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LOOKING FORWARD
——A Dream of——
THE UNITED STATES OF THE AMERICAS,
1999. CHAPTER I. The American Colossus.
ОглавлениеA Dream of Magnificent Expansion. America becomes the Mightiest Nation of the World and extends her Domain from Alaska to Patagonia.
Gauged by certain standards and viewed from certain standpoints, a mere century is but a brief compass of time.
From an individual point of view, in the daily routine of life, a century appears to be an embryo-eternity. When time is gauged with clock like precision and to each minute is allotted its full value, a century assumes an unfathomable depth. But, in the cycles of time, a century is a mere footprint in the passage of time; a small link in the endless chain of eternity.
Time is easily annihilated by mental process. Witness the feat performed by Mahomet, related in a certain chapter of the Mahomet on Rapid Transit. Koran. The faithful are informed in this passage of the Koran that the Prophet was awakened one morning from a deep, refreshing slumber by an angel and was summoned into Paradise to confer with Allah. While in the act of ascending to Heaven, Mahomet’s foot struck and upset a pitcher of water which stood near the couch. The Koran unblushingly proclaims that the Prophet held 999 long conferences with Allah and had safely returned to his couch, ready for another snooze, before the water in the falling pitcher had time to spill on the floor!
There is something very refreshing in this narrative. It shows that Mahomet was well up in rapid transit matters and again it proves the sublime virtue of a man, a son of the desert, a turbaned Washington, who couldn’t tell a lie and who resisted the temptation to make this batch of conferences with Allah an even thousand. Mahomet missed his calling; he ought to have been a newspaper reporter.
Assuming the prerogatives of the Koran, the author, at one stroke of his pen, proposes to annihilate time. Plunged into a profound slumber he had a dream. Great men and little men; the renowned and the ignorant; the philosopher and the Australian bushman; quakers and cannibals; the prince and the peasant, all these and myriads of others, have had their dreams. Love’s dream has been the theme of all ages, the burden of songs untold. The dream of conquest, the dream of ambition and dreams of every human passion and desire have throbbed within the human brain.
But the author’s dream is not swayed by human emotions; it is not the handmaid of America’s Giant Republic, 1999. passion. It is a dream that unseals the book of the future and reveals to the world the colossal, peace-loving, giant republic of the universe in the year of our Lord, 1999,
The United States of the Americas, the mightiest nation ever known in contemporaneous history.
It is related that at a national anniversary celebration dinner, held a few years ago, in the classic regions of Chicago, while the toasts were being dissected, a guest arose and proposed to “Our Country,”—the United States of America, bounded on the north by Canada; on the south by the Gulf of Mexico; on the east by the Atlantic and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Another gentleman arose and protested warmly against the narrow limits as ascribed to our beloved country. “Let us,” he continued, “drink to the prosperity of the United States of America,—bounded on the north by the North Pole; on the south by the Antarctic Region; on the east by the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and on the west by the Day of Judgment.”
At the fin-de-siecle of the twentieth century, in the year of our Lord, 1999, the United States of the Americas were virtually bounded as above related. The comparatively small segment of territory known and officially recognized in 1899 as the United States of America, still retained in 1999 its predominant importance, yet this territory in the twentieth century became only a small fraction of an integral whole. In 1899, compared with its neighbors, the United States of America appeared like a whale by the side of little fishes,—a large loaf compared with which its neighbor-nations in Central and South America resembled little biscuits,—half baked at that.
In 1999 the little fishes were glad to come to the great American whale for protection and become a part of our grand union. Our glorious and ever-victorious banner remained precisely the same in 1999, as it must ever remain for centuries yet unborn, the pride of America and the glory of the world. The stripes on our noble flag were still red and white alternately; the only difference was in the number of the stars on the field of blue; they had increased from forty-five to eighty-five and Old Glory proudly waved in 1999 over one mighty united republic from Baffin’s Bay to the straits of Magellan.
Place in your hand an acorn. Pause as you gaze upon it, consider the mighty giant which slumbers within its bosom. It is only an acorn,—a mere pigmy. Plant it; watch it as it develops into a mighty, towering oak, which, in its majesty of strength seems to bid defiance to the very heavens. Beneath its massive branches and grateful shade the weary traveller may pause to rest his limbs and seek refuge from the heat of day.
Our pilgrim fathers were the “acorns” of the colossal republic known in 1999 as Commenced on a Small Scale. the United States of the Americas. Little did they those pure and sturdy fathers, dream that from their loins would spring the greatest and grandest government descended to men since the promulgation of the Decalogue. From small beginnings, great ends may often be accomplished. The avalanche that rolls and thunders down the mountain side, sweeping before it forests and boulders, begins business in a very small way. A little handful of snow starts the uproar but before its headlong career has terminated, the very mountain itself trembles beneath the mad rush.
So it was with that splendid political structure, known in 1999 as the United States of the Americas. Its humble origin was easily traceable to Plymouth Rock. From the landing of the pilgrims to the close of the nineteenth century, the rapid growth of the Federal States left nothing to be desired. But in the nineteenth century America was still an acorn, from which a mighty oak was to be reared in 1999, a tree under whose branches were sheltered in one mighty republic all the territory from Hudson’s Bay to Cape Horn.
In the year of our Lord 1999 the world gazed with an admiration, akin to awe, upon Eighty-five States in the Union. the magnificent spectacle presented by the United States of the Americas, a colossal republic, embracing eighty-five states, bounded on its northern apex by the states of Alaska, East and West Canada, while the state of Patagonia guarded the extreme south of the American giant, including all islands of the seas lying in the Western Hemisphere, between the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
It frequently happens that the insignificant child of to-day, soon becomes, by reason of growth and intellectual force, the leader of the family, a tower of might and strength in their midst, one to whom they look for counsel and protection.
So it was with America, the Child of Destiny. In 1776 America was a mere infant, attached to the breast of a harsh, unloving mother. By leaps and bounds this American infant budded into childhood, and in the year of 1899 had already become a busy, good-natured youth, whose prowess, industry and great future already commanded the respect of the world. In 1899 the western hemisphere was politically divided into independent republics, with the minor exception of certain European dependencies, belonging to England, France and Denmark. The United States in the year last named was universally regarded as a prodigy in the family of nations. Its magnificent resources and its expanding industries; its keen inventive genius; its limitless A Big Fellow, Decidedly. agricultural wealth; its absolute liberty and entire freedom from militarism, challenged the envy as well as the admiration of the world, while the naval and military prowess of the young American Republic, evidenced in the Spanish-American unpleasantness of 1898, exacted from other nations a wholesome and enduring respect.
Such, in brief, was the condition of America in 1899. Little indeed was the popular mind prepared for the extraordinary developments and the remarkable series of events that brought about in 1999 the creation of the United States of the Americas. In that memorable year all of the independent republics of Central and South America had joined our union and were governed under the great Constitution of 1776, which is and always will be, the most inspiring document that ever issued from the pen of man, one that will continue to bless mankind as lone as the sun retains its power and the earth gives forth its fruits.
How did all this happen? The Dream furnishes the solution. Read on.