Chapter 1

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1931: A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

by

HENRY HARTSHORNE.

"Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before."

Philadelphia: E. Claxton & Co., 930 Market Street. 1881.

Copyright secured. 1881.

Collins, Printer.

The contents of the following pages are taken from a diary, supposed to be written in 1931, by a gentleman of leisure and good opportunities for observation.

Should any reader be inclined to hold the editor or author responsible for what is thus recorded, be it remembered that very little is expressed concerning what _ought_ to be; the chief purpose being to show rather what will _probably occur_.

1931:

A GLANCE AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

_January 1, 1931._

I begin to-day to jot down occasional notes of whatever interests me most, in private or public affairs.

* * * * *

Much sympathy is just now felt everywhere for the ex-queen of England in her enforced retirement. She would have been perfectly safe in returning to England; and she will, probably, before long, again take up her residence at Osborne or Balmoral; but the extreme unpopularity of the ex-king makes his return at least undesirable.

During our present, 71st Congress, meeting at St. Louis, a motion will be made by a member from Texas for the admission of Mexico as a State. When this is effected, Mexico will be the fifty-second State of our Union. Some Senators are understood to doubt the advantage to the country, at the present time, of this admission, on account of the constitutionally unsettled character of the population. Since Protestantism has so generally prevailed there, however, Mexico is said to have greatly improved. The acceptance of the whole of Central America, in the form of three Territories, must soon follow. For this also, but little can be urged, except the now very old argument of "manifest destiny." Commercial men say that it is time for this extension to be made, on account of the growing importance of interoceanic navigation, by the three routes, of Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec. Our large trade with Japan and China requires, besides the steamers running between San Francisco, Yokohama, and Hong Kong every two weeks, more frequent and quick water transit from Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Baltimore, through one or other of these Isthmian routes.

It has been abundantly shown that the anticipation of some speculative persons, that the course of the Gulf Stream, and consequently the climate of Western Europe, might be altered by cutting through the isthmus, and thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, was altogether erroneous. No change whatever in the direction, rate of motion, or temperature of the great current has been observed. It is too majestic a movement to be so affected.

It is remarkable how entirely mistaken, also, those croaking prophets were, who formerly supposed that much addition to the old United States would make a cumbrous and impracticable political aggregate. Since the principle that only honest men shall be placed in public offices has been adopted throughout the nation, local administration of local affairs harmonizes so well with a central national government controlling general interests, that all works smoothly yet; even with the addition of the three great States which once formed the Dominion of Canada, and the outlying territories of Greenland, Labrador, Hawaii, Cuba, and St. Domingo.

A motion made in the House last year, but then postponed rather than defeated, will probably come up again in Congress at this session: namely, to hold the meeting of Congress every third year in San Francisco. Alternation between Washington and St. Louis has now worked well for eleven years; and Western men are getting clamorous about their right to the same privilege in turn. Capitalists of San Francisco offer to contribute five millions of dollars towards the erection of the western Capitol, besides building and fitting out a Presidential mansion in their city. This is handsome; and, since the central Capitol at St. Louis, now nearly finished, has involved the expenditure of about twelve millions, such liberality may be needful for the success of the project. One of the California Senators has written an article on this topic in the last number of the _North American Review_. He proposes, among other things, that a statue of Abraham Lincoln shall be erected in front of the Capitol at St. Louis, and one of William Penn at that of San Francisco. At the three seats of government we shall then have perpetuated the memory of the three noblest and most era-making of American statesmen: Penn, representing the grandeur and security of Christian justice and peace; Washington, loyalty to national independence and republican institutions; Lincoln, the triumph, by sacrifice, of liberty throughout our continent.

* * * * *

This mention of Abraham Lincoln suggests some retrospection. I remember that when, sixteen years ago, in 1915, our national debt was all finally paid off, great exultation was felt. In a Fourth-of-July oration at Omaha, the speaker, a young colored lawyer, referring to the civil war of 1861-65, as so largely adding to the national debt, said that his grandfather was one of the first men of color who ever sat in the Senate of the United States. Now, there are eight colored Senators, and fifteen members of the House. Of direct African descent also, are the Governor of Louisiana, and the Mayor of the city of Richmond, Virginia; the immediate predecessor of the latter having been a member of one of the oldest historical cavalier families of that State. The general officer in command at West Point, too, is a colored gentleman, of excellent reputation and qualifications. All prejudice of race, in fact, has now very much disappeared, and is looked back upon as a preposterous error of the past. Indian members of Congress number this session at least seven--two Senators, Cherokees, and five members of the House from the two new States formed from what was once the Indian Territory. The white population of those States is also well represented in the Senate and in the House.

We learn that the United States of South America are at present holding their eighth biennial Congress at Lima, Peru. Brazil continues friendly; but the people of that nation still treasure the traditions and usages of their Empire. The constitutional limitations of Brazil, nevertheless, make it imperial only in name and form; it is as liberal as was the government of Great Britain in the latter days of its monarchy.

* * * * *

We thought it a great deal for the English people, twenty-five years ago, to abolish the place of the House of Lords in their government; or even, before that, so completely to disestablish the once powerful Church of England. But the monarchy! What seemed so permanent as that? Who would have thought, fifty years ago, in good Queen Victoria's reign, that some persons then living might come to know of her throne being as vacant, nay, as utterly overturned, as the Palace of the Cæsars!

It is one evidence of the old conservatism of the British nation, so terribly shattered now, that the rank, titles, and estates of the nobility are still left to them; with the qualification, that the eldest son is entitled by law to only twice the share of each of the other heirs of the estate; and the whole of any property may be sequestered, by legal process, for debt.

Probably, now, the exodus of British nobles to this country, as well as to the continent of Europe, so active already during the last decade or two, will increase considerably. Marriage of American ladies with lordlings, earls, and even dukes, is scarcely very rare at present; it may be expected soon to become almost as common, at least, as such titles are. It is whispered that it is not entirely impossible that the ex-king and queen, with the royal family, may come hereafter to reside at New Belgravia, in California, where several thousands of acres have been latterly bought and occupied as estates, by English noblemen; or, perhaps more probably, in Loudon County, Virginia; where the Dukes of Cambridge and of Devonshire both own splendid properties.

* * * * *

No wonder that the Republic of Great Britain and Ireland should differ chiefly from ours, in the greater share of power allotted to the Upper House. If men of rank will (as some of them have already done) wisely accept the inevitable change, and, with full loyalty to the Republic, seek, or allow themselves, to be elected to places in the new Parliament, they may, as Senators, exercise a power and skill in legislation, which will be beneficial not only to their own order, but to their country. They have the advantage of us, in England, in the presidential term being ten years; ours, with difficulty, having been prolonged only to eight. I believe that the preservation of the rank and property of the aristocracy during the critical times just past, and, indeed, the bloodless character of the revolution altogether,--have been mainly due to the sagacious policy of a number of noblemen of large influence;--especially the Argylls in Scotland and the Derbys and Dukes of Northumberland and Bedford, in England, in timely bending to the storm; yielding, step by step, what _must_ be yielded, and so keeping more than if they had resisted all changes to the bitter end.

Especially do they now reap a reward for the good work of the Anglo-Irish Landlords' League; who, with their fitting motto, "_Noblesse oblige_," so liberally purchased from the old landlords, some years since, most of the properties in the distressed and disturbed parts both of England and Ireland, and sold them out in small farms to the peasantry. Glancing the other day, in our library, at Hack Tuke's pamphlet of 1880, on the Distress in Ireland, it is gratifying to know that, to-day, nearly three-fourths of the whole island are possessed by independent peasant farmers.

* * * * *

And India! It reads almost like one of Southey's or Edwin Arnold's oriental poems to peruse the account of the splendid coronation of the Afghan Emperor of All India. Retribution here, indeed, for the folly of that charlatan prime minister who once prated about a "scientific boundary" of the _British_ Empire of India. Another instance of the "slow grinding of the mills of the gods," which is so very sure.

Good news continues to come from France. Republican principles were never stronger; not a ghost of imperialism, and scarcely a thought of monarchical reaction, appears. Bourbons and Bonapartes alike are politically and sentimentally dead. Evangelical protestantism is spreading and deepening in its influence. The extreme intolerance of Romanism which prevailed for a while is giving way to a more reasonable freedom of conscience for all religions. Yet I doubt whether any city in Europe has fewer Roman Catholic worshippers than Paris, unless it be Rome; where the hatred of all relics and reminders of the old papal days is intense and pervading. It is to be wished that the Italian Republic were as settled and conservative as is that of the French. Spain is now going through its anti-Catholic fever; the banishment of all priests for five years seems an extreme measure; but, after it, there is room for hope that better days than those of Isabella of Castile await this long fallow but once intellectually fertile land. The annexation of Portugal is expected at least as soon as the present king dies; certainly no heir of his will ever wear a crown.

The Pope! If he had only read, pondered, and _learned by heart_ Victor Hugo's poem, "Le Pape," he might perhaps be still at home in the Vatican. But the "infallible" can never learn. At Constantinople he is at least safe. The Greek government there is secure against all present foes. Then, the triarchate; is it not surprising? Pope, Patriarch, and Primate of Canterbury! Roman, Greek, and Anglican, united at last! A dream of the last century ecclesiastics is fulfilled,--alas, too late; for the glory has departed from the tiara, the crozier, and the mitre altogether.

* * * * *

The Sultan, it is said, has found an asylum in Persia. The Shah allows him a palace, but he is shorn already of half his _hareem_. Perhaps the fate of Lear may be before him yet, though not from filial ingratitude.

_February 4th, 1931._

Important cable news this morning is, that the German republican government last evening passed the bill accepting the proposal of France to purchase Alsace and Lorraine for 300,000,000 francs. More interesting still, a bill was also introduced, and is likely to pass, _ceding_ to the French all the rest of the territory on the west side of the Rhine bordering on France. The long-coveted natural boundary will thus be theirs. How infinitely better this than war upon war for revenge and conquest!

The tunnel under the British Channel is nearly finished. It is to be constantly illuminated with electric light, and, being a joint national work, will be a free public (not _high_way exactly, but) way, for all.

Austria-Hungary appears to be, for a time at least, tranquil. The emperor has conceded all that the constitutionalists required of him. There are now only four emperors in the world:--those of Austria, Brazil, India, and China; and the first two are so limited in power as hardly to deserve the imperial name. The title of tsar has been definitely denied to the present constitutional monarch of Russia; he is really something between a king and a president.

Fearful indeed must have been the communist or nihilist war of Russia of thirty years ago. The country has hardly recovered from it yet. Had it not been for the loyalty of the large population of those families emancipated in 1861 by the Tsar Alexander II. from serfdom, not only the imperial family, but all the members of the nobility, and the whole class of wealthy Russians would probably have been put to death by fire and sword.

* * * * *

Welcome to all lovers of peace and prosperity will be the late intelligence that, at the Congress of Berlin, all the great powers have agreed to reduce their standing armies to 50,000 men for each nation; and that neither power shall increase its forces, without two months' notice to all the rest. The "volunteer" military organizations will still be allowed, besides these armies; but zeal for rifle practice seems to be very much on the wane. It is probable that occasional showy parades may soon be all that is left in civilized countries of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war."

It is painful to know that in Africa, and in Mongolian Asia, the arts of destruction have been more rapidly borrowed from Europe than those of peace and progress. It is said that Gatling guns, as well as Minié rifles and dynamite shells, and the newly reinvented projectile Greek fire, are now in use with terrible effect between hostile tribes in Central Africa, officered in great part by European and American adventurers.

* * * * *

The international coinage arrangement, on the decimal system, so long in use between England, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, will be extended next year, by agreement, to Spain, Russia, Denmark, and Greece. It is wonderful how our fathers, even almost down to the present generation, were satisfied with any scheme of weights and measures other than the metrical, now so universally in use.

* * * * *

From the South African Dutch-English Federal States we hear of settlement and progress. The Australian Republic also is thriving. Melbourne has now 600,000 inhabitants. How many millions of people to-day speak the English language! All North America (except a part of the people of Mexico); Australia; India; South Africa; and, this month, after long consideration, Japan has officially adopted English as the language of public affairs, to be taught in all the common schools. By the way, the newly elected Secretary of Education of the Japanese Commonwealth is an American; a graduate of the High School at Chicago. The extension of the use of spoken, written, and printed English in China is quite rapid, and so it is in Egypt, on the Continent of Europe, and in South America. It truly bids fair within a century to become the universal language.

* * * * *

The purchase of Jerusalem and the greater part of Palestine by an association of wealthy Jews, headed by the Rothschild, Montefiore, and Belmont families, is an accomplished fact. Along with this it may be noted that very many Jews have recently been converted to Christianity. There is a large tabernacle for the worship of evangelical Jews just built upon the Mount of Olives. At one of the first meetings of the Sanhedrim after the Russian municipal government had been withdrawn, a rabbi, bearing the significant name of Nicodemus, proposed this question for discussion: "Ought we now to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah?" By a small majority, the question was indefinitely postponed without debate.

Jerusalem is now lit by gas, except an electric light in one of the central streets. Horse-cars are running in every direction; and a steam-train passes daily to and from Jaffa on the Mediterranean. The Mosque of Omar has been purchased by the Young Men's Christian Association, which has within its walk a Bible-School of nearly 1000 pupils of all ages. A college for both sexes is in full operation at Jericho. An English weekly and an American daily newspaper are issued in Jerusalem, and an English daily paper also in Smyrna.

* * * * *

We learn that the Joint Commission appointed by England, France, Italy, and Greece for the provisional government of Egypt, is meeting with fair success; bad as the financial state of that country has been. The American "Egyptian Improvement Company," with a capital of forty millions of dollars, is paying an annual dividend of six per cent.; which is extraordinary for these times. New explorations along the Nile, near Luxor, have unearthed a number of royal tombs, with extremely interesting paintings, sarcophagi, and hieroglyphic inscriptions. More notable still; in a Coptic convent in Upper Egypt, there has been found a Greek Codex of the whole New Testament; believed by palæographers to belong to the third century. Among other things, it omits the concluding verses of the last chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and attaches the name of Barnabas to the Epistle to the Hebrews; not containing, moreover, the reputed Epistle of Barnabas which was found attached to the Sinaitic Codex.

_March 26th, '31._

A telegram directly from Peking to Washington announces the extension to all the provinces in China of the decree, already for a number of years enforced in the great cities, totally prohibiting the sale of opium; except by a few government appointees, at prescription of registered physicians.

* * * * *

The Euphrates Valley Railroad is almost finished. The main line of communication between Europe and Asia will pass through Smyrna, Aleppo, Bagdad, and Bassora on the Persian Gulf. A road will also run from Jaffa through Jerusalem, and will connect with Damascus. Parlor, sleeping, and hotel cars will be placed on all these roads at once, furnished by an Indianapolis firm on contract.

By the completion, many years ago, of the trans-Indian line of telegraph and railroad, and now of that from Calcutta along the Brahmapootra River and through Southern China to Canton, the girdle around the world is almost completed. Puck might travel it now in less than forty minutes. Behring's Strait will, in a few months, be crossed by the Asian-American cable, and a line of steamers, owned partly by Russian and partly by American stockholders, will soon make that channel a ferry between the Continents. The greatest tunnel in the world is that being constructed through a spur of the Himalayas, in Northeastern India. The new observatory on Mount Everest is furnished with three first-class telescopes, and other needful appliances for astronomical observation.

* * * * *

All friends of Africa will rejoice to know that Liberia is extending its annexations farther and farther into the interior. The Livingstone lock Canal also, along the valley of what was once called the Congo River, is contracted for, to be ready for navigation within twelve months. No doubt at all exists of the success of the project for irrigating portions of the desert of Sahara by means of Artesian, or rather not very deep driven wells, by which the desert has already been made, in a hundred artificial oases, to "blossom as the rose."

* * * * *

Ship canals seem to be among the special works of our time. It is now almost a quarter of a century since the Caspian and Black Seas were connected, through the enterprise of Russian capitalists. The newest project broached is to cut through from the Gulf of Boothia to Hudson's Bay, in latitude 65° N. and longitude 90° W. from Greenwich.

* * * * *

I think I shall join, this summer, one of the excursions which are getting so fashionable, to Labrador, Greenland, or perhaps Iceland. The Upernavik House is said to be very well kept, and filled most of the season with boarders or transient visitors.

There is something yet new in these northern places. Switzerland is getting spoiled and commonplace. Think of making the ascent of Mont Blanc on a steam railroad! Think, too, of public school excursions to the Yosemite, and the rocks there being placarded all over (until the government very properly had them taken down) with advertisements!

* * * * *

Certainly man must begin to repair or restore to nature some of his robberies. A small beginning of this has been made by the Society of Acclimatization and Conservation. At their Acclimatarium in West Philadelphia, including the old Centennial Grounds of '76, and the Zoological Garden, munificent arrangements have been made, by the use of glass, wood, iron, and water-gas heating apparatus, for the creation of an artificial tropical and sub-tropical climate. All the glories of Southern India, Ceylon, Java, Australasia, Brazil, and the West Indies may now be seen there, in palms, cycads, eucalypti, acacias, tree ferns, clinging vines, and splendid flowers, as well as in the many-colored birds and insects of those regions; with their animals, also, which are disposed, when needful for safety, in cages so large and yet so light, as scarcely to give the appearance of imprisonment.

Also, the camel is now fairly naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and the two-toed ostrich in South America; on the pampas of that continent travellers may meet with the gazelle, the springbok, the oryx, and the kangaroo. Elephants are domesticated and used for court occasions in Brazil, as they are in India. Tea and coffee are now largely cultivated in California, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In exchange, the cinchona tree abounds more now in India than in Peru, and the cacao or cocoa tree has been planted by thousands upon the southern slopes of the Himalayas and in Persia.