"We will not need or use the economic waste to advertise or push any product. All of us realize the enormous amount of time and energy spent in advertising. It is not always the quality but most often the publicity which sells a product. Much labor and materials are being used and wasted in this boundless non-productive service.
"No. IV—We will have no gambling of any kind, or alcohol, dispensing with gambling houses and devices, no breweries, distilleries, bars, saloons, night clubs and their equipment and supplies. In fact, we will do away with all unethical, unprincipled, and immoral business and their workers.
"I can give you a list three times as large, but I do not wish to take up your valuable time.
"Can you roughly estimate the great percentage of our inhabitants that are employed in all the above dispensible and non-productive wasteful services? It must certainly be very large. The amount of materials used and wasted is enormous. If all of them could be shifted into productive labor and services and these materials used for the benefit of mankind, what a beautiful world we would have."
The president asked, "What will you do with the excess workers that you expect to save from all these side-line and unproductive employments?"
"Why there are hundreds of professions, crafts, and trades that need them. We need a great many more doctors, dentists, nurses, architects, engineers of all kinds, draftsmen, teachers, chemists, and all kinds of laboratory research men, many reclamation and highway workers, and workers in crafts and trades. We need a great many farmers, farm laborers, farming implement makers, construction workers, concrete and cement workers for homes, buildings, bridges, machine tool workers, tinsmiths, iron and steel workers, electricians, telephone mechanics, steamfitters, plumbers, airplane and parachute makers and mechanics, railroad and transportation workers, roofers, radio, refrigeration and air conditioning mechanics, fireproofing and insulation workers, shoemakers, tailors, dressmakers, milliners, hat makers, and hundreds of other workers that we can keep busy provided that we always try to construct, improve, and expand, to produce and build, and to better the conditions, convenience, and comfort of us all."
"Do I understand that you will obtain all this without paying for it and that all of you will live on the same standard, regardless of the better workmanship and ability of others of you?" The President questioned, "And how will you compensate those of you who excel in their endeavors, and others of you who may invent an important mechanical improvement, discover the cure for a disease, or contrive some chemical development which will save labor and materials. In other words, what incentive will any of you have to excel?"
"I was expecting that question. First, as I have mentioned before, every one of us will get our house, our food, and all of life's necessities absolutely free; second, we will copy the system of the Martians. We will have ten lower degrees and ten higher ones. The higher ones we will call rank degrees. There will be ten points between one degree and another and we will be gradually and honorably promoted or demoted by points the same as we were in the army. Those who have made a discovery, an invention or a needful improvement and those who have done meritorious service will receive for life a better, larger, and more comfortable home in the suburbs outside the city, with certain luxuries such as a better and larger plane and luxurious pleasure automobiles. They will have the services of attendants in their homes; first production and best quality of all our necessities, and many other compensations and honors that our authorities will decree. On the other hand, we will demote and punish any one who, through malicious intent, will not obey our laws and regulations or will not comport himself honorably according to our rules.
"We and many others of our returned soldiers and sailors who have just served and fought in the bloodiest of world battles, and we, with our buddies, who sacrificed themselves on the battlefields, were the instruments in this most atrocious war. The victims of inhuman hellish, cruel warfare, we experienced and endured the ordeals of the greatest sufferings that human flesh and fortitude can stand in battles.
"We fought on the blood-soaked decks and gun-turreted floors of battleships, in the fuselage, cockpit, bellies, and wings of flying fortresses, inside hot, cramped, fire-and-cannon belching tanks, in the putrified trenches and shell and fox holes of battle scarred beaches, on the sides of most inaccessible steep mountain precipices, and on deserts and in jungles where we lay day and night in putrid mud, water, and scum. We faced blinding, blazing sun, terrific heat, torrential rains, and body-freezing snow blizzards. We suffered from frost bites, lack of sleep, hunger, and thirst, surrounded by dirt and bitten by insects, vermin, and reptiles during the agonies of our painful wounds. We constantly heard the anguishing, pleading and moaning of men lying wounded on No Man's Land. Before our very eyes, our buddies and brothers and best friends were shot and torn asunder. Others had their eyes gouged out and hanging over their cheeks. Many of our paratroopers were used as clay pigeons and by mistake shot down by our own soldiers. At any moment we were expecting to meet their fate. Many of our buddies were destroyed like a puff of smoke, whose only remains and memories are the star medals worn by their mothers.