CHAPTER XII.

Universal State and Language.

“Soon after the beginning of the first millennium, the three great governments of the world were consolidated into one. This was found desirable in order to have equal and uniform laws regarding the regulation of population, education the administration of justice and the establishment of a uniform language. This latter object was accomplished by means of the universal state schools. A language was invented on scientific principles, as to its grammar, with words borrowed from different languages. This was taught, in every school together with the native language of the country in which the school was located. This was kept up for 50 years, by which time practically everybody understood the new language, and then the others were dropped from the curriculum and only the new was thenceforth taught. There continued to be some differences of race however for several thousand years, but it is now difficult to trace any race distinction.

“The population of the earth is not now quite so great as it was in the year 2070. It has gradually been contracted to about 10,000,000,000. It was much larger during the first millennium, but the people were much given to flitting about, following the seasons like the birds, in consequence of which in some places the crowds became too great for comfort. Rather than make arbitrary rules to repress travel, they contracted the population by increasing the proportion of third sex children and diminishing that of the others. You understand no attempt was ever made to regulate the size of the family—that was left to nature—only its sex. The average number of children to a family has long been about 18, sixteen of whom are of the third sex. The people live mostly in cities, but the land is cultivated to such crops as clover, alfalfa, the grasses etc, the entire crops being chemically treated and the food principles extracted from them. Large tracts are, however, reserved for the public. They are beautified and adorned in every direction—and parks and flower gardens are everywhere, and here the people are fond of congregating in pleasant weather wheeling their motor cars over the solid smooth roadways or flitting about in their flyers. As eating and drinking are no longer fashionable or practicable pastimes, there is a conspicuous absence of restaurants and saloons. Yet many of the people are supplied with little vials containing their standard food of which they partake if need be. But they have no stated hours for eating, no cooking, no cooks, no meals. Each one eats when his feelings tell him he needs it, and is not governed by the appetite of others. Yet, as a practical fact, most persons do fall into habits of some regularity. Nature is a stickler for habit.”

“I suppose,” said I, “the state furnishes many things that were left to individuals to do in my time, but how is the state supported? Who does the work?”

“Everybody works, but not much is required of anyone. The society is largely but not exclusively socialistic. The state makes everything necessary for existence, but no superfluities. In these necessaries it has the monopoly, and no one else is allowed to make or sell them. The state thus makes all food and clothing and clothing material builds all houses, makes all furniture, carriages, flying machines, furnishes heat, light and power, takes care of the young and educates them. Everybody works; is obliged to work in fact for his living. Eight tenths of the people work for the state, and not over two-tenths directly for other employers. In this two-tenths are included authors, ministers and priests, lecturers on new and unaccepted theories, artists, some milliners, dressmakers etc.

“The state fixes the wages it will pay according to the desirability or undesirability of the work, the undesirable of course being the best paid—the kind that would have been the worst paid in your day. An average of one hour a day of labor for the state will furnish lodging food and necessary clothing. So in five or six weeks one can lay up enough to maintain him a year, and have the rest of his time to do as he pleases. Notwithstanding the cheapness of everything, nothing is sold by the state except at a trifling advance upon its cost, which constitutes the only kind of taxation that is imposed. The surplus thus raised pays the expenses of state officials, courts, education etc. If anyone wants more than the modest living he can get by working at the rate of six weeks in a year; he can get it by working longer. By working steadily for a year he can accumulate enough to travel around the world. Or he can indulge in a fine painting or two, or a musical instrument or contribute money to some institution not supported by the state, as a church or philosophical society. Or he can lay up money in the state savings institution, until he accumulates a fortune for some pet enterprise or for use in old age. For several thousand years little or nothing has been spent on new public works. Everything really needed was long since built on principles of eternal durability, and repairs are light. Railways, canals etc., of course pay their own way. On the surface of the earth almost everything may be said to be practically finished. The largest fields for discovery are under ground. Stores of mineral wealth never dreamed of in your day have been unearthed and utilized. Thousands of miles of tunnels have been constructed and some mountain ranges have been perforated in so many directions that their interiors are more familiar than their bleak and inhospitable surfaces. Enormous unsuspected caves and openings have been found, from many of which the contained material was ejected by volcanic action in ancient times.

“In a great number of places tunnels have penetrated to regions of insupportable heat, and this heat transformed into electricity has been conveyed to the surface and its power distributed to great distances. This plan has been largely practiced in the mountainous regions of Asia and South America, Scandinavia, Alaska and other countries. In such regions heat can be reached without descending, and so the tunnels are self draining. This source of power helps out the sun in the rainy seasons etc.”

“You mentioned something about state savings institutions just now; I suppose they receive the money of the people and pay interest on it—or how?”

“The state savings institutions receive money and take care of it, but they pay no interest. They do not loan it, so get no income from it and cannot pay any. In fact their fundamental ideas of business have undergone a radical change for these many ages back. They deny that it is fair business to take a profit on any transaction. If a man lends his money to another he is entitled to pay for the time it takes him to make the loan and collect it, but he is not entitled to interest for use of the money. If a man borrows a plow worth ten dollars and wears it to the amount of one dollar, he should pay the owner the one dollar, but it is for repairs, not interest. If he borrows ten dollars in money and returns the full amount there is no wear to make good. If a man borrows ten dollars for which he must pay one dollar interest, then buys a plow and wears it one dollar’s worth he is out two dollars. So he must charge one dollar above its cost, for his crop, when he sells it, and this is called profit. He does not keep it, however, but must pass it over to the capitalist. He might charge two dollars profit, in which case, he would keep one for his profit and give the other to the capitalist for his. In both cases they say, it is wrong and unsound as a business transaction, because it is getting or giving something for nothing. The idea of the legitimacy of profits and interest arose in ancient times in connection with the uncertainty or the gambling element that entered into all business. This was due to individualism or the practice of each one doing business for himself, taking his own risks and chances in a thousand ways. If one spent his time and money in making something to sell, he was not absolutely sure he would be able to find a buyer. And if one loaned his money to be used in business he shared the risks of it and could not be absolutely sure of getting it back again. Up to the amount of the risks, profit and interest were under the conditions legitimate. But while under the individual system everybody charged for the risk of loss, the losses in reality fell on only a part, and so the rest got something for nothing. When insurance companies were organized to distribute part of the risks, making those who did not lose, contribute to make up the loss of those who did, the risks of all were diminished, and the profit and interest charges on that account reduced. If insurance with its distribution of risks had extended to every form of risk, and if the members of the companies or insured persons had embraced everyone in the community instead of only a part, then the special risks to each one would have been altogether eliminated, the insurance would have become a part of the cost of the goods to be added to their sale value, and profits above this no longer legitimate. For if one is entitled to profits so are all those with whom he exchanges and nobody gains; unless the profits of one are higher than those of another in which case someone is cheated or in other words robbed. Now when the state undertook practically all business and all transportation, and owned all houses, shops and factories, all risks of all forms were at once distributed to all the people, without the ceremony of insurance. If a building burned, or tools, or machinery became superseded by better ones, or goods became unsalable, or employes dishonest, or incompetent, the loss was fully insured, for it fell upon all, and there was nobody outside of this “all” to make it good. There could therefore be no possible honest end to be gained by profits; and interest on money falls with profits. As all the people work some time or other and receive wages, all have a bank account, for they are taught to be careful and economical, and they understand that one cannot spend a dollar and still have it.”

“How do they encourage and pay for inventions and discoveries—or has everything been invented and discovered?”

“No, they are discovering something new all the time. A good many people who have got something ahead and have leisure find congenial employment in invention. If they produce anything valuable the state takes and uses it paying them for their time, and also distinguishing them by honorable mention and in some cases by decorations or medals. If the development of the idea requires the use of expensive machinery or materials, it is submitted to the judgment, of experts whether the would be inventor shall be furnished these things at public expense. If they think his idea not of sufficient value, he must either drop it or pursue it at his own expense, and take his chances of getting the glory and the pay when it is demonstrated, and these considerations seem to be enough to bring out their best endeavor in that line.”

“Then it seems they don’t value brain work any higher than hand work?”

“They value brains, but do not pay extra for them for the reason that they regard them as owing their best thoughts to the state. They say, that whatever one is, the state has made him, and if he is above the average he owes more than the average.”

“Did you say, Professor, that the houses belong to the state?”

“Yes the state has built houses enough to accommodate the whole population. In each town or city the houses are of uniform height for that place. Thus there are two story towns or four or ten story towns. A very large place may be twenty or thirty stories in the middle and lower further out. But no differences are allowed on any block. The roofs are flat and continuous over each block and connected with neighboring blocks by bridges over the streets. The flyers are all kept on the roofs and the flyers’ entrance to the buildings is by a roof entrance connecting with the elevator. Wheeled vehicles are kept upon the streets. There are generally vacant apartments to be had if any one wishes to move from one city to another. But the population has its fads and whims and sometimes the popularity of some place will attract more people than the houses can accommodate. In that case the government will build some new houses. Houses are rented by the year for one per cent of their cost plus the one-fifth of one per cent for repairs. The latter sum is paid back to the tenant if the repairs are not required. Thus if a house costs ten thousand dollars, the rent would be one hundred, the theory being that its cost would be repaid in 100 years. But as houses last 1,000 years—in fact are indestructible except by an earthquake—the state has accumulated a large fund from rents of houses that have long since paid for themselves, and this fund builds new ones when they are wanted.”

“I suppose there is no woodwork used in building a house.”

“They use what they call wood, but it is an artificial product made of mineral. It is almost as light as wood, can be cut and formed as wood can, but is much stronger and cannot be burned and never rots. By slight differences in its manufacture several varieties are produced imitating various sorts of wood. It has totally displaced wood and is used for all purposes from fine furniture to railway ties. It is the accumulation of indestructible things that makes existence so cheap in these latter days. The people enjoy the fruits of labor performed ages ago. And the things they make now are all made to endure. Even their clothes are made to last a life time—textile fabrics from mineral wool and mineral cotton. Even their food is provided for years ahead. It is put up in vials, and sealed up to keep a hundred years if required.”

“What is it composed of?”

“It is in several modifications suited to different ages. In infancy and youth its composition is almost exactly that of a hen’s egg. For mature and old people the proportions are slightly different, the lime is entirely left out for the old, and a larger proportion of phosphorus is used in the food of the middle aged and mentally active.”

“If they can put together the material for a hen’s egg,” said I, “what’s the trouble with hatching a chicken out of it.”

“They can make all of the egg except the germ. That has been proved in this way. They take the germ out of a real hens egg, and put it into a shell filled with the artificial food, then apply the proper temperature and it is hatched in the usual time and all the food consumed. This is a common experiment.”

“That is good proof that their food is the right material for chicks at any rate.”

“Well there is plenty of scientific proof of the correctness of all the different modifications. Analyses have repeatedly been made of human bodies of different ages and their exact constituents with their proportions ascertained and thus it is known precisely what they require for food. And when this is taken with a sufficient quantity of distilled or electrically purified water there is no liability of being hungry and little of being sick. At any rate the general health and regularly increasing longevity of the people proves better than any theorizing the general correctness of their way of life. There is no longer any such thing as a patent medicine, a pill, or a powder, and there are no medical practitioners. There are surgeons; and there are scientific chemical professors, whose advice regarding the proper food is sometimes asked. But almost all distempers they are liable to, are rectified by self treatment; study of hygiene and the conditions of animal life being taught in the schools, not in a sciolous or smattering way but thoroughly and scientifically; for they say no knowledge is so essential to all people as this. It is by using scientifically adapted food that they have succeeded in extending the average duration of life, and they claim that they will yet raise it to a thousand years. They are right in saying that decay and death from old age are due to the clogging up of the system with foreign matter that can neither be assimilated and taken into the tissues, nor ejected from the system. Their remedy for this is the prevention of the introduction of such substances by keeping them entirely out of the food. This they have nearly succeeded in doing, since the body is no longer the tenement of a chemical works to so very large an extent, as it used to be. Manufacture of these deleterious residuums inside the body is nearly stopped. The intelligent selection of the food then, with cleanliness and protection from cold constitute the principles of their treatment. Epidemic diseases have long since been entirely abolished.

“The organic germs that caused these diseases depended on swamps, stagnant pools, and decaying animal and vegetable matter for nests in which to be cultivated, and from such places they were conveyed by the air or water and so reached the fluids of the human body in which their further cultivation went on, to the great grief of your race. Now there is not a swamp nor any such thing in all the world, and nothing whatever is allowed to decay. Everything that grows is either utilized or cremated. All refuse from the numerous chemical works is treated electrically and returned to the soil as a fertilizer. The water in their sewers is often not so very much worse than that which used to run in your water pipes, but it is all electrically treated and the precipitated sediment returned to the land while only the clear water is turned into the rivers.”

“I suppose they no longer keep domestic animals,” said I.

“They no longer keep them for use to any great extent, but they have preserved specimens of all the domestic animals, and some of those that were wild in your day as objects of curiosity. They also have some in the country as pets. There are a few wild animals in some of the large state parks that having never been disturbed have practically tamed themselves. Animal power passed out of use ages ago. The people are scrupulously nice in their ideas of cleanliness and so no animals of any sort, not even canary birds are allowed in the cities. In this respect they look back with unlimited disgust upon the people of your day with their filthy horses and dogs perambulating and befouling the streets, their stables, stores and meat shops full of the odors of decaying vegetable and animal matter, their accumulations of ashes and cinders and dust, and of filth and garbage in foul cess pools, barrels, gutters, vaults and sewers, their personal habits of eating and drinking with their sequelae and the necessary cooking and dishwashing, and their smoking and tobacco chewing and spitting. All this is done away with, and the people can hardly understand a mode of life in which it was included; much less necessary.

“The streets of the cities are as clean as a drawing room, and it is easy to keep them so since there is so little occasion for them being soiled.

“They use only electrically purified water or rain water, and far less than was consumed in your day. The houses are all fireproof and the fire departments have very little use for water, using chemical extinguishers. The factories for the manufacture of food stuffs, the mineral wood, furniture, vehicles, textile fabrics etc., are usually placed in suburbs at a little distance from the cities, and the working people pass back and forth by the cars or flyers. The usual day’s work is 4 to 6 hours and all sorts of work is paid by the hour. Manufactured goods are stored in the business quarters of the cities, and delivered where ordered as in your day, but by more exact and complete means.

“There has not for many ages been any sexual distinction in clothes, and the slavery of fashion was long ago abolished. The costumes show the individuality of their owners and are extremely various; a mixed company looking like a congress of the nations of your day.”

“How do they manage their political affairs?” I inquired.

“They can scarcely be said to have any local political affairs to be managed. They have very large and extensive business affairs, and they are managed as business and not as politics. All the employes in the several business departments of the state are first taken from the schools where they have been educated and prepared for the occupations they wished to be qualified to follow. All vacancies to responsible places are filled on civil service principles. The foremen receive a little higher wages than the common hands, but nobody receives any profits except the tax or tariff the state puts on goods it makes and sells.

“The workers in each particular trade or occupation in any state form a society or guild, presided over by a board or commission elected by the members of the guild from a list of candidates who have passed examination for competency. There is another board elected by the whole people that has the general oversight of all business and the equalization of wages.

“The guild board receives from the state the raw material it consumes and is charged with it. It sees to its distribution among the shops of the guild, receives and turns over to the state the articles made by the guild, certifies to the pay rolls, and to the cost of the articles made. It determines the amount of material required and the number of men that shall be employed, basing its regulation on the requisition of the general board for the goods which in turn gets its data from the store keepers who make requisitions on the board according to the public demand for the goods. The guild board determines the number of men it can employ and if it has too many the fact is reported to the general board whose business it is to find work for the surplus men in another trade. The guild board naturally anxious to preserve the credit of its own guild, always selects the least competent of their men for transfer. The general board is constantly posted as to the demand for labor in the different guilds and can usually assign the men to places suited to their capacity, which commonly admits of more or less variety of employment, their school education being conducted with that view. If the trades are all full or if the men prove unfit to perform such skilled labor as is required, they are furnished laboring work not requiring skill of which there is always plenty in the procurement of raw materials for food, minerals, agricultural products, building materials etc. As most of the things produced including food can be kept an indefinite length of time, there is no objection to a considerable accumulation ahead. When this happens and it often does, the community is in a prosperous condition for it has more than enough. It is a sign that the workmen have saved their money instead of buying goods with it. They may knock off work and take holiday till the stocks are reduced. Sometimes the fashion changes, and the state has something on hand it cannot sell. Like any other manufacturer it must sell at a sacrifice for what it can get, and use better judgment next time. The general board looks out for that. This board also equalizes wages in the several trades, lowering the pay in those trades into which there is the greatest tendency to crowd and raising it in those that are deserted. Striking in a body is not allowed. But many or all the members of a guild may give notice of an intention to leave, and they are then allowed to do so, a small number at a time. The general board inquires into the cause of the dissatisfaction and rectifies it if possible. If the wages are high enough the fact will be proved by other workmen coming from other trades or other places to take the job, in which case the disgruntled men must take such other work as the board can find for them or remain idle if they prefer to. If they are not high enough the vacancies will remain unfilled till the board raises them.

“When men are idle, by no fault of their own, but because all places are filled, the state is bound to feed and clothe them. This is the theory, but it is very rarely put into practice. Since they prefer to let them work at something rather than be idle even if the work is not in great demand.”

“They seem to have but little use for apothecaries and doctors, how about lawyers and courts?”

“There is no such thing now as the practice of law as formerly understood. In your day the lawyer was called an officer of the court. But in reality he was a partizan of one of the litigants bent on gaining a victory for his client regardless of the justice of his cause; and he often gained it when he knew it was unjust. Each town or district is supplied with a board of lawyers three, five or seven according to population, and these comprise the court. They are elected by the people from the law graduates of the state school, for a definite term. Any small case is heard by either one of the lawyers upon whom both litigants can agree, both sides being heard and witnesses examined by him. If either litigant is dissatisfied with his decision he may appeal to the full bench, whose decision by a majority is final on questions of fact. But if a minority dissents on points of law a further appeal as to the law is allowed to be made to the Supreme Court of the state, the dissenting minority preparing the case for the higher court, and the majority preparing the counter case in defense of their decision. The defeated party pays the costs. These, however, are comparatively light, lawyers receiving no higher pay than mechanics. But as the position brings distinction there are always enough candidates for it. They are only paid as lawyers for the actual time spent by them, and often increase their income by other employment; for there is but a small amount of litigation.

“The criminal procedure is almost as simple. A person accused of a petty crime is brought before a single lawyer who examines the witnesses for both sides and decides the case, if the accused is not satisfied he appeals to the full bench, and the minority of that bench may carry an appeal on questions of law to the Supreme Court. In important cases the legal bench may summon the bench of a neighboring town or district to sit with them in the case and share the responsibility. There is no criminal class and crime of any sort is very rare. It is regarded as an insanity and a family in which it is developed is at once prevented from going further in the hereditary transmission of it. There is no capital punishment.”

“Well,” said I, “they are an interesting people; they seem to have things about the way they want them and I reckon they ought to be happy.”

“Yes,” he said, “they ought to be, and they are; as much so as any intelligent creatures can be. You may know they are good natured, jolly and generous from the size of their mouths. The size of their heads is a guaranty that whatever is knowable on earth they are pretty sure to find out, if you give them time enough; and renders probable the inference that they know that they are well off, and know enough to be contented. And as a matter of fact they are; and while they congratulate themselves, they never fail to call up in grateful remembrance the ancestors through whose martyrdom they have attained peace. Well we must now take our leave of this large hearted and large headed posterity of yours and return to the nineteenth century.

“Ah! here we are!”