America's tomorrow

Front matter

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Introduction

My friend Snell Smith's book, ''America's Tomorrow," is essentially an historic, prophetic and anthroponomic treatise. It is a most informative analysis of our economic and political institutions and their possibilities. The author of the work must be recognized as an exceedingly scholarly man, whether or not one agrees with him in any or all respects. He has put a prodigious amount of labor and thought into the volume, and it is admirably calculated to make its readers think. The book stimulates inquiry, and inquiry is the parent of all progress.

A man's mind is a mill in which he grinds the grist of all mental acquirements, facts and fancies with experience, and the mental mill of no two men works with equal efficiency in separating the real meal of merit from the orts and chaff. No two persons, from a given set of premises not absolutely mathematical in their exactness, arrive at entirely like conclusions.

He is the best teacher who tells the student only what is absolutely necessary, and who puts the student in the way of finding out things for himself. Eeady-solved problems do not instruct so well as

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problems which one has to solve for himself. Scientific books must essentially be largely statements of fact, and in reading them any but the most scientific mind becomes quickly weary. Statements of mere fancies, from their suggestiveness, often serve so to stimulate imagination and inquiry in the mind of the reader as to lead him to the acquisition of more truth than he would get were the facts first baldly stated to him in purely scientific terminology.

It is better to bury the corn for a hen, leaving just kernels enough on the surface to indicate where it is, so that she will have to scratch for it. Likewise, it is better not to uncover all the corn of truth for the student, but to leave enough uncovered to make him scratch for it.

One may make bread of a mixture of ground wood or cotton cellulose, adding such sodium, potassium and phosphate salts with paraffin grease as to answer the chemical requirements of a balance^ ration for human consumption; but the digestive organs of man would be unable to digest and assimilate the unpalatable product. Likewise, a vast amount of scientific information may be served in so dry and unpalatable a way as not to be either relished or easily assimilated by the mind. Food for the sustenance of the mind, just like food for the sustenance of the body, is better when flavored and seasoned to the taste. It is not so interesting

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to read something full of useful facts that we can see at once are true, as it is to read something pregnant with suggestiveness.

The value of a book depends upon its interest and the good it will do one to read it. Snell Smith *s book is most interesting, and it will do anyone good to read it.

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of minds — the ratiocinative and the intuitive. The ratiocinative is the strictly scientific mind, and the intuitive is the poetic or mystical mind, splendid in its imaginative perceptions. The writings of the strictly scientific man are apt to be dry. It is not alone the load of facts a writing carries that constitutes its main merit ; it is also the appeal it makes to the imagination.

Snell Smith's mind, while both ratiocinative and intuitive in its functioning, becomes in some portions of the book more intuitive. His last three chapters are especially imaginative and mystical, and are withal highly optimistic, especially as to the realization of the forlorn hope of the human heart that there is a coming time when men shall war no more, when love and gentleness shall banish brutality, greed and avarice.

Every person necessarily employs the results of his own personal experience to guide him in future conduct. Also, he employs the gathered results of the experiences of others for the same purpose.

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He also, as occasion may arise, employs his experiential knowledge for the instruction of others regarding their conduct.

The student of history, ethnology and anthroponomy, if he be a man with large human sympathies, is prompted to use his interpretation of the lessons of history for the general instruction and benefit of his fellowmen. Such is the evident purpose of the present volume.

Present-day political and social problems are here discussed by a man who has long been a Washington newspaper correspondent, and has had an opportunity to study them first-hand. His patriotism leads him to an ardent hope that America is to become the arbiter of the world's destiny because of her vital strength and the benign character of her institutions. He pleads for order and unity at home, and the extension of American governmental ideals everywhere abroad. In fact, I know of no work in which is so clearly discussed the relation of America to the world and the relation of the world to America.

While I agree with Snell Smith that the facts of past human experience should be utilized to govern the future conduct of mankind, and while I agree with him that it is the duty of all of us to help one another in every way possible, and also to try to lead mankind in the direction of Utopia, vdth, as far as practicable, the banishment of war from

INTRODUCTION V

the world, still, though we may move farther than we now are in such direction, it is my opinion that the human race will never reach an actual Utopia **till the sun grows cold and the stars are old and the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold."

While I do not believe that any League of Nations will be able to banish war from the world, still I strongly believe that much good may be done by the banding together of di:fferent peoples for peace. Some wars may be prevented.

In this sense, I, in this Introduction, and Snell Smith in his book, enter into a sort of joint debate in continuation of those we have had in private conversations for many years. Friendly discussion is always helpful.

Eegardless of any league to enforce peace, the nations are destined to grapple again in many and many an Armageddon, and with the increase in population, in wealth and industrial development of the nations, some of the great struggles that are coming will be of such colossal magnitude as to make the great world- war through which we have just passed seem far less large by comparison.

For all practical purposes, human nature is a constant. Circumstances may change, but the actual character of the race alters but little from century to century. The race to-day, in certain respects, is very old, but in other respects it is young. The size and build of the body, the size of the vi INTRODUCTION

brain-cavity and shape of the head, have altered but little through thousands of years; but in the matter of accomplishment the race has changed more during the past hundred and fifty years than it had previously changed in all the long-drawn ages since our home was a cave in the hill.

Ethnologically speaking, it was only yesterday that the ancestors of those of us of the great Nordic race, clothed in the skins of beasts, ran wild in the woods of Germany and Britain, or in frail boats coasted the rocky promontories of Scandinavia. It was also, ethnologically speaking, but yesterday that the ancestors of the Mediterranean, Semific or Arabic races were wild, hill tribesmen, hunters and fishermen about the great inland seas, or were fierce, piratic nomads hovering about the deserts of Eastern Asia. Those were conditions under which neither large populations nor great intellectual or moral advancement was possible. A state of warfare was normal to them. Man-hunting was the greatest of all their sports. The might of the sword was then universally recognized as right. ^ '

There were, in those days, two professional classes — the priesthood and the military; and also the non-professional or working class, to which the women and the slaves belonged. The military system combined with the slave system reached its apex in the Roman Empire, and when that vast

INTRODUCTION vii

Empire fell under the blows of the Northern barbarians, the feudal system came into being.

The Crusades to the Holy Land, the development of trade and commerce, the building up of industry, brought industrial centres or cities into prominence and into collision with the feudal barons. The people of the cities walled themselves in and defended themselves against the barons, and the barons, being brought to straits for lack of opportunity for plunder and pillage, were forced to terms. Again, the absence of the feudal lords in the Crusades strengthened the hands of the kings, and the kings allied themselves with the cities to bring the barons under the domination of kingship.

Industry, by slow degrees, made itself respectable, or at least respected. Again, industrial development led to invention and discovery; and it was found that inventors and discoverers would work better, and were therefore more profitable to a community, when allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labors. This led to inquiry into and to the recognition of the inalienability of human rights, and this recognition paved the way to human freedom.

Although such rights had been respected or somewhat recognized before, yet it was the industry of post-feudal times that compelled general recognition of the inalienability of certain human rights, especially the ownership and enjoyment of viii INTRODUCTION

property, the inviolability of the home, the freedom of body, mind and conscience, and the pursuit of happiness in one's own way, so long as in pursuing his happiness he does not interfere with the happiness of others.

All manner of labor-saving machinery, and all the vast and complicated mechanism of the modern world, have been the direct result of the recognition of the inalienability of human rights, for that recognition gave the greatest possible stimulus to invention, discovery and industrial development.

Improvements in means of transportation and communication led to the discovery of new lands, and the discovery of new lands, in its turn, greatly stimulated the development of transportation and communication.

A given area of the earth's surface, inhabited merely by hunters, must necessarily be thinly populated. Development of agriculture makes a far denser population possible. Again, the development of all manner of agricultural implements releases to the manufacturing arts, to the professions and to trades, a large percentage of the population, which, in turn, creates an enormous market for the produce of the farm. So it has been that in recent times the populations of the great civilized countries have increased by leaps and bounds.

The discovery of America and the opening up of vast areas in other lands, have provided room thus

INTRODUCTION !x

far for the increased numbers of the earth's inhabitants. But the time is near when this will no longer be the case. The time is near when the peoples of the nations will press upon one another, and then there will come intense rivalry and competition and actual warfare for a place in the sun. So long as there will be opportunity for all, room for growth, and food to eat, it may be possible to maintain pretty general peace, but, as Napoleon said, "There is no subordination in an empty stomach." It is necessary only for a man to be hungry enough to make him a savage. Starving mothers in Jerusalem, when the city was besieged by Titus, ate their own children.

A high state of moral and intellectual culture, and general observance of law and order and peace between peoples, are possible only when living conditions are tolerable. Therefore, in order to banish war from the world and to establish Utopian conditions, such as the much-mooted millennial brotherhood of man, it would be necessary also to banish want from the world, necessary to reverse the law of survival of the fittest through the struggle for existence, for populations always multiply according to the Malthusian law right up to the full feeding-capacity of the land, and then, just like a lake with its outlet dammed up, the rising flood is bound to overflow its confines.

It is our duty to promote, as far as possible,

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peace and good-will over the earth, but there is no power on earth great enough to shackle up old Mars and keep him chained.

It is the supreme effort of the supreme leaders of every species, both animal and vegetable, that gives to the multitudinous species their respective positions in the world. Every species and every race of animals is constantly being put to the supreme test for Nature to determine whether it shall continue to hold its place in the world, its position in the sun, or whether it shall yield it up to others better fitted.

The same inexorable natural law applies to every species of life, from the lowest organism up to man. Man owes his dominant position in the world to the primordial bent in his psychology that led him to use cunning instead of sheer brute force as his main weapon in contending with the brute creation and with his f ellowmen.

The fathers of our country based our so-called free institutions on the oft-uttered but widely misunderstood proposition that all men are created equal. They doubtless did not mean to imply that all men are actually created equal mentally, morally and physically, but that all men have equal rights to the law's protection and equal rights to the world's opportunities for life and thrift.

The peace delegates at Paris presumed to recognize this proposition of equality, but with reserva-

INTRODUCTION xi

tions. They were willing to have it that all men are created equal — except certain Orientals, and their declination to recognize the Japanese as equals seems pregnant with augurings and forebodings.

The Japanese and Chinese are our superiors in their ability to make Mother Earth provide for dense populations, and the Chinamen stand the highest of all people on earth in commercial honesty.

We beat the world at invention, but the Orientals beat us at imitation, and thus keep right along with us in the march of progress.

Taking the foregoing facts into consideration, let us see whether or not we can make some suggestive prognostications as to the future limitations of the League of Nations.

In the future, if all goes well in industrial and commercial development, there will be three great centres of commerce. That of first importance will be about the Bosphorus. Napoleon wisely foresaw the importance of that position and declared Constantinople to be the key to universal empire. The second great commercial centre will be the United States of America, and the third will be in China and Japan.

Within a wide radius of Constantinople, are Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, Turks and Arabs, the sharpest bargainers in the world. It is said that xii INTRODUCTION

a Greek can out-bargain a Jew, and that an Armenian can out-bargain both the Greek and the Jew.

If the nations heretofore antagonistic in race, religion, and ambitions about Constantinople are to get together and work together in a brotherly way — and they will have to do it if the Peace League succeeds — then the various peoples about the Bosphorus will, from commercial self-interest, get together and form a great Central-Eurasian state, while the Japanese and Chinese, with boundless resources of cheap labor, are sure to compete successfully for the ocean-carrying trade, and as competition becomes more and more strenuous, and the demand for food for denser and denser populations more and more exacting, then the Central- Eurasians, habituated for centuries to privation, and the Orientals, who have through long ages become adapted to thrive on a stingy vegetable diet, will place the great Nordic race at a disadvantage — a race that has been developed under conditions that have given it large bodies, with the digestive requirements of the carnivora. The meat-eating Nordics could no more compete with Japanese and Chinese under conditions of food-shortage than lions, turned out to grass with goats and jack-rabbits, could compete with them as grass-eaters.

The time is coming when the great warlike Nordic race will feel the pressure of competition and crowding of the Central-Eurasians, Chinese and

INTRODUCTION xiii

Japanese, and it is certainly doubtful if the British lion, the American eagle and the German eagle will, when the pinch comes, tamely submit to the peace provisions of any League of Nations — the lion to let his hair be browsed off his hungry body by the goats, and the eagles to allow their feathers to be plucked by the rabbits. No, the time-old fighting and world-dominating spirit that has belted the globe with Nordic dominance is going to employ the same old masterful traits to secure future survival and future dominance. The Nordics will do that which will give the utmost use to their big brains and big muscles. They will fight for their share of the world's food supply — a share which will be the lion's share and the eagles' share, a share sufficient to meet their greater food requirements.

I do not take a pessimistic view of the future, but merely what I conceive to be a view warranted by all history and by the law of evolution. Those who do not take a view which has trouble in it for somebody, and war-breeding trouble, are going to make a mistake, just as the peace-prophesying pacifists of America, Britain and France, before the great world- war, took too optimistic a view of the future, believing that the last great war had been fought, and neglected to prepare accordingly, whereas if they had seen the truth that Germany was preparing for world-conquest, they would have prepared.

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and when the clash came they would not immediatelj^ have run short of ammunition and have been reduced to the necessity of either retreating precipitately or charging the multitudinous enemy with the bayonet and sacrificing lives by hundreds of thousands that could have been saved had they been supplied with the necessary guns and ammunition.

Let us not, like the ostrich, hide our head in the sand. Let us look to the future with a vision not afraid to discern what the future has in store.

Hudson Maxim.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction i

I Our National Strength 3

Chapter I

"Teach my son to read and reflect upon history."— Napoleon.

"Consider history with the beginnings of it stretching dimly into the remote time and merging darkly out of the mysterious eternity, the true epic poem and universal divine scripture." — Carlisle.

"For behold the Lord cometh out of his place to visit the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth upon them; and the earth shall disclose her blood and be no longer a cover for her slain." —Isaiah 26:31.

ASSURANCE of the complete subjection of all nations and peoples to the ideals and civilization of the United States within the near future is contained in a law of history and nature which has for its ultimate and certain goal the unity of the race under popular government.

This law lies deeper than our national aspirations, which in themselves have not been sufficient to wrest extraordinary achievement out of the new conditions brought about by our participation in the great war and the politics and alliances of the mighty powers of the world. It has a basis more profound than extent of territory or material wealth, which have not alone been responsible for such a stupendous miracle as the awakening in the eighteen months from April, 1917 to October, 1918, of a population of an hundred millions from isolation and inactivity to raising and equipping an army of 3,750,000 men and sending 2,200,000 of them abroad to win every battle in which they were engaged ; to increasing our naval forces to an enlistment of 612,000 men and assisting in foiling the submarine menace; to building 535 merchant ships in 198 shipyards and supplying three millions of tonnage; to lending eight billions to our allies and expending for the cause a grand total of twenty-five billions of dollars; to taking over for the national welfare the public utilities ; to the prohibition of waste of food, light, heat and time ; and to bending all the agencies of the religious life to the maintenance of morality among those directly or indirectly engaged in the fight.

Nor has this tremendous result been primarily due to that system of popular government, resting upon the consent of the governed, which has given the world a Washington and a Lincoln, provided universal free education for the children of its citizens of whatever extraction, vouchsafed the fullest right of expression at the ballot and in the public service, set up barriers against abuse of executive or legislative authority by carefully devised checks and balances, protected the minority against intolerance or tyranny by any class, creed or majority, and given scope to the mentality of men and women of unequalled resource and initiative. Without this formative agency it is unlikely that such a contribution to civilization would have been achieved so effectively, for none but the spirit of a state untranmieled by kingly power can so well direct multifarious forces working in the interests of liberty. But underneath all as the direct cause is a superabundant energy which is inherent in the American people.

This energy is in turn occasioned by a vitality which has been ripened by natural processes. Strengthened and developed though the American people may be physically by centuries of hardship and struggle, their brawn and quickness flow solely from an amalgamation of the blood of the peoples of many lands into one. Their type is the result of the crossing of species and the perfection of attributes of independence for themselves and an ideal of liberty for the earth which are fit to survive. Differing in form, feature and mental trait from any other race on the earth, they have entered upon the greatest stage of all time in order that they may give their message to the ever growing life of man.

It would be a truism to say that blood is the elixir vitae of all animate creation. Its effect in the field of history, where it may be observed quite as minutely as under the microscope, is but an extension of its application to the physiology of the individual, where it feeds the cells of the body with new sustenance, where the degree of its quantity and quality is the index of strength, and where it discharges the waste materials consequent upon exertion.

When a person is depleted in energy his physician advises him to produce new blood by diet, exercise or medicine in order to gain fresh vitality. In extreme cases of illness the surgeon produces a transfusion from the blood of a healthier person. Children of parents of differing type and nationality are mentally more capable and physically stronger. Mendel demonstrated the advantageous outcome of fowl variation.

Darwin says: '*I have collected so large a body of facts, and made so many experiments, showing, in accordance \\dth the almost universal belief of breeders, that with animals and plants a cross between different varieties, or between individuals of the same variety but of another strain, gives vigor and fertility to the offspring; and on the other hand that close interbreeding diminishes vigor and fertility; that these facts alone incline me to the belief that it is a general law of nature. ,..''"■

And Burbank, most original of botanical experimenters, declares :

'' During the course of many years of investigation into the plant life of the world, creating new forms, modifying old ones, adapting others to new conditions and blending still others, I have been constantly impressed with the similarity between plant and human life. . . . The crossing of species is to me paramount. ' ' ^

^ "Origin of the Species," p. 90. 2 "Training of the Human Plant," by Luther Burbank, pp. 3-4.

Draper, who laid down the postulate that man in his historical development is governed by natural law and proved its soundness with exactitude, touched upon blood transfusion as a cause but did not pursue his investigations to the secret of its effect. He said:

*'By interior disturbances, particularly blood admixture, with more rapidity may a national type be affected, the result plainly depending upon the extent to which admixture has taken place. This is a disturbance capable of mathematical computation. If the blood admixture be only of limited amount, and transient in its application, its effects will sensibly disappear in no great period of time, though perhaps never in absolute reality.

' ' This accords "with the observation of philosophical historians, who agree in the conclusion that a small tribe intermingling with a larger one will disturb it only in a temporary manner, and, after the course of a few years, the effect will cease to be perceptible. Nevertheless, the influence must continue much longer than is outwardly apparent; and the result is the same as when, in a liquid, a drop of some kind is placed, and additional quantities of the first liquid then successively added. Though it might have been possible at first to detect the adulteration without trouble, it becomes at every moment less possible of doing so, and before long it cannot be done at all. But the drop is as much present at last as at first; it is merely masked; its properties overpowered.

** Considering in this manner the contamination of a numerous nation, a trifling amount of foreign blood admixture would appear to be indelible, and the disturbance, any moment, capable of computation by the ascertained degree of dilution that has taken place." ^

It is clear, then, that the crossing of races has in the course of time formulated national types. Some of the most widely known authorities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have come to this conclusion. But if this chapter had for its purpose merely the reiteration of such a truth, it would not have been written. If, however, with the full data of five thousand years of history before us, we may discover not only the proof of such an inference but go beyond it and disclose a law which works with mathematical exactness and explains the entire development of civilization, we shall find in the past the exact reading of the immediate and even the far future. We shall then have a purely scientific and therefore absolutely accurate barometer of events among the nations of our time and of the following generation. We shall read the destiny of the United States as clearly as if it were told by an infallible prophet — and what prophet is so infallible as nature ! We shall be able to foretell the form and scope of the entire future life of mankind on the planet on which he dwells. We shall have solved the riddle of history.

Under this law it follows that a transfusion of the blood of several stocks throughout a period of three hundred years produces an entirely new peo-

1 "Intellectual Development of Europe," by J. W. Draper, Vol. i, p. IS.

pie which at the maximum of strength caused by the admixture conquers its rivals, expands into empire and does its work in the world. The process of transfusion is begun by political conditions which make for unity in a territory where there has been marked division or distinct separateness. It is accompanied by gradual metamorphosis into the new organism, which is bound thereby ultimately to disturb the peace and aifect the fate of mankind. This condition is frequently marked by the strongest of the original peoples within contiguous and naturally accessible limits overcoming the others and bringing about their amalgamation, as the ancient Bomans exerted swa}^ over the Italian peninsula to the Alps, the English subdued their entire island, the Prussians mastered their rivals in North Germany, and, it is possible, we shall expand on this continent. But in all cases whenever the new people created by the fusion of two or more elements attains its apex of power after three centuries it overcomes opponents and gains influence over further domain. As Burbank says, 'Hen generations of human life ^ should be ample to fix any desired attribute. iTiis is absolutely clear and neither theory nor speculation. '^ ^

People fall exactly within the observation of Darwin concerning a lower order of existence that ' ' each newly formed variety would be at first local, as seems to be the common rule with varieties in a state of nature ; so that similarly modified individ-

iQf Thirty years each, or three centuries. ^ "Xraining of Human Plant," by Luther Burbank, p. 63.

nals would soon exist in a small body together. If the newly formed variety were successful in its battle of life, it would slowly spread from a central district, competing with and conquering the unchanged individuals on the margin of an ever-increasing circle." In the instance of human kind the growth is slow and, so far as outward show of strength is concerned, at times imperceptible; but the very maximum of expanding strength is invariably reached at the end of the period of three centuries from the beginning of the conditions which made unity and admixture possible.

The reason for the attainment of utmost strength in this exact period is no more provable within present knoAvledge than the fact that the earth revolves on its axis each twenty-four hours. The cause of the revolution is apparent, but not the number of hours. It is certain, however, that this lapse of time of blood transfusion is requisite for attainment of full strength.