In seven different ways has the world been on the point of being
regenerated since the Spanish-American War. For the completeness with
which the world has been reconstructed consult the current files of the
newspapers.
The world was to be made over by the bicycle. The strap-hanger was to
abandon his strap and ride joyfully down the Broadway cable-slot,
snapping his fingers at traction magnates and imbibing ozone. The
factory-hand was to abandon his city flat and live in the open country,
going to and from his work through the green lanes at fifteen miles an
hour, with his lunch on the handle bars. The old were to grow young
again and the young were to dream close to the heart of Nature. The
doctors were to perish of starvation. But where is the bicycle to-day?
The world was to be made over by jiu-jitsu. Elderly gentlemen were to
regain the waistline of their youth by ten minutes' attention every
morning to the secrets of the Samurai. Slim young women, when attacked
by heavy ruffians, were to seize their assailants by the wrist and hurl
them over the right shoulder. The police were to discard their revolvers
and their night sticks, and suppress rioters by mere muscular
contraction. The doctors, as before, were to grow extinct through the
rapid process of starvation. But where is jiu-jitsu to-day?
The world was to be regenerated by denatured alcohol. Congress had
merely to remove the internal revenue tax and a new motive power would
be let loose, far transcending the total available horsepower of our
coal mines. Denatured alcohol was to drive the farmer's machines, propel
our war automobiles, run our factories, and reduce the cost of living to
a ridiculous minimum. But where is denatured alcohol to-day?
The world was to be redeemed by the bungalow. The landlord was to
disappear and in his place would come a race of free-men bowing the head
to no man and raising their own vegetables. Kitchen drudgery was to be
eliminated by the simple device of abolishing the kitchen and calling it
a kitchenette. With no more stairs to climb, rheumatism would pass into
history. So would the doctors. The bungalow is still with us, and alas,
so are the doctors.
The world was to be regenerated by sour milk; by the simple life; by
sleeping in the open air. But where now are Prof. Metchnikoff and Pastor
Wagner? And the pictures of rose-embowered sleeping porches in the
garden magazines have been supplanted by pictures of colonial farmhouses
transformed into charming interiors by two coats of white-wash and a
thin-paper edition of the classics.
Does this show that we must give up all hope of seeing a new world
around us before 1915? By no means. We still have Eugenics.