[17] The first census of the United States was taken in 1790, when 3,929,314 people were counted. In 1880 the population numbered 50,155,738, and in 1890 it is about 68,000,000. In one hundred years it has been multiplied by 16. If the rate of increase should continue to be the same, the United States would have in 1990, without the population of Canada, about 1,040,006,000 of people. I have figured an increase of about twenty percent for each decade, which would give for the year 2000 about 500 millions of inhabitants for the United States and Canada.

“But is it not necessary for those applying for the responsible position of a bookkeeper to have passed through a course of study in order to be qualified for such important duties?” I inquired.

“Bookkeeping is part of the instruction in our schools”, Mr. Forest answered, “and the bookkeeping in the public offices is not well done. So the responsibility, resting on the shoulders of the favorites of the members of the administration, does not harass the minds of these preferred people very much. It is, of course, impossible for an outsider to obtain an insight into the workings of the present administration, and to know how the books are kept. But when the late administration went out of office twelve years ago, an unfathomable pool of corruption was uncovered. An inventory of the goods on hand was taken, and it was stated that the books showed a shortage of more than four hundred and thirty-two million dollars. The members of the ousted administration declared this statement to be entirely false, that it had been “doctored” by the experts of the administration, for the purpose of casting discredit upon the members of the old government. The accused officers admitted that shortages were possible, for the reason, that all the clerks whose duty it was to measure goods, were inclined to give the people good weight and large measure, but that these shortages would not reach the figure of $432,000,000, and that the deficiency could not be considered as a proof of want of honesty on the part of the old officers. On the other hand, the new officers claimed, that the enormous shortages were due to the corruption of the members and prominent supporters of the ousted administration, who had always overdrawn their accounts, and had not been charged with the goods taken out in excess of their credit cards”.

I asked Mr. Forest what he thought of these charges.

“I think, they were to a large extent well founded. The temptation under our wretched system is too great. That the leaders should give to their relatives and next friends good positions would not be blameworthy, if the appointees were fit to fill the places given them. But the best places, numbering in all about twenty millions, are not filled with the best and most able men. They go, so far as they are not given to the relatives and friends of the leaders, to friends of the administration, in order to keep the latter in power. They are given to the sons and relatives and friends of the most active supporters of the government. And even this would be tolerable, if the favoritism stopped there, at the boundary of corruption and tyranny. But it does not”.

“Are you accusing the present administration and all its friends of corruption and tyranny?” I asked, feeling that I should have to end my conversations with Mr. Forest, if he should make disparaging charges, even indirectly, against my host.

“I am speaking of a system and I am mentioning only such facts and deeds as I can prove”, Mr. Forest answered. “I am not accusing men for any pleasure it gives me to do so. I know that your question refers to Dr. Leete and, though it is not a direct one, yet I will meet it squarely. I regard Dr. Leete as one of the best and purest of men among the party-leaders; but he, also, is making use of the advantages that our system offers to the men in power.”

“Will you be kind enough to substantiate what you say?” I asked quietly, but sharply.

“I will leave it to you to say, whether I am going too far in my statement”, Forest continued. “Did not Dr. Leete inform you that he has been “cherishing the idea of building a laboratory in the large garden of his house?”[18] And did he not tell you that he sent for the workmen and that they unearthed the vault in which you slept?”[19]

[18] Page 34.