Portland, Oregon, A.D. 1999, and other sketches

by J. W. Hayes

“The lighting of the city is done by one immense electric light suspended in the air at a height of several thousand feet which illumines the city as bright as the brightest day. No deep black shadows are cast as was the case in former days, but a gentle, steady, pervading light is given and a person need not have gas fixtures or electric light fixtures in his home or place of business as the city light illumines exactly as does the sun.

“Heat is furnished by the city through a thorough pipe system and it is compulsory on all citizens to patronize the city’s heat. No fuel in the shape of wood and coal is used and the loss by fire is nominal and for this reason, the premiums on fire insurance policies have been cut down to one-quarter of the former cost. The working out of this idea has materially helped to beautify the city and actually put the street cleaning department out of business.

“There being so very few horses raised the overplus of stock feed is used in the propagation of hogs and cattle and, as a consequence, the meat and milk product has greatly increased and the prices have been very much lessened.

“The disciples of Burbank, the once renowned horticulturist have been getting busy and as a result many new fruits and vegetables have been put on the market, their flavor and excellence outstripping anything known in the early twentieth century.

“We have now one universal, common language. The vocabulary is not very copious, the dictionary containing less than 8,000 words but it is capable of expressing every idea that the human mind may evolve. This innovation has made it easy, particularly for the young scholar and student. Latin and Greek, commonly known as the dead languages are now very dead, as even the churches have given up their usage.

“High above the clouds at Fort Stevens, is erected a tower that pierces the sky to several thousand feet, and far above the cloud line. Here are half a dozen men concontantly on watch with the latest improved telescopes. Their mission is to apprize the garrison below of the approach of an enemy by sea. From their lofty height and through the modern telescope, ships at a distance of 100 miles at sea can be distinctly sighted and the alarm given to the ever-watchful garrison.

“Signals between the watchers in the lighthouse and the officers manning the guns indicate the exact location of the approaching enemy and an attack can be repelled and the greatest Dreadnaught blown out of the water at this long range at the will of the gunners. It is in this way that the entire Pacific Coast is defended, but it is pleasureable to state, that there has been no semblance of war for over 50 years and all the earth is at peace.

“Irrigation in Eastern Oregon and Washington has produced 10 times the amount of wheat formerly raised and wheat is shipped to all parts of the world from the numerous and well equipped elevators on the Willamette river.

“I must now tell you what I consider the greatest of all the world’s inventions and it seems a pity that it has been bottled up so long merely to line the pockets of a few sordid railroad owners.

“The device was invented in 1925 by a young man named Wallace Going and it consisted of an apparatus which may be so applied to a balloon or other object suspended in midair, which, when properly adjusted and at a certain height from the earth, will shake off or cast off the gravitation of the earth allowing it to suspend in space as an independent planet. The idea being one of quick transit, the balloonist after freeing his ship from the earth’s attraction will hang in space till his destination rolls around to him. The earth moves from west to east, so that it will take a little more than 20 hours, at this latitude, to have New York roll around to you, but if you are in New York it would take but four hours to come to Portland, provided they are in exactly the same latitude. Do you understand me? Of course, if you started from Los Angeles, you would touch some point in the southern states and if your destination happened to be New York City, you would have to take the cars to that point. This has become a favorite way to cross the continent. It is quick and absolutely without any danger so very few travel overland by the railroads, that mode of locomotion being used almost entirely for weighty and bulky merchandise.