner in
and about the home and requires no killing, so that the clean, refined
and sympathetic man and woman of the future will more and more adopt
scientific VEGETARIANISM, living on the simple nutritious foods of
grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc., and plenty of pure water at
ordinary temperature as a wholesome drink to keep the bowels active and
the system clean and vigorous.
No Stimulants and Narcotics—opium, liquor, tobacco, tea and coffee as
beverages—will be used. Posterity will then not make an opium den and a
smoke house of their homes, workshops and public places, and not impair
digestion and mar beauty with brain-stealing liquor and cups of
deteriorating tea and coffee.
There will also be much less cooking, and little or no _frying_, for
_boiled_ food is much healthier and also much cleaner in the home than
frying it. Much more of the foods will be eaten raw in the future which
will go far toward preserving good digestion and sound, beautiful teeth.
Many persons, especially children, will likely not come to the table in
Modern Paradise for days at a time. They will frequently eat fresh raw
fruits, vegetables, melons, nuts, etc., which they take from the garden,
orchard and greenhouse whenever they get hungry, winter and summer.
We may thus readily surmise that Man will be the only large land animal
(perhaps a few large sea animals will likely always remain) on Earth in
the future. Increase of population and advancing civilization has
already crowded out practically all the _wild_ animals in all the
leading countries of the world. In the cities, practically all the
_domestic_ animals, except some of the horses, have also disappeared,
and now comes the motor car, truck and tractor which rapidly supersede
the lonely and much abused horse, and this decrease in the number and
kind of animals will undoubtedly continue until Man will be the only
large land animal on Earth.
With the disappearance of the animals will also come the clearing away
of the offensive stables, sties, roosts, pens and pastures, as well as
the species of insects and parasites that live on animals and their
offal. Think what our city streets would be if there were as many teams
on the streets as there are now automobiles on them. Would not the dirt
and offensive odor be intolerable?
When the leaky and noisy steam and gasoline engines are superseded by
electric power, will the streets, driveways and garages also be much
cleaner, healthier and quieter. The only animals in my ideal Modern
Paradise would be song birds, fowls for eggs and bees for honey. No hay
and other feed for animals would have to be raised and no chores to do;
only food for Man would then be produced, so that the world would then
be much cleaner, healthier, easier, quieter and safer.
We may also notice that the general sympathy and regard of Man for the
welfare and lives of other creatures has already developed to such an
extent that perhaps more than 75 per cent of the people would no longer
eat meat, if they personally had to do the killing, especially the
killing of the large animals, such as sheep, calves, hogs, deer and
cattle, and that sympathy and kindness will continue to develop to such
an extent that the hunter, fisher, butcher and hangman will become
social outcasts.
There is also no doubt, but what we can get better and much cheaper and
cleaner substitutes as a diet from the vegetable kingdom than from the
animals, as in the case of Mazola, a purely vegetable product made from
corn, which is much better and cheaper than the best lard, tallow or
even butter; so it will also be with meat, milk, hides, furs, feathers,
wool and every other animal product. In time, they will, no doubt, all
have better vegetable substitutes than the present animal products are,
for there is no element in the animals that is also not first in the
vegetable.
---------------------------------------------------------
XIV
HONEST MONEY
THE money of the future will, no doubt, be Labor Checks, which every
man, woman and child worker will personally draw for the co-operative
labor each performs for the Association or Co-partnership, whether that
labor be industrial, domestic or maternal.
Such money is the only really _honest_ and convenient money, because it
naturally flows into the hands of the men, women and children workers
who produce the wealth which the money represents, and the basis of it
is LABOR, the very thing which produces all wealth—food, raiment,
shelter and luxuries. Small children and disabled persons receive
pension money from the Association.
Hence, every man, woman and child personally draws his or her own pay
checks, and pays his or her own bills for meals, clothes, personal
ornaments, etc. These denominational Labor Checks can be issued monthly
or quarterly, but children should be paid immediately after the work is
done, for they need an immediate stimulus for inducing them to work,
when they want money.
Anyone that has this _time_ money—minutes, hours, days and weeks, labor
checks—can buy in the fine Department Store of the Co-operative Mansion
at _cost_, but always for cash, the same as in our post office, and when
the clerk in the Department Store receives the money, he or she
immediately cancels it, the same as the postmaster cancels postage
stamps, and the next payday new money (new labor checks) is issued, and
the remuneration for labor is proportional to the distastefulness of the
particular kind of labor performed. The harder and the more undesirable
the labor the higher the pay, so that all can work where and when they
wish; at easy jobs for less pay or at more undesirable jobs for higher
pay.
This time money—labor checks—could be put up in neat, convenient little
booklets, something like postage stamp booklets, so that the different
denominations of minutes, hours, days and weeks can be paid out
conveniently. No valuable metals will then be stamped into cumbrous
coins.
In Modern Paradise, children feel proud of supporting themselves at the
age of 8 or 10 years. Before that age, children live on _pension_ money
issued by the Modern Paradise at large to the mother for the support of
the child before the child is born, on the theory that we have all
received care, nurture and support during _our_ infancy, and that we in
turn should do as much for some other infants no matter whether we are
parents or not. We owe that bill to the rising generation, and if we do
not pay that bill in a similar manner to other infants and helpless
children, we die shirks and slackers.
Such a system of Money which always flows into the hands of the men,
women and children that produce the wealth is not only honest, cheap and
convenient, but also justifies the husband to draw a sigh of great
relief that he is once for all rid of paying the bills of his wife and
children _personally_, and the wife is even more pleased with the
privilege of drawing her own pay checks for the labor she performs
instead of begging her pittance from her “hard up” husband, and the
children are also joyous for having always a rich, open opportunity to
earn in an easy way at any time all the spending money they want instead
of trying to beg it from usually poor, reluctant and often abusive
parents.
As before intimated, begging, whether for money or jobs, is always
humiliating to refined men, women and children, and charity never goes
to the root of the evil; for charity, even at its best, is only a
necessary evil in a discordant world. For righting things, we need
JUSTICE.
Such a system of money is not only honest, cheap, stable and convenient,
but also makes every man, woman and child completely free and
independent financially, industrially, domestically, socially and
parentally; and any system of money that does not do these desirable
things is not a good system of money for an intelligent people.
---------------------------------------------------------
XV
EDUCATION
IN the future, Man will be educated to the highest standard of
intelligence and refinement, for all sociologic harmony and efficiency
depend on proper education.
The essential aims of all real Education and Culture are: (1) to develop
a strong, healthy, handsome Body; (2) a sound, active Mind; (3) a
skillful Hand, and (4) a noble Character.
At birth the Mind of the human infant is a substantial BLANK. It must
learn practically everything by _personal_ Education, so that Instinct
and Heredity play but an insignificant part in the development of Mind
and the formation of Character in Man. If the _personal_ Environment is
good, the pupil can not be bad; while the habits and sentiments of all
the species of animals below Man are almost entirely due to Instinct and
Heredity. But the _physical_ “make-up” of all creatures including Man is
almost entirely due to Heredity.
Successful Teaching must be _indirect_, and so simple that the pupil,
whether young or old, does not realize that he is being taught. It must
be conducted on the humane principles of Interest, Kindness and Freedom.
Again, we can not hope to develop strong, healthy, handsome Bodies as
long as we confine the pupils in schoolrooms, for youth is ever active
when left free to the healthful promptings of Nature. Free activity is
absolutely essential for the best development of Body and Mind of all
ages, but particularly so during childhood and youth.
To put pupils in _classes_ where the brightest have to wait for the
dullest, like we do in our modern professional schools, can not produce
a race of brilliant Thinkers and clever Actors. It puts a brake on
genius.
Our professional schools also do very little or nothing for the proper
development of a skillful Hand, and still less for the formation of a
noble Character; and the worst of all is, that to be constantly under
the direction and control of professional Teachers stunts initiative and
originality in the Pupil. It tends to make the Pupil a mere _imitator_
instead of a brilliant _originator_, and the teacher a haughty commander
instead of a kind requester.
Hence, in Modern Paradise are no schoolhouses, churches and universities
in which pupils, whether young or old, are confined and few if any
professional teachers. There, Froebelism and Montessorianism—play
lessons—for young and old are carried to their logical conclusion,
because there they so charmingly fit in, and form a part of, the sane
system of industrialism in the form of domestic and parental
Co-operation so harmoniously evolved in Modern Paradise, where everybody
is an _incidental_ Teacher and a free, independent student for life.
There is no Graduation, which usually diverts further learning and
research.
For the physical development, there would be the swimming pools, indoor
and outdoor gymnasiums, athletic games, calisthenics, home-talent stage,
instructive rambles, healthful promenades, pleasant dancing and skating
intermixed with a healthful amount of self-employed labor as equal
partners of the Co-operating group.
For the successive stages of Intellectual Education, there are the
well-equipped nurseries, kindergarten, playschools for old and young, a
splendid library, commercial department, all kinds of mathematical work,
reading circles, lyceum, lectures, debates, concerts, works of art,
literature, science, philosophy, music, the stage and talking movies
that display objects in their natural colors. In the future, movies will
be great factors in Education, because they amuse and instruct at the
same time.
As mere babies, children will also learn how to eat and drink in a
clean, healthful way; how to dress themselves and how to help others
dress; how to button, hook, tie and pin and how to bathe and swim. In
the future, children will wear very simple, comfortable clothes and
sometimes none.
There would also be every inducement and opportunity to do original
research work with the microscope, telescope, spectroscope and work in
the laboratory, inventor’s shop as well as many other places, and always
with a view to help the child to help itself.
For the harmonious development of the Industrial and Domestic
Sentiments, there would be the garden, orchard, field, electric kitchen,
dining room, cafe, public nurseries, barber shop where men, women and
children are served by men and women barbers. Future women will
undoubtedly adopt the easy and sanitary method of shingling their hair
in some artistic style.
In Modern Paradise, children begin to work when they are six or eight
years old, at such easy work (which is play to them) as picking berries,
fruit, weeding, etc., at piecework. They receive the same pay for the
same work as adults do. But they are never asked to work, but they are
taught that a certain amount of useful work is honorable and healthful.
Children work when they want spending money (labor checks); and they
feel proud of supporting themselves at the age of eight or ten for it
requires only a little labor for individual support in Modern Paradise.
In this useful and practical way, they learn to work, to earn and to
handle money, all at the same time in a practical way and at a
remarkably young age.
The Ethical Sentiments would be evolved by continually living and
working in close contact with justice and kind treatment of others by
talks on Ethical Topics and by seeing equal justice meted out to every
man, woman and child regardless of sex, color, age or nationality. There
would be no cadets and scouts to instill militarism, imperialism and
gun-patriotism, into the rising generations. In fact, the adults merely
live the life which they want the children to imitate and the children
unconsciously follow their examples; and they learn all these things as
easily and as naturally as they learn to walk and talk.
The Parental Phase of Education would be carried on by learning the
structure and function of Body and Mind, by giving clean, simple and
practical instructions in sex-hygiene and scientific eugenics, and how
parents and others can raise and train children to the best advantage
and with the least amount of effort.
In most cases, parents, especially mothers, are not the best nurses and
educators of their own children. As a rule, parents meddle far too much
with their babies and older children. Their frequent meddling invariably
makes ill-tempered, nervous whiners and cry-babies of their spoiled
children. Many parents still often use harsh language toward their
children, and some even believe in the old, cruel doctrine “Spare the
rod and spoil the child.” It is, therefore, much better for both parents
and children to be apart much of the time. The lavishment of too much
Paternalism, whether as supposed kindness or harshness, is bound to
spoil any child. Give mothers plenty of opportunity for rest, amusement
and pleasant work while the babies and older children are in the public
nurseries much of the time. When that is well done, babies will then not
have to be bottle-fed like millions now have to be.
In Modern Paradise, there would then be a complete all-round EDUCATION—a
strong, healthy, handsome Body; a sound, active Mind; a clever,
industrious Hand, and a noble Personality—all acquired in a free,
pleasant way, and at a very young age and without ever confining pupils
in dreary schoolrooms and churches compelling them to study in a formal
manner dull and largely antiquated books that teach only a very small
part of the important, practical affairs of daily life which every child
should know, and an immense amount of comparatively useless material
which the child seldom or never uses in later life.
But until we live and work right, we need the professional schools. It
is, however, a pity that we have no better system of Education. In the
United States, there are over 20,000,000 school children enrolled. When
they are in the schools, they are arbitrarily confined and largely
instructed in the ways of learning how to put the value of the _dollar_
above the value of the Man. When they are out of school, they have no
jobs. As idlers, they likely loaf and visit questionable resorts which
tends to lead to vice and crime. Every child as well as every adult
should always have a free, open opportunity for a good job of
self-employed labor and receive the full fruit of his or her effort. Any
system that does not provide these means is fundamentally defective and
can not produce a harmonious world.
Such will undoubtedly be the trend of progress in future Education, so
that posterity in the not distant future will look upon the present
schoolhouse and church as juvenile prisons and the professional Teachers
and Ministers as haughty, self-imposed rulers.
---------------------------------------------------------
XVI
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE
SELF-PRESERVATION, the desire to live the longest, happiest life;
NUTRITION, the desire for plenty of good food and other material things;
LIBERTY, the desire for the widest range of personal freedom; and
REPRODUCTION, the strong desire to love and be loved seem to be the four
deepest SENTIMENTS in all animal creatures. Hence, from what has already
been said, we can plainly see that future Marriage and Divorce will be
very simple and harmonious, based entirely on the important fundamental
principle of complete SELF-OWNERSHIP IN IDEAL DEMOCRACY.
The History of the Past plainly shows that woman has so far been treated
very largely either as a pampered doll, largely kept for the purpose of
ministering to the whimsical and passionate wants of the man, or as a
domestic and maternal drudge, and such is still largely her lot, and
must always remain her subordinate and dependent condition as long as
the family-cottage and servant-kept mansion methods of living and
working are continued; that long she must expect to remain the dependent
subordinate. Nothing but _domestic_ and _parental co-operation_ will
really emancipate her, and that the intelligent woman will more and more
demand, and the considerate man more and more grant.
Marriage and Divorce—human mating—in some form is undoubtedly as old as
the human race, likely more than a million years. But like all other
human institutions, they progressed from time to time.
At first the husband captured his mate. Later suitors purchased her from
her father for so many head of cattle or other property. Her consent was
then not solicited, so that it was a forced marriage on her part. The
present give-and-take Marriage was then not yet practiced. It was then
all _take_ by the husband and all _give_ by the wife. Still later the
parents largely manipulated the marriage of their children to suit the
parents’ whims, and to some extent that is still sometimes the case, but
the modern children now usually follow their own choice.
Formerly it was also obligatory to have the marriage solemnized by the
church. Marriage was then regarded as a holy sacrament and binding for
life no matter how discordant it later became. There was then no legal
Divorce as now. Later it became optional with the contracting parties to
have either the church or the state “tie the knot.”
As we all know, it is no longer obligatory to have the Church perform
the marriage ceremony. Millions of couples now annually marry without
any religious ceremonies, but the State still insists to have the
marriage ceremony performed either by a clergyman or by some state
official.
Under the Common Law, the husband and the wife are supposed to be “one”
and the husband who was the lawmaker and physically the stronger claimed
to be the “one.” That is a very one-sided and unjust affair. Of recent
years, that has been modified to quite an extent; but the woman when she
marries still not only drops her own name, but also her economic
independence and her social freedom. As a rule, the wife is still the
dependent subordinate and is also invariably judged by a different moral
standard.
The foregoing progressive steps in Marriage and Divorce show that the
rapid trend of advancing Civilization is toward the freedom,
independence and private judgment of the mating parties, and that
freedom and personal judgment of the contracting parties will, no doubt,
continue until Marriage and Divorce will be regarded as a mere contract
or partnership, like any other contract or partnership, and the mating
parties to have the sole say as to when, where and how long that
contract shall continue, or when it shall be discontinued. There will
then be no interference of parents, church or state in the matters of
Marriage and Divorce, for no one knows as well as the mated parties
whether the conjugal partnership shall continue or be terminated. Hence,
they should be the sole judges in these vital matters.
Again, we all know that motherhood involves much more danger, worry,
responsibility and care in the matter of giving birth and nurture to
offspring than fatherhood does, and for that reason should woman have
the just right to enjoy _all_ the Rights and Privileges that the man
enjoys and ONE MORE.
That _one more_ is, that _she_ and not _he_ be accorded the initial step
in the important function of parenthood; that she be the solicitor in
love affairs, the principal director of her child in so far as she
desires that, and that the child bear _her_ name instead of the
_father’s_. Rights and privileges should be commensurate with dangers,
burdens and responsibilities.
When every marriageable boy and girl, man and woman, inherits a fine
home, a life-long $10-a-day job as equal partner, and is thoroughly
educated on all practical affairs of life, including sex-hygiene and
scientific eugenics as well as in the best methods of raising and
training children, like young and old in the future will be, no harm can
then result from leaving all questions of Marriage and Divorce to the
best judgment of the mating parties, whether young or old.
No conjugal evil can then befall anyone, and motherhood will then for
the first time in the history of the human race stand elevated to its
proper dignity, freedom and independence. When free and independent
woman is accorded the initial step in courtship and parenthood, there
will then be few if any unwelcomed children born and the present
deteriorating sexual excesses both in and out of wedlock will then, no
doubt, be gradually normalized.
This will also do away with the danger, support and worry of millions of
parents over their grown-up boys and girls in keeping them on the
present conventional course of shiftless life. Millions of parents now
frequently lie awake nights thinking where is my boy and still more so
where is my girl. Will their conduct bring ruin and disgrace on me and
them. In the future, all this parental worry, strife and support will be
practically eliminated by leaving all questions of Marriage and Divorce
solely to the best judgment of the home-owning and highly educated and
refined mating parties, whether young or old. “Moral Squads” and
meddling Chaperons will then no longer be necessary. Under the
give-and-take marriage regime, millions of husbands and wives are
practically cloistered nuns and monks, when their mates are absent on
visits or business. That makes life to both lonely, dependent and
burdensome. Complete self-ownership at all times is the only remedy for
this wide-spread evil.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Rev. Thomas Robert
Malthus, an English political economist, frightened the world with his
ideas of _overpopulation_. He advocated that Population increases faster
than the means of subsistence can be increased; and that by this
ever-increasing Population wide-spread famine and wholesale death will
in time be produced. For some time, many believed his reasoning, and
some careless thinkers still believe it.
But, in reality, everything now seems to point the other way. We can
readily see that in order to prevent the present Population of the world
from decreasing, every fertile adult female has to give birth, in an
average, of at least three or more children. Two children must be born
to every couple to supplant the two parents, and quite a number more,
because many children die before they become adults.
We must also bear in mind that quite an increasing per cent of the
intelligent females as well as the males already refuse to marry under
our present distressing conditions of living and working. Other females
and males are naturally barren, and still many others that do not want
children resort to birth control.
Then there are at present some 10,000,000 more females in the world than
males. Under our present monogamous marriage regime, these 10,000,000
excess females can not become mothers unless they become intimate with
some other woman’s husband. From all this, we can plainly see that all
the fertile females that have mates have to average three or more
children in order to prevent race suicide. Will the refined women of the
future who are free and independent and who know all about birth control
do that unless motherhood is elevated to the very highest standard?
On the point of national population, I may suggest that the population
of a number of the leading Nations is already decreasing instead of
increasing. Among these decreasing Nations may be mentioned France,
England, Germany, Russia, Greece and others. Even in the United States,
the birth rate of 1922 was nearly two less per 1,000 than it was in
1921.
In view of these facts, there seems to be much more probability for race
suicide than for the Malthusian scarecrow of starvation by
over-population. But after motherhood receives the proper dignity, care
and assistance by sane domestic co-operation, will the healthy, strong,
sturdy women of the future, no doubt, see to it that the proper number
of babies are born, no more, no less. The “naughty” marriage and divorce
problem will then be completely settled, and all without sensational
gossip and spectacular scandal.
The Reader may thus see that a good system of Money, Education, Marriage
and Divorce, etc., can not come in without an all-round sane method of
Thinking, Living and Working. They must evolve together, and all this
depends on the intelligence and refinement of the people. Human
Institutions are invariably about as good as the contemporaries of any
age can appreciate them.
In our present competitive system of thinking, living and working, we
still invariably offer the premium on the bad instead of the good. The
lawyer is interested in having the people quarrel and fight, the doctor
in disease and accidents; the dentist in decaying teeth; the insurance
agent in having houses burn; the minister, priest and rabbi in keeping
the people superstitious; the militarist in war; some wives to have the
husband die to get the big insurance.
In Modern Paradise all this is just the opposite. There the premiums
naturally goes to the GOOD instead of the BAD. We may thus see that
refined posterity will discard practically all our present institutions,
habits and customs, no matter how sacred we now regard them, but for
every OLD one they discard, they will substitute a much better NEW one.
AUTHOR’S HOME STUDY
(Fig. 8)
[Illustration:
In this Study the Author does his literary, artistic, scientific and
research work, and entertains his friends and callers. It is one of
the two rooms of his bachelor’s suite, 2219 Larimore Avenue, Omaha,
Nebraska, in which many of the big world problems are frequently
discussed and put to writing.
]
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XVII
SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS
IT is a well-known fact that Sports and Amusements change and shift with
the age of the individual and also with the development and culture of
the race. The babe wants different Amusement than the adult, and the
savage different than the civilized.
In Modern Paradise will be all kinds of interesting as well as useful
sports, games, amusements and recreations. Everybody will there have
abundant leisure, money, liberty and a wide circle of congenial
associates.
Outdoor sports and amusements would include motoring and bicycle riding,
airplaning, skating, swimming, field games, numerous athletic and
gymnastic exercises, also many walks and long promenades to keep the
feet and legs in vigorous condition, so that the Modern Paradisers will
not always ride in cars or fly in airplanes.
There would be no end to the variety and scope of indoor sports, games,
play-lessons and other interesting and useful amusements. In the grand
hall, theater and ballroom would frequently be concerts, dancing,
debates, lectures, round-table meetings, cards, reading circles,
home-talent and other plays, wonderful movies, scientific and
educational experiments, exhibitions of new inventions and discoveries
as well as countless new diversions which yield pleasure and useful
information.
There would also be frequent prize contests—Olympic games. To stimulate
ambition and make life useful and happy, prizes could be awarded for
such accomplishments as being the best inventor, the most useful
discoverer, the best designer and illustrator, the neatest housekeeper,
the neatest and most comfortable and artistic male and female dresser;
to the daintiest cook, the cleverest dining room manager, the speediest
restaurant worker, the most industrious child and adult, the leading
artist, musician, athlete, gymnast, reader, writer, humorist, promoter,
typist, stenographer, vocalist, the most charming conversationalist, as
well as many other worthy accomplishments; in fact, life in Modern
Paradise would be little else than a continuous thrill of health and
happiness.
With sane sports, games, amusements and recreation, it is the same as
with all other human affairs. Nature builds and operates on the plan of
endless _variety_. Everywhere we meet with a wilderness of _diversity_
in one grand _unity_, so that everywhere “variety is the spice of life,”
and the higher the civilization and refinement the stronger is this
inborn urge for new and varied experiences. In order to realize the
variety to the fullest extent, we travel for new scenery, visit with new
associates, read new books, make new styles of dress, raise new
varieties of crops, build new homes, make new constitutions and new
ethics. In time we outgrow our homes, our clothes, our vehicles, our
food, our furniture, amusements and even our associates, so that every
progressive man, woman and child is ever consciously or unconsciously on
the alert for _new_ varieties of life’s activities.
The _old_ and frequently experienced naturally, in time, becomes
commonplace, and that seems to apply, in general, to companions and love
as well as to other matters of human well-being. That inherent urge for
variety is also one of the two deep-seated causes for the rapid increase
of divorces whether we like it or not. The other fundamental cause is
the discordant outside ownership of the give-and-take marriage regime.
The only remedy is self-ownership instead of outside ownership.
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XVIII
SELF-GOVERNMENT
THE Government of Modern Paradise is practically the same as that of a
refined family, only larger. State and national boundaries become
obsolete as race and national prejudices die out by advancing
civilization, as we already notice between the States of the United
States where we travel across the continent from one State into another
without paying any attention to State Lines. The same will also, no
doubt, become true in time of the _national_ boundary lines.
As Man becomes really civilized, and the population sanely distributed
in co-operating groups over the country, all the armies, navies, police
forces, diplomats, rulers, politicians, officials and chaperons of the
world will be disbanded and shifted more and more into fields of useful
production instead of brutal destruction and discordant meddling as now.
No guns and weapons of war of any kind will then be manufactured and
sold, and the present _compulsory_ laws will undoubtedly be superseded
by refined SELF-GOVERNMENT; government which emanates from _within
outward_; instead of from _without inward_; a government which regards
the rights and wishes of the _non-invasive_ INDIVIDUAL _superior_ to the
dictates of SOCIETY; for we can not have a good Society before we have
good Individuals to compose it, so that every restriction and constraint
placed on non-invasive—harmless—individuals is an impediment to their
fullest development and, therefore, a retarding brake on social
Progress.
As the Modern Paradisers are all equal partners, no one can there be a
commanding “boss” as the bosses and employers are under chattel slavery,
serfdom, the wage-system and the give-and-take marriage regime. There
would undoubtedly be recognized managers in the various professions and
occupations, but they could only _request_ their equal Partners, the
same as a refined husband or wife would request instead of command their
respective helpmates.
All such kind treatment, unimpaired liberty and mutual helpfulness
naturally promote friendly mutuality instead of arousing hatred and
discord as the “boss” practice invariably does. During the summer most
of the men, women and children work in the field, orchard and garden; in
the winter in the factory and large greenhouse. In this way labor can
easily be shifted from farm to factory and back again, so that everybody
can always be busy when they want to work their short day’s work.
Every Modern Paradise manufactures one or more staple articles besides
the smaller things for exclusive home use. To keep the Universal
Warehouse and Department store in the Co-operative Mansion well filled
is all the Modern Paradisers have to do. Men, women and children work
side by side in practically all occupations, and as before intimated,
often as congenial lovers. Some women run tractors in the field and
garden, and some men are cooks in the electric kitchen. Most men, women
and youths are highly skillful in a dozen or more occupations. This
variety and change of indoor and outdoor work and play keeps them all
healthy, sturdy, strong and happy.
The Modern Paradise Transportation of freight, mail and passengers on
the firmly-paved highways and in perfected airplanes is mere play. If
one Modern Paradise produces more of any particular kind of goods than
it needs for its own consumption, it exchanges or sells the surplus to
others the same as we now do. But the Transportation would be vastly
reduced, because most of the commodities raised, manufactured and mined
in the various Modern Paradises are used and consumed on the very
estates or near by, where they are produced, instead of shipping them
back and forth from the distant farms to the big cities for hundreds or
thousands of miles.
The Population will then be quite evenly distributed over the land, so
that there is no crowding of people and vehicles like we now have in the
congested cities and overpopulated districts.
There will then be abundant room for parking and airplane landing, and
no crowded highways, so that motoring and truck freighting will always
be pleasures, and very few accidents. As before suggested, there is high
efficiency, but no strenuous rush as we now have it under the
profit-grabbing wage-system, a tendency which is rapidly undermining the
good health and natural development of the human race. After the country
is blocked off into Modern Paradises four miles square and the
population of the nation is sanely distributed over the arable land,
motoring over all the fine boulevards will be real pleasure. The
intersections will then be four miles apart, so that the driver needs to
look ahead only.
In the future, Manners, Customs and Dress will be in conformity with
health, welfare and happiness rather than with tradition or ancient
precedent. Under this free and struggleless mode of Thinking, Living and
Working, crime, insanity, disease and accidents will be reduced to the
minimum and envy, jealousy and suicide will be practically unknown; for
the causes that produce them are almost entirely removed.
Posterity will also, no doubt, learn the biological cause of SEX, so
that prospective parents can have either male or female as they desire.
On this important question, our present science is still entirely in the
dark.
With the abundant leisure of the future, Literature and Art will develop
much more along the lines of the Useful and Artistic with substantially
all frivolous fiction and meaningless poetry eliminated and little or no
advertising.
There will be much less sensational writing and empty gossip and much
more good doing. As before suggested, there will be no soldiers,
policemen, cadets, scouts, war veterans, chaperons and secret societies;
no superstitious mysticism nor compulsory government, but the physical
and mental attainments will be vastly superior to those of the present,
and astounding scientific revelations will be made by advancing
civilization. The world will be full of inventive wizards like Edison,
Ford, Burbank, Steinmetz, Marconi, Wright Bros. and scores of other
inventors and discoverers.
In the future, when every man, woman and youth has a $10-a-day job,
bequests, and insurance and alimony will be things of the Past, and
cremation will be the disposition of the dead.
In the future, when the human Body will be a model of health, grace and
beauty in form and function, when the Mind is clean in thought and
purely natural and when Grundyism has died out, men, women and children
will live closer to Nature and wear much less clothes and sometimes
none. At times, men, women and children will commingle at swimming
contests, art galleries and other places, wearing little or no raiment
of any kind.
As the power of the dollar, the craving for aristocracy, shallow
royalty, superstitious mysticism, extravagant attire, etc., continue to
grow in disrepute will the future Topics of Conversation be more and
more along the lines of universal welfare and happiness founded on the
basis of natural ETHICS.
Physical beauty, sexual attraction, intellectual attainments, industrial
skill, congenial habits, obliging conduct, inventive genius, personal
liberty, striking originality, pleasing humor and noble personality
will, no doubt, always remain valuable assets for personal popularity
and admiration, no matter how far posterity may advance.
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XIX
ALUMINUM BUILDINGS
AS Domestic Co-operation continues to become more and more extensive and
universal as it certainly will, Buildings will become fewer, larger,
more sanitary, convenient, artistic, and will be constructed of Metal
and greatly improved Glass, instead of wood and other rapidly decaying
materials. It is estimated that at least 7 per cent of the Earth’s crust
is ALUMINUM. Every claybank in the world is an Aluminum mine and on
account of its abundance and extremely suitable qualities for
architectural, mechanical, electrical, artistic and culinary purposes,
will Aluminum rapidly become the building, machinery, furniture,
electrical and culinary material of the world, and will also perhaps
become an important element in paving.
A large Co-operative Mansion (see Mansion page 25), well constructed of
Aluminum and improved Glass, and securely bolted to a well-grounded
concrete foundation, will withstand almost any flood, storm, earthquake
and even lightning itself. Such a Building will endure “the ravages of
time” for scores of centuries.
In 1855 a pound of Aluminum cost $90. Today it can be produced for a few
cents a pound, and this reduction in the actual cost of production will
certainly continue until a pound will cost less than one cent. Then all
the buildings, tools, machinery, furniture, culinary utensils, etc.,
will be made of aluminum or some alloy of it. Iron, wood, brick,
plaster, nails, wallpaper, tin and also perhaps lead, silver and copper
will then have little or no commercial and industrial values, and the
same will apply to the forest, coal mines, oil wells and wind and water
powers after we learn how to utilize the direct solar Energy as it
continually streams from the Sun to the Earth. When our Aluminum
buildings will last for thousands of years, and when few if any other
metals are used, building, mining and commercialism will become very
much less, and agriculture and industrialism correspondingly more.
Experience shows that political, creed, race and national Hatreds,
Prejudices, Envies and Jealousies die out as intelligence and refined
culture advance. We may thus see that the only permanent and harmonious
solution of the “naughty race and nationality questions” can be the free
and indiscriminate intermarriage of the various races and nationalities.
This future kind and friendly mutuality between the various races,
nations and languages will thus surely usher in the true cosmopolitan
brotherhood and sisterhood of the human family. This will naturally
produce a rapidly growing tendency toward one race, one country, one
language—a cosmopolitan language that is very much simplified in
grammatical construction and has neither substitutes, silent letters nor
diacritical marks; one industrialism, one ethical and moral standard,
one philosophy, one sound naturalism, and one highly evolved HUMANITY; a
human race that will be neither white, black, yellow nor red, but will
have all the past, present and future shades of the individuals and
species harmoniously blended into _one_ color evolved by the Law of the
Survival of the Fittest.
With toil, worry, cruelty, superstition, envy, jealousy (pretended
outside ownership is the cause of jealousy), immorality and poverty
substantially eliminated, beauty of face and grace of form and function
will, no doubt, develop to a remarkable degree; and the better
adjustment of the sex-relations which will undoubtedly result from the
complete self-ownership of both men and women will produce beneficial
EUGENIC results which will be the pride of future generations. Everybody
will then be handsome, intelligent, skillful and congenial and after the
total work of the world including the reproduction of the race will be
equitably divided between the men and the women, the women will then
gradually become as tall and strong as the men; and with these
beneficial improvements well established, will the span of human life
likely double or treble its present duration.
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XX
PASSING CRAZES
EVERY Age has its special Crazes as the History of the Past plainly
shows, as the Age of “bloody burnt offerings,” ghosts, witches,
gladiatorial combats, bull fights, chivalry, crusades, flagellation,
religion, penance, politics, profit grabbing, divine right of kings,
chattel slavery, serfdom, wage-system, majority rule, woman suffrage,
prohibition, and numerous others. They all come and go with advancing
Civilization.
The four big CRAZES of the present age which still keep the world in
such a chaotic condition are: (1) the Mystical (religious) craze; (2)
the Dollar craze; (3) the Compulsory Force craze; and (4) the Sex craze.
But these four Crazes, like all the rest of them, can all be
harmoniously adjusted, if we go at it in the right manner.
Superstitious Mysticism of every sort with all its horrid fears of a
future life of some kind can very easily be entirely rooted out by a
sane study of Nature which produces unified NATURALISM; a belief in the
Uniformity of Nature and the Universality of natural Law which millions
of the thoughtful men and women have already attained.
Abundant opportunity for remunerative Self-employment for all as equal
partners, and the full right of every man, woman and child to draw his
or her own pay checks, and pay his or her own personal bills, like the
Modern Paradisers do, will entirely eliminate the Dollar craze.
The full recognition of complete Self-ownership on the truly democratic
basis that the Rights and Wishes of the non-invasive Individual are
paramount to the general dictates of Society will do away with the many
grave evils of _outside_ ownership or compulsory Force.
Making women Free and Independent economically and every other way will
undoubtedly _gradually_ bring about healthful Sex sentiments and habits,
both in and out of wedlock. Much is being said, written and preached
about sexual indulgence without that meaningless official marriage
ceremony, but practically nothing is ever said about all the grave
sexual excesses that are undermining health, fading beauty and are
bringing into the world millions of weak and unwelcomed babies, _after_
the official or religious ceremony has been performed. Should not a word
of warning on this important point be given to the rising generation,
especially to the unsophisticated newlyweds? Do not many couples love
far too much?
Throughout this book as well as in all my other writings, I have pointed
out that women and children have so far not been justly treated by the
man. In fact, I contend that this book is the first and only literary
production that accords to women and children a fair deal in life.
All other literature always has been and still is written on the false
assumption that the man is the important independent superior, the
indispensable supporter, protector and director; and woman the
_dependent subordinate_. That is an unwarranted reflection on the
ability and character of the women which every intelligent woman and man
should resent.
But that does not mean that the woman has always been right and the man
always wrong. There are thousands of so-called society women including
royalty and aristocracy that think of little else than fine clothes,
speedy automobiles, expensive meal tickets, extravagant jewelry,
frivolous fiction, an idle life and maids to serve them. As a rule, they
know but little about the important affairs of practical life, and are
thus a menace rather than a blessing to Humanity.
They should learn to take care of themselves; to work and become useful
members of Society, for as long as they are idlers, they are undesirable
social parasites living on the labor of others. Future society will not
tolerate that.
But these society idlers, men, women and children, are not individually
to “blame” for their dull, useless life. They just happen to grow up in
a perverted environment. The man that grows up among cannon will be a
militarist, the companion of gamblers will likely develop into a
gambler. Change the environment and they all become useful and honorable
members of refined society. They need a little more brain and a little
more regard for the just rights of others. They lack real DEMOCRACY.
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XXI
SOCIAL UNIT
LET us keep in mind that in Sociology the same as in Biology, Evolution
always starts in with the simple UNIT. In Biology, Evolution began its
progressive development with the protoplasm of the single cell, and by
countless additional cells mutually co-operating with the first cell
slowly evolved the INDIVIDUALS, high and low, of the Plant and Animal
Kingdoms.
The same is also true in Sociology. First some lone Individual happens
to conceive of an improved plan, program or method of Thinking, Living
and Working. This pioneer individual Thinker then makes his advanced
ideas known to a few others. Then a comparatively small group of these
matured social Individuals forms the first nucleus of a family, a tribe,
a nation; all at first run largely on the basis of _superstition_ and
_physical force_, but later turn more and more to SANE NATURALISM AND
IDEAL DEMOCRACY, perhaps a Modern Paradise.
The Reader can plainly see that the Modern Paradise Plan of social and
industrial organization is VOLUNTARY CO-OPERATION. Hence, there is no
compulsory Law to evade, no opposing Minority to fight and subdue, and
no _armed force_ to contend against. With free, _voluntary_ Co-operation
(Co-operative Individualism), everybody naturally glides into that
position where he or she fits in best, and where each prefers to be.
So far Sociologists have almost universally regarded the man-made
_Family_ instead of the biological _Individual_ as the ultimate UNIT of
human Society. But this primitive theory that husband and wife are _one_
can never produce real social and industrial harmony as the rapidly
increasing number of divorces and numerous other sociologic discords
indicates, because every self-respecting INDIVIDUAL—man, woman and
child—naturally strives to be free and independent, and that can be
accomplished _only_ when the Individual instead of the Family is
regarded and recognized as the SOCIAL UNIT.
With the aid of these Modern Paradise Plans and Specifications as given
in this book, any two or more Individuals that have a little brain and
material wealth can build and furnish the first Modern Paradise as their
ideal Home right now. After they have it all finished and furnished,
they can invite the 500 or more refined Co-operators to come in and live
and work with them as equal Partners.
All the invited men, women and children need to furnish is their clothes
and their ability to live a harmonious co-operative life; merely be able
to do some useful work and mind their own business and let others do the
same.
There is no _charity_ connected with the transactions. The Builders
absolutely need the 500 or more invited Co-operators as _equal partners_
to complete their ideal home, a home where they are immediately
surrounded by a group of free, independent, congenial men, women and
children, as equal partners, and the success of the first Modern
Paradise depends almost entirely on the proper selection of the Charter
Members. With ample funds on hand the first Modern Paradise could be
built and furnished in less than two years.
In selecting these Charter Members, we want to bear in mind that only a
very small per cent of the people are as yet matured for a model
Co-operative Life. The vast majority still use the weapon of Force of
some kind instead of Reason to fight their battles of life and that
_force method_ whether used by individuals, groups or nations always
produces strife and discordant results, misery instead of happiness.
If the first Modern Paradise Association makes good, others will, no
doubt, rapidly follow along similar lines as soon as more and more of
the people develop for that higher and cleaner life, so that in time the
whole Nation will be blocked off in large Landed Estates or Modern
Paradises; and all by pleasant _voluntary_ CO-OPERATION as equal
Partners.
Visitors from all over the world would undoubtedly come and personally
see and examine the Form and Operation of the first Modern Paradise, and
the pioneers that make the realization of such an important progressive
measure possible, will, no doubt, be hailed by all future generations as
the greatest benefactors of Humanity.
To accomplish all the important things that have been suggested in the
foregoing pages, of making a heaven on earth, only _three_ things are
necessary. First, Material Wealth, of which we already have
$200,000,000,000 worth in the United States. Second, Plans and
Specifications for building and operating the Modern Paradise. This
illustrated book will adequately serve this purpose; and Third,
intelligent men, women and children as refined members to occupy and
harmoniously operate the Modern Paradise as equal Partners.
We may thus see that the first two essential factors—Wealth and Plans—we
already have to the required extent; and of the third—refined
Co-operators—we also have some, but not very many, perhaps 10,000 or a
100,000 or possibly a 1,000,000 in the United States, but this number is
now rapidly increasing, and this increase will, no doubt, continue until
all will be model subjects desiring to live a free, clean, healthful,
prosperous, happy life; the only life really worth living for a refined
person.
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XXII
GOOD AND BAD THINGS
NOW let us see how many of the _good_ things that we still need so much
would automatically come in with the Modern Paradise program of
Thinking, Living and Working; and how many of the present _bad_ things
it would eliminate.
Among the many _good_ things may be mentioned that every member would
have an equal equity in the Land, a fine home as soon as born and a full
supply of fine tools and machinery, all of which would be inherited from
generation to generation, the same as we now inherit the schoolhouses,
post office, etc.
A life-long job of self-employment, yielding the full fruit of his or
her labor as equal owning Partners, and every man, woman and child
worker, whether married or single, personally draws his or her own pay
checks for the co-operative labor each performs, whether that labor be
industrial, domestic or maternal, and everybody also pays his or her own
bills for meals, clothes, personal ornaments, amusements, etc. The
average workday would likely be less than three hours daily, the daily
work would be right in, or near the home, and the average remuneration
of every man, woman and youth worker for a day’s labor would likely
average more than $10 worth of wealth.
Everybody would also have the exclusive use of a large private apartment
in the Mansion with fine furniture, musical instruments and private
bath, if desired; full access to all the public departments of all the
Buildings; excellent home-raised and prepared meals for a few cents;
fine comfortable clothes; a large circle of congenial men, women and
children as companions and co-laborers; the most interesting and
effective System of Education ever suggested; live in the finest Mansion
located in a beautiful park; have all the means of amusements right at
home or in some other Modern Paradise as visitors; the use of all kinds
of cars, busses and airplanes; and every non-invasive Individual enjoys
unimpaired LIBERTY in conduct, eating, dress, mating, etc., based on
complete Self-ownership in Ideal Democracy.
They together own and operate a clean, well-filled Department Store
where members can buy everything at cost with the first and only honest,
stable and efficient System of Money that has yet been proposed;
extensive fields and productive gardens; large, modern machinery run at
first with cheap Electricity abundantly generated with water power, and
later, no doubt, operated with the direct Solar Energy which is
continually streaming from the Sun to the Earth in endless quantities;
large garden, orchard and nut-bearing forest; thousands of miles of
firmly-paved highways; the buildings constructed of Aluminum and Glass;
electric heating, lighting, cooking and mechanical ventilation, and in
the summer mechanical cooling as well as many other good things too
numerous to mention.
But the Modern Paradise plan of Co-operative Living and Working does not
only usher in the desired _good_ things, but also eliminates practically
all existing _evils_ that are now so heavily burdening the people of
every land.
There would be no noisy, congested, immoral Cities and no isolated
country homes. No cottages and servant-kept mansions in which women and
children eke out a crude, lonely life as kitchen, nursery and laundry
drudges. No slums and questionable resorts. No landlords and tenants to
quarrel and fight; no strikes and lockouts to starve and freeze the
Public; no compulsory majority rule to stifle the best thoughts and
plans of minorities.
No need for armies, navies, police forces and chaperons and no use for
meddlesome Grundyism; no impediments of free speech, free press, free
assembly and free non-invasive conduct. No breweries and slaughter
houses. No stimulants and narcotics—opium, liquor, tobacco, tea and
coffee—to steal the good sense and impair the good health. No masters
and servants. No “red light districts.” No compulsory education and no
involuntary child labor. No monopoly and special privilege. No graft and
profiteering and no high cost of living.
There is no extravagant and idle aristocracy to live on the labor of
others. No royal palaces and gaudy cathedrals to build and support, and
little, if any, use for insane asylums. And after people know enough to
stop quarreling and “sinning” there will be no need for lawyers,
ministers and judicial judges. No dependent aged parents to be
discordantly supported by their children. No worry of parents over their
children whether babe or grown-up. No dependent women and begging
children. No army of extravagantly salaried rulers and officials on the
one hand, and millions of jobless on the other. No heartless
multi-millionaires and pauperized beggars. No scheming diplomats and
deceiving politicians, and no exploiting commercialism of any kind.
These as well as many other progressive changes in human affairs will
undoubtedly be more and more realized by refined posterity long before
the close of this Thousand Year Forecast, and many of them will even be
approximately attained before the end of the present Century. We may
thus at least partly visualize the many grand things posterity will
enjoy in the future. Posterity will look upon our present doings as we
look upon the crude doings of the people of the Stone Age.
Not _all_ the Modern Paradises will at first be operated on such high
ideals as I have depicted in the foregoing pages. Some will, no doubt,
still stick to the pipe, bottle and cup for a while. Others will see the
great benefits of industrial, domestic and parental co-operation, but
will not feel at ease without churches, professional schools and some
form of boss-ship. Still others will want animals and slaughterhouses to
kill them, etc.
But all this unnecessary, unclean, unsanitary, unhealthy and wasteful
work will greatly lengthen their average workday and reduce the comforts
and conveniences of life in such immature Modern Paradises. But the
members will nevertheless reap much of the great benefits from their
industrial, domestic and parental co-operation, no matter how crude and
superstitious it might be at the beginning. The Survival of the Fittest
will, no doubt, soon prevail among the Modern Paradises the same as
among individuals. It must all be settled by intelligence.
We may thus see that under the Modern Paradise regime of thinking,
living and working, there are at first all grades of civilization from
the ideal Modern Paradise down to the Indian wigwam, so that everybody
can find a suitable place in the wide-open field of sociologic progress
where each can feel at ease whether crude or refined.
At the top of the social structure is the ideal Modern Paradise before
depicted. The next step down are the Modern Paradises that have many
good things, but also have still many bad ones; such as the opium den,
smoke house, booze bottle, give-and-take marriage, superstitious
mysticism, coffee cup, gambling table, social parasites, scheming
politicians, etc.
Below those partially developed Modern Paradises can be the group that
are fairly able to co-operate _industrially_, but are still unable to
co-operate _domestically_. They can live in family cottages like those
located on large residence lots as shown in Figure 5, page 33, but not
in a Co-operative Mansion. They are still scrappers and fighters. Their
average workday is at least twice as long as the workday in an ideal
Modern Paradise. Their women and children are also dependent
subordinates, and their liberty, comforts and conveniences of life are
also very much below the ideal standard, but it fits their sentiments
and backward habits, and, therefore, they should have it, even if they
have to pay dear for it.
Those that are still unable to co-operate on any agreeable basis, but
want to see improvements made on our present chaotic conditions of the
world as it is now run under the wage-system can work along the
progressive lines suggested in Chapter XXIII, page 103; and so on down,
until we reach the Indian wigwam. Hence, everybody can find a suitable
niche in which each fits best in accordance with the degree of his or
her development, and all by voluntary adjustment. Every Reader should
ask himself or herself, “Where do I belong in this graduated scale of
development? How far am I still from the top of the social ideals?”
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XXIII
IMMEDIATE IMPROVEMENT
WE are, however, not yet all matured to live that co-operative life
which I have depicted in the foregoing pages. Most people have still too
much of the tiger element in them to live harmoniously in any Modern
Paradise whether crude or ideal. They are still haters, meddlers,
quarrelers and fighters. They invariably try to fleece and dominate over
others instead of developing and refining themselves and minding their
own business. As long as we do that we lack culture and due regard for
the just rights of others, and in that way curtail our own welfare and
happiness.
We are all aware that just now the world is in a very chaotic condition.
We find hatred, strife, war and bankruptcy practically everywhere. But
all this strife and discord can easily be removed, if the people go at
it in the right way. How, I believe, this can easily and speedily be
done by immediate practical means I shall now very briefly suggest in
this Topic.
There are still two great classes of discords—National and International
strifes and discords. The International strife, discord and war result
where one or more Nations exploit, rob or dominate over other Nations;
and that strife and war will continue as long as there are _mandates_
and _dependent_ Nations; for it is natural for all self-respecting
peoples to strive for national freedom and independence the same as we
did in 1776. The _National_ discords result where one Individual or
Class exploits other Individuals or Classes by monopoly and special
privilege of some sort, and that strife and discord will continue to
intensify as intelligent conduct advances.
For the purpose of establishing and maintaining _International_ Peace,
Friendly Mutuality and General Prosperity, let the two opposing
sides—the Victors and the Vanquished—of the late World War:
(1) Impartially appoint a _neutral_ commission to ascertain the _cause_
of the war, “who started it” and why it was so brutally fought to the
bitter end without ever trying to make peace on the basis of reason
instead of armed force. The sane people of the world want to know that
from an impartial tribunal, because both sides contend that the opposing
side started the war, and that causes the hatred on both sides.
(2) Scrap the unjust, autocratic and disreputable Versailles Peace
Treaty handed to the world by the self-appointed militaristic “Big
Four;” who cut up more than a dozen Nations and bartered away some of
their people without the slightest regard for the consent of the
governed.
(3) Let this neutral Commission also ascertain what Nations are justly
entitled to war indemnity, how much, and what Nations should pay it.
(4) Convene a truly _democratic_ Peace and Disarmament Conference at
which every Nation, large and small, independent and dependent has an
equal voice, the same as our States have in the Senate.
(5) Have this Peace Conference adopt UNIVERSAL DISARMAMENT for all
international war purposes.
(6) Let the Nations in this Conference agree to cancel all the war
debts, personal and national, so as to make it possible, once more, to
begin with a clean slate and a noble purpose. To pay war tax and still
worse to shift this war tax on future generations yet unborn is a
discredit to the people of any nation. The contributors of the war funds
on both sides of the brutal conflict, who kept the war going, should now
pay the penalty of having all the war loans canceled to make the world
once more peaceful, prosperous and really democratic.
(7) Accord to the people of every Nation full Self-determination and the
sole right of adjusting and conducting their own _internal_ affairs.
(8) Restore to every Nation the territory and inhabitants of which it
was robbed by the late war. Turkey already took them back by force and
all the other dozen or more divided nations will likely do the same at
their first opportunity, and this will keep up the hatred, strife and
war for centuries to come, if this restoration is not made.
(9) Adopt a real _democratic_ instead of the present _autocratic_ League
of Nations on the basis of reason and civic justice, and for the only
one purpose of maintaining the _international_ Peace of the world, and
from which any Nation can withdraw at any time and for any cause it sees
fit to do so. Come in and go out at any time. That leaves every Nation
completely free from any “entangling alliance.” There is no more real
need for the use of armies and navies among Nations than there is
between the several States of a Nation.
(10) Liberate all prisoners of war and accord to all individuals and
nations full equal freedom of the sea and air for all non-aggressive
purposes.
(11) Every Nation should be proud of according full freedom of speech,
the press and assembly in order to get at the truth and promote progress
during peace or war.
(12) Every citizen that migrates to a foreign country should go there at
his _own risk_ and adjustment. For a Government to protect a citizen in
a foreign country usually causes strife and often war. Many a citizen
from a powerful Nation is too liable to carry a chip on his shoulder and
“dares” the foreign Nation by questionable means to knock it off. That
method is also very unjust to the little Nations that can not protect
their citizens in foreign lands by _armed force_ from unjust treatment
by big Nations. Let every immigrant to a foreign country protect himself
by just treatment of the natives and the laws of the land to which he
migrates. If that does not seem safe to him, he should not venture
there.
The full and impartial application of these twelve democratic points
will undoubtedly remove practically all the present international
discords which are now bringing so much hardship and misery on the human
race, and this misery and depression will continue for centuries unless
international justice is meted out to all nations, large and small,
independent and dependent. But there are also many _national_ evils
which must also be adjusted before we can expect all-round Peace,
Harmony and General Prosperity.
The first and most important _national_ move should be to abolish Land
Monopoly. To open up the Natural Resources—soil, mines, forest, oil
wells, waterfalls, etc., which provide the only unlimited sources of
remunerative employment. This can readily be done by properly limiting
the personal ownership of land, mines, etc. To get cheaper tools and
machinery, the _monopolistic_ features of the Patent Laws should be
removed. To remove the gamble element out of the Money System, the
Banking business should be combined with the Post Office Department as a
Government function the same as the mail and parcel post. Practically
every Post Office should also become a Government Bank, and the money
issued by the Government. This can almost completely stabilize the
average purchasing power of the dollar and fully secure every depositor
against loss, as I fully explain in my recent Essay, “How to Awaken the
Sleeping Mummy.”
For cheaper and more efficient Transportation and Communication, there
should be _unified_ GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP AND OPERATION of railroads,
telegraph and other monopolized and watered public utilities for the
general benefit of the Public instead of for private gain on the basis
of charging “all the traffic will bear.”
Government ownership and operation of Public Utilities is desirable,
because it will do away: (1) with billions of watered stock; (2)
billions of annual dividends; (3) will unify operations which will
greatly reduce operating expense; (4) with unified operation, the
operating force could be very much reduced; and (5) the _unified
service_ would be much more convenient to the Public. Such efficient,
unified Government Ownership and Operation would undoubtedly reduce
Transportation rates one-third if not one-half. Government ownership and
operation of coal mines and oil wells would also, no doubt, cut the
present profiteering price of coal, oil and gasoline in half. As to
whether the people should own and operate the public utilities as public
property as they do the post office, public schools, parcel post,
weather bureau, etc., or whether they shall be owned and operated by
private enterprise as now, depends on the viewpoint of the critic. Those
who want them operated primarily for the special benefit of a
comparatively small group of dividend-taking stockholders, naturally
favor private ownership. On the other hand, those who want them run for
the best interest of all the people want public ownership, if they have
thoroughly and impartially investigated the question.
To combat Commercial Profiteering, cities should also own and operate in
competition with private owners such basic industries as coal yards, ice
plants, water and gas plants, lumber yards, street cars, and the finest
Municipal Department Store that sell at cost of production everything
from a pin to a modern threshing outfit and farm tractor.
That will abolish commercial profiteering, and if these competing
unified Public Industries are efficiently operated, that will reduce the
cost of living to the minimum, make the average workday the shortest and
easiest, remunerative jobs most plentiful, the purchasing power of the
dollar most stable and factious competition, excessive exportation and
extravagant waste least.
We may thus see that real Democracy founded on justice, kindness and
liberty is the only solution of Humanity’s ills. That as long as the
Victors rule over the Vanquished by armed force, and the powerful
Independent Nations as Mandataries dominate over the weaker Nations,
there can be no _International_ Peace and friendly Mutuality; and as
long as Plutocracy lives on the toil of the producing Masses, there can
be no _National_ Peace and general Prosperity.
Flagrant Wrongs like France’s invasion of the Ruhr in Germany for not
fulfilling a _forced_ contract in the making of which Germany had no
voice will bring nothing but hatred, deception, poverty, war and ruin
all-round, because it is the cave man’s method of treatment.
Such harmonious national and international adjustments on the basis of
reason and civic justice as I have suggested in this brief Topic will
surely go a long, long way toward Peace, friendly Mutuality and general
Prosperity, but the conditions at the very best would still be very far
from being an ideal Modern Paradise.
We would still have the noisy, immoral, congested cities and the
isolated country homes, the dependent women and begging children eking
out a lonely, toilsome life in family cottages and servant-kept
mansions; the masters and the servants, the millions of school children
confined in stuffy schoolrooms; the give-and-take marriage regime, as
well as many other unnecessary impediments against rational life,
liberty and the pursuit of health and happiness.
We may thus see that the Ideal toward which advancing civilization is
undoubtedly tending is in the direction of extensive VOLUNTARY
CO-OPERATION on large Landed Estates with shops and factories by groups
of intelligent men, women and children as equal Industrial and Domestic
Co-operators and Owners of Modern Paradises.
Hence, our primary aim should be to bring the people in social and
economic groups back to the healthful Land from which all wealth must be
directly or indirectly produced by the hand and brain of labor.
Every national Government is still run fundamentally on the
strife-provoking basis of MILITARISM and EXPLOITING COMMERCIALISM; on
the basis of Force instead of Reason and the Dollar above the Man. These
destructive and unjust sentiments can not produce a good world to
anyone, rich or poor.
Hence, the two most important transitional steps toward the Ideal for
the people to take immediately are (1) to elect Pacifists instead of
Militarists as their Rulers and Officials; men and women who know enough
to settle international differences without plunging the world into
brutal wars; (2) to run Nations on the just and humane basis of the “Man
Above the Dollar.”
We are still doing just the opposite. Everything that produces DOLLARS
still goes. War, prostitution, graft, profiteering, selling booze and
death-dealing armaments and commercial gambling of all kinds go, when
they have Dollars whether honest or dishonest in them. We have far too
much Commercialism. At least 75 per cent of the world’s present
Commercialists and professionalists should be shifted into the useful
fields of Industrialism. That would make the average workday very much
shorter and easier and the total commodities much more in keeping with
the modern standard of living. We, therefore, need many more useful
producers and many less commercial gamblers; shorter workdays and more
play-days; for as long as superstitious mysticism and armed Force are
held above Reason, and the dollar above Man, we can not hope to have a
harmonious world.
Every Reader, after thoughtfully reading this small book, can plainly
see that the Modern Paradise plan of Thinking, Living and Working
produces the highest Efficiency of Production, Equitable Distribution,
Wise Accumulation, Economical Consumption and Harmonious Association;
all resting on the sound sociologic principle of COMPLETE SELF-OWNERSHIP
IN IDEAL DEMOCRACY.
I am also confident that the Remedies which I have suggested in this
Topic for speedily adjusting the present National and International
discordances will, of course, not turn the world into Modern Paradises
at once, but will bring much immediate relief to the starving and
war-burdened people of every land, if they only rise to the emergency of
adopting such measures in a free and peaceful way. But all such
improvements can be attained only by sound EDUCATION and further
REFINEMENT. We can not hope to usher in a good world without having good
people to run it harmoniously.
It just requires only ordinary people that know how to do some useful
work, that are free from superstition, that have clean, healthful habits
and that know how to tend to their own affairs and let others do the
same.
For building, operating and peopling these Modern Paradises, whether one
or a million, I have called in nothing new, strange or mystical (except
the suggestion of the Chemico-Electric Generator mentioned on page 43
which is not yet in operation, but will likely come in the near future).
Everything for living that ideal life is already here in separate parts,
but the various parts—land, buildings, machinery, refined co-operators,
etc.—have so far never been combined in a free and harmonious way for
producing all-round ideal results.
Is not this illustrated book, “The Story of the World a Thousand Years
Hence” the first adequate program descriptive of an ideal method of
Thinking, Living and Working? Does the Reader know of any other?
But the ideal life is really so simple and so uniformly in accord with
the peaceable and healthful laws of Nature that almost any live
architect and builder can design, build and furnish a Modern Paradise
from the drawings and suggestions contained in this small book, and also
visualize the successive transitional steps that gradually lead up to
that evolutionary IDEAL. And all this is in complete accord with Herbert
Spencer’s sound announcement when he says:
“The particular kind of further evolution which Man is hereafter to
undergo, is one in which, more than any other, may be expected to cause
a decline in the power of reproduction; in the end, therefore, the
obtainment of subsistence and the discharge of all parental and social
duties, will require just that kind and that amount of action needful to
health and happiness.”
---------------------------------------------------------
XXIV
CONCLUSION
IN conclusion permit me to say that some of my Readers will perhaps
regard these carefully deduced Conclusions with fear and trembling. But
as the History of the Past clearly shows, this opposition to Progress is
nothing new or strange. Every page of History is replete with
indisputable facts that the timid, superstitious Standpatters and Force
Advocates have always feared and opposed advanced methods of Thinking,
Living and Working.
Their alarm and opposition have, however, seldom if ever been due to any
serious defects of the proposed progressive methods, but rather to their
own comparatively undeveloped Minds; primarily to their inability to
make comprehensive GENERALIZATIONS in the matter of human conduct.
Liberty, Equality of Opportunity, Friendly Mutuality and Sound
Naturalism have apparently always appeared dangerous and gruesome to
this timid and unprogressive class of Humanity. They are not purposely
bent on doing wrong; they merely lack in modern intellectual light, and
for this reason have they invariably been willing to sacrifice Truth and
arrest Progress in order to preserve the ancient and the antiquated
rather than join the ranks of Progress.
But despite all designed opposition, will the march of Progress continue
with increasing rapidity, and the writer is only too willing to leave
the Truth or Error of these carefully deduced Conclusions to the best
judgment of the Coming Generations.
(Can the Reader think of any _good_ thing which this IDEAL CIVILIZATION
does not have in it, or of any of the present _bad_ things which is not
eliminated therefrom? If so, will the Reader kindly report the same to
the author, 2219 Larimore Avenue, Omaha, Nebraska, for it is the
author’s earnest desire to get all the possible _good_ and remove all
the _bad_.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Notes
▪ Note: Printer’s errors and apparent misspellings have been changed
and are noted below.
▪ Note: Hyphenation and capitalization have been standardized in cases
noted below, where there is a predominant form in the text.
▪ Note: The original text did not have chapter headings as such.
Instead each chapter had a description in the page header. In this
eBook, we have incorporated this description into the chapter
headings.
▪ Note: For the reader’s convenience, a Table of Contents has been
created for this eBook, and is grated to the public domain.
▪ Pg. 9: Corrected typo: ‘FORTELLING THE FUTURE’ to ‘FORETELLING’
▪ Pg. 9: Corrected half-title: ‘A STORY OF THE WORLD A THOUSAND YEARS
HENCE’ to ‘THE STORY’
▪ Pg. 11: Corrected typo: ‘Ameba’ to ‘Amoeba’
▪ Pg. 15: Corrected typo: ‘in the right way,and’ to ‘way, and’
▪ Pg. 23: Removed hyphen: ‘... orchard, green-house, etc.’ to
‘greenhouse’—Unhyphenated elsewhere
▪ Pg. 25: Removed extra comma: ‘... heated with electricity in the
winter, and mechanically cooled in the summer’ to ‘winter and’
▪ Pg. 28: Corrected typo: ‘There are also an ample supply’ to ‘There
is’
▪ Pg. 31: Corrected typo: ‘interesting and influential socialbility’ to
‘sociability’
▪ Pg. 33: Added missing space: ‘(Fig.5)’ to ‘(Fig. 5)’
▪ Pg. 37: Corrected typo: ‘in a large electric buss’ to ‘bus’
▪ Pg. 37: Corrected typo: ‘firmly-paved highways or bulevards’ to
‘boulevard’
▪ Pg. 43: Corrected typo: ‘... the enless stream of solar energy’ to
‘endless’
▪ Pg. 48: Added missing comma: ‘... this “orderly succession of events”
as we call it’ to ‘events,” as we call it’
▪ Pg. 51: Added parentheses: ‘Fig. 7’ to ‘(Fig. 7)’—Figure markings
within parentheses elsewhere
▪ Pg. 54: Added space: ‘... the same as in our postoffice’ to ‘post
office’—Spaced out elsewhere
▪ Pg. 58: Added missing comma: ‘There Froebelism and Montessorianism’
to ‘There, Froebelism’
▪ Pg. 60: Corrected typo: ‘... a race of billiant Thinkers and clever
Actors’ to ‘brilliant’
▪ Pg. 62: Added missing comma: ‘... science, philosophy music’ to
‘philosphy, music’
▪ Pg. 70: Added missing comma: ‘... commensurate with dangers burdens
and responsibilities.’ to ‘dangers, burdens’
▪ Pg. 75: Added parentheses: ‘Fig. 8’ to ‘(Fig. 8)’—Figure markings
within parentheses elsewhere
▪ Pg. 80: Corrected typo: ‘... government which emantes’ to ‘emanates’
▪ Pg. 94: Added space: ‘... the schoolhouses, post office’ to ‘post
office’—Spaced out elsewhere
▪ Pg. 106: Added missing comma: ‘... make it possible, once more to’ to
‘once more, to’
▪ Pg. 106: Seemingly missing word inserted: ‘The contributors of the
war funds on both sides of the brutal conflict kept the war going’
to ‘the brutal conflict, who kept the war going’
▪ Pg. 106: Added missing comma: ‘... once more peaceful prosperous and
really democratic’ to ‘peaceful, prosperous’
▪ Pg. 112: Removed space: ‘... confined in stuffy school rooms’ to
‘schoolrooms’—Compounded elsewhere
▪ Pg. 115: Removed parentheses: ‘... mentioned on page (43)’ to ‘page
43’—without parentheses elsewhere
▪ Pg. 114: Removed extraneous word: ‘But despite of all designed
opposition’ to ‘But despite all’
▪ Pg. 115: Added close-parentheses: ‘... but will likely come in the
near future.’ to ‘future).’
▪ Pg. 117: Removed extra question mark: ‘... and remove all the _bad_?’
to ‘all the _bad_.’