Time is easily annihilated by mental process. Witness the feat performed by Mahomet, related in a certain chapter of the Mahomet on Rapid Transit. Koran. The faithful are informed in this passage of the Koran that the Prophet was awakened one morning from a deep, refreshing slumber by an angel and was summoned into Paradise to confer with Allah. While in the act of ascending to Heaven, Mahomet’s foot struck and upset a pitcher of water which stood near the couch. The Koran unblushingly proclaims that the Prophet held 999 long conferences with Allah and had safely returned to his couch, ready for another snooze, before the water in the falling pitcher had time to spill on the floor!
There is something very refreshing in this narrative. It shows that Mahomet was well up in rapid transit matters and again it proves the sublime virtue of a man, a son of the desert, a turbaned Washington, who couldn’t tell a lie and who resisted the temptation to make this batch of conferences with Allah an even thousand. Mahomet missed his calling; he ought to have been a newspaper reporter.
Assuming the prerogatives of the Koran, the author, at one stroke of his pen, proposes to annihilate time. Plunged into a profound slumber he had a dream. Great men and little men; the renowned and the ignorant; the philosopher and the Australian bushman; quakers and cannibals; the prince and the peasant, all these and myriads of others, have had their dreams. Love’s dream has been the theme of all ages, the burden of songs untold. The dream of conquest, the dream of ambition and dreams of every human passion and desire have throbbed within the human brain.
But the author’s dream is not swayed by human emotions; it is not the handmaid of America’s Giant Republic, 1999. passion. It is a dream that unseals the book of the future and reveals to the world the colossal, peace-loving, giant republic of the universe in the year of our Lord, 1999,
The United States of the Americas, the mightiest nation ever known in contemporaneous history.
It is related that at a national anniversary celebration dinner, held a few years ago, in the classic regions of Chicago, while the toasts were being dissected, a guest arose and proposed to “Our Country,”—the United States of America, bounded on the north by Canada; on the south by the Gulf of Mexico; on the east by the Atlantic and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Another gentleman arose and protested warmly against the narrow limits as ascribed to our beloved country. “Let us,” he continued, “drink to the prosperity of the United States of America,—bounded on the north by the North Pole; on the south by the Antarctic Region; on the east by the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and on the west by the Day of Judgment.”
At the fin-de-siecle of the twentieth century, in the year of our Lord, 1999, the United States of the Americas were virtually bounded as above related. The comparatively small segment of territory known and officially recognized in 1899 as the United States of America, still retained in 1999 its predominant importance, yet this territory in the twentieth century became only a small fraction of an integral whole. In 1899, compared with its neighbors, the United States of America appeared like a whale by the side of little fishes,—a large loaf compared with which its neighbor-nations in Central and South America resembled little biscuits,—half baked at that.
In 1999 the little fishes were glad to come to the great American whale for protection and become a part of our grand union. Our glorious and ever-victorious banner remained precisely the same in 1999, as it must ever remain for centuries yet unborn, the pride of America and the glory of the world. The stripes on our noble flag were still red and white alternately; the only difference was in the number of the stars on the field of blue; they had increased from forty-five to eighty-five and Old Glory proudly waved in 1999 over one mighty united republic from Baffin’s Bay to the straits of Magellan.
Place in your hand an acorn. Pause as you gaze upon it, consider the mighty giant which slumbers within its bosom. It is only an acorn,—a mere pigmy. Plant it; watch it as it develops into a mighty, towering oak, which, in its majesty of strength seems to bid defiance to the very heavens. Beneath its massive branches and grateful shade the weary traveller may pause to rest his limbs and seek refuge from the heat of day.
Our pilgrim fathers were the “acorns” of the colossal republic known in 1999 as Commenced on a Small Scale. the United States of the Americas. Little did they those pure and sturdy fathers, dream that from their loins would spring the greatest and grandest government descended to men since the promulgation of the Decalogue. From small beginnings, great ends may often be accomplished. The avalanche that rolls and thunders down the mountain side, sweeping before it forests and boulders, begins business in a very small way. A little handful of snow starts the uproar but before its headlong career has terminated, the very mountain itself trembles beneath the mad rush.