In 1492 Spain had a population of 40,000,000 people,—frugal, industrious and prosperous. In the arts and sciences they led the world in those days. In military science and navigation none could equal them. The discovery of America utterly ruined Spain in less than three hundred years. Spaniards thereafter ceased to depend upon their own energy and resources. Intoxicated by the brilliant discoveries of Columbus, the dazzling conquests of Pizarro, Cortes and De Soto, Spain has endeavored since the fifteenth century to enslave the New World and live upon the sweat of others’ brows.
The acquisition of sudden and prodigious wealth in the New World; the steady flow The Dangers of Sudden Wealth. of money brought into Spain by slave labor; the luxury and voluptuous ease of life thus engendered, form important factors in the history of Spain’s decline. After losing all of her vast possessions in the New World, it was left to America in 1898 to give the Spaniards their coup-de-grâce and check their baggage for Madrid.
In 1942 Spain ceased to possess a government of her own. After a devastating war, (une guerre à l’outrance,) Spain ended her official existence and was parcelled out among the European nations. England, with Gibraltar to start with, secured a generous slice of the Spanish booty. In the twentieth century England was still well inclined to make the best possible use of her opportunities, and America was always glad to advance her cause, whenever it was practicable to do so.
The annihilation of Spain came about after the following manner:
In the year 1917 the world rejoiced at the prospect of a permanent solution of the war problem. The new devices invented and perfected by the deviltry of man, to be employed in the destruction of his fellow men, had reached in that year such a degree of perfection that war simply meant the wholesale destruction or total annihilation of those who engaged in it.
In 1917 ærial navigation was practically solved, and a new and vast element had A New Element in War. opened its possibilities to the will of man. At the close of the nineteenth century the “blue etherial” was wholly unobstructed in its vast extent and still defied the skill of our best inventors. Prof. Langley and his disciples had not yet solved the great question of ærial navigation. In 1899 this most inviting and ever tempting field of research still remained an unsolved mystery. The old fashioned balloon, with no will or control of its own, subject to the whim or caprice of every breath of air, was the best apology we could offer in 1899 for purposes of ærial navigation.
In 1917 the problem of ærial navigation had been practically solved by Tesla, in Ærial Navigation Perfected. whose brain many profound secrets of nature had long been harbored. With the aid and potentiality of electricity, (the slave of the twentieth century), ærial navigation had been perfected. One of the first devices invented for use in the air was the ærial warship, operated and controlled by electricity.
Loaded with a quarter ton of dynamite, these deadly warships, without anyone to navigate them could be made to hover over a city and threaten its population with total annihilation. They were popularly called “death angels.” The sight of one of the warships blanched the cheeks of the most intrepid, filling the city or town over which it hovered with utmost consternation.
The human mind recoiled with horror at the thought of war with such fearful engines Simply Wholesale Murder. of destruction. In fact war carried on with ærial dynamite ships was no longer worthy of being called by that dignified name, it was simply a wholesale destruction of lives and property. With strange inconsistency, the world in 1917 appeared to be willing to wage war on the “retail plan.” It was apparently willing to sacrifice human beings in terrible battles fought between powerfully armed vessels, with heavy rifles and rapid firing guns. The world was willing to slaughter life by one method, yet it held in abhorrence these “death angels,” which accomplished a wholesale instead of a retail destruction of life and property. With an inconsistency peculiarly its own, the world in 1917 appeared quite willing that 50,000 men should be destroyed in a single battle by rapid-firing guns, which could mow down a whole regiment at a time, but the proposition to destroy an army of 50,000 men with one of the deadly ærial warships, was everywhere regarded with horror. By this decision the world placed itself in the position of a man who was willing to be killed by the shot of a six-inch rifle, yet strongly objected on the score of humanity to being riddled by the shell of a 14-inch rifle.
War at best is but a relic of barbarism, and, be it waged with ærial warships, or submarine torpedoes, with Mauser rifles or smooth bore guns, it accomplishes the same end; nations are plunged into ruin; the family circle is broken; widows and orphans are left disconsolate.