OmiKS mcvimur rf mAjx aaucr Ma.,

EX LIBRIS William Jiarry Jiol^kins

ERRATUM:

th.uJ. 1- ^ r'''^'^ •'quadrillions- in the ast l.nc of pa^^e 2S5-insert

rom^\ ?Mr'^-^ trillions: this l,v i.ooo.ooo billions: —

DUKE UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

The Glenn Negley Collection of Utopian Literature

THE

Lunarian Professor

AND

His Remarkable Revelations Concerning the Earth, the Moon and Mars

TOGETHER WITH

An Account of the Cruise of the Sally Ann

BY

JAMES B. ALEXANDER

AUTHOR OF THE DYNAMIC THEORY. THE SOUL ANO ITS BEARINGS AND OTHERS

Minneapolis, Minn.

1909

CCPYRISHT 193i3

BY JAMES B. ALEXAr4DER

R r3 F

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface.

I. An Outing 1

An Old Time Adventure 2'

Cruise of the Sally Ann , . 4

The M. & N. W. Railway 10

An Old Stake 14

II. The Professor 17

III. The Moon and Its People 31

IV. Lite on and in the Moon 51

V. Mundane Prognostication 70

The Profile of Time 73

Single Tax 81

VI. Confiscation of Lands 93

Purchase of the Railways 101

Regulation of the Currency 105

Socialism r 107

VIL Woman's Rights 113

The Family 117

Progress in the Church 119

CHAPTER PAGE

VIII. Marriage and Divorce 124

Changes in Map of U. S 128

Russia and England 129

New Political Divisions 133

The Flying Machines 140

Sun Power 152

Over Population 155

IX. Pessimism vs Optimism 158

The Three Grand Nations 164

X. The Third Sex 182

The Decay of the Family 187

XI. The Millenniums 195

The Man of the 100th Millennium .... 199

XII. Universal State and Language 207

XIII. Mars and the Martians 225

XIV. The Canals 238

The Moons 241

XV. The Great Debt 255

Deimos and the Great Cable 260

XVI. Phobos 268

The New Cable 273

Proposed Abduction of i\Iars 277

The Return Voyage 282

Appendix 283

PREFACE.

The reader will please remember that this visit and revelation of the Lunarian Professor took place in 1892, seventeen years ago, and some of the predictions are already due of fulfillment or of apparent progress in that direction. For example he gives Minneapolis a population of 1,780,000 in the year 1925 only sixteen years from the present. This is worse than ^Yalton. But I do not feel at liberty to alter the Professional utterances. If I should begin to do this I would never knovx^ where to stop. There will doubtless be found other pre- dictions at variance with our ideas, especially as to the time in which the fulfillment should take place. Time is the most uncertain element con- cerned in prophetic utterances. Give a prophet time enough and he will successfully predict you anything you like. "All things come to him v/ho waits." But I have not the assurance to change any- thing the Professor has said and I am not prepared to aver that the truths as they appear to common mundane mortals are to be preferred to the errors however manifest of so illustrious a prophet — just as we accept the dicta of Moses or St. Paul— when we are entirely sure they do not know what they are talking about. Our Professor is probably wrong in regard to the settlement of some of the questions taken up by him, but to tell the honest

Prpface

tmth, I am too ignorant of the disputed points to CDUtradict him. li' he says black is Avhile it y:\ safer for me not to talk back. But when it comes to plain statements of facts, concerning the pres- ent conditions on the Moon and Mars, in which, from the abundance of personal knowledge there remains no license to draw upon his imagination for his facts, I implicitly trust the Professor. I never saw a pair of eyes so full of honesty for their size, or of as large capacity for honesty as his. Even there, however, some of his statements are liable to be contradicted. For example, the theory of the hump or protuberance on the hither side of the Moon, w^hich had some currency among our astronomers 40 or 50 years ago appears later to have been abandoned by at least some of them, but we should not allow mere theory to counter- balance the testimony of a competent eye witness.

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

The point of view assumed by a Prophet is of little consequence compared with what he sees. Some say, back-sight is more reliable than fore- sight, and that, considered as a magazine of facts, history is preferable to the imagination. But back-sight is history, and like good liquor it re- quires aging and maturing. The association of the imagination supplies these effects. History

Preface

must be read with the help of the imagination even for present use; still more if the inquiry embraces a glance into the future.

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

CHAPTER I.

An Outing.

Let me see. It was six (6) years since I had an outing. It seemed a long time and it was long enough to obscure the conviction I had once arrived at that the average outing is on the whole more of a bore than a pleasure and that its principal value consists in making a fellow satisfied with his ordi- nary w^ork and glad to get back to it again. I am tolerably sure that I should have reached the same opinion even if I had not been the victim of a cer- tain wretched adventure that happened away back in my ''courting days". On the occasion referred to I had taken my best girl for a little rowing and fish- ing on Brush Lake. ^Ye had not proceeded far when she *'got a bite", and it nearly drove her wild with excitement, she stood up in the boat and from her frantic exertions I judged she had hooked nothing less than a six pound bass. At last she pulld it out with a horizontal sweep, and whirling around with it, the middle of the line struck my head Avith such force as to send the fish revolving around my neck five times, and wound up by inserting the hook in the end of my nose and leaving the fish dangling and flapping against my face — a ridiculous little Sninfish not over three inches long. The excited lady dropped her pole and made such a violent lunge to secure her prize that she upset the boat and left us both floundering in the water. Amongst the fifteen

2 The Lvnarian Professor

or twenty spectators on the shore was Aquarius Jinks, whose father was a fisherman and had brought him up to think no more of jumping into the water than a water spaniel. So in he jumped and in a jiffy he rescued my lady and took her to the nearest house to get some dry clothes. As for mj^self, I Avas getting out all right in spite of the embarrassment of the choking line, my lacerated nose and that; wretched fish that did not for a moment let up its frantic struggling and flapping. In addition to this I had the misfortune to be encumbered by the clum- sy assistance of a fat German saloon-keeper, who by the help of the pole, which had now floated near the shore, drew me up, amid the jeers of the crowd, that now by the barbarous custom of the times, I was obliged to ** treat."

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

Although I never had another such disastrous experience, yet as I said at first, the average outing with its accidents, fatigues and discomforts, had on the whole, left no very favorable impression on me. Yet I had made up my mind after an interval of six years to try one more. !?Jy literary work had tired

An Ouiing ?,

me out, and a trip, if it gave no pleasure, would hurt at least in another place.

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

4 Tim Lunarian Professor

sound of the distant puffing of a steam yacht or the merry laughter of a sailing party, that occasionally ricochetted to the shore rather directed than dis- turbed the train of these passive activities.

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

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

It was a fine morning when, all things ready, T hoisted sail. The wind was from the southeast and I started off before it at an exhilarating speed, steer- ing northwest. In a short time I came abreast of Big Island, when turning west skirting its north

An Outing 5

shore, I soon got becalmed, the island cutting off the wind. I was obliged to take the oars, but as I dallied and loitered along, it w^as a full hour be- fore I passed the island and caught my breeze again. I was here steering southwest across the wind and heading for the narrows, and the canal leading into the upper lake. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this lake, no matter at what point the view is taken. At this place looking northeast over the stern of the boat, the village of AYayzata partly obscured by Spirit Island, appeared as if seated in the water half a mile away, though in reality it is five miles. On the souJ;heast within a mile, was the Lake Park hotel and beyond it, half a mile further and across the entrance to Gideon's Bay, a part of Excelsior could be seen climbing its picturesque hills, while along the piers at the bottom of their slopes, were numerous steam and sailing crafts of various kinds, besides a fleet of row boats.

As I approached the entrance to the canal, I ob- served standing on the south bank, a man with a gun in his hand and dressed in outing costume, whose figure and attitude reminded me of someone I had seen before. *'Can it be possible", I said to myself, 'Hhat that is Allan Ocheltree?" By the time the boat touched the land, I had made sure that it was and I sprang ashore to greet him. The recognition and gratification at meeting were mut- ual. Our friendship for each other, was always the closest friendship either of us had. We had been room-mates and class-mates for four years at college, and our temperaments and tastes were like comple- mentary colors, of such harmonious contrast as to

6 Tlic Li'juiriiui Professor

fit each other to a T. In our class we were to each other like the two end men of a minstrel troup; he at one end — the head end — and I at the other. It is singular how^ people, like drift wood on the stream of time, are at times drifted toward each other and float along together till some eddy or obstruction in the current separates them, and hurries them off in diverging directions, perhaps to meet again farther down the stream, it may be more than once. Sometimes a leave-taking under circumstances, that seem to forebode it to be the last and clothe it in gloom, and sorrow, is nevertheless not the last by many; while a cheerful good-by with a light heart- ed *'ta-ta-old-fellow-see-you-to-morrow," may prove the beginning of a separation destined to endure for years — perhaps forever.

The Ocheltree family and my ancestors, were from the same Scotch-Irish stock, were friends and neighbors near Belfast and emigrated to Maryland about two hundred and thirty years ago, settling at first in Somerset County. A few years later they moved north into Cecil County, and from there in 1760 a large emigration took place to Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Among these emigrants, were Duncan Ocheltree and my grandfather's Uncle John. These two were friends and neighbors in the new settlement and when the revolutionary war broke out, they both adopted the patriotic cause. The Mechlenburg declaration of independence was adopted and signed May 20th or 31st, 1775, by a convention of which John was secretary, and it was supported by Duncan. But in 1780, Lord Cornwal- lis overran the state and captured Charlotte, the

Aji Outing 7

county seat of Mechlenburg, and Duncan, believing all was lost, hastened to turn Tory and make his submission to his lordship in order to save his v^ealth of which he had acquired a goodly share. This was a bad break and he made it worse by the superero- gatory zeal of a new convert, in harassing his form- er friends and piloting the red-coated foragers to their hay stacks, hen roosts and pig pens, not spar- ing his old friend John. But the triumph of Corn- wallis was short; in a few days, he was obliged to evacuate Charlotte and then Duncan realized that he had placed himself in a very bad position. As the British troops were packing their knapsacks preparatory to decamping from Charlotte between two days, Duncan determined to throw himself up- on the generosity of his former friend John, and so under cover of the darkness he rode out to his farm- house nine miles in the country. John, who was two miles oft' in the patriot camp, was sent for. Duncan surrendered his sword and begged his old friend to forgive bygones and advise him what to do. John's sympathy for him at that stage of affairs w^as not particularly tender as may be supposed, but never- theless his advice was no doubt the best possible. He said: "Ocheltree, neither your life nor your proper- ty is safe in Mechlenburg. The Whigs will take both Your only safety is in instant flight. I advise you to reach the Yadkin before daylight." He took the advice. And so they parted. Four generations later like two stray straws on a flood, Allan Ocheltree and I were floated into the same class room at school. Did it make any difference to me or to him that his great grandfather, made a bad guess seventy years

8 Tlic Lunarian Professor

before? Not a bit. Every man's ancestral tree is just the same height as all the rest, his lineage is just as long and his pedigree must contain practically the same number of terms whether we reckon back to Adam or to the Ascidian or to original protoplasm. Not a member of the long line made himself or the circumstances surrounding him, and in no two cases were these precisely the same. The circumstances that made Confucius or Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, or Columbus, or Washington never happened to anybody else. It was no fault of the obscure ancestors or descendants or cousins near and remote of those worthies that these circumstan- ces never surrounded them. On the other hand it cannot be ascribed to the merit of the long line of those belonging to the dead level of the average, in size and in quality, that they have been missed by the untoward circumstances that selected certain individuals to be in one respect or another conspicu- ousl}^ below that dead level.

After quitting college, Allan and I occasionally ran across each other, but the last meeting before this, occurred in 1876 on Arch Street, Philadelphia. He was interested in an exhibit in the great exposi- tion, and being then in a great hurry made an ap- pointment to meet me next morning. I kept the engagement, but he was not there. I knew urgent business had turned up to prevent him, and after I returned to my liome T received his letter saying so, and appointing another hour. This letter had missed me at my hotel and followed me to Illinois. Here then, we were having our reunion sixteen years after it was due. But now we could make up for

An Outing 9

lost time for neither had engagements that reqiured attention for a week at least. It was speedily ar- ranged that Allan should accompany me and that we should carry out together the plan I had proposed for myself. He wrote a note for his boarding house keeper in Excelsior, saying he would be gone some days, and gave it to a rowing party going to Excel- sior, that we shortly after fell in with, and who cheerfully consented to deliver it. The wind was still from the southeast, but light and we slowly sailed westerly and south-westerly passing succes- sively the state fruit farm and Sampson's place lying on our left, and Spring Park on our right, nad in a short time reached Hov/ard's Point that juts a third of a mile into the lake from the south shore. "We sailed through the strait between this and pictur- esque KockAv ell's Island with its attractive summer hotel, and restful looking surroundings, and turn- ed southwest towai'd Smithtown Bay.

"We entered Smithtown Bay, but did not go to the end of it, for the wind was not favorable, and as we turned west toward the highlands of the up- per lake I fell into a reminiscent mood. Up to this time we had occupied ourselves in admiration of the delightful scenery and in such careless chat as oc- curred to us, sometimes taking a pull at the oars, when we entered a locality becalmed by being screened from the Avind, and sometimes pulling in the fish line that dragged over the stern of the boat to see why we never got a bite. But here the mem- ories that crowded upon me completely absorbed my attention and I became silent. I had tramped all over this country in 1877 in the selection of a route

10 The Lunarian Professor

for the Minneapolis and Northwestern Narrow Gauge Railroad, and so was familiar with the top- ography, not only of the upper lake, but of the whole route from Minneapolis to Hutchinson. The first preliminary line surveyed from Hutchinson to Min- neapolis in the latter part of November, 1877, passed along the foot of the high bluff just in front of us, but the line was not finally located till October, 1879.

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

**Weir' I replied, "it was a case of infanticide.'*

**How was that?" He asked.

** You've heard of treacherous midwives and nurses and murderous baby-farmers being subsidized to strangle an unwelcome cherub as soon as n is ushered into the world?"

**Yes, was it a case of that sort?"

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

^^^^en tliore is such a mob of officials, the man- agement usually devolves on a few of the more ac- tive and interested. That active minority in this

An Outing 11

case somehow either had from the first, or acquired, a greater interest in killing this enterprise to please its rivals than in carrying it out in good faith."

''HoAV did the line run west of here" he asked.

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

Halsteds bay itself is so secluded as to form prac- tically a separate lake and a beautiful one too."

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

"We turned the nose of Sally Ann toward the northwest and sailed slowly before the very light wind. We passed Crane Island lying upon the right — a sort of lying-in hospital and nursery strictly sacred to the use of Cranes only, whose occupancy dates back of the earliest settlement of the country, and whose title has been secured to them by an act of the legislature, against the claims of all feather- less bipeds. Further on, upon the mainland, is the hermitage and just in front of it the grave of Hal- sted, who many years ago, lost his life in the lake so sadly and mysteriously. A short distance beyond the hermitage, I pointed out the place where the survey left the shore of the main lake and cut across to Halsteds bay. We concluded to go on to the

12 Tlte Lunarian Professor

strait leading into that bay and sail around to its south shore. To reach the strait involved sailing north a mile and then over half a mile west. As the wind was still favorable this was soon accom- plished. But when we reached the strait, we could no longer use the sail, and were obliged to have re- course to the oars. Inside the bay there was but lit- tle wind, and that was against us, as our route now lay due south. A little over a mile of rowing brought us to the south shore of the bay. Here the bluff covered with timber and underbrush slopes down to the water's edge. Along the foot of this slope, T pointed out to Ocheltree the position of the narrow gauge survey. *'It is a wonderfully romantic place for a pleasure road," said he.

It was now considerably past noon, and our ex- ercise had begun to tell on us both somewhat and to suggest a rest and something to eat. According- ly we pulled the boat up on the beach, and got out some cooking utensils and provisions. I started off to collect some dry sticks to make a fire and Allan took a pail and proceeded along the shore to find a deep place or a boulder from which he could dip up clear water for our coffee. AYe happened to go together for a fev/ rods, when glancing up the slope a short distance, I discovered a stake sticking in the ground. I gave an exclamation of surprise and quickly ran to secure it. It proved to be what I suspected, one of the stakes of the narrow erauge surwey. ^'WHiat have you found, old fellow?" Allan asked. I told him, and it seemed surprising to both of us that that frail bit of a pine stick should have survived the storms and accidents of thirteen years.

An Outing 13

We had used for stakes on those surveys common plastering lath ; one lath four feet long being cut in the middle made two stakes. This was such a stake, an inch and a half wide and three-eighths of an inch thick. It owed its exceptional preserva- tion to the fact that it was full of pitch and to its protected position. It had been driven in a slant- ing position, partly under the body of a large fallen tree, that lay over the point where the stake should have been set. The number of the stake had been written with red chalk, on the side that had hap- pened to come underneath and so was largely pro- tected from the rains. But it was now illegible, four red blotches being all that remained.

A person walking through our Minnesota woods will often meet with a little mound of earth, along- side of which he will see a cupshaped depression in the ground. The depression marks the spot where at some time in the past there stood a noble tree, and it indicates that the tree yielding to the force of an ancient tornado was toppled over, and, pulling its roots out of the ground drew up with them a cubic yard, more or less, of earth. Afterwards when the roots began to decay the earth was dropped in a heap beside the hole. There was such a mound and hollow at the west end of the rotten log in ques- tion, showing that it had been overthrown by the fierce assault of a western hurricane. The mound was old, well rounded by the action of the weather and covered with a mat of grass. I sat down on this mound in a half reclining position, with the stake in my hand, and tried again without success to make

1-t The Lunarian Professor

out the number*. A solitary mosquito was singiiif): about my right ear, and persisted in returning and constantly evaded my efforts to capture it. Directly however, its wings became still, and unaccountable stupor appeared to steal over me, my head drooped over toward the left till it touched the grass and for a mom.ent I was unconscious. But it was only for a moment for a new consciousness almost immediate- ly supervened. It was a consciousness composed chiefly of subjective sensations, although I hold that even subjec^tive sensations, very often in an unper- ceived manner, receive their direction and stimula- tion to activity from objects around us. But that is a question of psychology. At all events the sensa- tions, I am about to relate were the most remark- able I ever experienced, and at the time were not accompanied by the least intimation, that they were not puitly objective.

CHAPTER II.

The Professor.

First there was a loud singing noise in my right ear, pitched in a high key. Presently this pitch be- came lower and the sound resembled the rattle of

*After reacliing liome and looking over tlie notes of tlie survey, I found the number of the stake to bo be- tween 1175 and 1185, and it was set on Saturday af- ternoon, October 25, 1879.

The Professor 15

rolling car wheels on a track, and they seemed to be approaching. I suddenly realized that they were advancing to the place where I lay, and greatly startled, I sprang to my feet. I was non too quick, for a train of four cars rolled rapidly over the very spot where I had lain. I saw they were filled with gay well dressed people evidentlj^ on a pleasure ex- cursion. As I gazed after them toward the west along the gleaming rails, I remembered there was no locomotive with the train. Of course not, thought I, the road is run by electricity. But there was no overhead wire and no trolley. O, I see, these cars are propelled by storage batteries that they carry with them. I felt no surprise at this, nor at the fact tht the road had been built after all, for it all seemed to be a matter of course. Turning toward the east where the line penetrated the ridge that lies between the bay and the lake, I saw on the edge of the cut the tall white mile post so illuminated by the direct sunshine that the number 24 in large black figures could be made out, although the distance vras a third of a mile or more. While I was still gazing in that direction I suddenly became aware of a strange looking object coming through the cut and around the curve. It was a four wheeled vehicle something like a hand car, but it was not being ''pumped" nor were there any handles for propelling it in that way. The idea suddenly came to me that this car like the first I had seen, was propelled by a storage bat- tery concealed somewhere about its anatomy. But the interest created by the car was quickly eclipsed by that inspired by its occupant; and a more re- markable creature I never read about or dreamed

lo The Lunarian Professor

about. He sat bolt upright on the seat at the rear end of the car and while he was at a distance, I took him for a rather stiff dignified and odd speci- men of a man. But as he approached and I got a better opportunity for observing details, I directly came to doubt if he could be a man at all. When I first saw him, I observed what seemed to be a large fan-like appendage projecting from his back, which I then took to be some peculiar garment streaming out behind. But as he approached, this appendage separated into two, and spreading out to the right and left acted like brakes against the wind and rapidly checked the speed of the car, re- minding me of the action of the wings of a bird, when it alights. Jn short to my great astonishment it turned out they were wrings. I instinctively step- ped back two or three paces to allow this strange apparition to pass, but to my surprise the car stop- ped directly opposite to me and its occupant with a slight flutter of the aforesaid wings, hopped light- ly out of it and stood beside the track so near to me, that I could have touched him. For a moment or two he busied himself with some arrangement about his car, the nature of which I did not observe, as my attention was absorbed chiefly by himself.

In the description, that I shall now" give of him, will be included a number of details that I did not observe at first, but which showed themselves dur- ing the progress of our interview\ The large wings mentioned above were at least six feet in radius, and each was nearly a semicircle. They could be folded like a fan and when in that position they lay down along his back from his shoulders to his heels

The Professor 17

and when fully extended reached from his heels to a point nearly five feet above his head. They were of a soft semitransparent, but thick and tough mem- branous material, full of veins and nerves and sup- ported by stiff elastic ribs, radiating from their ar- ticulation at the shoulder to the circumference.

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

In addition to these wings, there were six other limbs, two of which were legs and two w^ere arms, in much the same position in which they occur in man. The third pair of limbs were attached to the thorax between the arms and legs, and were or- dinarily folded across the thorax. I came to the conclusion these limbs could be used either as hands or feet as occasion required, but while he was with me he made little other use of them than to occa- sionally give me a sly poke with one of them — usual-

18 The Liniarian Professor

ly the right — in the side — usually the left side — about the position of the second rib from the bottom. As these gestures always came about in connection with some humorous or ludicrous idea, it occurred to me in a whimsical way to call these limbs his jokers. His head was immense, possessing, I should saj% double the capacity of the largest human head. The top part was globular, and the lower part, which might be called the face, was long and wedge shap- ed, tapering down to the jaws. The jaws were strong and well set with teeth and worked laterally instead of vertically as with us, and the slit forming the mouth was vertical and in the middle. There was no chin. The eyes were placed just above the mouth and at the base of the upper dome shaped portion of the head. They were of enormous size fully two inches in diameter, half globular and set far apart, forming as it were the corners of the face. They were not movable as ours are, because every part of the surface of the eye was equally good to see with; and their position enabled their owner to see three-fourths of the horizon without turning his head. The face had not one particle of expression or mobility to it, but this was compensated a hun- dred times by the expression of the eyes. Their usual expression, when at rest, was one of supreme kindliness and benevolence with a slight element of humor. But when the mind was in activity, the eyes beamed with good natured wit, were suffused with tender sentiment or flashed with intellectual brillian- cy to a degree I would never have imagined possi- ble. Under each of the wings there was an opening leading into the body, those of the middle wings

Tlie Professor 19

being nearly three-fourths of an inch in diameter, and the others very much smaller. All were pro- tected by movable lips. I soon discovered that these were for the purpose of breathing, the air being constantly inhaled and exhaled through them. I have no doubt the lining membrance of these breath- ing tubes was sensitive to odors and was therefore an organ of smell. As to ears, there was one plain- ly to be seen on the upper part of each arm, and I observed him move his arm in the proper direc- tions to catch the sound. In the long conversation I had with him I cannot say that I heard any artic- ulate voice. There was a slight humming noise, ris- ing and falling in very agreeable musical cadences, and these appeared to accompany the enunciation of his ideas and thoughts when he addressed me. When I spoke to him, I used articulate words in plain Eng- lish and he appeared to hear in the ordinary way. But his thoughts came to me like waves or pulsations and appeared to be injected bodily into my brain without any distinct sensation of hearing them. In short I directly came to perceive that it was a case of the telepathic transfer of ideas, experiments in which are known to most people, but which was in this case vastly more complete and perfect than I had ever imagined possible. In the report of the conver- sation between us that I give herein it is to be un- derstood that I do not quote his language, but give the impression of his thoughts upon me in my own language, and the best I have been able to do, I am sensible, forms a very inadequate dress in which to set off the beauty of his sentiment or the strength of his reason.

20 The Lunarian Professor

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

But he saved me this necessity, by opening the

The Professor 21

conversation himself. He seemed to know what I had been thinking of.

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

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

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

"I am nineteen," he said.

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

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

"You talk in riddles," said I, **I don't under- stand you."

"Well, I v/ill explain. You understand, that every race is made by its environment and the same is true of each individual of the race."

"Certainly, that is my pet theory."

"Well, the environment of the race is in reality, the environment of every individual in it, for every individual inherits the impress made upon the race

22 The Lunarian Professor

during all past ages. For this reason a human in- fant just born is a being of far greater experience than a mature elephant; the experience of the race is his and it is expressed in the structure of his brain and body. In like manner an individual of our race has the long life of his race behind liim and is older at birth than a human being is at 80, becaus»i our race has a vastly longer history and experience than yours."

*'Your idea is ingenious, but yet it must be ad- mitted that a mature elephant knows more than a new born human infant."

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

My disposition to generalize, unwittingly influ- enced no doubt by my early Sunday School educa-

The Professor 23

tion, here led me to make an observation, that a moment later I perceived to be crude and ill consid- ered. It was to the effect that this great age to which his race had attained, had made their superior men- tal development possible and had given the time necessary for their physical evolution through and from the human form.

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

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

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

The families on earth that are related to and

24 The Lunarian Professor

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

During this speech, notwithstanding its intense interest to me I was becoming impatient and ner- vous with the apprehension that he might leave me without telling me where he was from and how he made that car of his disregard the law of gravita- tion. In the solution of this last riddle especially I could readily see a utilitarian outcome of overwhelm- ing importance. I am afraid that my questions were put with an undignified eagerness and precipitancy, v/hich no doubt he observed, for he first proceeded to say that he had much information to communi- cate to me and was glad to see me desirous of re- ceiving it.

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

He continued: *'A11 polar attractions are ac- companied by repulsions. This you see in magnet- ism and in electricity, and it is equally true in grav- itation. The force with which bodies fall toward each other consists merely of the difference between the attractive and the repulsive force. Ordinarily the attractive force takes hold of the near ends of the molecules of ether contained in solid or fluid

The Professor 25

bodies, and the repulsive force affects only the fur- ther ends of the same molecules, so that by reason of the difference in the distances over which these two forces operate the attractive force always over- powers repulsion. But we have discovered a way by which the action of these forces is reversed, so that the w^ork of repulsion is performed on the near end of the molecules and attraction on the further end, and then attraction being the weaker of the two, the body, as a whole, is repelled. We imitate in fact the action that takes place when the attrac- tion between two electrified bodies turns to repul- sion. Repulsion also takes place between the sun and the tails of comets. The comet's tail is attract- ed toward the nucleus of the comet and at the same time repelled from the sun. We have not been able to make bodies discriminating like that in their at- tractions.

'^But," said I, ''it must take as much power to make this change as the changed condition yields after it is made and I cannot see where you sjet tlse pov/er; you cannot make something out of nothing.''

''Very true," said he, ''but the resistance to the change is in reality— very small, and it is accom- plished, even by neuro-magnetism in a wonder- fully simple manner. The proportion of force re- quired to do it is no greater than that required to move the slide valve in the steam chest of one of your steam engines, by which the enormous force of the steam is alternately shifted to first one end and then the other of the cylinder. We can generate the force required for this, in our own tissues and it accumulates in electric organs possessed by us

26 The Lunarian Professor

similar to those of your electric eels. I will show you. ' '

AYith that he reached out and touched me on the mouth. There w^as a flash and a sensation as if a coal of fire had touched me, and a smart shock pass- ed through my limbs. I was easily enough con- vinced that he possessed large electric storage capac- ity, and he told me he could give me a shock 100 times as strong as the one I had received. I was willing to take his word for that. But I was by no means satisfied v/ith his explanation of the reversal of the forces in gravitation. It seemed to me to involve a mechanical fallacy and 1 half suspected he purposely avoided giving me the true explana- tion. Although I have since given the subject con- siderable thought I have not been able to clear it up. Theorize as I might however, there was the fact that gravitation vras somehow suspended, in the case of the car.

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

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

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

*'My home is the moon," he said quitely, ''and I have ever since vrondered how I came to receive the announcemoiit without the slightest degree of

The Professor 27

surprise as if it were an every day occurence to meet people from the moon.

"The discovery you wish me to reveal to you, was made by our ancestors over a million years ago," he went on, *'the population of the moon was then as great as the planet would support in comfort, and its regulation and maintenance had been reduc- ed to a strictly scientific basis. It was seen at once and soon experimentally proved that our people could by the use of this principle easily visit the earth, and if the discovery should be communicated to the earth people, there would be nothing to pre- vent flooding the moon with an undesirable horde of adventurers, w^ho v/ould like a swarm of seventeen year locusts proceed to lay claim to everything in sight and seriously disturb the lunar peace and pros- perity. And so the communication of this secret was forbidden on pain of the terrible punishment of pro- jection."

My inquiring look showed xhat I did not under- stand this, and he continued.

''Projection is the extreme penalty of our laws. In it the criminal is locked up in a spherical shell of cast iron having two small glass windows and famished with compressed air in alumina flasks, and food sufficient to last from a few days to two years according to the severity of the sentence, the larger amount of food going with the more severe sentence. After he is fastened in, the repulsion of gravitation is turned on and the ball instantly pro- jects iteslf into space bounding ofiP at a terrific speed. Yc.'t no matter v/hat direction it takes it can never come into collision with any body whether planet or

28 The Lunarian Professor

sun, but whenever it approches one it is instantly repelled, and thus it continues to be hurled from one to another forever, and the longer the criminal lives to perceive and reflect that he is an outcast from all worlds, the greater his punishment is sup- posed to be. Is it a theory of some of our scientists that a projected person continues to be repelled from sun to sun till at last he reaches the edge of crea- tion and is hurled completely out of the universe. However this may be, the friends of a projected per- son never know where he is."

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

*'No one has been projected for over forty years, but 500,000 years ago the punishment was frequent- ly resorted to."

*'In traversing the space between the earth and the moon, I suppose you will first move by repulsion from the earth?"

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

The Professor 29

the moon with a speed which is easily checked and regulated by using repulsion when necessary."

''The terrific speed with which you travel or fall, as we might say, from one planet to another, I should think would overpov/er you— take your breath away."

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

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

30 Tlie Lunarian Professor

When we travel on the ground, this is folded up and not used."

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

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

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

The cars are so constructed that different parts are electrically insulated from each other, by which means a part of the car can be placed under the in- fluence of attraction and the rest under that of re- pulsion. This is done on down grades. The weight of the load and of part of the car pulling down and the weight of the rest of the car holding back. It is always arranged to have the car heavier than its load, and the driver can regulate the force used by

The Professor 31

balancing one against the other, so that a car of many tons shall press on the rails with the weight of only a very few pounds. Thus the wear and tear on road beds and rails is almost nothing and the roads are practically everlasting.

CHAPTER III. The Moon and Its People.

**I am amazed/' said I, *'to learn that the moon is inhabited and by a race apparently m-ore advanced than our ov/n. Our astronomers have assured us that the moon is a desolate played out barren world without air or water; totally unfit for inhabitants."

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

It certainly did. ' ' Do you mean that the Lunari- ans live under ground ? " I inquired.

"I will explain. The moon is a much lighter body than the earth bulk for bulk, a cubic yard of it containing on an average only six tenths as much matter as an avera2:e yard of earth. The reason of

o2 Tlie Lunarian Professor

this is that a very large part of the moon's bulk is made up of interstices, caves and openings. Now it is a remarkable fact that the hemisphere of the moon facing the earth is much lighter than the further one, so much so that the center of gravity is 33 miles further from this side of the moon than from the further side. This fact has been suspected by some of your astronomers. The consequence of it is that the sea has all gone to the further hemi- sphere, and the near hemisphere is in the highest place, about 33 miles above the level of the sea. It is much as if a concave cap, the material of which is 33 miles thick at the center and tapers to zero all round the rim, were fitted on to a sphere. This rim is at the edge of the moon, as seen from the earth. Our atmosphere like yours, gets lighter as we as- cend and is too thin to support life at a height of five miles, so that the great plateaus of our hither hemisphere are over 20 miles higher than any ap- preciable atmosphere. So you can see the impossi- bility of life on the hither surface of the moon if you reflect a moment what the conditions would be on a mundane plateau 33 miles above the sea level. Your highest mountains are only between five and six miles high, and you know the impossibility of either vegetable or animal life at even that altitude. On the earth such elevations are regions of per- petual snow, and the hither surface of the moon would be such a region if it possessed water and an atmosphere. But while the surface on this side is uninhabitable, there are immense tracts of under- ground space, that have been converted into habit- able territorv. This underground country lies so

The Moon and Its People 33

far below the surface that it is practically near the sea level throughout. It is approached at all parts of the rim of the cap just described, and there are many thousands of tunnels entering it all round this rim, especially in the equatorial parts of the moon. A great amount of labor has been expended, not only on these entrances, but on the internal cavities to which they lead; but compared with the work per- formed for us by nature, our own labor is but an insignificant item — hardly so much as the labor of your race in fitting up the earth for your residence. The entrances are all volcanic craters, and the vast cavities to which they lead, were excavated long ages ago by volcanic action. The material blown out of the volcanoes, mostly fell upon the hither side of the moon increasing the bulk of the cap; most of the volcanoes being on this side. But even the material thrown from the lateral regions was drawn this way by the attraction of the earth and after describing a longer or shorter curve, fell on the hither side of the moon.

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

34 The Lunarian Professor

people on the further side; or sometimes as the "Chest", and the "Hump" is called its Lid.

The further side of the moon is called the Ex- terior Continent, but often humorously designated by the people of the ''Pocket", as the Out-door Con- tinent/'

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

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

"This is wonderful! — ^But where do you get the power to furnish this light? Have you got water- falls and coal beds down there?"

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

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

"One thing at a time — one thing at a time. Yon wanted to know where we get power to turn into electric lighting. It is the power of gravity. If one of your perpetual motion cranks understood the secret of the use of the repulsion of gravitation, he could contrive a perpetual motion in an hour and a half. "We have many forms of such machines that

The Moon and Its People t^

have been in use for ages. One of these is the pen- dulum machine. This consists of a pendulum weigh- ing from a few pounds to many tons and so contriv- ed that when it reaches the loAvest part of its swing it automatically turns on the repulsion of gravita- tion, which reinforces its momentum on the ascend- ing part of its arc, enough to compensate for the work done by it and the friction of the machine. Another machine is the oscillating balance. This consists of weights at each end of a beam balanced in the middle and so governed by an automatic shunting apparatus, that one of the weights is un- der the influence of attraction while the other is un- der that of repulsion. When the former has reach- ed the bottom of its oscillation and the latter the top, the force is reversed in each and so the motion is perpetual.

Another machine is the Automatic hammer, which is a literal hammer though it may weigh many tons. The end of its handle is confined by a stationary wrist, while the hammer rises and falls under the effect of repulsion and attraction automatically al- ternated by shunting apparatus. Then we have the vertical parabolic railway; which consists of two steep inclined tracks, meeting each other at the foot. A car runs alternately down one and up the other on much the same principle as the pendulum machine. There are numerous other machines, but they all operate on the same principle, just as you have many forms of water wheels, all operated by the weight of water. So you see our power costs us nothing at all after the machine is built, except for the oil for its lubrication. As these machines

36 The Lunarian Professor

have been known and used by us for many thousands of years, you may readily perceive what changes we have been able to make in all those conditions of our planet, that relate to our comfort and general purposes. You may add to this, that any exertion we make relating to the movement of heavy bodies, is ten times as effectual as the same exertion made on earth. "Water and air with us are only one-sixth as heavy as on earth, and the average soil and rocks one-tenth as heavy; so that our laborers handle wheelbarrows holding a cubic yard of material as easily as yours do their little barrows containing two or three cubic feet.''

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

''Your astronomers do not consider that animal life and activity depend, not on the amount of air the animal is surrounded by, but by the amount of it he can use. The fishes in your waters have less air to the cubic foot of space than we have, yet are active, but if you take them out of the water and surround them with ten times as much air as they had, they nevertheless die, because they have not lungs suitable for breathing it. But furthermore it is not the amount of air that is of such consequence to animal life, but the amount of oxygen. Your air consists of about 21 parts of oxygen to 79 of nitro- gen, and mixed with it is a considerable amount of

The Moon and Its People 37

carbonic acid and other impurities. In our air the proportions of nitrogen and oxygen are about reversed, and there is a far less amount of carbonic acid gas. There is also a much greater quantity of ozone, which as you know, is a concentrated and more active form of oxygen. And so on the whole, when I take a breath of air here on your earth, I get but a slightly greater quantity of oxygen than at home."

*'Then you are not greatly inconvenienced in be- ing transferred from lunar conditions to those of earth?"

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

I had become not only intensely interested in the extraordinary information communicated by my vis- itor, but greatly fascinated by his person and pres- ence ; and his last speech made me painfully appre- hensive that I was about to lose his company, and so I expressed the wish that if he felt obliged to go up stairs to recover himself, he would return and continue the interview as soon as possible. He re- plied that he would be compelled to return home as soon as he left me, but added that he would remain with me for a considerable time longer, observing

38 The Litnarian Professor

that he felt exceedingly §lad to impart information to so willing a listener. I could not at the time reconcile his intention of remaining a considerable time longer with what he said about not being able to remain at the earth's surface more than ten or fif- teen minutes at a time, as I thought he had already considerably exceeded that. But not wishing to lose time by having him reconcile his observations, I hastened to get back to the thread of his discourse, by asking what sort of food the lunarians live on.

''The Lunarians are exclusively vegetarians and live chiefly on grains and grasses and leguminous plants in some degree resembling those on earth, but of an entirely different habit, for they all or nearly all, mature in the period of one-half of a lunar month or about fourteen of your days. But this will not seem so surprising, when you reflect that we have continuous sunshine without night during the whole time. Of course this observation applies only to the exterior continent on the further half of the moon. Our plants were all developed on that side and be- came adapted to the seasons there, and they general- ly retain their habits of growth since their introduc- tion to the interior continent, or Pocket. But in many cases, by changing the conditions of nourish- ment, new varieties have been developed, having a longer or shorter period of growth. ]\Iuch more than half of our food products are produced under ex- tremely artificial conditions. The artificial heat Ave require for cooking, for warmth etc., is produced by means of electricity and so is our artificial light ; moreover, we do not allow any organic matter, such as dead bodies, dead trees or vegetables or any sort

The Moon and Its People 39

of refuse or excrete matters, to rot either in the open air or in the ground, and the manuring of the soil is strictly forbidden. Our air therefore is very poor in carbonic acid as, (or carbonic dioxide), which constitutes almost the sole food required for the growth of plants. In fact about all that the air gets of this gas is that thrown off from our lungs in breathing. To use this up, we cultivate various air plants that grow with little or no roots and yet cover the ground with an agreeable carpet. Some of these are eatable. All organic matters, when they become refuse, are carefully collected in great air tight and powerful tanks, in which they are heated under an enormous pressure until their original organization entirely disappears. The dimensions of the tanks are reduced during this process by the gradual forcing in of the walls, which are made movable for that pur- pose, and when the contained material has becom.c reduced to about the consistency and constitution of your ordinary lignite or soft coal, it is forced through a number of cylindrical holes on one side of the tank, by which it is moulded into round sticks of coal, and is then ready to be used over again. The whole process is an imitation of that by which min- eral coal is produced in nature, both on the earth and the moon, except that it is accomplished arti- ficially with us in about 50 hours, while nature takes thousands of years for it. The fluids and nitrogen- ous and other volatile substances pressed out, are secured and saved by proper absorbents. These to- gether with the coal are used by our food growers in producing their plants.

The planting is all done in vats or chambers with

40 The Lunarian Professor

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

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

*'I understand now," said I, "what you meant by saying you reserved your mineral coal for food purposes. You draw on it only when the steady sup- ply of artificial coal fails?"

''That is correct."

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

"The control of the reproduction of the popula- tion has been in the hands of the state from the re-

The Moon and Its People 41

motest antiquity, ' ' said he ; ' ' and no increase in the total number has ever been permitted unless there had already been an increase in the means of sup- porting the population by the discovery of improved methods or new appliances. The tendency and pol- icy has alwa3^s been to allow the population to keep up near the limits of the means of support, and oc- casionally it has crowded a little too close. Then there are occasional losses by fire and a more or less steady unavoidable waste of food materials in their ordinary handling. Some are lost in the sea. But as long as there is a store of mineral coal to draw upon, no such losses can entail more than a tempo- rary inconvenience. One thing that has a consider- able effect on the food supply, is the change in fash- ions, that often takes place in a manner that the authorities cannot f orsee or provide for. ' '

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

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

42 The Lunarian Professor

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

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

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

"Certainly," I said, "that disposition of a useless body is preferable to any method that prevails on earth. Here as soon as a man dies his presence be- comes so intolerable to us, that we are obliged in self defense to consign him to earth. Even then the cor- ruption resulting from dissolution is disseminated through the soil contaminating the water supply and starting epidemics of diphtheria and typhoid fever, besides occupying room that sooner or later is be- grudged to him. Cremation is certainly an improve- ment on inhmnation, but even that is a considerable expense, and when it is over, we have only a hand- ful of raw mineral ashes left. The best part of the man has gone off iu smoke and we have not three or four pounds of good coal left to show for him as you have. And then it ought to be a source of grati- fication to the defunct himself if he could know it, that his 'corpus' was turned to some useful ac- count."

He here turned his vast eyes upon me with such a deep expression of mild and sorrowful reproach.

The Moon and Its People 43

that I instantly felt as if I had made an exceedingly flippant speech and had said far too much or much too little, but he gave me no time to amend it.

''We are much more sentimental than that," he said; ''our dead are not cremated in the manner practiced on earth, but are totally disintegrated by electricity, and turned into their component ele- ments. No portion of their substance is lost or dis- sipated, but the material is all conserved and caused to form a new organism. The fashion originated m.any ages ago, to use the materials to grow some common sort of a plant or shrub from the seed, such as something resembling your grass or fern or some cereal. This was done in the garden vats I have de- scribed to you. Plants grown under these cirmum- stances or any circumstances for that matter, very often sprout or grow into forms differing slightly from the normal. Taking advantage of this, our botanists have produced food plants having a won- derful concentration of nourishing qualities in small compass and accompanied by the least possible quantity of v^^aste products. And in like manner our undertakers have developed a great variety of plants to be grown from the constituent materials of the dead. It was formerly the fashion to preserve only a portion of the plants, thus grown. A few leaves were distributed among the friends of the deceased and pressed in herbariums for preservation. But the growing veneration for ancestors and considera- tion for each other together with the prevalent be- lief among us that we are formed in the very image of the Deity, finally brought about the practice of preserving entire, the plants produced by transmu-

44 The Lunarian Professor

tation. Thus there is already a vast accumulation of these vegetable representatives of deceased Lunari- ans, and our economists point out that if this goes on, we will be compelled to constantly draw on our natural food reserves, and that finally these will all be consumed and everything eatable will at last be- come transmuted into these sacred and inviolable forms. In short the living race will finally become transmuted into dead dry plants. These arguments of the philosophers have as yet had no effect on the people and their priestly leaders. They denounce the philosophers as being unfaithful to the religion and traditions of the race, and as advocating canni- balism.

They say: 'you would reduce us to the level of the necrophagous Earthlings, who from time imme- morial have consumed the elements of their ancestors and friends and enemies alike, with beastly indiffer- ence'."

''But," I interrupted; "you know they are mis- taken in this opinion of us. Only a few savages on earth are man eaters."

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

"Well, I think that is the culmination of scrupul-

The Moon and Its People 45

osity. I am glad such phenomenal squeamishness does not exist on this planet."

"I do not defend it nor approve of it," he replied, * ' any more than you do. But still I think your com- placent congratulations of your own race rather out of place. You are quite as much under the domin- ion of indefensible ideas as we. For example, you have an ancient book whose doctrines and precepts you think you must accept and oh^j whether they are agreeable and suitable or not, although the men who gave them, have been dead two or three thou- sand years, while scarcely two of you agree as to what the precepts are and each generation has a dif- ferent interpretation of them. You have a sect that believe that your Deity is mortally offended with all who do not submit to be immersed under water, while others think he will be satisfied with their hav- ing a few drops sprinkled on the face. You have sects that believe your Deity is greatly displeased to see people hopping around on their legs, or dancing as you call it, while one sect employ dancing as the most satisfactory mode of worshipping him. You have a sect that believe that pictures, music and ornaments, and coats with collars that turn down are offensive to the Deity, and who think he is best pheased with silent worship, while others think he likes to be flattered in loud speeches and louder songs addressed to himself, and that he is indiffer- ent whether coat collars stand up or lie down. You have a sect that believe that buttons on the clothes are offensive to him and who therefore fasten their clothing with hooks and eyes. All these sects and many more equally absurd, get their various contra-

46 Tlic Lunarian Professor

dictory notions from the same book, and they adhere to them with such tenacity that in many cases they would die rather than give them up and would if they dared, murder other people for not accepting them, and in times past have done so in thousands of instances. In former times it was a common opinion, that your Deity had an arch enemy called the Devil, who opposed, bothered and thwarted him in the most provoking manner, and among other things inspired and aided thousands of unattractive old women to turn themselves into wolves, cats and other beasts and to becomxe witches, and in these con- ditions to attack and injure their neighbors and bring strange diseases upon them. For these offen- ses these old women were judged by your sacred books and were burnt by the thousand. And yet many of the men of this generation, while still hold- ing to the sacred books, have not only repudiated witchcraft, but even the devil himself, and an at- tempt to burn a witch would now be met by an in- surrection. Then you have a sect, or a nation rather, of people, who claim that they are the peculiar fav- orites of your Deity, who chose them from among all the nations and set them apart as his own, and ordered them to practice a certain peculiar mutila- tion on the bodies on their children as an evidence and seal of his promises to them. No one of these people would consider himself entitled to hold up his head if it were not for his mutilation. Notwith- standing the claims of these peculiar people are ad- mitted by the rest, no people on earth have been so despised, persecuted and maltreated as they. For over 2,000 years they have been kicked and cuffed

The Moon and Its People 47

about the earth, robbed, driven repeatedly from one country to another, and have never in all that time possessed the sovereignty of a single township. Then again your race believe they are made and formedln the very image and likeness of your Deity, yet you conceal that likeness with garments as iC ashamed of it, and such are your notions of pro- priety that if a man should show this divine likeness in public, naked or even half naked, he would be sent to prison, or a mad house. And then consider the fashions of these garments. Those whose busi- ness it is to make clothes, constantly demand changes in the fashion, so as to secure m.ore employment and profit for themselves, and whenever certain ones, who have appointed themselves to be the leaders, say the word, everybody feels obliged to procure new clothes of such sort as these leaders require, notwithstanding those they already have may be good, useful and becoming, and that those prescrib- ed, may be hideous, unsuitable and unhealthful. Many of you are actually so infatuated with this bondage, that if you could not comply with its re- quirements, you would regard life as of no account." During the delivery of this tirade, the flashing eyes of my visitor showed how much his feeling was enlisted in the subject and during the whole time I continued to reproach myself for having started him off on such a rampage, by an unlucky, if not impertinent remark of my own. I was made to re- call the adage that people who live in glass houses, should not engage in throwing stones ; and it was forcibly shown me how very much ''human nature" the Lunarians possess, since while he was willing to

4S The Lunarian Professor

point out, criticise and condemn the follies of his own people, he would not allow an outsider to do it. I was greatly relieved when he paused and gave me an opportunity to change the subject, which I did with a precipitancy, that evidently amused him and brought back the good natured expression that habitually possessed his eyes. In fact I believe that the change I had observed was due to intellectual activity and was not accompanied by any real feel- ing of resentment or passion. Said I, ''One of our wise men has expressed the opinion, that the people of the earth, are "maistly fules," and I believe that most other wise men agree with him. So I beg you will waste no more of your precious time in arraign- ing our race, but go on with your intensely interest- ing and instructive account of your own race and your remarkable planet." He thereupon goodnat- uredly resumed.

''Organic existence must everywhere be to a great extent the same. The elements that enter into the composition of organisms, are subject to certain laws of chemical affinity, that demand their own conditions, and will not operate when these condi- tions are absent. The chief of these are furnished by the radiations of the sun in our solar system and no doubt by those of the stars in other systems. These radiations impressed upon organized materials be- come light and heat and where they are either in excess or deficiency organic development is not pos- sible. These conditions obtain throughout the solar system, and no doubt in every system composed of the same sort of elements. But of the solar system

Tlie Moon and lis People 49

we can speak with some confidence, for we have been able to visit a considerable part of it.

The inhabitans of the different planets differ from each other in the same way that the various animal races of earth differ from each other. You have on earth four sub-kingdoms of intelligent ani- mals ; vertebrates, articulates, mollusks and radiates. These have all been evolved from a common worm- like ancestry, and each form possesses the potentiali- ty of receiving an equally high development, both physically and mentally. The development of any of them in all cases depends upon the way they are impressed by their surroundings and the proper sur- roundings can develop high intelligence in either of the forms. On earth the highest development has happened to the vertebrate branch, but with us the articulates have always been the dominant branch, while the vertebrates have never attained to a condi- tion above that of your salamanders and small liz- zards. The ascendant race with us as with you has always contributed to keep the others in the back- ground, by destroying the most advanced and ag- gressive of them and pursuing them till none but tlie smallest, weakest and most harmless of their tribe remain. Indeed until this is done, the position of the ascendant race is not secure. Your own race has had experience of this in the struggle with and subjugation of other races. In the early history of the earth, it was for a long time doubtful whether it was to be dominated by the human family or by a tribe of reptiles. At that ancient period, a tribe of reptiles had become developed that walked erect on their hind legs, and whose fore limbs supported

50 The Lunarian Professor

wings and terminated in excellent hands, having four fingers. There were several related families of these animals, some of which -were almost or quite the equal of man in intelligence. The final triumph of man over these advanced reptiles, was due to his superior compact social organization. "While they relied on their superior personal prowess and often fought single handed, men always fought in bands, and hung together in all their enterprises. The rep- tiles being finally vanquished and the tribes most ad- vanced and most to be feared having been exter- minated, the rest had two modes of escape. They could use their wings and thus by flight keep out of the way of their enemies or they could hide by crouching down in the grass and weeds and making themselves as small, sly and inconspicuous as possi- ble. Some pursued one of these courses and some the other. The descendants of those that flew away gradually became developed into the birds as you now have them; while those that resorted to hiding and crouching down, were thus deprived of the op- portunity to use their limbs generation after genera- tion and so the limbs gradually became shrunken and useless, finally disappearing completely, or al- most so, causing the body to come down flat on its belly on the ground, and thus were produced the serpents as you now have them.''

''No doubt," said T, "the serpents originated in that way. They formerly possessed limbs, because many species still have the rudiments of them. In some cases these remnants show themselves like lit- tle hooks on the outside of the skin, while many others are covered up by the skin and are not seen

Life In and On the Moon. 51

^t all But all that retrogressive adaptation by t^hS they lost their limbs, must have been practi- :i; completed before our race possessed any sem- vV r.f thpir Tiresent form and condition.

'^'^-Ii: ea'tvCproceeded, "was full of contend- in. ra"s and of course the backset that was >m- "oled otVe snakes, was contributed to ^y "t^.^^^^^^ wPll as men but the latter were among the last ancl Is regarlfte particular family of reptiles m ques tion the most formidable and eflectual opponents. Some of your ancient traditions and literature con-

dominLt race on our planet is an articulate.

CHAPTER IV.

Life In and On the Moon.

.'I confess," said I, "that yon have demonstrated the possibility of a development among the articu ates'quite equal at least to that of ma^nmaR You „,nst have animals of son^ sort .n your seas lakes; what do you do with themi

52 The Lunarian Professor

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

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

"Yes certainly, and the climate of the interior continent differs greatly from that of the exterior. On the polar regions of the exterior continent, we experience the extreme change of seasons, that oc- cur on earth, from a very cold winter to a very hot summer — all in the space of about 291/2 of your days or 709 hours. In the equatorial regions, however, tho extremes are greatly tempered by the winds, which always blow toward the position of the sun, by the great evaporation that takes place during the day, and by the fact that the air of the equatorial bolt is both higher and denser than that in the polar re-

Life In and On the Moon 53

gions. In many cases, the upper air is charged with heavy clouds, that remain suspended all night or all winter, as you choose, and these prevent the land from becoming very cold."

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

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

clnsivelv."

*qt seems strange," said I, ^Hhat the spaces in

54: The Lunarian Professor

the interior continent, should be great enough to hold any considerable population. We have on earth some large caves, but put them all together and they would not afford shelter for the inhabitants of a small city."

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

Some of your scientists estimated that the vol- cano Krakatoa, in the East Indies, during a couple of days in xVugust, 18S3, discharged a cubic mile of materials. The volcano has had a great many erup- tions in times past, and has throv.n out a great many cubic miles. The materials composing the mountain itself, have all been thrown from its crater, and the same thing has happened in the case of all the vol- canoes on earth, of which there are thousands. The spaces left in the crust of the earth by this process, have amounted in the aggregate to hundreds of thousands of cubic miles. Many spaces thus formed, have been filled again by melted materials pressed up from below, by the pressure of the crust upon the melted interior. But a vast amount of empty space yet remains and will continue to be added to for millions of years to come. As the earth grows older and colder, internally, the crust will become thicker

Life In and On the Moon 55

and more unyielding, so that as new subterranean spaces are formed by volcanic activity, fewer of these will be filled up again and the final aggregate of them will doubtless in time reach millions of cubic miles. The spaces comprising the ^'Pocket" conti- nent of the moon, above the sea level, are estimated by us to amount to about 1,500,000 cubic miles. '^

*'This then," I observed, ''must give you a con- tinent in there of something like 1,500,000 cubic miles, supposing the space to be a mile high. ' '

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

56 Tlie Lunarian Professor

"How do YOU account for the changes in the sea- level?" I inquired.

**As the moon cooled off, a great deal of water was taken up by the rocks, while crystallizing and thus chemically united with them, a great deal more was absorbed by them mechanically, by their pores, while a still greater quanity occupies large fissures and chambers, penetrating in all directions through the planet communicating with each other and con- necting the interior waters with those of the ex- terior continent. The action of the water has great- ly contributed, not only to the enlargement of the spaces in the interior continent, but to the creation of a pulverized soil and pleasing landscapes. The chambers that are inhabited, are of course all con- nected with each other, but besides these, it is quite certain there are great numbers of very extensive ones in the masses of materials that bound the in- habited chambers. Artificial tunnels are constantly being cut into these walls and so ncAv countries are often discovered and connected with the rest and opened for settlement. In addition to those cham- bers that come down to the sea level the aggregate of the area of which I told you is about 800,000 square miles, there are vast areas situated at higher levels in the material, that bounds the sea-level chambers. These elevated areas are at all heights from one-fourth of a mile to four or five miles above the sea-level. There are known to be many above these, but they are not habitable, on account of light- ness of the air. The elevated chambers are connected with each other, and with the lower ones, by means of sloping passages at all grades. In some cases

Life In and On the Moon 57

chambers are located directly on top of the thick roof of others and are reached by long and circuit- ous routes. In a number of cases, the walls of sea- level chambers, after closing in almost together to form an arch over them, widen out again above and thus form other chambers above, and sometimes these stories continue one above another until the surface of the hump is reached, where the openings appear sometimes as channels, and at others, as cir- cular craters."

*'No doubt," said I, ''the craters that our astro- nomers see in such vast numbers on this side of the moon communicate with your interior continent." *'Yes they do."

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

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

"They sometimes look out through these craters

58 The Lunarian Professor

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

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

"If it brought it eleven miles further it would

Life In and On the Moon 59

stop up the funnel and become invisible, wouldn't it?" saidl.

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

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

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

'*Yes, evaporation takes place from the numerous sheets of sea water in the various chambers, the ag- gregate of which is estimated at about 120,000 square miles. There is more or less of this sea water in al- most every one of the sea-level chambers. Besides

60 The Lunarian Professor

the evaporation from these bodies of water, more or less evaporation occurs from every one of the indust- ries in which water is used, and so the aggregate is very considerable. But it is always nearly uniform in quantity, in the interior continent. As the sus- pended moisture comes into contract with the upper walls and roofs of the lofty chambers, it is being constantly condensed, and the fresh water thus formed trickles down the walls and slopes in drops, rills and brooks, and finds its way through the ground and porous rocks. Many underground streams are formed that find their way into the high- level chambers, which are thus supplied with pure water. The inhabitants of others have supplied themselves by tunnelling through into the upper parts of lofty chambers, that have their floors at the sea-level, and thus they tap the clouds themselves. ' '

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

He replied, "Our opioion is this: The volcanic action in the moon toward its close and final cessa- tion, was enormous. The planet had already been completely honey-combed by former convulsions and the seas had poured themselves into the underground openings, until there was almost as much water be- low the surface as above. This water kept up a continual contention with the melted interior, result- ing in still greater explosions, sending out enorm- ous quantities of volcanic matter, forming cones in some cases twenty-five miles high and over 100 miles

TAfe In and On the Moon 61

in diameter. The enormous weight of these volcanic cones in many cases proved too great to be support- ed by the crust, that separated them from the in- terior cavities their materials had been blown out of, and so they broke through — that is the central part of the cones broke through, leaving a margin of their bases all around, standing like the walls of a crater. But these are not the original craters, as you can see. If they were, they would be on top of elevated cones of enormous hight, which they are not."

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

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

"We have in one of the provinces of the interior continent, an immense university, devoted to the stu- dy of mundane affairs, past, present and future. The duty is assigned me of holding a professorship in this university, in the college of 'IMundane Prognos- tication'. As this college has been in operation for

62 The Limarian Professor

over 100,000 years, we have had abundant oppor- tunity to verily our system of prognostication, and you would be surprised at the accuracy with whicli our predictions have been realized in your history. Of course, we could have done nothing, but for the basis our own history gave us to work on.'*

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

*'No," he replied, "you are not. Those abodes, as we have them fixed up on the moon, you would regard as more delightful than anything you have on earth, and as equalling your dreams of paradise. There are as you suppose no storms and no extremes of temperature. There is always a very light breeze blowing, half the time in one direction, and half in the other. This is caused by the action of the sun on the external continent, as it progressively passes over it from east to west. There is always fog and cloud at all the entrances to the interior continent that prevent the radiation of heat and help preserve an even temperature within. All the inhabited chambers are made as bright as sunlight by immense and numerous electric lights, which are placed with reference to the best, effects both from a utilitarian and an artistic point of view. They are generally

Life In and On the- Moon 63

placed at great elevations, and are often arranged to imitate the constellations of the heavens, so that looking lip, one may see a portion of the sky as he would see it from the external continent, and by traveling about among the various interior provin- ces, he can see the whole of it. In some of the cham- bers, the lights are made to represent the members of the solar system and each one is caused to make the movements properly, belonging to it, the whole constituting a planetarium on an immense scale— in some instances — several miles in diameter and three miles above the floor."

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

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

In the second place, the power of neutralizing the gravity of metals, as I have explained to you, enables us to erect works miles above the ground more easily than you do at the surface. In fact the works erect themselves and the most we do is to tether them at the proper height to keep them from

64 Tlie Lunarian Professor

going too far. AVhen motion is required to be given them, the globes of light are sometimes attached to a car that is made to run on a single rail elliptical track, which may be suspendid at any elevation and reduced to a minimum weight by proper adjustments of its gravitation, the light globe being either sus- pended from the car or floating above it. The el- liptical orbit is inclined enough to enable gravity to propel the car. An automatic shunt turns on repul- sion when the car reaches the lowest part of the or- bit and it is then forwarded on the up grade portion, shunted again at the top and so on perpetually. An- other machine often used is a hollow cylindrical stem suspended from the dome, having a series of wheels, concentric with the cylinder, one above an- other and caused to revolve horizontally at different rates, by clockwork inside the cylinder. Globes of light are suspended by long wires to these wheels, which by their revolution, at varying rates, cause the globes by centrifugal motion to describe large or small orbits as desired. All sorts of eccentric and peculiar motions are imparted to the globes by varia- tions in the regularity of the revolutions of the wheels, the spheres falling toward the center when the motion is slow and fljnng outward when it is fast. The mazes of a cotillion, are often imitated, and the performance is called the 'dancing of tho spheres'. This is also accompanied by music, some- times by local bands situated on the ground playinjj^ in concert with the movement, at other times by im- mense instruments operated by the same machinery that drives the spheres.

It is not difficult for you to imagine the beauty

Life In and On the Moon 65

and grandeur of some of these overhead scenes. Of course the power used is electricity, and it is used liberally and freely since its cost is merely nominal. Heat as well as light is supplied through the same means and used for all purposes, domestic, industrial and public. Our houses are very tasteful and often highly ornamental. The architecture is light and graceful and suited to a mild and quiet climate, for we have the pleasant air of your tropics without their storms or excessive heat. A slight sprinkle of rain is all we ever have in the shape of a storm in any part of the interior continent, and these sprinkles are rendered periodical by artificial means. There are no wide agricultural tracts with us, nor densely populated cities, but the population is distributed in towns, and continuous villages line the roads, each of which is devoted to some prin- cipal productive industry. There are principal streets that run miles, passing through and connect- ing these towns, and often bending so as to make a complete circuit. The streets are wide and we are always furnished with a number of rail tracks, and paved with a hard smooth material — sometimes stone and sometimes iron or alumina. The only vehicles used on the streets, besides the rail cars are light, private and pleasure carriages, propelled by storage batteries. The roads that unite the various internal provinces to each other and to the external continent, are chiefly the gravity roads, that I have already described to you. In some cases to save room, the roads are built in stories, one track above another. The work shops and farms, are sitiaated conveni- ently near on streets parallel to the main thorough-

66 The Lunarian Professor

fares, and their products are conveyed from them, and their materials to them, on roads laid on thos^^ streets."

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

"The sort of control, which the government ex- ercise is almost exclusively advisory. There is no government control in the sense of the term as used on earth. All productive labor is expended for the creation of common property, to which, when creat- ed, every individual has equal title. Not the slight- est compulsion however is put upon labor, nor the least prohibition upon consumption."

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

''Yes."

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

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

"Yes," said I, "it has become instinctive with

Life In and On the Moon 6"^

them to work and their wants are likewise, only such as instinct dictates."

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

"There have often been socialistic communities with us," said I, "that have endeavored to live on the principles you speak of. But their lives have been of the most monotonous dead level sort. There is no chance for individuality or for the develop-

G8 TJie Lunarian Professor

ment or exercise of the superior talents, which some are certain to possess in a higher degree than others. They are merely little despotisms and en- dure only while their leaders are people of excep- tional ability. AVe do not regard such a state of society' as desirable even if it could be made per- manent.

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

Life In and On the Moon 69

direction, it allows it to take on greater activity in some other direction.

All articles that can be produced in quantities by machinery are distributed to everybody desir- ing them, but individual works of art as great pic- tures and statuary and rare and curious things, are placed in public art galleries, libraries etc., acces- sible to all."

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

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

It is true your civilization is now in little dan- ger from foreign savages, but you allow yourselves

70 Tlie Lunarian Professor

to be steadily invaded by fresh generations, of them born in your midst, and the crudeness and injustice of your political and social conditions, are such as to give but slight encouragement to the development of the unselfish instincts in anybody. Wealth carries power and power commands re- spect. Your wealth is distributed without justice, sometimes by accident and to those who are mere- ly lucky, at other times to those who are simply selfish greedy and unscrupulous, and generally least to those who create it, and so luck and greed be- come prominent objects for your attention and emulation. How very young your race is and how much you have to learn ! ' '

CHAPTER V. "Mundane Prognostication "—The Profile of Time.

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

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

With this he drew from a receptacle something

^'Mundane Prognostication'* 71

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

In plotting the profile of a railroad survey, the engineer uses paper several feet long and 8 to 12 inches wide, covered with fine horizontal lines, running the whole length of it and ruled so close together, that there are from 20 to 50 lines to the inch. Then there are other lines drawn across the paper at right angles to the first, and one-fourth of an inch apart. These last represent distances of 100 feet each; or "stations;" while each of the spaces betAveen the horizontal lines is called a foot. Having the survey of a line of stations with the relative height of each, ascertained by a leveling instrument, the line is plotted on this paper so that

^2 The Lunarian Professor

its distance from the lower edge of the paper at each station corresponds with the height of the ground at that station. The irregular line thus formed is a fac simile of the surface of the ground with its vertical undulations and irregularities. The engineer then draws a grade line on this pro- file of the ground, that indicates the position of the surface of the road bed, as he intends it to be when finished. In some places this line is above the ground line and this indicates that here is to be a fill. In other places it runs below, and this shows a cut.

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

After examining these profiles a short time, I had little difficulty in getting the ideas intended to be conveyed by them. They will be readily un- derstood without much explanation. Thus the line of *' muscular development" is shown in the remote past as being almost up to grade, but as gradually falling below it in the course of time, then rising

^'Mundane Prognostication" 73

again and coming almost to the grade line about the year 2500, but after that gradually falling away again. Selfish instinct, which has always shown heavy cutting, comes down nearly to grade, about the year 7200. While altruistic instinct that regards the common welfare and has been below grade, always, but at times higher than st present, is seen to rise and come to grade about the same time. Health has always shown a fill, often a large one, but gradually rises almost to grade about the year 2500. Crime has always been a cut, but dis- appears in the future about the same time as theology.

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

74 The Lunarian Professor

than the cut above the line, and terminating in grade soon after it.

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

Now it is difficult to forecast just what partic- ular turn invention will take, but it is not impos- sible, because inventions constitute a race with generations one begetting another. Knowing all that is known to-day makes it possible to see what this knowledge will lead to to-morrow. The trou- ble is for one to know all that is known. As I have already mentioned, our own Lunarian history

''Mundane Prognostication' 75

greatly aids us in our study of your future, for we have passed through an experience, which, while it is different from what yours has been or will be, is parallel and comparable with it. And mak- ing due allowance for the difference in physical structure of the two races and considering that we are 500,000 years older than you, we have only to consult our past in order to get your future, or something much like it, for many generations to come.

"These profiles of your's Professor," said I, *'are evidently the result of much learned detail work and they are of extreme interest and value to the philosophical and scientific student. But to com- mon people the details themselves are more inter- esting, because they are more easy to be under- stood and come nearer to the common life. Could you not favor me with some of the future history of our planet and expecially of the United States and of the State of Minnesota. Any of the facts that you have prognosticated and from which you have deduced the generalizations that you embody in your profiles, would be of great interest.

He seemed a little disappointed at this request, as no doubt his habits of thought had made him familiar with and attached to the comprehensive and wholesale treatment of these questions, and he looked upon the detailed story as a means to an end and containing but little interest in itself. But it is easier to generalize from details, than to con- struct the details. However he complied, observ- ing that he would be compelled to get these de- tails in part from his memory, which however

76 The Lunarian Professor

would be prompted and refreshed by the general profile he held in his hands.

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

It occurred to me that he must be tired of hold- ing the profile so long between his outstretched hands and so I offered to hold it for him awhile, or at least hold one end of it. At that he shifted the rolls from his front to his middle pair of hands, by w^hich maneuver he gave me to understand that he had abundant resources for resting himself with- out outside help. How I did envy him that extra pair of hands.

He then began as follows:

''The close of the 19th century, was remarkable as being a turning point in American affairs and the beginning of a new era. Previous to that time the United States had been a nation very much to itself. It had kept aloof from the politics of the rest of the world and had no policy in re- gard to it except to prohibit European nations from meddling in affairs of the western hemisphere or acquiring any further possessions in it. But before the century was out public opinion was ac- customing itself to the idea that the foremost na- tion of the earth ought to take a more active and

^'Mundane Prognosticationf* ')!^

influential part in the general affairs of the world. The first thing designed to give weight to the in- fluence of the country was the development of a powerful navy. It is power that inspires the con- sideration and respect of others. It was a favorite idea with many of the leaders of political thought that arbitration might become the last resort in the settlement of international disputes instead of the ancient plan, by which the contestants tem- porarily laid aside such civilization as they might have acquired, reduced themselves back to bar- barism in murdering each other, destroying proper- ty, plundering commerce, and often spending more money several times over than the matter in dis- pute was worth. But even these statesmen saw that a plan favoring peace would come with much more force and authority from a nation having power to enforce it by war, and so all were glad to see the great navy built.

As the public lands became transferred to pri- vate ownership and prices steadily went up, at- tention was turned to the sparsely settled terri- tories of neighboring countries, and the elements of a great party in favor of their annexation were developed in the ranks of all the parties, at the same time the theories of the land tax advocates received additional attention, especially from me- chanics and the manufacturing classes. They reas- oned that the increase in the value of land ought to belong to the state instead of to the people who had bought the land, and if the state had that increase, the interest on it would support th^ government and taxes could be abolished. The

'i8 The Lunarian Prnfrssof

enormous amounts raised by taxation came at last from labor, they said, part of it in the way of tariffs on goods imported and consumed by work- ers and part by direct taxation on the products of labor and even on the means and appliances — tools shops and factories — by which wealth was produc- ed. This mode of taxation they said was, as far as it went, a ban placed upon industry and a pen- alty upon the creation of wealth. They proposed therefore to take all the taxes off from the pro- ducts of labor and seize the rents of land or so much of them as might be required for the support of the government, in that way getting the interest on the increase in the value of the land that had taken place since it passed into private hands and which they denominated *' unearned increment.'* This agitation began in your day — you must re- member it."

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

''Mundane Prognostication'' "^^

mat can hurt him ^vho is asleep? Nothing, unless it wakes him up. .

All this flashed through :ny bram m an anstan and then „.y • attention suddenly -tuWJ; J^.f, the Professor had been saymg. Kemember it. Yes I remember it well. In my day there was a Sety in Minneapolis called, I.;^i-%*J^«./-£ Tax League, devoted to this agition. Their deas l:re^hose Jf Henry George, as set forth by him m his able book called : ' ' Progress and Poverty.

<^Yes well, to the labors of this persistent and aggressi;e society are to be attributed in a grea measure, the radical change in ideas of political "onom; that soon came about. After much dis- ussion, petitioning of the legislature, agitation m the newspapers, the organifiation of auxiliary so- cieties, the presentation of the subject m labor as- sociations etc., the working classes m the cities and even the landless laborers on farms were per- suaded that their interests lay in the abolition ot all taxes, except those on land. It was not long before these classes constituted a majority by rea- son of the rapid growth of the cities. As soon as they found themselves in power, they proceeded o get the constitution of the state amended to enable the legislature to release all classes from taxation except those who possessed land. In your day about half the taxes had been raised from land and the other half from the buildings and improve- ments on the land and from personal Property. It was estimated that relieving the latter half, would simply double the tax on land and so make it about four per cent on its valuation. It was argued that

so The Lunarian Professor

the farmer would experience no chanpre at all, be- cause the additional tax put upon his land would no more than equal that taken off his houses, barns, stock and tools. The only persons who would lose by the single tax would be the speculators, who held unimproved land and were waiting for the labor and improvements of their neighbors to raise its value, so they could sell out and get an increase in value which they had done nothing to earn. As these people were looked upon as a sort of parasites, they were not regarded as having any rights in the matter that need to be respected. All that was necessary in their case was simply to out- vote them. The benefits of the new system it was expected would fall upon the industrial classes especially and directly, but w^ould be shared by all. Manufacturing industries relieved of the repres- sion of taxation, would bound forward like a spring suddenly released. Nothing would any longer artificially limit the production of wealth and the great stimulation it would receive would result in making even articles of luxury so com^ mon as to place them within the reach of everj^one. The land speculating class, while admitting that the rest of the people would be benefitted by the single tax, claimed that it would be done at their expense and unjustly. They had bought the land and paid for it and the state had got the money. With this money, and the interest on it, the state had built the university, the state capitol, the pen- itentiary, the charitable institutions and innumera- ble school houses. In other w^ords, they had given the state the interest on their money and taken in

''Mundane Prognostication* 81

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

The impatience of the tax reformers would not

82 The Lunarian Professor

allow any such postponement as this. They said they did not propose to wait a whole generation to have this wrong made right.

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

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

The effects very soon began to show themselves. Nearly the whole tax being removed from shops and factories, profits and manufacturing became at once very considerably enhanced. This induced

^'Mundane Prognostication" S3

numbers of manufacturers to emigrate from other states and from Europe to Minnesota, and so the population and wealth of the cities increased with unexampled rapidity. By the year 1925, the pop- ulation of Minneapolis had reached 1,780,000 and that of St. Paul, was over half as great."

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

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

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

As mechanics and people of moderate incomes

84 The Lunarian Professor

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

"Mundane Progtiostication'* 85

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

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

When the tax was two per cent and the rents, six per cent, the owner got clear the equivalent of six per cent on two thirds of the value of the property. But when the tax was increased to 4 per cent, he got the equivalent of six per cent on only one third of it. Thus his net income being reduced to one-half of what it was, the selling and buying value of the land was likewise reduced one- half. This made no difference to the tenant paying rent, he still had to pay the same, but, two-thirds instead of one-third now went to the state. But within the corporate limits of Minneapolis, St. Paul and other cities, there was a great amount of un- used land, that produced no rent. This unused land constituted about three-fourths of the total areas of those cities and represented one-third of their total land valuation. The very first assess- ment of the new tax was the signal for the reduc- tion in the value of all this property, fifty per cent or more at once, and every acre was immediately thrown upon the market. By the time of the next

8Q The Lunarian Professor

assessment the assessors were obliged to recognize this depreciation, and so all this land was return- ed at half or less than half of what it had been. The loss of tax money thus sustained had to be made up by a higher rate, and the second levy was placed at 5 per cent instead of 4 per cent. This v/orked a further reduction in the values of unoc- cupied lots and by the time of the third assessment these lots were estimated as having only the value of farm or garden lands ; and so it became neces- sary to still further increase the rate of taxation, which was now established at six per cent.

In the meantime it began to be discovered that the owners of improved lots had lost all the money they had invested in them. A certain person who had bought a lot on Nicollet ave., for $40,000 and erected a building on it at a cost of $40,000 more, did not for two or three years discover any great difference in his tax, because although it was trans- ferred from the building to the lot the whole amount was nearly the same. But after the tax as- sessment reached six per cent, the building was burned down just after the expiration of the in- surance policy. The gentleman thought he had lost half of his property by neglecting the insur- ance, but in reality, he had lost it about all. He could not mortgage the lot for enough to build a house, nor even for enough to pay one year's tax. Nor could he sell it for one-tenth of what he gave. It was his only on condition that he continued to pay a full rent for it and this he could not do unless he could rebuild. Even if he rebuilt, his pet income would be only the interest on the cost

''Mundane Prognostication'* 87

of the building, he would get no return for the lot, or at best, but little. Thus the owner found himself no better off than a lease holder. He sim- ply had the first right to pay the rent for his lot in the way of tax. And so it came about that if an owner could not immediately build something on his lot that he could rent to advantage, he sim- ply defaulted on his taxes. The selling of vacant property for taxes became impossible except those lots wanted for immediate improvement, and not even those if several years' taxes were in arrears. So the collection of back taxes became impos- sible on all vacant porperty.

The effect of the single tax on farming land was much the same. Not over seven-tenths of the arable land in the state was under actual cultiva- tion. Large tracts were held by nonresident spec- ulators. When the increased tax came to be levied, these lands were all thrown on the market. The depreciation in prices of these lands at first brought a considerable access of population, but this soon became checked, because the farmers found that on account of the loss of taxes on these lands, the rates had to be increased and the addi- tional burden fell on the resident farmers. These in almost all cases owned considerable land they did not cultivate, but were saving for speculation or for their children. Often a farmer owing 160 acres, cultivated, but 40. As the burdens fell heavier on this class, they commenced throwing up the uncultivated parts of their farms, so that from these various causes in a few years almost three- fourths of the arable land was without claimants,

S8 The Lunarian Professor

and of course yielded no taxes. The farmers, then found themselves greatly reduced in wealth, the lands they had counted on as belonging to them, now being thrown out as commons; and even for the acres they cultivated they paid more in the way of taxes than would have been considered a fair rent in "Wisconsin or Iowa. Their net wealth v/as in fact reduced to their buildings, live stock, and tools.

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

There now began to come into the rural dis- tricts of the state, two classes of settlers or rather occupants of a different character. The fii*st of these were drovers with herds of cattle from ad- joining states. They drove their cattle about from from place to place, over the abandoned lands, but never settled anywhere and as cattle were not tax- able, and they claimed no land, they paid no taxes. They also escaped taxes at their legitimate homes in other states, because their cattle were conven- iently away at assessing time.

The other class of new occupants that came in, were poor squatters. These brought little or no capital, and no enterprise or ambition beyond enough to supply the essentials of existence. A

'' Mundane Prognostication" 89

family of this kind would alight on an unoccupied spot, construct a cabin or a dug-out, cultivate four or five acres of grain and potatoes, and eke out the rest of a living with a few cows and pigs. Little or no tax could be collec from them, and of course little or no public improvements, such as schools, bridges, roads etc., were accomplisiied where they squatted in any considerable force. In short, it gradually came about that the inhabitants of the rural districts did but little more than sus- tain themselves. And the state ceased almost en- tirely to be an exporter of agricultural products. The cities however suffered nothing on this ac- count. They got their supplies largely from the neighboring states, and they became large produc- ers and exporters of manufactured articles, com- peting in that respect with some of the famous manufacturing towns of Europe; and they became enormously wealthy.

The question of taxation was however always a difficult one. The lands near the centers of the towns of course were the most valuable. But lands were never sold— only the buildings— and any given lot came to be valued by the kind of building and the amount of business on it. So assessments final- ly had to be fixed by an arbitrary rule— the rates decreasing at a fixed ratio according to distance from the center of greatest business activity. The rule had a tendency to verify itself by compelling the most valuable business to be done in the places subject to the highest rates, since the less valuable could not afford it. By this rule the rates in the suburbs were low, and since the buildings paid no

90 The Lunarian Pi'ofessor

tax, it often happened that a millionaire living in a $100,000 house paid little, if any more than a laborer living in a $300 shanty. But in the course of time it came to pass that notwithstanding the general prosperity, there were many who were wretchedly poor, made so by bad management, ex- extravagance, indolence, ill health, dissipated hab- its, disappointment and ill luck. These became squatters in the vacant lands around the outskirts of the cities. They paid no rent and no taxes. It was found that it was useless to evict them as no- body could be found with money who could gain anything by paying their taxes, as long as there was plenty of unoccupied land. There also came to be a positive sentiment against eviction of the poor and so this non tax-paying class constantly increased and finally included many who w^erc able to pay, but who shirked out, satisfying their consciences by the plea that the government had no right to discriminate, and exempt some and not others. These ideas expanded and finally crystal- lized into a political creed to the effect that a poor man ought not to be taxed for a spot on which to exist and bring up his family. Thus it came about that neither the very poor; nor the very rich whose property was chiefly in fine buildings, stocks, bonds and other personal effects, paid any consider- able amount of the taxes.

The taxes were paid by such of the farmers as had still too valuable improvements to justify their abandonment, and by the mechanics and merchants whose business and whose residences

''Mundane Prognostication** 91

were packed in tall buildings on small areas o£ ground in the cities.

The great stimulation of the growth of the Minnesota cities, and their apparently great pros- perity, attracted the attention of the whole world and aroused the spirit of emulation in the cities of the United States and of the northern states in particular. In most of the northern states, the city populations controlled ' the politics of the states, and there developed a violent mania for fol- lowing the example of Minnesota. There was much opposition from the conservative classes, and the people were warned that a policy that might bene- fit a small section of the nation, was not necessari- ly good for all. But it was held by many to be simply a measure of self defense for cities to com- pel their states to adopt the single tax, since those where this was done, not merely flourished, but flourished at the expense of those who remained under the old method. For they attracted from them, their manufacturing establishments and this was naturally followed by their wholesale trade. The result was that in a few years, all the north- ern states and several of the southern states adopt- ed the single tax. The effect was not so marked in those that came into the plan among the last; but the first experienced much the same stimulation and rapid growth that distinguished the Minnesota towns, so that in a few years the majority of the population had crowded into the cities. This ef- fect was brought about by the action of two causes. The first cause was the superior attractions of the cities as places for profitable employment and as

92 The Lunarian Professor

places for the enjoyment of life. The cities rapid- ly became socialistic in their policy, and constant- ly extended the scope of the functions of the gov- ernment. The municipality soon acquired the ownership of the lighting plants, the water works and street car lines. These were run at first as speculative enterprises, the cities selling light and w^ater to private individuals, but the people soon demanded that these things should be free as the public libraries, schools, university and parks, were in your day. And this was gradually brought about, the cities furnishing at first so much water and so much light and so many street car rides free to each person, and at last taking off all lim- its, only making the citizen responsible for un- reasonable waste. Then the populace demanded free amusements and entertainments and these were provided in the form of the concert, lecture, theater, circus etc. All these things cost money and the tax rates kept getting higher and higher. These were paid in the form of rents on the land, the buildings stood on and of course at once trans- ferred to the rents paid by tenants for rooms, flats, shops, stores etc. Rents soon became higher than they had ever been known before the adoption of the single tax. To lighten these rents in the cities, it was now proposed to increase the rents of lands in the country.

Confiscation of Lands 93

CHAPTER VI. Confiscation of Lands.

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

Agricultural products fell off to such an extent, that in a few years the United States ceased to be an exporter of them. The cities having gained con- trol of the states, it came to be a political theory

94 ^/i^ Lunarian Professor

that each state was a community, and that the lands abandoned or forfeited for taxes belonged to the Community and therefore came indirectly un- der the control of the cities. From this position it was an easy step to the idea that the taxes — or rents as they were designated — of the *' people's lands" might be spent where most beneficial to the majority, that is, in the cities. It was at- tempted to be pointed out by the more conserva- tive that this was class legislation. But the radi- cal progressives replied that it was in line with the theory of the single tax which was class legis- lation if anything could be. And they asserted that the adoption of the single tax carried with it an endorsement of the principle of class legislation when demanded by the interests of the majority. Whether their reasoning was sound or not they carried the day, and a great stride was taken to- ward the centralization of power and population. It now happened that when more money was want- ed it was raised, not by increasing the rents of city lots, but those of farming lands, and after a time the principle revenues came to be derived from them. Although the exportation of grain, flour, beef etc., had practically ceased, still the people had to eat and their food had to be raised on the land. The business of farming gradually took on entirely new features. Large operators took large tracts on lease from the state at prices determined periodically by appraisment fixed in proportion to the needs of the state. Lands taken on these terms were guaranteed to be kept free from the competi- tion of squatters, so that the. lands remaining va-

Confiscation of Lands 95

cant were cleared of squatters, or else the latter were restricted to a mere garden patch. Thus the country was no longer occupied by farmers resid- ing on the lands with their families as in former times. The agricultural districts were inhabited only by a poor and thriftless class of peasants and during the summers by the employes of the large contract farmers who made their headquarters and resided with their families in the cities. In the winter, only such hands as were required to care for the stock remained in the country, the rest all flocking to the towns.

One result of the increased rentals charged for the agricultural lands appears not to have been anticipated. That was the great rise in the cost of food. Of course the rents of the lands were sim- ply added to the cost of the production of grain and other foods, and finally v/ere paid by the con- sumer. It came to be seen after a time that the public revenues raised out of the agricultural lands were finally paid by all the people in proportion- not to their wealth or ability, but to their appe- tites and the amount they consumed — so that a la- boring man with a vigorious appetite paid more to support the state than a dyspeptic millionaire. And a poor man's family of six or eight ravenous offspring contributed many times as much as the scanty and sickly progeny of the exclusive aristo- crat. It speedily became a cause of great dissatis- faction and disappointment when the poor and the working classes found out that the fine promises of the single tax had so far failed that instead of lightening their burdens it had increased them.

96 The Lunarian Professdr

And that the confiscation of the lands of the farm- ers instead of adding to the prosperity of the com- mon people had increased the already plethoric, wealth of the rich. A school of politicians now arose who declared that the taxation of land was the taxation of the poor man's bread and butter and was all wrong. Instead of farming land pay- ing the bulk of the taxes they said it ought not to pay any. Every facility and encouragement ought to be given for the production of cheap food. Peo- ple ought not to be taxed on what they consume, but on what they save. Neither labor nor the la- borer should be taxed, they should be made as free and unhampered as possible for the produc- tion of wealth. But when wealth was once pro- duced then it should be taxed wherever found and a necessary portion of it taken as the revenue of the state. The laboring classes were in a mood to listen to this logic whether sound or not. The lands having passed out of private hands, how- ever, there was no disposition to allow them to pass back to them again. And the new party advocated state superintendence of the lands and free occu- pancy by private individuals of such amounts as each could actually cultivate to advantage. As the population and demand for land increased, the amounts allotted to individuals was to be cut down proportionally, and a grade or standard of cultiva- tion and quantity of production was to be exact- ed, and the state was to fix the prices at which the products were to be sold. Eventually it was proposed that the state should be the purchaser and distributor of these products so that specula-

Confiscation of Lands 97

tion in them should be prevented. The advantage possessed by some on account of their nearness to market would be equalized by the state paying a less rate for their products than for those further away.

Taxes for revenue were then to be levied upon every piece of personal property that could be found of every sort whatever including buildings. In the cities a graded rent for lots was to be assess- ed according to locality, beginning at zero in the vacant suburbs and increasing toward the center of greatest activity and demand. A thoroughness in assessment and the employment of methods that were called by their critics, "odiously inquisitor- ial," were to be adopted, but the fact was the mass of the people were drifting rapidly toward socialism in their ideas, and they asserted that the *' inquisitorial methods" were alright. They said, it was high time to know how much wealth people had and how they came by it, and that reluctance to tell on the part of the possessors of it indicated that either they had acquired it by questionable methods, or wished to avoid the fair responsibility, that its ownership entailed. They went further and declared it was high time that more scientific pro- cesses were discovered and put into practice for the equitable distribution of wealth. A thousand men contribute to the production of $1,000,000 of wealth, all of which is gobbled up in a few weeks or months by the scheming of a single *' financier." The board of directors of a railroad, a mining com- pany or a manufacturing company, may issue to themselves certificates of watered stock for which

98 The Lunarian Professor

they pa}^ not a cent, and which represent wealth having no existence, but which they are in a posi- tion to compel the public to make good. A gang of speculators may get up a corner on wheat or cotton or stocks of some sort and artificially raise the price while they unload at the advanced rate thereby securing wealth they never earned. Com- binations and trusts in oil or sugar, screws, nails, coal, whisky, gas-pipes or binding twine, arbitrari- ly advance the price of the articles whenever they want more money, and thus take as many thou- sands or millions from that patient ass, the public, as they see fit without a pretense of returning an equivalent. All these things the politicians of the new school declared must be stopped. They said people should not be allowed to secure wealth with- out in some way earning it, and if they had manag- ed to secure it without rendering an equivalent for it, it would be no more than right to confiscate it for the benefit of the public at whose expense it must have been acquired. The party advocating these ideas rapidly came into power and proceeded to put their views into practice. It was found af- ter much discussion and some experimenting that people would not work and do their best unless they were paid better for their best than for their w^orst. The experiment of making the state the buyer and wholesale seller of all articles that could be made the subjects of combines and trusts was found to work well. The state did not at first un- dertake to manufacture or produce anything, but monopolized its transfer from producer to con- sumer. For example the producers of anthracite

Confiscation of Lands 99

coal were required to sell their product to the gov- ernment, and it was unlawful for them to sell to anyone else. The price of mining, handling and transportation and the selling rate were each fixed by a board of arbitration and remained fixed till the conditions changed. There was no such thing as striking among the hands, for if they were dis- satisfied all they could do was to leave and allow others to take their places. If no others were will- ing to do the work it was an indication that the rate was too low and the board of arbitration rais- ed it. It had been settled before this that the mine owner had no royalty rights. These were regard- ed as the property of the state. So if the mine owners attempted to combine to raise the price to the state or from perverseness refused to furnish the amount required their properties were placed by the state in the hands of receivers to be worked till such time as the matters in dispute were regu- lated.

Other mining industries, and the production o£ coal-oil, sugar and other articles capable of con- trol by trusts, were regulated and handled in simi- lar manner by the state. As to railroad, telegraph and express properties, they all passed into direct government ownership before the middle of the twentieth century.''

The Professor pausing here for a moment to shift his profile, I ventured to say that I had in my day anticipated this move on the part of the government, but many people had been unable to see how it could be carried into effect without sim- ple confiscation, because they said it would bank-

loo The Lunarian Professor

rupt the country to buy the roads etc., and pay their value for them.

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

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

These bonds were issued in exchange for the railway securities on the following terms. Bonds at their face value were allotted to each road to the amount of its estimated cash value, plus its net earnings for that one year next preceding the passage of the act of purchase. Many roads earned only enough to pay their running expenses, and these received only the amount of their appraised valuation. For the purpose of the distribution of the allotment of the purchase bonds to the holders of the railway securities in any given ease, ac- count was taken of the market quotations of the

Purcliasc of the Railways 101

several sorts of stocks and bonds at a date one year previous to the act of purchase, and the value of each person's holding thus ascertained. Then the purchase bonds were distributed to the individ- uals pro rata to these values. When seven-tenths in interest of the proprietors of any road accepted the terms of the government purchase the other three-tenths were obliged to accede or lose their interests.

A few roads held out for a short time, but af- ter the ice was broken they all at once became eager to transfer their properties to the govern- met. The railway consols at once became popular and were rated above par, the government guaran- ty making them in reality national bonds. A new cabinet office — secretary of transportation — was created. All the employes on the roads from the superintendents of transportation down, held their places under civil service rules, and this branch of the administration never came under political con- ditions, but was managed upon strictly business principles like the post office. The income from the roads, from the very first year not only paid the interest on the railroad consols, but yielded a handsome surplus that was annually laid aside in safe investments to serve as a sinking fund for the redemption and cancellation of the bonds as they should mature. Before the end of the twen- tieth century one-half of these bonds had been re- tired and great reductions had been made in pas- senger and freight rates and the service had vast- ly improved over what it was in your day. Strikes, freight and passenger rate wars with their terrific

102 The Lunarian Professor

waste and demoralization of business were things of the long past. Many other leaks of railway earnings were stopped when the roads became the property of the government. Many small pieces of road became consolidated under one superin- tendence; hordes of directors, presidents, vice pres- idents, general managers, general agents, solicitors of business and other officials were dispensed with ; many of whom under the former regime, not only drew salaries for supposed cervices, but absorbed besides in various mysterious ways, vast wealth that of right should have gone to the stockholders.

The total mileage of the railroads

of the U. S. in 1893 was 173,370

Total capital stock $5,021,576,551

Total bonds 5,510,225,528

Total actual cost $15,000 per mile.. 7,801,650,000

Total earnings, one year 1,208,641,498

Total net earnings 358,648,918

Amount of the railroad consols to be

issued in payment of the R. R.. . 8,160,300,000

Annual interest on same at three

per cent 244,809,000

Surplus of railway income after pay- ing interest on railroad consols to be applied to sinking fund. . . . 113,839,918

Amount of sinking fund after twenty years to be used in the extinction of one-fifth of the consols 1,632,060,000

Net income of roads increased to 400,000,000

Surplus to be used in betterments. . . . 41,351.082

Purchase of the Railways 103

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

"I suppose," said I, ''that these bonds, especial- ly those of the lower denominations would circu- late to some extent as currency."

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

"In my time," said I, "electricity was being in- troduced as the motive power on railways. Did it prove successful?"

"It did, eminently so, and entirely superseded steam locomotion, although steam stationary en- gines were used principally, throughout the cen-

104 The Lunarian Professor

tury. But when we come to look forward into the twenty-first centmy, we shall find some remarkable changes. But we have not reached that yet.

*'I am curious to know how the currency ques- tion was settled. After the retirement of the rail- way consols, I suppose they fell back on gold or paper based on it, did they?"

*'The use of gold and silver money was never discontinued entirely, and both were coined. Near the close of last century, the free coinage of silver was strongly demanded by the people and strongly opposed by the financiers. Finall}^ they compromis- ed. The government gave up the task of main- taining the parity of the metals at any ratio, but coined both.

The silver "dollar" with its fractions, half quarter and dime was coined in quantities to ac- commodate the business. Silver was made a legal tender for limited amounts. This gave silver the character of ''fiat money," or money that is legal and current at inflated values. They made gold the standard of value. In this they were right. There could logically be only one unit of value. But the debtor class strenuously opposed the plan. They said it w^orked great injustice to them, be- cause their debts were contracted at times when money bore inflated values ; when for example sil- ver was intrinsically worth only half as much as gold. These debts were therefore now payable in money twice as valuable and twice as hard to get as that for which they had gone into debt. In other words they paid back twice as much as they fairly owed and the creditor received twice as

Regulation of the Currency 105

much as he fairly loaned. There can be no doubt this is true of debts of long standing. But most debts were not affected materially by the rise in the value of gold, because they were not contract- ed at its bottom value, but at various grades of value while it was on the ascending movement. However as long as it was rising the creditor class was reaping an unjust advantage over the debtors. The government issued bank notes; some based on silver and some on gold; each kind redeemable in the metal on which it was based. The quantity of this paper money was regulated by the national legislature so as to insure a circulation in propor- tion to the volume of business. The extended use of bank checks has furnished a substitute for or supplement to the currency. When the currency question was finally felt to be settled, the condi- tions were practically accepted and the producing class was set to work, and in an incredibly short time, replaced the wealth that had been abstracted from them and more. Then came an era of specu- lation and the scattering of wealth. Obligations rashly incurred in flush times, had to be met when times became tight. This led to panics and the whole routine had to be repeated about so often. But panics could not be entirely eliminated by doctoring the currency, because currency is not the only factor. No matter how much currency a man has, he is not likely to buy articles he does not want. If mechanics have spent their time in tlip production of something the public do not require or a surplus of what they do ordinarily require, there will be difficulty in disposing of the product.

106 The Lunarian Professor

If two classes of mechanics each make things with the expectation of selling them to the other class, and they turn out to be such things as are not wanted in either case, there is sure to be stagna- tion of exchange and consequent suffering. Where all are working in ignorance of the requirements of others there are sure to be produced many things for which there will be no demand. This had been partially recognized by the government in your day and commissioners were appointed to collect statistics and make estimates in regard to the production of and probable demand for cer- tain farm products. As the government became more intimately the servant of the people its ser- vices in this direction were greatly extended and inquiries covered many other departments beside that of farming. The government itself became a large consumer in operating its railroads, tele- graphs etc. Additional mileage had to be con- structed to meet the growing business besides the renewals on account of wear and tear. By the publication in advance of the probable demands on the various sorts of industry it became possi- ble to estimate approximately what amount of and what kind of product could be disposed of. A still more fruitful source of financial trouble was to be found in the spirit of recklessness and extrav- agance with which people spent their money when times were prosperous or booming. It seemed so easy then to get money and to pay debts that many thought it hardly worth while to do it, if there appeared a chance for a profitable specula- tion, and so instead of paying old debts they were

Socialism 107

very likely to incur fresh ones. But as the state became more and more involved in business affairs, it was able to advise what products would be in demand, when it was advisable to use caution and economy and when activity would be rewarded. The functions of the state as a medium of exchange between the producer and the consumer became rapidly extended, and before the close of the cen- tury it became the chief and in many things the only buyer and seller of the products in most com- mon use, as well as the sole factor in all monopolies and in banking, insurance, and public amusements. It had not yet gone into manufacturing or farm- ing except to the extent necessary to prevent com- binations and private monopolies."

*'I think I can see the advantage of this," said I, **they probably held to the principle that compe- tition is necessary to keep men up to their best in exertion and industry."

**That is correct," he replied, ''until work be- comes an instinct it is necessary to stimulate exer- tion by the better rewards that extra industry can procure. The socialists in your day proposed no plan that calculated sufficiently upon the selfish- ness of the individual. They expected that every- body would accept the position assigned to him and work faithfully for the good of all. But it was too soon to expect this. Your race is very young. It is not so long since your ancestors ceased to depend on the spontaneous productions of the earth for their sustenance, and began to sup- plement them by their own exertions. With some of your races work is beginning to be instinctive,

108 Tlie Lunarian Professor

but there are yet enough in every nation, who, by their hereditary aversion to exertion are ready to shirk out of labor and make the burden of the in- stinctively industrious intolerable. Your race is too young yet, here at the close of the twentieth century, to take on the purely instinctive social- istic conditions as we Lunarians have them."

''You think then that socialism to be sucessful must be instinctive as it is with the bees?'*

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

'*Then," said I, "in this supreme ideal of social-

Socialism 109

istic instinct, I understand you, that the individual lays aside all expectation of personal enjoyment, or the possession of anything in the way of lux- uries or superfluities. It seems to me such an ex- istence must be a very narrow one."

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

All the same however true socialistic conditions are not realized to a nearly perfect degree up to this close of the twentieth century, although the advance toward them has been what the conserva- tives of your day would have regarded as alarm- ing. In all cases where honest competition in the production of anything can be maintained, it is the policy of government to refrain from interference;

110 The Lunarian Professor

but if the articles produced are necessary to con- sumers or are required as materials in the produc- tion of other goods that are, and the manufacturers of such things form trusts or combinations for the purpose of increasing the price, the government ap- points receivers for such business and has it operat- ed long enough to ascertain the cost of producing the article. The price is then fixed by the govern- ment."

*'But what if the parties decline to sell at the prices fixed by the state?"

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

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

"That is true," he answered, "there has been a remarkable evolution and yet a perfectly natural and logical one. The very first principle on which a state is organized is the defense and protection of all — the weaker as well as the stronger members — against a common external foe. The second prin- ciple which is easily derivable from the first is the protection of the members of the society from each other. Under this principle the weaker will be protected from the stronger, first in his person, second in his property. It was the theory of many

Socialism 111

in all former times that the functions of the state ought to end there. Some said, that to go any further would contravene the wholesome natural law of selection, and interfere against the survival of the fittest. Nature left to herself, would put down and finally exterminate the weakest of the race mentally and physically, leaving always the strongest and best to survive, and so constantly improve the race. But if that consideration were to prevail there should never have been any protec- tive organization of tribes and states in the first place. If when a community were attacked each individual ran away or hid as best he could, the enemy would catch and destroy the less swift and Strang and the less shrewd and wary, and so select the best for survival. But under the organization, they stand together, and if the enemy is beaten off, the weak and inferior members are saved with the best. The only consideration on which this is right must be that the weaker members of the so- ciety are worth more to the state than they cost, tnd therefore to the extent that they are protected by the organization they are selected by nature in this roundabout way for survival, for the bene- fit of the state.

The further defense of the weak against the strong within the social organization, must be on the same principle. And this principle having been admitted there is no logical end to it short of protection against every advantage the strong or the superior or the more wary can possibly take or attempt. In a civilized society the oppression of the weak is no longer so much from personal

112 The Lxinarian Professor

violence or robbery, but it takes the more subtle form of absorbing their wealth under forms of law and business formulas, so that in such a society the weak and unwary are valuable to produce wealth, but are robbed of it, practically by a few.

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

''Then ought it not also to protect society against the extortions of anyone who would com- pel it to pay too much for something he alone could produce?"

''Of course that is included in the first."

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

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

Women s Mights 113

CHAPTER VII. Women's Rights.

''I suppose there has been a change in the posi- tion of women since my dayT'

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

114 The Lunarian Professor

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

Women's Rights llS

sary to care for the individual until he had attain- ed the equipment essential for his self support.

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

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

The kindergartens became by almost insensible degrees enlarged in the scope of their functions. At first, as in your day, they were merely stopping places for the children during the day, they going back to their parents to spend the night. As the mothers came to be more and more engrossed in affairs avv^ay from home, the kindergartens extend-

116 The Lunarian Professor

ed their care over the children, furnishing them their meals, then their lodging, then medical at- tendance as well as education and amusement, final- ly assuming all the care and expense of maintain- ing and rearing them. At first the expense was paid by the parents, but was gradually assumed by the state by degrees till it finally became re- sponsible for all. 'The advantage of these public nurseries was at first of course most marked in favor of the poorer classes. But as their functions and scope developed, the care and training of the children became more scientific, their powers, tastes and aptitudes were more thoroughly brought out. The wealthier classes at first objected to having their children reared in association with the pie- bians. But the children of plebians w^ere no longer plebian when removed permanently from the in- fluences of their parent's homes; and they turned out a larger percentage of successful men and women than those of more comfortable position. In physical and mental ability they were superior, and in moralit}^ at least equal to the others. It was seen that these kindergartens were better adapted for the care of children than even the better equip- ped homes, and they received the patronage of a constantly increasing proportion of the people. At first there was nothing compulsory in this patron- age. Parents left their children when it suited them, and took them away when they chose. But after a time this was outgrown. It came gradual- ly to be understood that the state — that is the whole community — was really as mucli concerned in the destiny of the growing generation as the

The Family 11*^

parents; and it was said that it was better that the children should have the constant care and at- tention of those intelligently qualified and perfect- ly equipped, than that their development should be interrupted when the caprice of parents craved them only for pets and playthings. So the selfish- ness of parents in this respect was gradually out- grown in favor of the more important welfare of the children. But economy as well as sentiment supported this evolution. The cost of caring for the children by the state was vastly less than un- der the old system, and it no longer fell with such crushing weight on those least able to bear it; for it was notorious that the poor were the most proli- fic. With the better care they received the mor- tality amongst the children was greatly reduced and a far greater proportion reached maturity. Another important consideration in the state nur- sery system was the cultivation of the democratic sentiment amongst the children, and the destruc- tion oi exclusiveness and aristocratic ideas and feelings.

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

*-That is correct," he answered, ''the state takes the child as soon as it is weaned, sometimes be- fore, and keeps and provides for it every day till it is prepared to be selfsupporting. Every one is taught a trade or a profession according to its bent and the demand for services in the several callings, it being the policy of the state to so reg-

118 The Lunarian Professor

ulate these things that the value of services is about the same in all callings."

*'Then can a mechanic make as much as a doc- tor?"

*' About the same. As soon as any difference is observed, more are encouraged to enter the call- ing that tends to the higher pay, and so made to preserve the uniformity."

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

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

*'Well it seems to me, to get even where they are they must have met and solved some rather difficult riddles," said I. "For example in my day there was a desperate struggle between Prostetants and Catholics in regard to the religious education of the children. The Catholics hated the public schools, because they were "godless." They insisted on hav- ing their children brought up in their own faith. They wanted a share of the public money so thej- could have schools of their own and mix their cat- echism with the rules of grammar and the rule of

Progress in the Church 119

three. How did they ever settle this difficulty — or did they settle it?"

**0 yes," he said, **they settled it, or rather it settled itself. At first the Catholics and in some places the Lutheran^ and other sects of Protestants insisted on maintaining their own schools, kindergar- tens etc., but the state institutions were so far superior to what these sectarians could furnish, that the laity broke av/ay from the control of their priests in this respect and followed their in- terests in putting their children under the care of the state. As however the state monopolized more and more of the pupils' time, it was conceded that if the whole population was not to become ** godless," it would be necessary to allow religion to be taught in these public institutions in some form. So they compromised. The different reli- gious bodies were allowed to hold Sunday schools and classes for religious instruction of the pupils in the creeds professed by their parents. The chil- dren were also taken to church according to the same rule. This was at first made compulsory if desired by the parents, but after a time compul- sory attendance upon religious instruction was remitted at the age of 12 and the pupils were al- lowed to choose their religion. This arrangement preserved the proportions of the sects to each other fairly well, but in the meantime there arose conditions that made this preservation of small moment. These were such changes in the spirit and feeling of the members of different churches toward each other, and such a liberalizing of creeds that all were brought together and became not only

1"^0 The Lunarian Professor

tolerant, but even cordial toward each other. The schools themselves did more than anything else to bring about this result, for as the older scholars were given their freedom of choice, it gradually became a fashion or fad amongst the pupils and finally a part of the regular curriculum to attend each other's meetings and interchange ideas and arguments. As the ability grew amongst all, both the young and old, to reason more justly and logic- ally, all sides became less tenacious of the dog- mas they found themselves unable to prove. When these were lopped off from the various conflicting creeds their professors found themselves all stand- ing on practically the same platform of facts and plain human duties. The things they differed on were mostly mere h}T)otheses. They still continued to differ, but no longer regarded their differences of such vital consequence as formerly. It came to be generally admitted as absurd that the future post mortem condition of men should depend on their intellectual convictions regarding unprovable metaphysical theories."

*' Doubtless the bringing together of the chil- dren of all creeds and educating them in each others notions had much to do with this liberaliz- ing process; had it not?" I asked.

**It had of course, but the education of the children together, was itself a result of a liberal- ized public opinion. The fact is the human mind was constantly undergoing a process of expansion and growth. It could no longer be satisfied with the crude and childish notions of former genera- tions, and was outgrowing them as children out-

Progress in the Church 121

grow the fables of the nursery. Until men got capacity, argument and logic were of no avail. Ed- ucation in the great facts and discoveries of science and philosophy gave them capacity/'

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

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

In several cases two or three have united to form one. The whole number of sects is less than one-fourth of what it was. Creeds have become extremely simplified and in many cases practi- cally ignored. The government among the protest- ant sects, is in most cases congregational and democratic. They no longer engage in missionary work for the conversion of the heathen, as there are no longer any heathen whose conversion is de- sired ; and no organized effort is necessary for char- itable work at home, because that is amply pro- vided for by the state. But the church is useful as a social organization, promoting personal friend- ships and associations, providing intellectual and educational entertainment for its members foster- ing and fortifying the moral virtues and elevating and refining the manners. In many of these pro- testant congregations, the worship of God by pray- er and ceremony is entirely discontinued, it being held that all worship is unworthy, and based upon a false notion of the relationship between God and man. Man they say cannot w^orship or serve God directly. God is not childish enough to wane it.

122 The Lunarian Professor

All man can do is to help his fellow man and him- self and that constitutes his whole duty."

"These," said I, ''would probably have been called free thinkers or agnostics in my day. But what of the Catholics?"

''The Catholics," he replied, "are far more numerous than the Protestants. Forty years ago there was a great schism in the Catholic church, the American branch of it separating completely from the European, and setting up for itself as the "American Catholic Church." At the same time important changes were made in the interpretation of the doctrines of the church and radical innova- tions in its government. The latter is now largely republican in form and the laity have representa- tion in the councils of the church and a prepond- erating influence both in its doctrine and its tem- poral policy. The tendency toward this develop- ment showed itself strongly in the beginning of the twentieth century, and originated from the gen- eral increase of intelligence and feeling of person- al assertion and responsibility among the laity and the example of the freer people about them. The clergy instinctively resisted this tendency, and called upon the Pope and the European church to help them to stop it. The help they afforded only stimulated the movement. The interference of the Europeans was resented as impertinent; the exer- cise of the papal authority was looked on as a dis- play of superannuated tyranny. The Pope asserted that the American Church by its liberal practices and tendencies was corrupting the church in other parts of the world, and declared they were doing

progress in the Church 123

it more damage as members, than they could do as open enemies outside of its pale, and he threatened to excommunicate the whole American body. The immediate cause of the final act of separation was first the persistence of the laity in having the own- ership of the church property in their own hands, represented by trustees of their own selection. Sec- ond, their demand to share in the government of the church, to which end they proposed a represen-