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Republic of the Future - Anna Bowman Dodd · Science Fiction Book Collection

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of the Republic of the Future or Socialism
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  Speaker 1: a Reality. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Jennifer Fournier, Centreville, Virginia, USA.
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  Speaker 1: The Republic of the Future or Socialism a Reality by
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  Speaker 1: Anna Bowman Dodd. Letters from a Swedish nobleman living in
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  Speaker 1: the twenty first century to a friend in Christiania, Chapter one,
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  Speaker 1: New York, Socialist City, December first, twenty fifty a d.
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  Speaker 1: Dear Hannevig At last, as you see, my journey is
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  Speaker 1: safely accomplished, and I am fairly landed in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of this strange socialistic society. To say that I have
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  Speaker 1: landed is to make use of so obsolete an expression
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  Speaker 1: that it must entirely fail to convey to you a
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  Speaker 1: true idea of the processes of the journey. Had I
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  Speaker 1: written I was safely shot into the country, this would
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  Speaker 1: much more graphically describe to you the method of my arrival.
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  Speaker 1: You may remember, perhaps that before starting out, I found
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  Speaker 1: myself in very grave doubt as to which route to take,
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  Speaker 1: whether to come by balloon or by tunnel, As the
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  Speaker 1: latter route would enable me to enjoy an entirely novel
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  Speaker 1: spectacle that of viewing submarine scenery, I chose, and wisely
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  Speaker 1: I now know, to come by the Pneumatic Tube Electric Company.
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  Speaker 1: The comforts and luxuries of this submarine root are beyond belief.
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  Speaker 1: The perfection of the contrivances for supplying hot and cold air,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, during the journey, are such that the passengers
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  Speaker 1: are enabled to have almost any temperature at command. The
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  Speaker 1: cars are indeed marked seventy degrees fahrenheit, eighty degrees and
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  Speaker 1: one hundred degrees. One buys one seat. According to his
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  Speaker 1: taste for climate. Many of the travelers I noticed booked
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  Speaker 1: themselves for the bath department, remaining the entire journey in
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  Speaker 1: the Turkish, Russian, vapor or plunge departments. As the various
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  Speaker 1: baths attached to this line surpass a Roman voluptuary's dream
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  Speaker 1: of such luxuries. I, however, never having been through the
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  Speaker 1: Great Tunnel before, was naturally more interested in what was
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  Speaker 1: passing so swiftly before my eyes. The speed at which
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  Speaker 1: we were shot was terrific, five miles to the minute,
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  Speaker 1: making the journey of three thousand miles just ten hours long.
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  Speaker 1: In spite of the swiftness of our transit, we were enabled,
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  Speaker 1: by the aid of the instantaneous photographic process as applied
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  Speaker 1: to opera glasses and telescopes, to feel that we lost
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  Speaker 1: nothing by the rapidity of our meteor life passage. I
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  Speaker 1: was totally unprepared for the beauties and the novelties which
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  Speaker 1: met my eye at every turn. The sightseer's car is
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  Speaker 1: admirably arranged, fancy being able to take in all the
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  Speaker 1: wonders of ocean land through large glass portholes in the
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  Speaker 1: concave sides of circular cars. The tube itself, which is
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  Speaker 1: of iron enormously thick, has glass sides also of huge thickness,
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  Speaker 1: running parallel with the windows of the car, so that
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  Speaker 1: the view is unobstructed. The sensations awakened therefore, both by
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  Speaker 1: the novelty of the situation and by the wonders we
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  Speaker 1: passed in review, combined to make the journey thrillingly exciting.
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  Speaker 1: We were swept, for instance, past armies of fishes, beautiful
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  Speaker 1: to behold in such masses, shimmering in their opalescent armor
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  Speaker 1: as they rose above or sank out of sight into
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  Speaker 1: the depths below. The sudden depressions and abrupt elevations of
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  Speaker 1: the sea level made the scenery full of diversity. There
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  Speaker 1: was a great abundance of color, with the vivid crimson
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  Speaker 1: of the coralline plants and the delicate pinks and yellows
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  Speaker 1: of the many varieties of the submarine flora. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: at times as if we were caught in a liquid
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  Speaker 1: cloud of amber, or were to be enmeshed in a
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  Speaker 1: grove of giant seaweeds. Beyond all else, however, in point
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  Speaker 1: of interest, was the spectacle of the whole sale cannibalism
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  Speaker 1: going on among the finny tribes, a cannibalism which still
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  Speaker 1: exists in spite of the persistent and unwarying exertions of
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  Speaker 1: the numerous societies for the prevention of cruelty. Among Cetacea
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  Speaker 1: and Cristacea. We passed any number of small boats darting
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  Speaker 1: in and out among the porpoises, dolphins, and smaller fish,
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  Speaker 1: delivering supplies of proper Christian food and punishing offenders. A
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  Speaker 1: submarine missionary who chanced to sit next to me told
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  Speaker 1: me that of all the vertebrate or invertebrate animals, the
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  Speaker 1: fish is the least amenable to reformatory discipline. Fishes appear
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  Speaker 1: to have been born, he went on to say, without
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  Speaker 1: the most rudimentary form of the moral instinct, and curiously enough,
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  Speaker 1: only flourish in proportion as they are allowed to act
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  Speaker 1: out their original degenerate nature. He also confessed privately to
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  Speaker 1: me that, after some twenty five years active work among them,
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  Speaker 1: the results of his labors were most discouraging. Since, however,
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  Speaker 1: the Buddhistic doctrine of metempsichosis has come to be so
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  Speaker 1: universally accepted, and as each one of these poor creatures
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  Speaker 1: is in reality a soul in embryo, it behooves mankind
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  Speaker 1: to do all that lies in its power to elevate
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  Speaker 1: all tribes and species. As you may well imagine, my
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  Speaker 1: dear Hannevig, with such spectacles and speculations to enliven the journey,
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  Speaker 1: I found it all too short. Its shortness was, in truth,
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  Speaker 1: the only drawback to my complete enjoyment. The wonders of
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  Speaker 1: the journey I found were, however, only a fitting prelude
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  Speaker 1: to the surprises that awaited me on my arrival. I
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  Speaker 1: leave an account of both these surprises and of my
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  Speaker 1: first impressions of the great city until my next letter,
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  Speaker 1: as this one, I find has already grown to the
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  Speaker 1: proportions of an ancient epistle. I am my dear Hanneveg,
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  Speaker 1: your life long friend and Wolfgang end of chapter one,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter two of the Republic of the Future by Anna
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  Speaker 1: Bowman Dodd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Jennifer Fournier, Centreville, Virginia, U s A. Chapter two,
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  Speaker 1: Dear Hannevig. The three days time which has elapsed since
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  Speaker 1: my last letter to you, has been so crowded with
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  Speaker 1: a confusion of bewildered impressions produced by this astonishing city
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  Speaker 1: and its still more astonishing inhabitants, that I am in
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  Speaker 1: doubt whether I shall be able to convey to you
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  Speaker 1: any clearer picture than those which fill the disordered canvas
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  Speaker 1: of my own mind. I will, however, strive to reproduce
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  Speaker 1: my experiences in the order in which they came to me,
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  Speaker 1: and allow you to draw your own conclusions. The first
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  Speaker 1: amazing thing that happened to me was the way in
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  Speaker 1: which I reached my hotel, fancy being blown up on
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  Speaker 1: the shore, for the pneumatic too, being many hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: feet below the shore level. We were literally blown up
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  Speaker 1: on the beach. There we found air balloon omnibuses into
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  Speaker 1: which we and our luggage were transported by means of
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  Speaker 1: little electric cars running on an inclined plane. The balloon
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  Speaker 1: rose about a thousand feet into the air, affording a
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  Speaker 1: fine view of the city. Great is not a large
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  Speaker 1: enough word to describe so vast a city as this
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  Speaker 1: city of the Socialists. It has the immensity of an
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  Speaker 1: unending plane and the flatness of one. Also in former times.
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  Speaker 1: I believe the original city was an island on either
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  Speaker 1: side of which flowed a river. But as more and
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  Speaker 1: more land became necessary, new channels for these rivers were
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  Speaker 1: dug and the river beds filled in. So the now,
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  Speaker 1: far as the eye can reach, there is a limitless
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  Speaker 1: expanse of roof tops. As seen from an aerial elevation,
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  Speaker 1: there was nothing to attract the eye. From the picturesque standpoint,
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  Speaker 1: there were very few large buildings of noticeable size or beauty.
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  Speaker 1: The city was chiefly remarkable because of its immensity. When
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  Speaker 1: landed at my hotel, I found these first impressions confirmed
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  Speaker 1: by a nearer view. First, let me tell you however,
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  Speaker 1: that after entering the vestibule of the hotel, I felt
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  Speaker 1: as if I had stepped into some dwelling of gnomes
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  Speaker 1: or spirits. Not a human being presented himself. No one
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  Speaker 1: appeared to take my luggage, nor was a clerk or
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  Speaker 1: hall boy visible anywhere. The great hall of the hotel
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  Speaker 1: was as deserted and silent as an empty tomb. At first,
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  Speaker 1: I could not even discover a bell. Presently, however, I
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  Speaker 1: saw a large iron hand pointing to an adjacent table.
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  Speaker 1: On the table lay a big book with a placard,
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  Speaker 1: on which was printed, please write name, country, length of stay,
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  Speaker 1: and number of rooms desired, all of which I did.
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  Speaker 1: The book then miraculously closed itself and disappeared. The next instant,
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  Speaker 1: a tray made its appearance where the book had been.
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  Speaker 1: On the tray was a key, and on the key
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  Speaker 1: a tag with a number and the words take elevator
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  Speaker 1: at your left to third flight. The elevator, as I
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  Speaker 1: stepped into it, stopped, as if by magic, at the
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  Speaker 1: third story, when another iron hand shot out of the wall,
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  Speaker 1: pointing me to the left. Soon I found the room
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  Speaker 1: assigned to me, opened it and entered to discover the
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  Speaker 1: apartment in complete order, and the faucets in the bath
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  Speaker 1: chamber actually turned on My dear Hannevig. Can you believe
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  Speaker 1: me when I tell you that I have been in
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  Speaker 1: this hotel four mortal days, have eaten three substantial meals
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  Speaker 1: a day, have been fairly comfortable, and yet have not
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  Speaker 1: seen a human creature. From a landlord to a servant.
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  Speaker 1: The whole establishment, apparently, is run by machinery. There is
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  Speaker 1: a complicated bell apparatus which you ring for every conceivable
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  Speaker 1: want or need. Meals are served in one's own room
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  Speaker 1: by a system of ingenious sliding shelves, which open and
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  Speaker 1: shut and disappear into the wall in the most wizard
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  Speaker 1: like manner. Of course, the reason of all these contrivances
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  Speaker 1: is obvious enough. In a society where labor of a
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  Speaker 1: degrading order is forbidden by law, machinery must be used
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  Speaker 1: as its substitute. It is all well enough, I presume,
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  Speaker 1: from the laborer's point of view, But for a traveler
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  Speaker 1: bent on a pleasure trip, machinery as a substitute. For
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  Speaker 1: a garrulous landlord and a score of servants, however, bad
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  Speaker 1: is found to be a poor and somewhat monotonous companion.
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  Speaker 1: I amuse myself, however, with perpetually testing all the bells
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  Speaker 1: and the electrical apparatus calling for a hundred things. I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to see whether they will come through the
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  Speaker 1: ceiling or up the floor. Most of my time, however,
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  Speaker 1: is spent in the streets. My earlier impressions of the
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  Speaker 1: city I find remain unchanged. It is as flat as
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  Speaker 1: your hand, and as monotonous as a twice told tale.
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  Speaker 1: Never was there such monotony or such dullness. Each house
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  Speaker 1: is precisely like its neighbor. Each house has so many rooms,
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  Speaker 1: so many windows, so many square feet of garden, which
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  Speaker 1: latter no one cultivates, as flowers in grass entail. A
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  Speaker 1: certain amount of manual labor, which, it appears, is thought
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  Speaker 1: to be degrading by these socialists. Imagined. Therefore, miles upon
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  Speaker 1: miles of a city composed of little two story houses,
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  Speaker 1: as like unto another as two brown nuts. There are
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  Speaker 1: parks and theaters, and museums, and libraries, the people's clubs,
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  Speaker 1: and innumerable state buildings. But these are all architecturally tasteless,
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  Speaker 1: as utility has been the only feature considered in their construction.
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  Speaker 1: Everything here from the laying out of the city to
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  Speaker 1: the last detail concerning the affairs of commerce or trade
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  Speaker 1: is arranged according to the socialistic principle, by the people,
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  Speaker 1: for the people. The city itself was rebuilt a hundred
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  Speaker 1: years ago in order that the houses and the public
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  Speaker 1: buildings might be in more fitting harmony with the new
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  Speaker 1: order and principles of socialism. What the older city of
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  Speaker 1: New York may have been, it is difficult to determine,
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  Speaker 1: although it is supposed to have been ugly enough. But
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  Speaker 1: this modern city is the very acme of dreariness. It
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  Speaker 1: is the monotony, I think, which chiefly depresses me. It
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  Speaker 1: is not that the houses do not seem comfortable, clean,
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  Speaker 1: and orderly, for all these virtues they possess, But fancy
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  Speaker 1: seeing miles upon miles of little two story houses. The
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  Speaker 1: total lack of contrast, which is the result of the
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  Speaker 1: plan on which this socialistic city has been built, comes
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  Speaker 1: of course from the principle which has decreed that no
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  Speaker 1: man can have a finer house, or better interior, or
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  Speaker 1: finer clothes than his neighbor. The abolition of poverty and
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  Speaker 1: the raising of all classes to a common level of
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  Speaker 1: comfort and security has resulted in the most deadening uniformity. Take,
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  Speaker 1: for example, the aspect of the shop windows. All shops
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  Speaker 1: are run by the government on government capital. There is
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  Speaker 1: consequently neither rivalry nor competition. The shop keepers, who are
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  Speaker 1: in reality only clerks and salesmen under government jurisdiction, take
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  Speaker 1: naturally no personal or vital interest, either in the amount
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  Speaker 1: of goods sold or in the way in which these
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  Speaker 1: latter are placed before the public. The shop windows therefore
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  Speaker 1: are as uninviting as are the goods displayed. Only useful,
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  Speaker 1: necessary objects and articles are to be seen. The eye seeks,
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  Speaker 1: in vain throughout the length and breadth of the city
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  Speaker 1: for anything really beautiful. For the lovely or the rare
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  Speaker 1: objects of art and of beauty find it seems, no
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  Speaker 1: market here. Occasionally the government makes a purchase of some
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  Speaker 1: foreign work of art, or seizes on some of those
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  Speaker 1: recently excavated from the ruins of some nineteenth century merchant's palace.
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  Speaker 1: The picture or vase is then placed in the museums,
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  Speaker 1: where the people are supposed to enjoy its possession. To
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  Speaker 1: connect the word enjoyment with the aspect of these serious
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  Speaker 1: socialists is almost laughable. A more sober collection of people
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  Speaker 1: I never beheld. They are as solemn as the oldest
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  Speaker 1: and wisest of hours. They have the look of people
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  Speaker 1: who have come to the end of things and who
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  Speaker 1: have failed to find it amusing. The entire population appear
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  Speaker 1: to be eternally in the streets, wandering up and down
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  Speaker 1: with their hands in their pockets, on the lookout for
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  Speaker 1: something that never happens. What, indeed is there to happen?
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  Speaker 1: Have they not come to the consummation of everything, of
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  Speaker 1: their dreams and their hopes and desires. A man can't
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  Speaker 1: have his dream and dream it too. Realization has been
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: found before now to be exceedingly dull. Play as it is,
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  Speaker 1: I am free to confess that the dullness and apathy
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  Speaker 1: of these ideally perfect socialists weighs on me. My views
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  Speaker 1: of their condition may change when I come to know
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  Speaker 1: them better. It is late, and I must close, ever,
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  Speaker 1: yours w end of chapter two, Chapter three of The
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  Speaker 1: Republic of the Future by Anna Bowman Dodd. This LibriVox
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jennifer Fournier, Centreville, Virginia,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: U s A. Chapter three. Curiously enough, my dear fellow,
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  Speaker 1: the very next day, after dispatching my last I found
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  Speaker 1: myself involved in a long and most interesting conversation with
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  Speaker 1: the daughter of one of the city residents. I had
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  Speaker 1: brought letters of introduction to a certain gentleman, and after
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  Speaker 1: a search of some hours through the eternal labyrinth of
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  Speaker 1: these unending streets, found the house to which I had
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  Speaker 1: been directed. The gentleman, or rather citizen, as all men
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  Speaker 1: are called here, was not at home. I was, however,
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  Speaker 1: received by his daughter, a plain but seemingly agreeable, intelligent
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  Speaker 1: young woman. The women dress so exactly like the men
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: in this country that it is somewhat difficult to tell
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the sun a part. Women, however, usually betray themselves as
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  Speaker 1: soon as they speak by their voices. This young lady
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: had an unusually pleasant voice and manner, and we were
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  Speaker 1: soon deep in the agreeable intricacies of a lengthy conversation.
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  Speaker 1: I had any number of questions to ask, and she
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  Speaker 1: appeared to be most willing to answer them. My first question,
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  Speaker 1: I remember, was an eminently practical one. It was on
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  Speaker 1: the subject of chimneys and cooking. I had noticed almost
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  Speaker 1: immediately on my arrival that throughout the entire city, not
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  Speaker 1: a chimney was to be seen. It was this fact,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: more than any other, that gave the city the appearance
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: of a plane, and made the houses seem curiously deformed.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: It naturally followed that, there being no chimneys, there was
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: also no smoke, which therefore made this already sufficiently clear
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: atmosphere as pure as the air on a mountain top.
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  Speaker 1: All very beautiful, I said to myself, But how do
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  Speaker 1: the people get along without cooking? I, in my quality
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  Speaker 1: of stranger and foreigner, had made the interesting discovery that
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: my own meals were prepared to my taste by specially
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: appointed state cooks, a law only recently passed to facilitate
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: international relations. The latter, it appears, had become somewhat strained
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: when travelers had found themselves forced to abide by the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: rules and regulations governing the socialist diet. But what was
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: this diet? This was the mystery which had been puzzling
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  Speaker 1: me ever since my arrival, So that when I found
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: myself face to face with my young lady, I promptly
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: implored her to solve this dilemma. Oh, she replied, cooking
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: has gone out long ago. To do any cooking is
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: considered dreadfully old. Fashioned. Has eating also gone out of
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  Speaker 1: fashion in this wonderful country, I asked, in amazement. She
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  Speaker 1: laughed as she replied, eating hasn't, but we do it
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  Speaker 1: in a more refined way. Instead of kitchens, we now
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: have conduits, culinary conduits. Culinary conduits, I asked, still in
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a daze of wonderment. Oh, I see, you don't understand,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: she answered. You haven't been here long enough to know
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  Speaker 1: how such things are arranged. Let me explain. The state
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: scientists now regulate all such matters. Once a month, our
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: officer of hygiene comes and examines each member of the household.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: He then prescribes the kind of food he thinks you
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: require for the next few weeks, whether it shall be
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: more or less phosphates, or cereals or carnivorous preparations. He
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: leaves a paper with you. You then touch this spring.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: See and here she put her pretty white finger on
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: a button in the wall. You whistle through the aperture
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: to the culinary board, put in the paper, and it
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: is sent to the main office. You then receive supplies
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: for the ensuing month. And where is this wonderful board.
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  Speaker 1: It is in Chicago, where all the great granaries are
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  Speaker 1: you know, Chicago supplies the food for the entire United Community.
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  Speaker 1: But Chicago is a thousand miles off. Isn't all the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: food stale by the time it reaches you here? She laughed,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: although I could see she tried very hard not to
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: do so, but my ignorance was evidently too amazingly funny.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: When she had regained composure, she answered, the food is
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: sent to us by electricity through the culinary conduits. Everything
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: is blown to us in a few minutes time, if
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it be necessary, If the food is to be eaten hot,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: if the food be cereals or condensed meats, it is
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: sent by pneumatic express done up in bottles or in pellets.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: All such food is carried about in one's pocket. We
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: take our food as we drink water, wherever we may
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  Speaker 1: happen to be, when it's handy, and when we need it.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Although she added with a sigh, I sometimes do wish
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I had lived in the good old times in the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, for instance, when such dear old fashioned customs
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: were in vogue as having four hour dinners, and the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: ladies were taken into dinner by the gentlemen, and every
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: one wore full dress. The dress of the period, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: they used to flirt. Wasn't that the old word over
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: their wine and dessert? How changed everything is now? However,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: she quickly added, if kitchens and cooking and long dinners
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: hadn't been abolished, the final emancipation of women could never
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: have been accomplished. The perfecting of the woman movement was
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: retarded for hundreds of years, as you know, doubtless by
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the slavish desire of women to please their husbands by
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: dressing and cooking to suit them. When the last pie
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: was made into the first pellet, woman's true freedom began.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: She could then cast off her subordination, both to her
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: husband and to her servants. Women were only free, indeed,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: when the state prohibited the hiring of servants. Of course,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the hiring of servants at all was as degrading to
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the oppressed class as it was a clog to the
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: progress of their mistress's freedom. The only way to raise
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the race was to put everyone on the same level,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to make even degrees of servitude impossible. But how may
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I be permitted to ask, is the rest of the
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: housework accomplished? If no servants exist to take charge of
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: so pretty a house as this one, the house, my
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: dear Hannovig was in reality here as bare and as
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: plain as are all the houses here. Each is furnished
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: by state law exactly alike. Oh, everything is done by machinery,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: as at your hotel. Everything the sweeping, bed making, window scrubbing,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and washing. Each separate department has its various appliances and apparatus.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: The women of every household are taught the use and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: management of the various machines, you know, at the expense
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: of the state, during their youth. When they take the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: management of a house, they can run it single handed.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Most of the machinery goes by electricity. A house can
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: be kept in perfect order by two hours work daily.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: The only hard work which we still have to do
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: is dusting. No invention has yet been effected which dust
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: satisfactorily without breakage to ornaments, which accounts for the fact
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: also that the fashion of having adds and ends about
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a home has gone out. It was voted years ago
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: by the largest women's vote ever polled that since men
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: could not create self adjusting, non destructive dusters, their homes
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: must suffer. Women were not to be degraded to hand
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: machines for the sake of ministering to men's esthetic tastes.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So you see, we have only the necessary chairs and tables.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: If men want to see pictures, they can go to
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the museums. Perhaps it is this latter fact which accounts
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: for my never being able to find the good citizen
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: a at home. He is gone to the public club,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: or to the bath, or to the communal theater. I
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: am told when I appear again and again, this wonderful
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: community has done much of that. I am convinced in
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the development of ideal freedom, But there appears to be
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: a fatal blight somewhere in its principles, a blight which
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: seems to have destroyed all delight into menstic life. In
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: my next I will tell you more and at length,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of the peculiar development which the race has attained under
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: these now well established emancipation doctrines, and of their results
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: on the two sexes. I hope you are not wearying
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of my somewhat lengthy descriptions, but you yourself are to blame,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: as you bound me to such rigid promises of detail
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and accuracy. Farewell, dear companion, would you were here to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: use your wiser philosopher's eyes. I am yours Wolfgang end
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: of chapter three, Chapter four of The Republic of the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Future by Anna Bowman Dodd. This LibriVox recording is in
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the public domain recording by Jennifer Fournier, Centreville, Virginia, USA,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Chapter four. Dear friend, know one thing I think strikes
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the foreigner's eye on his arrival in this extraordinary land
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: so strongly as does the lack of variety and of
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: taste displayed in the dress of either the men or
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the women. Both sexes dress to begin with, as I
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: said in my last precisely alike, it is one of
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the unwritten social laws of the people to dress as simply,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: economically and sensibly as possible. It results that there is
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: neither brightness, nor color, nor beauty of line in any
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: of the garments worn in passing the government clothing distribution bureaus.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Nothing so forcibly suggests the ideal equality existing between the
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: sexes as does the sight of the big and the
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: little trousers hanging side by side quite unabashed, the straight
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and the baggy legs being the only discernible difference, baggy
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: trousers and a somewhat long full cloak for the women,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: straight leg trousers and a shorter coat for the men.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: This is the dress of the entire population. Some of
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the women are still pretty in spite of their hideous clothes,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: but they all tell me they wouldn't be if they
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: could help it, as they hold that the beauty of
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: their sex was the chief cause of their long continued
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: former slavery. They consider comeliness now as a brand and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: mark of which to be ashamed. From what I have
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: been able to observe, however, I should say that the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: prettiness which has descended to some of the women fails
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to awaken any old time sentiment or gallantry on the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: part of the men. There has I learn been a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: gradual decay of the erotic sentiment, which doubtless accounts for
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the indifference among the men, a decay which is due
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to the peculiar relations brought about by the emancipation of women.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: It is now nearly two hundred years since women have
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the same freedom and rights as men. It is
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: interesting and curious to note the changes both upon the
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: character and nature of the two sexes, which has been
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the result of this development. One's first impression in coming
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: here is that women are the sole inhabitants of the country.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: One sees them everywhere in all the public offices, as
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: heads of departments, as government clerks, as officials, as engineers, machinists, aeronauts,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: tax collectors, firemen, filling in fact every office and vocation
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: in civil, political, and social life. The few men, by
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: comparison whom I saw, seem to me to be allowed
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to exist as specimen examples of a fallen race. Of course,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: this view is more or less exaggeration, but the women
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: here do appear to possess by far the most energy, vigor,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: viti and ambition. Their predominance in office just now is
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: owing to their overpowering number, the women's vote polled being
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: ten to one over that of the men. This strong
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: sex influence has been fruitful in greatly changing and modifying
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the domestic, social, and political laws of the community. Women,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: for instance, having satisfactorily emancipated themselves from the bondage of
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: domestic drudgery and the dominion of servants by means of
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the improvement in machinery and the invention of the famous
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: culinary conduits, found one obstacle still in their path to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: complete and co equal man freedom. There still remained the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: children to be taken care of and brought up. As
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: motherhood came, in course of time, to be considered in
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: its true light as perhaps the chief cause of the
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: degradation of women. It was finally abolished by act of legislature.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Were still to continue to bear children, or else the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: socialistic society itself would cease to be. A law was
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: passed providing that children, almost immediately after birth, should be
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: brought up, educated, and trained under state direction, to be
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: returned to their parents when fully grown and ready for
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: their duties as men and women citizens. In this way,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: women stand at last on as absolutely equal a physical
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: play with men, as it is possible to make them.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: It has followed, of course, that with the jurisdiction of
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the state over the children of the community, all family
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: life has died out. Men and women lived together as
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: man and wife, but the relation between them has become
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: more nominal than real. It is significant of the changes
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that have been brought about between the sexes that the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: word home has entirely dropped out of the language. A
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: man's house has in truth ceased to be his home home.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: There are no children there to greet him his wife,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: who is his comrade. A man, a citizen like himself,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: is as rarely at home as he. Their food can
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: be eaten anywhere there is no common board. There is
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: not even a servant to welcome the master with a smile.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: The word wife has also lost all its original significance.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It stands for nothing. Husband and wife are in reality
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: two men, having equal rights, with the same range of occupation,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the same duties as citizens, to perform the same haunts,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and the same dreary leisure. Is it, therefore, my dear Hanneviig,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to be wondered at, that all ideas of love, and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: that all strong mutual attraction and affections should have died
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: out between the sexes. Man loves longs for passionately, and
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: protects with tender solicitude. Only that which is difficult to conquer.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: The imagination must at least be inflamed. But where there
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: is no struggle, no opposition, no conditions which breed longing
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: desire or the poetry of a little healthy despair, how
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: is love or any sentiment at all to be awakened
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: or kindled. Here there is no parental authority to make
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a wall between lovers, Nor is there inequality of fortunes,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: nor any marked difference between the two sexes, even in
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: their daily duties or in their lives. I am more
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and more impressed with the conviction as I look into
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: this question, this question of what we should consider the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: growth of an abnormal indifference between the sexes, that the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: latter cause is perhaps the one which has been chiefly
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: instrumental in the bringing about so complete a change over
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the face of the passions. Woman has placed herself by
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the side of man, as his co equal in labor
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and vocation, only to make the real distance between them
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: the greater. She has gained her independence at the expense
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: of her strongest appeal to man, her power as mistress, wife,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: and mother. How can a man get up any very
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: vivid or profound sentiment or affection for these men women
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: who are neither mothers nor housekeepers, who differ in no
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: smallest degree from themselves in their pursuits and occupation. Constant
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: and perpetual companionship from earliest infancy to manhood and old
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: age has resulted in blunting all sense of any real
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: difference between the sexes. Whatever slight inequalities may still exist
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: between men and women, in the matter of muscular energy
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: or physical strength, is more than counterbalanced by the enormous
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: disproportion between them numerically as voters. Some very curious and
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: important political changes have been effected by the preponderance of
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the woman's vote. Wars, for instance, have been, within the
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: last fifty years declared illegal. Women found that, whereas she
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: was eminently fitted for all men's avocations in time of peace,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: when it came to war, she made a very poor
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: figure of a soldier. Wars therefore were soon voted down.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Foreign difficulties were adjusted by arbitration, as women, as a rule,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: were sent on these foreign diplomatic missions. I have heard
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: it wickedly whispered that the chief cause of the usually
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: speedy conclusion of any trouble with a foreign court was
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: because of the babble of tongues, which ensued a foreign
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: court being willing to concede anything rather than to continue
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: negotiations with women diplomatists. But this is of course to
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: be put down to pure maliciousness. Women since time immemorial
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: have had the best of men whenever it came to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: contests of the tongue, and this appears to be the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: one insignia of their former prestige, which the sex insists
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: on claiming. In my next I shall try to give
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you some conception of the position which man occupies as
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a citizen and as worker in this community. I shall,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I think, also be able to give you some most
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: interesting results of the effects produced by the communistic socialistic
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: principles which have been incorporated into the constitution of this people.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: It is late, and I am weary, so farewell for
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a few days. Ever and ever end of chapter four,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Chapter five of the Republic of the Future by Anna
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Bowman Dodd. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: recording by Jennifer Foarner, Centreville, Virginia, USA, Chapter five. More
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: and more, as I study these institutions, am I reminded
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: of the resemblance between these American socialists and the ancient Spartans.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: The Spartan was also a part of the state, had
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: all things on a grand communal scale, had public games,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: public theaters, baths, museums and festivals being brought up by
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the state, and his womenkind considered as a part of it.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: In this modern community, however, there are two important features
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: which the simpler Spartans did not have to cope with
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: the Greeks stood at the dawn of civilization. The American
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: finds himself at what he considers is the completion of it,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: break away from his past. As hard as ever he
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: may try, he has still found himself heir to this
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: p and his hereditary dominates him in spite of all
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: his attempts to throw it off. The Greeks also were
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: a warlike people, and the American is a peace lover,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: preferring the pipe to the sword. Perhaps above all else.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: In the sum of these differences, ought we to remember
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the great factor of machinery as a substitute for manual labor.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: The sword raised man out of the dust. The piston
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: has leveled him with it. I believe, my dear Hanovig,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that if machinery had never been invented, socialism would never
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: have been dreamed of. Machinery was the true cause of
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the conflict between capital and labor, and not the unequal
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: distribution of land. As the great founder of this communal society,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Henry George asserted in this book the Bible of this people,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Machinery needed capital to run it and was more or
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: less indifferent to labor. The laborer with machinery, as his rival,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: stood a far less possible chance of becoming a capitalist
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: himself than he did when battling against men, his duties
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: more and more closely resembling in their monotony and routine,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the very machine that he was called upon to feed,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: in turn, reacting in his natural aptitude. However, to go
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: into the depths of this naughty question involves too much
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: space for a letter. Let me instead recall to your mind,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: as I have recently done to my own, the chief
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: features of importance in the history of this people which
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: have placed them where they now. Are You recollect, of course,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the terrible reign of blood that took place during the
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: awful conflict between the Republican Americans and the socialists and
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: anarchists in nineteen hundred. The war began nominally as an
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: act of resistance on the part of the Americans against
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the su encroaching and insistent demands of the socialists, demands
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: covering the abolishment of private ownership and land, of the
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: division of property both real and personal, and the overthrow
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: generally of all the then existing economic and social institutions.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: These socialists and anarchists represented the foreign element in the country,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: those who had imported their revolutionary doctrines with them. If
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I remember rightly, the early Americans had given all rights
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of citizenship to this foreign contingency in a moment of
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: mistaken Republican zeal, a political mistake they lived to rout
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: bitterly later. Well, at first, in this anarchist war, the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Americans won, did they not? I find my memory tripping
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: me at times. Possibly would have continued to win had
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the war been conducted on strict military tactics. But the anarchists,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: finding themselves unsuccessful as soldiers and warriors, was resorted to
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: the ingenious means of destroying their enemies by the use
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of explosives. Dynamite accomplished what the cannon and the bayonet
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: were powerless to effect. Towns, cities, and even the villages
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and hamlets were lighted by the torch of electricity and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: seared level with the ground. Dynamite was reserved for the
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: armies and for individual offenders. During that reign of destruction,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: it seemed as if not a man, woman, or child
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: would survive to carry even the memory of the great
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: tragedy to their graves with them. However, since the anarchist's
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: plan was to reconstruct the whole face of society on
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: a new basis. It was to be expected, of course,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: that the revolution they undertook as the means of affecting this,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: would be carried through at whatever cost. There is one
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: feature of this war which has always struck me as
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: possessing a very humorous side. The anarchists, you remember, were foreigners,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: chiefly Germans, Irishmen, and a few Russians. When the war
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: was ended by the destruction of very nearly all the
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Republican contingency, the anarchists broke out into dissension among themselves.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: The German element would not submit to Irish dictation, the
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: latter leaders having apparently a great opinion of their own
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: talent for political leadership, and the Irish in turn violently
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: resisted the German dicta. A veritable anarchy ensued a war
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: so fierce that it looked at one time as if
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: the whole continent might be left a howling wilderness, with
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: neither conqueror nor conquered to enter and take possession of
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: what was now, in truth but a desert. Fortunately, however,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: a few of the Americans had survived. Among them were
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: some of the descendants of the ancient New England statesmen.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: These men, although under sentence of death, were liberated that
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: they might act as peacemakers between the two factions. Americans,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: you see, had had so much experience in reconciling, conciliating,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: and pacifying the difficulties between the Irish and German parties
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: during the American Republican era that these survivors were eminently
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: fitted to adjust affairs at issue between them Now. The
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: American Council decided that the Irishmen should draw up the
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: laws and regulations for the new communal and socialistic constitution,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: while the Germans should see that the new society was
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: properly organized, a decision which proves the real genius for
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: statescraft which these ingenious Americans possessed. For Irishmen are proverbially
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: affluent of ideas and incapable of putting them into action
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: unless it be violent action, while the Germans have proved
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: themselves practical organizers and ideal political policemen. The sagacity of
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the old American Republicans was shown in the manner in
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: which they themselves, in their era of power, had made
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: use of the distinguishing qualities of the two races. When
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: such hordes overflowed the land during the Great Emigration period,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: the Irishmen were kept in the large cities, where they
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: were allowed to misgovern the towns to their heart's desire,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: being thus given event for their turbulent political spirit, while
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: the Germans, on the contrary, were sent into the still
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: unconquered wilderness to turn it into a garden by their
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: industry and thrift. The American, having thus made use of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the Irishmen to run his political machinery for him, and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of the Germans to extend the territorial lines of order
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and civilization, secured unto himself all his own time for
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: money making. Hence the colossal American fortunes, which, as we
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: read of them now seemed to us like a tale
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: of magicians. Such a policy must have seemed to a
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century American as a very shrewd and ingenious way
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: of utilizing elements which otherwise might be proved dangerous. The
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: policy was in truth a fatally short sighted one, as
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: was proved later, since it was the enormous accumulation of
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: fortunes in a few hands and the supposed tyranny of
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: capital which wrought to a frenzy the envy and anger
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: of the foreign poorer classes, then under the sway of
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: the anarchist revolutionists. After the American statesman had made peace
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: between the conquering but quarrelsome anarchists, these latter set about
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: organizing the new society anarchy itself. Although the principles for
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: which it had fought and conquered now prevailed, it was
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: found must subordinate itself to some form or order before
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: it could hope to enforce order upon others. The anarchist's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: war cry had been, as you remember, away with private property,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: away with all authority, away with the state, away with
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: all political machinery. But now the leaders discovered that a
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: belief in the reign of anarchy was one thing, and
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: its practice was quite another. For a time, as you know,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: there was a terrible period of disorder, during which the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: grossest excesses were practiced under the name of perfect individualism,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a common property, common freedom, common distribution for all. After
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: a few years of the wildest indulgence, rapacity, crime and cruelty,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: for of course, there being no government, there could be
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: neither restraints imposed, nor crimes punished. The people themselves. At last,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: began to cry aloud for some form of government which
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: should include at least order and decency. The socialist doctrines
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: were then decided upon as being more in conformity with
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the demands of the people and with the necessities of
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: organizing a state, than were the formless theories of the anarchists.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: The leaders among the people, as has been done so
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: many times before in the history of the world, began
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: again the making of new laws for the establishment of
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: an ideal government, and the forming of a new constitution
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: which was to ensure perfect and complete happiness to the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: individual and the race. For over one hundred and fifty
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: years now this ideal socialistic society had existed, and what
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: are the results? No people ever, assuredly had a more
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: wonderful chance at constructing a society on an ideal basis
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: than had these socialists think of it. An entire continent
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: at their disposal, their enemies or opponents all killed or
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: in exile, and they themselves united in desire and in
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: political interest. Well, if some of the irradicable, indestructible principles
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: in human nature could be changed as easily as laws
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: are made and unmade, the chances for an ideal realization
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of the happiness of mankind would be the more easily attained,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: But the socialists committed the grave error of omitting to
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: count some of these determining human laws into the sum
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: of their calculations. Time and paper are, however, finite, and
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: also presumably your patients. I will postpone until my next
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the few remaining conclusions to which a brief study of
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: this people and their government has led, Your faithful Wolfgang.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: End of chapter five, Chapter six of The Republic of
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: the Future by Anna Bowman Dodd. This LibriVox recording is
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: in the public domain recording by Jennifer Fournier, Centreville, Virginia, USA.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Chapter six. Dear friend, the longer I stay here, the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: more I am impressed with the profound melancholy which appears
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to have taken possession of this people. The men particularly
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: seem sunk in a torpor of dejection and settled apathy.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: The women, although by no means so vivacious and vigorous
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: as our women, are, however far more animated and seem
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: to have a keener relish for life than the men.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Probably the comparatively recent emancipation of the women, their new
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: political and social freedom adds a zest to the routine
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: of life here which men do not feel. So universal
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: is the dreary aspect of the people, whether at work
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: or play. And they play I observe far more languidly
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: than they work. That the type of face among them
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: has undergone a strange and interesting transformation. You remember in
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the old Prince the typical Yankee face, with its keen,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: penetrating eye, its courageous, determined chin, its intelligent brow, and
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: its extraordinarily shrewd and intently alert expres This vivacity and energy,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: once the chief charm of the American face, has entirely
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: disappeared in its stead. Imagine wooden, almost sodden features, heavy
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: dull eyes, receding chins, and a brow on which dullness
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: that very nearly approaches stupidity is written in large letters
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: on all the faces. Is a stereotyped expression, a mingling
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of discontent and dejection. There is the same lack of
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: variety of types among the faces I have noticed, as
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: there is a want of contrast in the houses and streets.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: The entire population appears to have one face. Wherever one turns,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: one sees it repeated ad infinitum, whether it be that
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of man or woman, youth or old age. I have
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: accounted to myself for this curious physiological uniformity by finding
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: in it simply a reflection of the uniformity seen in
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the life and occupations of this people. The race having
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: been leveled to a common plane, there has been a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: gradual dying out of individuality. The inevitable curtailment of individual aims,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: individual struggle, individual ambitions has naturally resulted in producing a
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: featureless type of character common to all, Since, of course,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it is character alone which molds feature. This people, being
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: all more or less alike, have come in process of
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: time to look alike. Nature, after all, is only clay
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: in the potter's hand, man, with his own laws and creeds, fashions,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: in the end, his own face. I found it, however,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: far more difficult to account for the cloud of melancholy
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and dejection which appears to have settled upon this people,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: than to seek the causes of the above physiological aspect.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: I asked myself again and again, why should this people,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: of all people be full of this discontent and unhappiness.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: Haven't they come to the realization of all their dreams?
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: Have they not attained to the very summit and to
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the full glory of the possession of their social, civic,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: and political desires and aspirations? Is there not a quality
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: of sex? Has not leisure instead of labor become a law?
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Is not private property abolished? Is not the land the
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: property of the state, the wage system become a thing
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: of the past, and the possession of capital made a
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: crime punishable by law. Does not the state also exist
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: for the people, educating them, training them for their work
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: in life, distributing among them any surplus funds that the
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: public treasury may accume, and furnishing for their amusement and leisure,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: a vast system of educational clubs, educational theaters, public games, museums,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: and shows. If a people are not happy under such conditions,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: what will ensure content? Yet? Come with me. Let us
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: walk through the principal thoroughfares and watch the multitudes of
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: people wandering listlessly up and down the streets. Let us
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: see them as they drift aimlessly into the theaters, museums, clubs.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Let us look in on them as they idly finger
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the new books and newspapers, yawning over them as they read.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: And you will agree with me that the entire population
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: seems to have but one really serious purpose in life,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: to murder time, which appears to be slowly killing them.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: After much thought on the reasons of this strange apathy,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: this inertia, and sloth ev energy, I have come to
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: two conclusions which have helped me to solve the problem
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: of this people's unhappiness. My first conclusion is that the
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: people are dying for want of work, of downright hard work.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: My second conclusion is that, in trying to establish the
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: law of equality, the founders of this ideal community committed
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: the fatal mistake of counting out those indestructible, ineradicable human
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: tendencies and aspirations which have hitherto been the source of
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: all human progress to which I alluded in my last letter. First,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: let us take the subject of work as all work
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: men and women alike, and as machinery has been brought
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: here to a wonderful degree of perfection. The actual labor
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: necessary to maintain the people is, of necessity very light.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: At first, one hundred or so years ago, in the
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: early days of the community, the time of labor was
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: fixed at five hours per day, But every decade with
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the growth of the population, the labor hours have been diminishing. Recently,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: a law has been put into effect forbidding any one's
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: working more than two hours a day. This latter law
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: has been found to be in actual necessity from an
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: economic point of view, as a provision against surplus production.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: A man therefore has the whole of the rest of
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: his day on his hands to spend as best he may.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: The original hope and belief of the founders of socialism
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: was that if the people could only be given sufficient leisure,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the whole race would be lifted to an extraordinary plane
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of perfection. That were men given time enough, each man
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: and woman would devote himself and herself to the development
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: and improvement of his or her mental tastes and capacities.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: At first, I believe such was the case. For at
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: least thirty years, there was an extraordinary zeal for learning
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: and self improvement. But in time a reaction came. The
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: founders had forgotten to make allowances for the mass of sluggards, idlers,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: and ne'er dowells, who were always the immovable block in
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: the reformer's path of progress. Two parties were soon developed.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: The Party of Enlightenment and the Conservative Party. Learning being
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: the sole channel for the exercise of individual capacity or
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: individual ambition, the old baneful system of competition soon developed
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: itself a superior class, a class composed of scholars, students,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: artists and authors arose whose views and whose political ideas
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: threatened the very life and liberties of the community. The
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: aristocracy of intellect, it was found, was as dangerous to
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the state as an aristocracy founded on pride of dissent
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: or on the possession of ancestral acres. It became necessary, therefore,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: to make a law against learning and the sciences. All scholars, authors,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: artists and scientists who were found on examination to be
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: more gifted than the average were exiled. A strict law
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: was passed, and has since been rigidly enforced, forbidding mental
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: or artistic development being carried beyond a certain fixed standard,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: a standard attainable by all. Quite naturally, learning and the
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: arts have gradually died out. Among this people. Where there
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: are no rewards, either of fame or personal advancement, the
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: spur to mental or artistic achievement is found wanting. The
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: arts particularly have languished. Art, as is well known, can
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: only live by the strength of the imagination, and the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: imagination is fed by contrasts of life in degrees of
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: picturesness one of the old American stages. Emerson, I think
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: it was well said of the artist. If the rich
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: were not rich, how poor would the poet be? Quite naturally,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: in such a civilization as this, no conditions exist for
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: either creating or maintaining artistic ability. Can you not imagine,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: my dear Hannovig, that under such a system and order
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: of life, time might be found to be a weighty burden.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: After the two hours devoted to labor, there are still
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: fourteen waking hours to be disposed of. The people have,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: it is true, their clubs and their theaters, the national games,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: their libraries and gardens. But just because all of these
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: are free and at their command, is I presume, reason
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: enough for their finding the amusements thus provided tame and uninteresting.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Most of the inhabitants of this city spend their days
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: at the gymnasium. In the exercises and games there practiced,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: one sees the only evidence or show of excitement and
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: interest indulged in. Both men and women are muscled like
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: athletes from their continual exercises and perpetual bathing. The Athletic
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Party is now trying to pass a law to permit
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: races and contests on the old Greek plan, but the
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Conservatives will scarcely pass it, as they urge that the
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Olympian Games, by developing the physical powers, was in reality
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: only a training school for the Greek army, and Internestine
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: trouble and dissension would surely follow any such public games,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: as they did in the Greek states. You have, i believe,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: asked me if the people here are not allowed to
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: find a scope for their superfluous energies in politics, But
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: politics as a profession, as a separate and independent function
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: of activity, has ceased to exist. The state or government
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: is run on the great universal principle of reciprocity, which
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: governs the entire community. It exists for the people, is
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: administered by the people, and acts for the people. All
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: surplus revenues derived from a minimum of equalized taxation are
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: turned over to the public fund, being applied to public use.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: The machinery of the government is run on the same
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: principle of light labor, which governs individual exertions each citizen,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: men and women alike. Of course, serves his or her
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: term as a government official, as an old Prussia men
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: served in the army. As no one is ever re elected,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: no matter what his capacity or ability, and as each
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: citizen only serves once during his lifetime. There is no
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: such thing known as political strife or bribery or corrupt
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Neither is there any political life. The government is as
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: automatic a performance as one of the silk looms of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: a factory. There are certain changes which have lately taken
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: place in the political and international affairs of the people,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: which lead one into a labyrinth of speculation. There has,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: for instance, been a noticeable and lamentable dying out of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: international commerce and a general sluggishness of trade, which greatly
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: alarms the community at large. All trade and commerce are
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: conducted on the socialist principle, which forbids the venture of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: private capital. Did such here exist, or of private enterprise.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: It is the state which directs all such ventures. But
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: the state, for some reason or other, does not appear
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: to be a success as a merchant or as commercial financier.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: For one thing, the state is tremendously absorbed in its
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: own as it takes care of its people, educating, training,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: and developing them, as it looks after the material comforts
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: and necessities of its vast population, its own internal duties
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: really absorb all its energies. Then, in a government founded
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: as this one is on a principle of equality, which
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: principle is the sworn enemy of ambition, there must, of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: necessity be a lack of initiative, a feebleness in aggressive attack,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: and a want of determination in the pursuance of any
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: given policy. It is only ambitious, stable governments which can
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: command and maintain a definite policy of national action. Even
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: the American Republic found it difficult, with its recurrent changes
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: in official departments, to carry into effect great international projects.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: The people here have ended by contenting themselves with the
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: exercise of only so much executive, political, or commercial activity
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: as is found actually necessary to maintain their own existence. Men,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: whether as individuals or as a collective body, are indeed
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: only actively aggressive, ambitious, or audacious in proportion as they
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: meet with opposition. It is struggle, and not the absence
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of it, which makes both men and a nation great.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: I have therefore ceased to ask myself, where are the old,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: magnificent energies which once characterize this people One looks in vain.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: For the former warfare of intelligence, for the old time
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: audacity of invention, for the fray of commercial contest, for
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: the powerful massing of capital we read of as characteristic
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: of Americans two hundred years ago. All this has gone
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: with the old competitive system, with the abolishment of competition,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: have died out. Naturally, all the and rewards in life
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: which came from individual struggle, as accumulation of personal property
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: in lands or in moneys, and the possibility of personal advancement,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: are forbidden by law. Under this form of government, all
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: incentives to personal activity have disappeared. The law of equality,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: with its logical decrees for the suppression of superiority, has
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: brought about the other extreme sterility. The crippling of individual
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: activity has finally produced its legitimate result. It has fatally
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: sapped the energies of the people. It is a curious
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: and interesting feature in one's study of this people to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: find that it is not the establishment of the law
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: of equality which has been the cause of decay in
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: this people, but the enforcement of the opposite law. The
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: law it was soon found necessary to establish against inequality.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: Naturally and logically followed that if men are to be
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: made equal. Such equality can only be maintained by the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: suppression of degrees of inequality. Mentally, for instance, the standard
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: must be low enough for all to attain it. Each man, therefore,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: in time, no matter what his fitness, capacity, or gift,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: was forced to subordinate his particular qualities to the general
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: possibility of attainment. This level of common mediocrity was more
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: or less difficult to enforce and develop their own. Historians
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: record many interesting accounts of the slow death of inequality
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: in one I read only yesterday, So instinctive through long
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: centuries of oppression and misuse of power was the impulse
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: among men to aspire to superiority of attainment, to excel
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: in mental development, or to exhibit richer creative power, that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: for years the state penitentiaries were filled with men whose
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: crime was their unconquerable desire selfishly to surpass their less
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: fortunate brothers. It is only within our own enlightened twenty
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: first century that this grave fault has been remedied. Now happily,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: no one dreams of insuring his own personal happiness at
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the expense of others, And so, my dear Hannovic, the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: old drama of history is enacted anew years ago. Men
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: were unhappy because the many had to struggle against the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: favored few. Here, where all are equal, men are miserable
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: because they are so, because all, having equal claims of happiness,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: find life equally dull and aimless. The perpetual moan here
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: is oh for a chance to be something, to do something,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: to achieve something. I shall be able to send you
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: only one more letter as I return in a few days,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: by balloon this time, I think, instead of by tunnel.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: End of chapter six, Chapter seven of The Republic of
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the Future by Anna Bowman Dodd. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by Jennifer Fournier, Centreville, Virginia, USA,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Chapter seven, Christmas Day, My good Hannovig, I have only
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: just time to send you one more incident and scene.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: It being as you may have observed at the top
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: of my letter Christmas Day, I was curious to see
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: how this festival would be observed here. Somewhat to my surprise,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: I observed that the population went about their avocations just
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: as usual. Then I reflected in a country where every
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: day after eleven in the morning, a true holiday sets in,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: there being nothing for anyone to do except to enjoy themselves.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: It would be difficult fitly to celebrate any special fate day.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: In point of fact, there are none such. The people
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: voted them out of the calendar, saying they had all
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: they could do to kill the ordinary enjoyment hours of
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: each week without having to invent new games or occupations
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: for a dozen different feast days. So all holidays are
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: prescribed by law except Christmas. This day is kept up
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: for two reasons, because it is thought to be an
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: excellent time to show off the children brought up by
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: the state to the people, and also because on Christmas Day,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: each child is allowed to spend the day at home.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: The exercises of the day begin at the Great Ethical Temple.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Here ten thousand children were gathered to listen first to
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: a lecture on the history of Christmas. There was a
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: play in which Santa Claus appeared, and a number of
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: other legendary characters, to show the children in what mythological
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: absurd beings the children of the unenlightened nineteenth century believed in.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: Then ten thousand toys were distributed, dolls and whips, and tops,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and slaves and skates, but as all were distributed indiscriminately
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: by state officials to the children as they passed out
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: on review. Of course, all the boys got the dolls,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: and the girls the whips and tops. An hour afterward,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: outside the Great Building, I saw groups of the children
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: doing a tremendous exchange, far more interested in bartering damaged
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: dolls for shiny skates than in endeavoring to establish the
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: identity of their own parents, whom, indeed, having only seen
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: them a few times in the course of their lives,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: they barely know by sight. I was slowly walking homeward,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: speculating on these and other revelations made by a more
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: intimate knowledge of the workings of this great community, when
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: I encountered a familiar face. It was that of my
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: young lady friend, whose conversation I reported to you above.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: She joined me and we walked on together. I hear
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: you are going back to Sweden, Is it true, she asked, Yes,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: I return in a few days. But you have enjoyed
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: your trip and us immensely. You are a wonderful country that,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: if I remember, is just what foreigners said to Americans
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: two hundred years ago. I like this young girl particularly,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: she is more intelligent than most of the women one
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: meets here. She is allowed to be, she told me,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: because she was so much less good looking than others,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: which is true. But in this land of dead equality,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: one is grateful for a little intelligence, even if it
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: is served up with homeliness. There is one thing I
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: cannot become accustomed to, I said, not wishing to be
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: called to closer account for my impressions, and that is
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: that there are no church steeples or spires. The absence
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: of them gives such a uniform look to all your cities. Churches. Oh,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: they went out long ago, you know. Religion. It was
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: found brought about discussion, It was voted immoral. Yes I know.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Only I thought a few spires or churches might possibly
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: have been preserved in a kind of sentimental pickle, as
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: castles and ruins are kept in England. To add what
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: an old writer calls the necessary element of decay to
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: the landscape. That was Ruskin. Was it not what a
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: quaint old writer. His books read as if they were
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: written in a dead language. As for the churches, they
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: were all destroyed, you know, in the war between the
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: radicals and the Orthodox, and not a stone was left
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: standing since then, the state has erected these huge ethical temples,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: where all the religions are explained, and where the philosophy
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: of ethics is taught the people. The finest of all
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: these temples is the Temple of the Liberators. Have you
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: seen it yet, she asked, I have not, but I
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: should like to do so. Will you be my guide?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: She led me Thither. We soon came to a structure, which,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: being smaller and of fairly good and symmetric proportions, was
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: a little less hideous than the other temples I had seen.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: Inside in the center of the building was a colossal statue,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: a portrait, it is said, of the founder, Henry George.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: Around the sides of the wall were niches where portrait
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: busts of the martyrs stand, the nihilists, early anarchists, and
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: socialists who endured persecution and often death in the early
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: days of socialism. A book I noticed was placed near
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: the Henry George statue. It was the socialistic Bible Poverty
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: and Progress, which with a number of other books, forms
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: the chief literature of the people. Once a year, my
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: young friend told me there is a sacred reading to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the people from this book. As we turn to pursue
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: our way homeward. She again began to question me. But
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: you haven't told me yet what you think of us
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: as a country and a people, She persisted, Well, since
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: you will have it, I will tell you are a
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: great and surprising people. I mean great in the sense
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: of numbers. However, for great politically and morally you can
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: never be again. You appear to have attained a certain
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: order of perfection, which, however, is only relative. You think
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: you have solved all the great problems, but you have
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: only begun to solve them. In attempting to make the
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: people happy by ensuring equality of goods and equal division
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: of property, you have found it necessary to stultify ambition
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: and to kill aspiration. Therefore, a healthy, vigorous morale has
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: ceased to exist. In making leisure a law, you have
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: robbed it of its sweetness. Anui is the curse of
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: the land. The arts languish because the arts depend on
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: the imagination, and imagination has been declared illegal since all
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: are not born with it. Your libraries and museums are open,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: but who sees them filled with readers and students? In
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: other words, man, having been born heir to all things,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: has ceased to value them, and so I leave you well,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: content to go back to my barbaric Sweden, where the
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: forms of political government are so bad that men wrestle
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: like gods to remedy them, and where men themselves are
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: still born so unequal that they have to fight like
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: demons to live at all. We are still chaotic and unformed,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: and unredeemed and unregenerate, but we are tremendously alive. And
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: so I return with eager joy to take my part
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: in the strife, to be a man, in other words,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: and not a part of a colossal machine. Why not
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: go back with me? It will be a great experience.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: You would go back at least two hundred years. She
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: sighed and murmured. Not allowed to travel, it is forbidden.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: It breeds dissatisfaction. But I wish we were. It sounds
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: so very beautiful and strange. And so I left her,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: as I must you, for my letter is a volume.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: In a few days I shall be telling you all
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: I cannot write. Adieu yours, Wolfgang. End of chapter seven.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: End of the Republic of the Future or Socialism of
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: Reality by Anna Bowman Dodd