Strange to say, in 1930, there was no cathedral in Madrid for the air-ships to destroy. For some reason, unknown even to Spaniards, their national capital had never enjoyed this luxury. It is a maxim, old as the hills, that shoemakers are usually the ones who wear the shabbiest shoes; the ill-dressed man in a community is very apt to be the tailor; the most neglected man during sickness is oftentimes the physician, and the man who invariably neglects to make his will is the lawyer. Following in the line of this well-established rule, it ceases to be a surprise that priest-ridden Spain, the first-born of Rome, should find herself without a cathedral within the limits of her national capital. If the cathedral of Madrid escaped the palsied touch of the dynamite air-ships the reason therefor was simple enough. Madrid never possessed one.
Portugal escaped the ravages of the dynamite air-ships, and in 1999 that kingdom Ordered West by Portugal. still proudly guarded the western shores of the Iberian peninsula. In the spring of the year 1898, Portugal endeared herself to every American heart when her government ordered Admiral Cervera and his squadron to sail away from her possessions, the Cape de Verde islands, and “go west.” Cervera had to face the music, and it was with heavy hearts that the mariners on board of the Oquendo, Marie de Teresa, Vizcaya, Colon, and the torpedo destroyers, Pluton and Furore, weighed anchor and, like Columbus, set their faces toward the Western Hemisphere, but, this time, with the certainty that their noble vessels never again would plough their prows in European waters.
The inglorious fate of Spain in 1930 ever after proved a warning to all other nations. In 1999 air-ships navigated the “blue ethereal” in every quarter of the globe. It was a safe, economical and swift method No More Ærial Warships. of transportation, but after the destruction of Spain, in 1930, ærial warships were put out of commission and condemned. In 1999 so stringent were the international laws against their use that the mere possession of an ærial warship by any nation was likely to embroil others in a war of extermination and on suspicion alone a most rigid investigation was instituted.
CHAPTER X.
Europe in 1999.
The Pope Casts his Lot in the New World. Complications in Europe Rendered his Residence in Rome Undesirable. No Refuge in Europe Available for his Holiness. Generous Offer of the Southern States of the American Union. The Papal See transferred to Rio Janeiro in 1945.
The relations of the United States of the Americas with Italy in 1999 were of a character that demand more than a passing notice, going far to illustrate the political eminence that had been attained in that year by the great American Republic.
In the year 1927, the long standing and severe tension that had existed between the Papacy and the Italian government ever since Napoleon III in 1870 withdrew his French garrison from the Holy City, became greatly intensified and had reached an acute stage that proved beyond human endurance.
The strained relations between the Vatican and the Quirinal had reached a critical stage. The fierce struggle between Church and State had attained a point of utmost tension. It became obvious, even in that year, that the break and parting of the ways could not be very distant. In 1927 the Popes of Rome had already been prisoners in the palace of the Vatican for a period of over fifty years. Patience in their case had ceased to be a virtue. Rome had long been a house divided against itself and its rule under two kings could not always endure. The delicate position of the Pope became a most unenviable one. The insolence of the Roman rabble even found its way under the glorious dome of St. Peter, where, on Palm Sunday, in the year 1923 Pope Pius X was insulted by a clique from the Roman slums. That the Holy Pontiff, the spiritual ruler and sovereign of 328,000,000 Catholics, should experience insult in St. Peter’s, his citadel of strength and power, proved a scandal beyond belief.