For Us, The Living

IV

Diana awoke the next morning with a feeling that it was going to be a nice day. She stretched and yawned contentedly. As she sat up her eyes fell on Perry, tousle-headed and still sleeping. She sat still and then a smile stole over her face. Of course, that was it. She was no longer obsessed by the doubts and forebodings of the previous night. It seemed right and proper and very much fun to be helping a lost boy to find himself. Humming quietly she entered her refreshing room and prepared for the day. Perhaps she took a little longer with her hair-do than usual. In any case it was several minutes and a few more before she emerged pink and glowing into the living room. She glanced at Perry, and assured herself that he still slept, then quietly commenced preparations for breakfast. She was interrupted shortly by a voice behind her.

"Good morning."

"Oh, you startled me. Good morning, Perry. Did you have a good night's sleep?"

"Yes, but say—you look gorgeous!"

Diana blushed and dropped her eyes. "Don't try to flatter me."

"But you do."

"Is it the custom of your time to make such direct personal compliments?"

"Why, yes. Isn't it nowadays?"

"Well—, yes, if you wish and it's deserved."

"I think you are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"But—Oh, bother. Hurry up and refresh yourself. Breakfast will be ready before you are."

Perry laughed, and ducked into the guest's refreshment chamber. Diana went determinedly ahead with her work. She mistakenly put a quantity of flour instead of tea in the steeper, turned boiling water over it, then stamped her foot and said 'bother' again, before washing out the pasty mess. Perry stuck his head into the room.

"Dian'!"

"Yes, Perry?"

"Is there some way I can shave around here? My face is a sight."

"There is a capillotomer in my 'fresher. You can plug it in yours."

"What's a catillopomer?"

"Not a catillopomer, a capillotomer, a hair cutter."

"Will it shave?"

"Smooth as a baby. Here, I'll get it for you." She fetched it and showed him how to use it.

"Why, it's the old dryshaver, streamlined and with a college education."

"It's old fashioned all right, but I don't care much for depilatories. Quit playing with it and shave. I'm about to serve."

"In a jiffy."

"All right, as long a jiffy isn't over five minutes."

Breakfast was a dream of Hedonism. Clear winter sunshine crowned the snow on the far mountains. A light breeze made lacy patterns of the falls. Inside the glass screen two hungry healthy young people looked at each other over cups of steaming black tea and found the other in every way pleasant to look upon. In the background an orchestra in Honolulu played softly and substituted for conversation. Presently the toast was gone and with it the poached eggs and fruit cup.

Diana got up and put out her cigarette. "Your education begins today, my lad. Are you ready?"

"I've polished an apple for teacher."

"That sounds nice. Now for works. Let's pick out a few books. Here—yes, and this will do. And I mustn't forget the Customs. I wonder where I put it. Oh, here it is. And you might be interested in this—it's mostly engineering. Now let's see if the records have arrived." She stepped over and opened the receptacle. "Yes. Let's see what Santa Claus brought: 'Historical Panorama of the United States, sections 11-20, XXth Century, sections 21-28, XXIst Century', plus supplements to date and a continuous narrative summary. Integrated world history in four sections. You won't need the first two sections but you might run them anyway. 'Illustrative Customs for Children, infancy to puberty', in six sections. Same for adolescents, and the integrating series for full citizenship. 'Taboo: a History of Social Conventions'. That will keep you busy for quite a while and you can pick out anything you are interested in from the general catalog. There is a list of special catalogs in the front of the big catalog. If you want to go after any particular subject, you can get its catalog. By the way did I show you how to stop the reproducer and make it repeat a portion?"

"No, I don't think you did."

"I'll show you. It's useful in study, especially for a slow poke like me. You'll find that this particular historical series makes several references to this book of United States history. You can stop the machine if you like and read the reference and then pick up where you left off. I'm glad they sent this series. They were directed by the same master who wrote the book."

"Where had I better start?"

"I would forget the books for a while and charge right through the historical recordings. Then I would view all the customs records. Then tomorrow you can start to run them piecemeal with the books, if you like. But be sure to read the Code of Customs all the way through. Lots of the customs aren't illustrated in these records."

"OK, where's that first record? See if I put it on properly. All right—let 'er roll." The cool calm voice of the announcer stated the title of the record and the period covered, then 'Washington, 1900'. Perry, staring into the stereoscopic picture, found himself floating over Pennsylvania Avenue facing west. It was winter and cold and grey. He moved along over a fairly dense traffic of carriages and hansoms, clop-clopping over muddy pavement and splashing through slush in car tracks. A street car clanged its bell and started. He floated over the tops of the vehicles and found himself approaching the White House. He entered the front door, proceeded to the West Wing and found President McKinley at his desk. Seated at ease near the President, but with his great frame exuding energy even in repose was the one and only Teddy, Teddy Roosevelt, the people's darling. "I tell you, Mr. President, the only way to handle it is to speak softly but to carry a big stick." The scene faded and others appeared with the voice of the commentator frequently in the background. Sometimes the voice carried the story and was merely illustrated by the living shadows. Again the picture presented the story and dialogue provided sufficient explanation, but constantly the scene shifted. At Kitty Hawk the Wright brothers lifted their 'crazy contraption' off the ground. The Panama Canal was dug and yellow fever conquered. 'Too proud to fight.' The Lusitania. War in the air. High Cost of Living. Automobiles poured over the continent. Chain stores melted into Tea Pot Dome and a market crash. 'My friends—' came out of a radio by a fireside and Boulder Dam climbed high. Then Perry leaned forward in tense anticipation as 1939 passed by. He kept very quiet for the better part of two hours except at first for a few ejaculations of surprise. After that, surprise left him. He stopped once to ask Diana for some cigarettes and again to get a drink of water. This time he discovered that Diana had gone out. A long time later he felt a touch on his shoulder.

"Don't you think that is about enough at one dose?"

"Oh!—Sorry, you surprised me. You're probably right, but it gets to be a vice." He snapped off the power. "It's as hard to put down as a detective story."

"What's a detective story?"

"A story about the solution of a crime. These were all the rage in 1939. Half the stories published were murder mysteries."

"Good Lord! Was murder that common?"

"No, but the stories were primarily puzzles—like a chess game."

"Oh—. But look, Perry, I called you to see if you would like a swim before lunch. Do you swim?"

"Sure, but where do we swim? Isn't it too cold?"

"No. You'll see. Come along." A door in the end of the room opposite the canyon opened directly outdoors, but instead of a January winter in the High Sierras, it was summer, summer in a tropical garden. The sun shone brightly on masses of flowers and on a patch of green lawn which bordered a little rock pool with clear water over white sand. The pool was just long enough for four or five strokes. Beyond the garden Perry saw winter and snow-capped peaks. Yet the garden and pool were apparently unprotected in any way from the rigors of the mountain climate.

Perry turned back to Diana. "Listen, Dian', I've believed everything else, but this is a dream. Put me out of my misery. How, how is it done?"

Diana smiled in delight. "It is nice, isn't it? I'll show you how it's done. Walk along the path by the pool. When you get close to the edge of the garden put out your hands."

Perry did as directed. As he reached the edge he stopped suddenly and gave a grunt of surprise. Then he cautiously ran his hand up and down what appeared from his actions to be a wall of thin air.

"Why, it's glass!"

"Yes, of course."

"It must have an amazingly low refractive index."

"I suppose so."

"Look, Dian', I can't see the stuff. Tell me where it is, so I won't bump into it."

"You won't. The garden is laid out to keep you a half meter or so from it and it's quite high enough overhead. The base of it runs all around here"—she indicated most of a semicircle—"From there it arches up to the house. If you look closely you can see the joint of the seal, and there it runs down the rock wall and back to the ground again. It is shaped like a giant bubble."

Perry mused. "Hm—I see. And that's why it doesn't need supports. But how did it get there in the first place?"

"It was blown in place, just like a bubble. It is a bubble. Look, did children blow bubbles when you were young?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever wet a dish or a box or a table top and blow a bubble on it and make it follow a shape you wanted?"

"Yes, yes, I begin to see."

"Well, first they painted the wall and a sheeting on the ground with sticky stuff—bubble mixture, right up to where the bubble is to stop. Then they put their bubble pipe gadget in the middle and commenced to blow. When the bubble just reached the proper size, they stopped."

"It sounds easy the way you tell it."

"It's not very. I watched them do this one and they broke four bubbles before one held up. Then it takes several hours to dry tough, and any little touch can ruin it until it does."

"I don't see yet how you can get glass to behave so."

"It isn't glass—not silicate glass anyhow, but a synthetic plastic glass. One of the technicians said it had molecules like very long chains."

"That's reasonable."

"I wouldn't know, but it's a sticky stuff when they decant it, like a white molasses, but it dries very hard and stiff like glass only it's tough, instead of brittle. It won't shatter and it's very hard to cut or tear."

"Well, it's a grand notion in any case. You know we had patios and outdoor living rooms and pools in gardens in my day, but it was generally too hot or too cold or too windy to enjoy them. And there were always insects; flies, or mosquitoes, or both. In my aunt's patio it was honey bees. It's very disconcerting when you're trying to sunbathe to have bees crawling over you and buzzing around your head."

"Are you sensitive to bee stings, Perry?"

"No. I can handle bees. They don't sting me, but they used to drive my aunt nearly frantic. The poor woman never did get any real pleasure out of her garden. They would sting her and she would swell up like a poisoned pup, and get sick to her stomach. Sad really, she did love her garden so and got so little fun out of it."

"Then why did she keep bees?"

"She didn't. One of her neighbors did."

"But that's not custom—Nevermind. I asked you about bee stings because bees don't sting anymore."

Perry clapped his hand to his brow and gave a look of mock agony. "Enough, woman enough! Tell me no more! No. Stop. One more thing. Answer me this question and I die happy. Do watermelons have seeds?"

"Did they used to have?"

Perry stepped to the edge of the pool, assumed a declamatory pose and orated: "Farewell, sad world. Papa goes to his reward! Sic semper seeds," nipped his nose between thumb and forefinger, shut his eyes tight and jumped feet first into the pool. He came up blowing to find Diana wiping water out of her eyes and laughing hysterically.

"Perry! You're a clown! Stop it!"

He didn't answer but asked solemnly, "Tell me, bird of mournful numbers, do blackberries still have seeds?"

Diana controlled her giggles. "Blackberries have seeds, you idiot."

"That's all I wanted to know." Perry's head disappeared and he gave a creditable imitation of a drowning man, accompanied by glugging sounds. Diana dived in, joined him on the bottom, and tickled him vigorously. Both heads reappeared. Perry coughed and blew.

"Wench, you made me strangle."

"Sorry." But she giggled again.

Some minutes later Perry lay on his side drying off and watching Diana, who was still in the pool. She floated with just her face and the curve of her breast appearing above the water. Her hair formed a halo about her head. The warm sun soaked into their bones and rendered them sluggish and contented. Perry chucked a pebble into the pool. It hit the water with a little chunking sound and splashed a drop on Diana's face. She turned on her side, took two effortless strokes to the side of the pool, and rested her hands on the edge.

Diana cut in. "Are you hungry, fella?"

"Now that you mention it, there does seem to be something missing."

"Then let's eat. No, don't get up. We'll eat out here. It's all ready."

She returned laden with a tray as big as she was. "Perry, you move over into the shade. You haven't the tan I have and I don't want you blistered."

Three-quarters of an hour later, Diana stirred out of a digestive calm. "Before you get back to your studies, I want to have you measured for some clothes."

Perry looked surprised. "Clothes—why, I had gathered the impression that they weren't necessary."

Diana looked puzzled. "You can't stay in the house forever, Perry. It's cold outside. I've planned a little picnic for tomorrow, but we'll have to get you some warm clothes first. And while we're about it, you might as well order some other things that you will need."

"Lead on, McDuff."

Diana selected a combination on the televue. A Semitic gentleman appeared on screen. He rubbed his hands together and smiled. "Ah, Madame, can I do you a service?"

"Thank you; my friend needs some costumes. A heavy and medium snow suit, first, and then some other things."

"Ah, that is fine. We have some new models, very dashing and sooooo practical too. And now will you have him take position?"

Diana nudged Perry into a spot near the televue, then turned the screen so that it faced him. The Semitic gentleman seemed ecstatic. "Ah, yes. A beautiful figure. It is a pleasure to make clothes for a man who can wear them. Wait. Let me think. I have it! I shall create a new model for him. With that proportion of the shoulders and that length of leg—"

Diana cut in. "Not today, thank you. Another time perhaps."

"But Madame, I am an artist, not a businessman."

Diana's lips barely moved. "Don't let him fool you, Perry. He's one part artist and three parts businessman." Then to the televue. "No, we need these clothes today. Please use a stock pattern."

"Service, Madame." He wheeled up a camera-like device somewhat larger than the one used to take Perry's palm print. "Is your friend exactly four meters from the screen?"

"Exactly." He fiddled with the camera.

"Is your screen corrected for angular aberration?"

"Yes." He made an adjustment.

"Now—front view. Very well, right side. Back view, please. Left side. Will you bend over, please? Extend both arms. That's fine. Now raise your knees in succession. That's all." The camera disappeared. "Will you examine materials?"

"No, make them all wool with cellutate lining. How about colors, Perry? Would dark blue suit you?"

"Fine."

"With white piping, perhaps?" The vendor's anxious voice joined them.

"Very well."

Diana also okayed the purchase of a pocket belt with a detachable kilt for travel and general public wear, some sport sandals, and a pair of light slippers for city wear. She firmly vetoed any discussion of ornaments, jewelry, knickknacks, and accessories, and refused to be drawn into considering any feminine frills for herself. The 'artist' finally gave up and the screen went blank. Perry returned to his studies. Record followed record and the afternoon wore away unbeknownst to Perry. Once, Diana came in and changed the position of the screen and propped Perry up on pillows. Later she brought him a cup of tea and a sandwich. Perry hardly noticed the interruptions. He was held by the endless, ultimate drama. Late in the afternoon the last supplement whirred to a stop. Perry got up and stretched cramped limbs. Diana was not in sight. He looked around, sighed, sat down and lit a cigarette. Presently Diana appeared in the garden door. "How far did you get, Perry?"

"I've been through them once right up to date."

"How about it?"

"Well, I feel for the first time as if I actually were in 2086. It's a lot to swallow at one dose though."

"I've invited an old friend of mine here this evening, Perry. He can help you a lot. He's a Master of History who used to be one of my teachers."

"Say, that's fine. When does he get here?"

"He should be here for dinner. He has to fly over from Berkeley."

Less than an hour later the visitor appeared. He was a thick set man, with broad powerful shoulders. His cranium was large, his eyes deep, his face homely and rugged. He gathered Diana in a bear hug that lifted her off her feet, kissed her on both cheeks, sat her down and started to peel off his flying kit. Perry judged him a well preserved fifty-five or sixty, and noted with interest that he appeared to shave his entire body with the exception of his bushy grey eyebrows. Diana introduced them.

"May I do you a service, my boy." It was more a statement than a question. "Diana has told me something of your case. We should have lots to talk about." His name, it appeared, was Master Cathcart.

Diana insisted on refraining from historical discussion until after dinner. Once it was over however, and Master Cathcart had persuaded a big bowled pipe to burn, he came right to business. "I am to assume, I take it, that you are for all practical purposes an inhabitant of 1939 A.D., well educated in your period, transported by some witchcraft to this period. Very well. You have been studying some records today? Which ones?" Perry ran through the list. "Good enough. Now suppose you summarize briefly what you have learned today and I will explain and amplify and answer questions as best I can."

"Well," replied Perry, "that's a large order but I'll give it a try. At the time of my accident, July 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term. Congress had adjourned after wrecking most of the President's program. The war in Spain had been won by the fascists. Japan was fighting China and was apparently about to fight Russia. Unemployment and an unbalanced budget were still the main troubles in the United States. 1940 was a presidential year. President Roosevelt was forced to run for a third term through lack of an electable successor to carry on his policies. His nomination by the Democratic convention resulted in the defection of the conservative wing of the party to Republican Party. In the meantime the National Progressives had organized on a nationwide scale and put young Bob LaFollette in the field. The Republicans nominated Senator Vandenburgh. Vandenburgh was elected but polled considerably less than half of the popular vote and failed to get a majorityin either house. His administration was doomed from the start. Very little was done for four years except for a half-hearted attempt to balance the budget by eliminating relief, but riots and hunger marches soon scared Congress into providing more and more for the dole. In the spring of 1944 the death in a plane crash of Mr. Roosevelt demoralized the remnants of the Democratic Party and most of them joined the Republicans or the Progressives. The Democrats adjourned their convention without naming a candidate. The Progressives named LaGuardia, the fiery little Mayor of New York, while the Republicans after many ballots picked Senator Malone. President Vandenburgh was as thoroughly discredited by circumstances he did not understand and could not control as President Hoover before him. Senator Malone was a mid-western politician, a typical demagogue of my period, if I'm any judge. The recordings show him red-faced and raucous, a man of the people. Malone ran on a platform of blaming everything on Europe and the radicals. He demanded instant payment of the war debts, which were pretty silly since the second European war was already on. He called for the outlawing of the Communist Party, protection of the American home, and a return to rationalism in education which he defined as readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic and a particularly offensive jingoistic patriotism. He advocated deportation of all aliens, laws to prevent women from holding men's jobs, and protection of the morals of the young. He promised to restore prosperity and promised everyone the 'American' standard of living. And he won, by a narrow vote in the electoral college . LaGuardia said afterwards that since Malone had promised them the moon, all he could offer was the moon with whipped cream, which didn't seem practical to LaGuardia.

"Once in office Malone ran things with a high hand. Congress was willing in the first session to pass almost any law he desired. One of the most important was the Public Safety bill which was in effect a gag for the press and other means of public information. Inasmuch as it was first used to suppress news of labor troubles which resulted from the discontinuance of the dole, the capital controlled press submitted to it without really knowing what they were in for. Then a law was passed which greatly increased the scope of the G-men or Federal enforcement agents and making them directly responsible to the chief executive. Malone staffed these expanded and greatly changed corps from his home state political machine. In the meantime, in spite of his controlled press, the people were getting restless. Even those who were still economically fairly comfortable had had swarms of the hungry, dispossessed, and unemployed turned loose on them. Malone was apparently afraid to chance another election, even a mid-term. Perhaps he never intended to. In any case he declared a state of emergency, using the mobs of unemployed as an excuse, and took over the internal civil government as an absolute dictator. He used the army and navy to quell any local difficulties. With his new secret service and control over the means of communication and propaganda this was feasible. By the way, the record states that he was able to use the army and navy to destroy the democratic form of government. I find that hard to believe, Master Cathcart. You see I was in the navy myself and I don't believe that the American Services were fascist minded. How do you account for it?"

"I'm glad you brought up that point, Perry. It seems likely that Malone had planned this from the very first. At least he anticipated having to use the military against the people. His technique was simple and almost foolproof. His information service inquired into the political sympathies and economic status of every officer in the fleet and in the army. Whenever an officer was definitely determined to be liberal and democratic, he was not removed or even framed in a court martial. Malone was subtle. Each such officer was transferred as soon as located to a non-combatant assignment; recruiting officer, Reserve Officer's Training Corps instructor, inspector of supplies, War College, Naval and Military Academies, and so forth. Whenever an officer was determined to be definitely militaristic, jingoistic, a potential sadist, he was placed in a key position over forces actually ready to exert armed force. To a lesser extent the enlisted men were weeded out. When he was ready to strike he had behind him a military machine he could bend to his purpose."

"But how about the National Guard?"

"Oh, that was more difficult at first glance. But the federal government owned and controlled the arms used by the Guard. Under the guise of replacement practically all of the ammunition in the hands of the guards was called in during the week before his coup. Of course had it been realized that all the ammunition in all units of the Guard was being called in at once, it would have caused trouble, but control of the nation's communication services plus the fact that each separate order was classed as a confidential military order enabled him to get away with it."

"That clears up my difficulty," said Perry, "I thought there was something fishy about it. If I remember, this dictatorship or inter-regnum, as the record referred to it, lasted only about three years. Malone was assassinated by one of his own henchmen in 1950. The commentator seemed to think that the regime was essentially unstable and would have broken down anyway very shortly. In any case Malone's assassination was the signal for an uprising all over the country. Inside of three weeks Malone's bullies had been killed or driven into hiding. The man who had been governor of Michigan at the beginning of the inter-regnum called all of the governors together. They selected one of the number as President Pro Tem and set a date for a general election. LaGuardia was elected. He served two terms."

"Very clear," put in Cathcart, "now let's talk about the rest of the world for a while. It was during Vandenburgh's administration that the second European war ran its course. With the collapse of the loyalists in Spain, the fascist states were ready to take on the democracies. France was torn with internal dissension and strikes. The Conservative Party was in power in England and apparently committed to a do-nothing policy. The Fascist powers struck, but the first world war was repeated. The democracies failed to fold up although they lost battle after battle. The end came, not through the intervention of the United States—Vandenburgh had no stomach for that—but through the economic collapse of Germany. She had entered this war in a physical condition much poorer than that of 1914 and she couldn't stand a long war."

"What happened to the dictators?"

"Adolf Hitler committed suicide by shooting himself in the roof of the mouth. Mussolini got out much more gracefully. He submitted his resignation to the king he had kept around during his entire tenure and the king appointed a new prime minister, a social democrat. But to my mind the most interesting thing about the peace was the peculiar terms of the peace treaty."

"Some sort of a league of nations, all over again wasn't it?"

"Yes, and no. A very brilliant young Frenchman, a descendant of LaFayette, argued that a continental government or federation was necessary if a lasting peace was to come, and argued further that a constitutional monarchy was the most stable form under which free men could live. And so the United Europe was created. But the romantic part is the man who was chosen to head this polyglot creation. The Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns were out for obvious reasons of bad blood and bad records. The English king was suggested but he aroused no enthusiasm, being rather negative in character and further handicapped by his shyness and speech impediments. None of the pretenders in exile had any real following. But one prince was available, who had long before captured the world's imagination. Edward, Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the British throne in 1936 rather than accept the complete domination of his prime minister, became the choice."

"Well, I'll be damned!" muttered Perry. "I don't believe that was in the record."

"You only saw the summary records," explained Diana.

"Edward had returned home at the start of the war and demanded to be assigned to military duty. He displayed surprising talent, particularly as a creator of morale. It was largely due to him that the repeated losses of battles did not result in capitulation to the fascist governments. When his name was proposed, he was nominated by acclamation. He was reluctant to accept but finally agreed to do so provided his wife was given equal formal rank with him. This was agreed to over the protests of the British delegation and they were crowned in a ceremony that marked the end of the Bordeaux conference on 1944 June 12. He assumed the title of Edward, King of States and Emperor of Europe. Wallis was of course Queen and Empress. They say that the English queen never got over it."

"Swell!" Perry chortled.

"Edward made an able ruler. He had helped to draw the constitution of the new super-state and had insisted on several things, free trade among the sister states, a common currency, a joint army and navy, and a small one at that. All international disputes to be settled by the Imperial Tribune. The system worked well enough for a quarter of a century, in spite of creakings and adjustments."

"What put an end to it?"

"His death. He died in 1970, and left no heirs. Even while the Tribune was declaring Wallis regent, pending the selection of a successor, a company of local guards crossed a bridge in eastern Europe and seized a little town of less than a thousand inhabitants. There was some vague historical claim based on a battle nearly five hundred years before. They were resisted by the local constabulary who were joined by the veterans' organizations. In two days that whole border was in a state of guerrilla warfare and within a fortnight there was fighting all over the continent. It was hastened at least by Great Britain's refusal to recognize the regency of Wallis in spite of the Tribune's authority, and calling home her ships and troops."

"And that was the start of the Forty Years War?"

"Approximately. Some of the States stayed out at first and various ones dropped out from time to time. But for all practical purposes Europe was at war for the next forty years."

"How did it end?"

"It didn't end, not formally. It burnt out like a fire that has consumed all of its fuel. In 1970 Europe contained over four hundred million people, exclusive of the Soviet Union, Sweden, and Norway, none of which were heavily involved in the war. The Soviet Union of course had not been a part of United Europe anyhow. In 2010 which marks the approximate end of the war Europe is believed to have had a population of less than twenty-five million."

Diana blanched. Perry spoke up. "Do you mean to say that over a third of a billion people were killed in thirty years?"

"Not all by shot or poison. More people starved than were killed in battle. It was the breakdown of the economic organization that killed the masses rather than deadly weapons. People hardly ever realize the completeness of our economic interdependence. Communications were destroyed by the fighting. Distribution was upset. The credit system expanded and then collapsed, leaving people to depend on barter. Barter was about as adequate to take care of the involved economic structure as oars would have been for one of their battleships. Governments resorted to the exercise of angary and expropriation to provide for troops, but it amounted to foraging and the people regarded it as such. This dog-eat-dog system ran its natural course. The farmers hoarded and the city dwellers starved. From time to time the city dweller killed the farmer and took what he had. When that was gone the city dweller died for he had never learned the arts of husbandry. And the armies ran over them all. Of course this breakdown didn't occur all at once. For the first few years the industrial civilization ran faster than ever, but in the high fever of war, living on its own substance. But when enough crops had been destroyed, or not planted, enough granaries emptied, enough water works bombed that the pangs of hunger became general, then dissolution set in. A modern city is an almost incredibly helpless and delicate organism. It has lost its power to produce the actual essentials of life. In spite of its transportation systems, it cannot move as they found out in the evacuation of London. It is like an overgrown idiot baby in an incubator. It is completely helpless without the aid of the many servants that succor it. It cannot even think except in a slow ponderous collective fashion and it cannot think at all in an emergency. Its individuals can think, but a city is an organism in itself and must have a directing brain and nervous system. Destroy its waterworks. It dies. Stop its food supply. It dies. Remove its directing intelligence, it commits suicide. The cities went to pieces first.

"And the birth rate fell to lowest ebb in history. Part of this was due to contagious abortion, one of the many epidemics that swept the continent. Some of the sociologists find evidence that a large number of women refused to bear children. And lots of the men were sterilized, even when they weren't killed, by exposure to the rays that a beneficent science had handed to the field marshals. And so Europe died."

"How in the world did we stay out of it?"

"Partly luck, but mostly the genius and strength of character of one man. Franklin Roosevelt had proposed and partially developed laws that were intended to keep the United States out of war. These were strengthened by LaGuardia until the President had the power to completely withdraw the United States from a danger zone. In 1970 the United States had enjoyed many years of useful economic relations with Europe. But at the time of the death of Edward, there was in the chair at Washington, President John Winthrop, elected by the Conservative Party and a man who might have been expected to repeat the mistakes of 1914. But at the first outbreak of trouble he suspended all shipping. When it became evident that a general war was likely he used the naval and air forces to evacuate our nationals and promulgated the Non-Intercourse Proclamation. Our diplomatic and fiscal agents were all withdrawn. Our commerce with Europe stopped in every respect. With minor exceptions, for twenty years no American citizen made a legal visit to Europe. Naturally it produced terrific economic dislocations in the United States. But he stood firm. At the time of the proclamation Congress was not in session and no regular was scheduled for five months. He refused to call Congress and his legal authority to do what he did was upheld by the Supreme Court. It seems likely that he would have defied the court if necessary. He was hanged in effigy, but by the time Congress met his action appeared justified to many. He was impeached but acquitted in his trial by a narrow vote, and the United States was saved in spite of itself. However before we talk too much about Winthrop we should go back a little in United States history."

"Just a second before we leave Europe entirely. What happened after the war?"

"We don't know, Perry. Not in any great detail. The Non-Intercourse rule has never been fully lifted and we have never resumed commercial or diplomatic relations. The population is increasing slowly. It is largely agrarian and the economy is mostly of the village and countryside character. Most of the population is illiterate and technical skill is almost lost. Our knowledge is incomplete although we maintain missions in several places for ethnological and sociological study. But now can you tell me what happened after the assassination of Malone?"

"Well, LaGuardia took office in 1951 and served two terms. The chap that directed the recording seemed to think that his biggest achievement was a change in the banking system. He called it the Battle of the Banks."

"Yes, and it is important for it was a change that made possible our present economic system."

"Wait a second, please. What is the present economic system? Diana says it isn't socialism. Is it capitalism?"

"You can call it that if you like. I would suggest that you think of it as privately owned industrialism for the time being. LaGuardia destroyed capitalism as you knew it. He started out to found a publicly owned bank, the Bank of the United States."

"Wasn't the Federal Reserve Bank still in existence?"

"Yes, but the Federal Reserve was not, despite its title, a publicly owned bank. Nor was it a bank in the common use of the term. A private citizen couldn't borrow money from it nor place money in it. Only bankers could use it and they owned it. LaGuardia wanted to set up a real bank that would be owned by and used by the people. But the bankers fought him in every way. They controlled most of the newspapers, owned a good piece of the wealth in the country, and held mortgages of one sort or another on the rest. Their position was very strong in machine politics, too. So they set out to defeat him. And that got him angry. It appears from what we can find out that it was never safe to get the 'Little Flower' angry. He jammed his banking bill through by a combination of personality and intimidation and announced to the whole country that he was ready to lend money to all and sundry who might be refused credit at the private banks. You see the banks had created a panic and a wave of fear by calling loans and refusing to loan more money. LaGuardia restored confidence even before he was able to set up the machinery for handling a banking business. And by now LaGuardia was not willing to let things drop just by setting up his new bank. He had intended it primarily as a fiscal agent of the government to aid in the manifold financial dealings of the government with the citizens, started by Franklin Roosevelt. LaGuardia became determined to break the private bankers. He called in several students of finance and studied the theory of credit himself. He became convinced that ordinary commercial financing could be done for a service charge plus an insurance fee amounting to much less than the current rates of interest charged by banks, whose rates were based on supply and demand, treating money as a commodity rather than as a sovereign state's means of exchange. He proceeded to lend money on this theory. His cost accountants figured pretty accurately the service charge necessary and estimates were made to cover insurance. As the system developed the insurance feature was simply the pro-rate of the losses of the preceding fiscal period. The types of loans the government would make and the quality of paper it would discount kept the losses low and within a year the federal government would loan money to its citizens at an average interest of three-quarters of one per cent per annum.

"Then he dealt his final blow. His new banking law permitted the government to regulate the percentage of fractional reserves that private banks were required to keep on hand to meet withdrawals by depositors. As you may know if you have studied the banking laws of your period, the so-called fractional reserve was a dodge whereby a banker could loan money he didn't have and never had. It actually permitted him to create new money, based not on gold, nor on his own credit, but on the credit of his customers. LaGuardia proceeded to regulate with a vengeance. He ordered fractional reserves increased in a program that called for one hundred per cent reserves at the end of three years. The disgruntled bankers made a test case and took it to the Supreme Court. The Solicitor-General argued that the law and the order made under its authority were not only constitutional but that fractional reserves as hitherto used were clearly in violation of the constitutional provision giving Congress the sole right to coin money and regulate the value thereof. The Court upheld the administration on all counts in a famous decision written by Mr. Justice Frankfurter, and the manipulation of the money power was destroyed in the United States."

"Then private banks were destroyed?"

"Not entirely. They remained a useful institution for some people as depositories for they soon offered services to their customers that the Bank of the United States did not give. If you like to have your deposits received by messenger at your home or want to cash a check in the middle of the night, the private bankers will gladly oblige. And there was still plenty of room for speculative credit pools for people who wished to risk their capital in expectation of high return. The banks continue to lend money at high rates where the risk is great and not easily figured, but they have to lend real money now, not stuff that they draw out of the ink well. The fractional reserves decision put an end to that. You will find what an important part the speculative bankers played in the penetration of South America. They still play an important role. They supply an element of private initiative and enterprise in industry that government cannot hope to provide."

"What about the South American penetration? The records were rather vague or perhaps I had gotten out of my depth."

"Some historians call it rape rather than penetration. Up until 1970 the United States had been steadily losing ground in South America. During the reign of Edward Europe grew steadily more industrialized and found her greatest market in South America. The Asiatic market had been worthless since the 1930's and South America with its raw materials was in a position to reciprocate. On the other hand the United States was an agricultural export nation, and this annoyed several South American states, especially Argentina. But the Forty Years War changed all this. The United States had undergone an economic improvement as a result of the Banking Act which had decreased the spread between production and consumption by lowering the percentage of the cost charges, in a commercial article, unavailable for purchasing power."

"I don't follow you."

"I suggest that you note it down and wait until you study the current economic system. You were probably educated in the conventional economic theories of your period which were magnificent and most ingenious, but—if you will pardon me saying so—all wrong. But to return to our muttons; the improved economic condition produced the usual political reaction and a conservative administration was elected after LaGuardia. There still remained however considerable spread between production and consumption. It had always been the conventional point of view, especially in the economic beliefs of the Conservative Party, that a prosperous nation required a favorable trade balance or gold balance as it was formerly called. In simple language that means that a country is best off when it exports more than it imports. Phrased in that way it sounds silly, for it is surely evident that a country that ships out more than it takes in gets poorer every year in terms of real wealth. Nevertheless there was an element of truth in it, a very practical truth at that time. The economic life was organized in such a comical fashion that each year the country produced goods of greater value than the people of the country were able to buy back and use up. This was known as over-production and many were the esoteric nonsensical things said about it. But the situation was that simple. The system of necessity produced more than it consumed. Of necessity. You can go into the mathematics of it later. Being an engineer you are bound to see the truth of it, and will probably be vastly amused by it."

"Do you mean to say that that was all there was wrong with business in the United States in my day?"

"That was all. And all of your labor troubles, and poverty, and physical suffering were as unnecessary as they were tragic."

"That seems preposterous. If it was as simple as that it could have been fixed. I could work out some scheme to fix it myself, half a dozen schemes. Why in the navy we wouldn't have put up with any such damn nonsense. Why didn't somebody see it?"

"Some people did, C.H. Douglas, Goulds Gainesborough, Bronson Cutting and a few others, but it was almost as difficult to convince people of the fact as it had been to convince an earlier generation that the world was round. In each case the fact was true and the fact was simple but the sturdy common sense of the man who had been brought up to believe in a flat earth or a 'favorable trade balance', rejected the truth. The socialists understood this truth of course, but they insisted that there was only one solution. There were many good solutions for so simple a problem. We believe nowadays that we have a solution more suited to the United States than socialism. But come, we are getting a long way off from South America.

"From 1970 to the turn of the century a partial solution was found. Our excess wealth was poured into our sister continent and it was developed as a new frontier. Gold mined from the Chilean Andes helped for a while to preserve the fiction of a favorable trade balance. After that and in addition to it, almost any sort of wildcat financing was acceptable that would keep up the flow of goods to the south. The private bankers turned to this rich field of exploitation and convinced the public that the new El Dorado lay under the Southern Cross. The whole shaky business piled up until practically the entire continent was mortgaged to the skies in return for goods that we couldn't use ourselves and would have poisoned us if we had kept them. But the Latin temperament had a simple solution. I sometimes wonder whether it was planned or was the inevitable result of the circumstances. But when the due day came each government folded up and a new government calmly repudiated the commitments of its predecessor.

"The first incident of the A.-B.-C. War occurred in 2002 April. The Argentine government had refused to recognize its debts to us both public and private, and several stiff notes had been exchanged. Our South American squadron was ordered to Buenos Aires. Chile and Brazil each informed the United States that any display of force in Argentina would be regarded as an unfriendly act.

"Nevertheless the squadron was not recalled. It steamed into the harbor and had no more than anchored, two old aircraft carriers and an odd dozen of minor craft, when it was attacked from the air and sunk to the last man, before a plane could rise. We don't know yet who did it, but we do know that both the Chilean and Brazilian navies and air fleets had made a rendezvous some two hundred kilometers off Buenos Aires."

"How did the war work out? I found the record account a bit sketchy for my professional taste."

"Why, Perry, you aren't really interested in killing, are you?" Diana was perturbed and incredulous.

He patted her hand. "No Dian', not at all. But the matters of the strategy and the tactics involved and the weapons used are of intellectual interest to me, just as you might be interested in the ceremonial dances that accompanied the Aztecs' Blood sacrifices.

The wrinkles smoothed out from her brow. "Yes, I suppose so. But it does seem barbaric."

"I imagine the weapons would have been largely familiar to you, Perry. The United States had not been at war for many years and it is a matter of history that few weapons are developed in peacetime. The military mind clings tenaciously to its accustomed ways—if you will pardon me. The strategic principle of exterior lines determined the war. Neither side was equipped to deal any telling blow on the other. They were too far apart and there was too much terrain involved. There was no commerce to raid as practically all the shipping had been between the United States and South America. Each side was able to raid the cities of the other, but armies of occupation would have necessitated extended lines of communication to protect at a serious strategic disadvantage. The most startling single incident in the war was the raid on Manhattan."

"Tell me about that."

"One would think that Manhattan would have been evacuated early in the war, but it was extremely inconvenient to do so and the public had been assured that no enemy force could possibly get that far north. As a matter of fact, practically all the fighting had been below the equator. Except for two raids in the Gulf and one on Palm Beach, none of which did much damage, the United States was untouched. But in 2003 December two aircraft carriers, the Santa Maria and the Reina Borealis raided Manhattan. They had proceeded to New York by a route that took them far east in the Atlantic and by luck and partly by foresight they reached the North Atlantic without discovery. They were aided by the weather for the last thousand kilometers had to be made in a thick fog. They attacked at noon, dropping out of a cloudy sky with a ceiling of less than two hundred meters and in some places lower. The attack must have been worked out with great precision, for each ship seemed to know exactly where to go. The bridges were destroyed first, and the landing platforms. It must have been a terrifying sight to see those great helicopters settling out of the clouds and proceeding leisurely to destroy their objectives while the more agile fighting planes that escorted them buzzed around like hornets. The tubes under the rivers were bombed also. A helicopter would settle at the last station, its crew would gas the bystanders while a working party commandeered a train and loaded aboard the explosives. Then with controls and time bomb on board the train would make its last run."

"How much damage was done?"

"The damage was practically complete. The water works were destroyed along with the power stations. The skyscrapers were almost completely wrecked. Incendiary fires were started throughout the city. It was remarkably efficient, for warfare, as explosives were not thrown around at random but carefully placed to do maximum damage. It is believed that the helicopters made two or three trips. The weather made the whole thing possible, of course, particularly the gas attack that completed the job."

"How was that?"

"After the attackers had apparently exhausted their supplies of high explosives, they systematically patrolled the island, remaining always in the clouds and dropped gas containers. They must have returned to their floating bases time and again for they kept this up for thirty-six hours."

"You speak as if they had no opposition."

"There was opposition, surely, but consider—You are a pilot. How would you attack an enemy ship in a cloudbank. "

"I couldn't."

"That's the answer. They destroyed Manhattan and nearly eighty per cent of its population. Although it wasn't conclusive, hardly more than an exhibition of frightfulness, it lead indirectly to the end of the war."

"Why was that?"

"Five out of six of the heads of the leading international banks were killed in the raid on Manhattan, not to mention the destruction of a large part of the records of the financial dealings that had started the trouble. And of course hundreds of the small fry in the banking racket. With the ring leaders gone Congress listened to the people of the country who had never wanted a war in the first place. An armistice was declared in 2004 February. The terms of the peace included moratoria on international obligations which was a polite word for cancellation, and established a Pan-American export-import bank to provide for resumption of trade on what amounted to a cash and carry basis."

"Anything else?"

"That was about all. The destruction of Manhattan was checked off against the raids on Rio and Buenos Aires. But the most important result was the twenty-seventh amendment."

"That's the war referendum amendment, isn't it?"

"Yes. Did the records tell you how it works?"

"Well, I gathered that it was an arrangement whereby the people had to vote on it before war could be declared."

"That is true as far it goes. In effect the amendment states that, except in case of invasion of the United States, Congress shall not have the power to declare war without submitting the matter to a referendum. The article sketches out briefly the machinery for holding the referendum and sets a time limit in which to accomplish it. But the most amusing feature is the provision saying who shall vote in the matter."

"Doesn't everybody?"

"No, only those persons vote who are eligible for military duty."

"Aren't women permitted to vote?"

"Yes and no. If the current laws make women eligible for combat duty, they vote. If not, they don't vote."

Perry whistled. "I'll bet that caused an uproar ."

Cathcart grinned as if savoring the joke. "It certainly did. Militant feminists screamed and frothed at the mouth. Then it was pointed out to them that the proposed amendment made no mention of sex and that they could, if they chose, make women eligible by including them for military service in the implementing bill."

"But that isn't practical."

"On the contrary. As a matter of fact the law did include women for a number of years. Women can be used in the place of men in practically all military positions. Not as effectively in many of them, but they have been used many times. Your military history should have told you that."

"I guess you're right. Yes, I'd forgotten the Battalion of Death. And they make very good pilots of course."

"At the present time a limited class of women are eligible for service and would consequently vote on a war question."

"But see here. It seems to me that it is unfair to leave it in the hands of those who are eligible to go into the service. If there is any one thing I've learned from history I've studied today it is that war affects everybody in the country, that it can kill off an entire population. Why we knew that even in my day."

"What you say is true. But the non-combatants don't expect to be killed—not seriously. In the A.-B.-C. war if those bankers who were killed in the raid on Manhattan had expected to be bombed and gassed, there wouldn't have been any war. But they didn't. They thought the war would be fought far away by the professionals. No, the great mass of civilians never see war as anything personal to themselves, unless it is brought home to each one that he, John, will have to fight in person. That is why nations used to declare war so easily and then be forced to use conscription to fight the war. The country wants to go to war. Oh surely. 'John Brown's Body.' 'Make the World Safe for Democracy.' 'Britons never will be slaves.' But if the war is more than a skirmish you have to draft men to fight it. With all due respect to you, Diana, women were worse than men about it. It's always possible to get women stirred up to a war fever. Half of the men who do volunteer in a war instead of waiting to be conscripted, do so because some woman who thinks it's glorious and romantic is urging them or shaming them into it. In peace time women are emotional pacifists, but when the bands start to play, they are much more easily stampeded than men. What's on your mind, son? You look thoughtful."

"I was thinking of an organization that used to give me the cold shivers, the Gold Star Mothers. They were formed after the World War and a woman had to have had a son killed in the war to be eligible. They had meetings and officers and conventions and national presidents and so forth, just like a lodge. It made my flesh crawl."

Diana interposed. "But, Perry, I should think such an organization could be a powerful force for good."

"It could have been, but it wasn't. If they had devoted themselves to making another war impossible, it would have been fine. But it was just another lodge, just another woman's club. But let's get back to the subject. I'd rather forget it."

Cathcart resumed his discourse. "I haven't told you about the neatest feature of the amendment. As we have said, only those who could fight could vote. Those who voted to declare war automatically enlisted for the duration of the war. The ballot even told them where to report the next morning. Those who didn't vote were the next draft, and those who voted no the last draft."

Perry looked puzzled and slightly annoyed, "But that puts a premium on cowardice, doesn't it? If war is declared, they should all have to take the same chances. If I had my way, I would just reverse the scheme."

"Don't be hasty, Perry. Stop and think. Is it a premium on cowardice? Perhaps it is. But isn't it just as likely to be a premium on common judgment? Perhaps the war isn't worth fighting. I've studied history all my life and I can remember but two or three wars that seemed to me to be worth fighting, and I have my doubts about those. In any case, if a man takes the responsibility of voting to plunge a country into a situation that may destroy it and is bound to kill and maim a lot of its citizens, shouldn't he have to accept the consequences of his decision by being in the first line of fighting? There is a stern justice about it. Under this rule no man could cast a vote that would send a fellow human being out to face poisonous gas and shots and burning rays without being ready to stand alongside him and suffer the same fate."

"But see here, in a democratic country, we are all in the same boat. Why shouldn't everybody have to defend the country alike?"

"Your reasoning is sound, Perry, but it doesn't apply to the case. You have forgotten that if the United States is invaded, no referendum is necessary. To be exact if any part of the North American continent is invaded, or if a fleet approaches our home waters with evident hostile intent, Congress can act without consulting the people. The referendum applies to situations such as the First World War, or the Spanish-American War or the War of 1812 or the A.-B.-C War. As a matter of fact the President has ample power to act, even without consent of Congress, to repel invasion or to succor our nationals abroad. No, the purpose of this amendment is to permit the people to decide for themselves whether or not an incident or series of incidents constitutes sufficient reason for them to want to go outside our own country and fight someone else. Of course the munitions makers didn't like it nor a lot of the financiers and industrialists, but it was democratic and reasonable and the people voted it in anyhow, once they understood it. But the munitions makers fought it tooth and toenail and eventually cooked their own goose in the process."

"How?"

"At the next session of Congress there was the usual bill introduced to take over the entire arms industry and make it a government monopoly. But this time the munitions men were in bad repute and Congress passed it."

Perry laughed. "Served 'em jolly well right, didn't it? But seriously, while this scheme seems to fit modern conditions, I don't believe it would have worked in my day."

Cathcart's shaggy brows lifted. "Why not?"

"Too cumbersome. It would take weeks to get ready for the election and weeks more to be sure of the count. By that time the whole strategic situation could have changed and lost us the war, if we went into it."

"I think you overrate the difficulties, Perry. I believe that I know your period as well as an historian can for I have made a special study of it. If Congress was debating a war resolution, wouldn't everybody in the country know about it? The President habitually spoke to the country by radiotelephony, correct? So if he were to address the country announcing the outcome of the congressional vote and calling a war referendum, everybody would be listening, would they not?"

"Ninety-nine per cent or better."

"Very well then. Calling the election is easy. How soon could it be held? No need to wait for the people to inform themselves and consider the merits; if the situation is actually grave, they will have been following it for weeks and probably have made up their minds long before Congress acts. The next question is how long would it take to do the physical acts necessary to conduct a balloting? Everybody in the country of voting age knew or could find out very quickly the location off his usual precinct election polls. And each of those polling places had officials designated at the last regular election. Printing the ballots would be fairly simple, there being but one point to vote on, or they could be kept printed at all times, and let the name of the enemy be written in or assumed. Counting the ballots in each precinct would be a simple matter as well, twenty minutes at the most. The only new technique would be in collecting the returns. Tell me, there were telegram dispatching bureaus all over the country, were there not?"

"Oh yes, probably one within ten minutes of every polling place. I begin to see your point."

"Then let telegraph clerk in the country be considered a special election official. With a reasonably efficient system of intermediate clearing and tabulating, the final figures should be in the President's hands within an hour after the closing of the polls."

Perry nodded his head. "Yes, that is feasible, entirely feasible. You make me feel rather stupid that I couldn't see it."

"You needn't feel so. I have simply described with a few minor changes some of the provisions of the original implementing act. You had adequate organization and sufficiently rapid communication in your day. All that was needed was the decision to use them. As a matter of fact the method has worked practically perfectly since it was adopted."

"It has been used, then?"

"Three times since it was adopted. Each time the people rejected war and each time, in my opinion, history has justified them. And so the United States has not committed suicide. Yet in each case you may take it for granted that Congress would have plunged us into war. The simple fact that it called the referenda indicates that. You made another point, however, the point about the strategic necessity for a quick decision. This arrangement not only lost no time, valuable in strategy, but actually gained time."

"How do you figure that?"

"Because the first draft is mobilized the day after war is declared. That saves at least six weeks over all previous methods of conscripting an army. Furthermore adequate preparations could be made in peace time to provide fully for such an army, and any amount of training or arming that prudence indicated could be undertaken without fear that arming itself would lead us into war. It was a means whereby a peaceful, non-imperialistic, civilian-minded people could be fully prepared for any possible war."

Perry nodded his head vigorously. "It certainly sounds like a foolproof scheme. I admire the professional features about it quite as much as the political. I'm glad you pointed them out. There were a lot of peace plans afoot in my day, but I didn't have much use for any I ever heard about. Most of them seemed to be based on the notion that the United States being unarmed and untrained would keep us out of war. I've read some history, and I was convinced that it was the one sure way to get into a war."

"I believe you are right, Perry. Of course there is one objection to the referendum plan that was made by a number of people."

"To wit?"

"It appeared in many different forms, but it always boiled down to the same thing. A contention that the people didn't know what was good for them and were too stupid to be trusted with so much power. It amounts to a total disbelief in the democratic form of government. Strangely enough it came from the very groups who are loudest in their protests of affection for the American form of government, and 'Americanism' whatever that is, if it is not democracy. The people who made this objection were schoolteachers, preachers, officers of veterans and patriotic organizations, professional demagogues et cetera. Interestingly enough the army and navy did not oppose the scheme, even though they were denied the right to vote in the referendum."

"I'm pleased to hear that but not surprised. The professional military man is the last to believe any romantic nonsense about war, even though he may be calloused to it."

Diana took advantage of a momentary lull to put in a word. "I don't want to interrupt this conversation but I'm getting sleepy. Master, do you have to go back tonight?"

"No, but I want to get away first thing in the morning. Will you put me up over night?"

"Of course. Happy to have you any time. You men can stay up as long as you like and fight all the battles you wish. I've fixed a pot of coffee and you'll find a tray of sandwiches by it. Nighty-night." She patted Perry's cheek, blew a kiss to Cathcart and glided off into the shadows at the far end of the room. Perry followed her with his eyes. Cathcart noted his gaze and spoke:

"That's a fine girl there."

"Hunh?—Oh! Yes, yes."

"I suggest we emulate her example shortly. However as I must go back in the morning, let's trot over the past eighty years as quickly as we can and bring you up to date. Give me a quick sketch of the salient features of the history of the country from the turn of the century."

"Well, the war was over in 2004. We have just been talking about the results. Hard times commenced to settle on the country about 2006, but it took several years for it to develop into a full sized depression, partially because the Bank of the United States didn't fold up and partially because of the premature retirement of war bonds and payment of a war bonus. But unemployment mounted steadily each year. In 2010 Wendell Holmes was elected president. Between 2011 and 2015 he instituted the economic reforms that are now the current practice. Business picked up and things ran along pretty smoothly until the late twenties, when a movement started that was known as the New Crusade, or Neo-Puritanism. It seems to have been some sort of a religious revival that eventually caused a lot of trouble. It reached its height in the middle thirties and then for about a year there were riots all over the country. President Michele straightened out that mess and some constitutional reforms grew out of it. From then until the present time I don't recall any outstanding event. Lots of little ones of course and a lot of new inventions but nothing that appeared to change the course of history."

"Yes, that is true. The past half century has been a period of steady development with no spectacular changes but rather a slow growth and steady social progress. We appear to have reached a period of dynamic equilibrium in which mankind can develop his arts and perfect his sciences in reasonable comfort and safety. It might surprise you to see all the change since the end of the New Crusade, but it would be impossible for me to put my finger on any one thing and say 'Here the change occurred'. However, it is not necessary. You will gradually see for yourself now that you have the general framework. Do you have any questions about this period?"

"Yes, two things are bothering me. I don't understand the economic reforms under Holmes, and I don't see what this New Crusade was all about. It sounds screwy."

Cathcart grinned. "It's a good thing my professional research gives me some knowledge of the idiom of your period. It was screwy. But let's take 'em in order. We discussed before the cause of economic depressions and I asked you to take on faith the idea that the only thing that caused depressions was a financial system that automatically caused a spread between goods to be bought and money to buy them, or 'over-production' as it was euphemistically called. I'm not going into the mathematical theory even now. You can take it up later with an economist or in several books I can recommend. But President Holmes was one of the few men to occupy the White House who had sufficient insight and mathematical ability to see the trouble, the reasons behind it, and to devise a cure. He had a powerful weapon to work with, the Bank of the United States, and he had the free intellect necessary to do what needed to be done without clouding the issue with a lot of moralistic tape. In fact he helped to formulate a realistic social ethic that justified his new departure. To begin with he saw the 'over-production' or, as he looked at it, under-consumption or shortage of purchasing power. He directed a staff of actuaries to supply him with approximate figures showing the percentage of under-consumption and its dollar value for the past year. Then he undertook to make up the missing purchasing power by literally giving away through the Bank of the United States the necessary amount of money. He was aware that to do so without some control over prices would result in inflated prices and a new spread between production and consumption. So he held back about half of the newly created purchasing power and used it to control prices in the following manner: All of the retailers of consumption goods in the country were invited to join in the New Economic Cycle. If a dealer joined he agreed not to raise his prices over what they were when the new regime started. On the contrary he was to sell all his goods at a ten per cent discount, and the Bank of the United States would hand him the difference on presentation of his sales records. Then Holmes proceeded to give away through the Bank twenty-five dollars per month to anybody who would take it. Naturally business boomed. Prices didn't go up because all of the business went to the merchants who had joined the agreement.

Presently all the other merchants joined, too, in order to get in on the rush of business. Factories re-opened, labor was needed and unemployment disappeared like snow in July. The country hummed. And that is a thumbnail sketch of the present situation, Perry. No unemployment, plenty of well paid work for anybody that wants a job, and enough credit issued every month to anybody that wants it to keep body and soul together in decency."

Perry looked bewildered. "Wait a minute. It looks fine at first glance, but where did he get the money? Not from taxes, surely, with the country already broke. And not from the private bankers. They were ruined in the war."*

[*For the benefit of the reader who is arithmetically inclined:

(A) Value (Price) of consumption goods produced in 2010 $540,000,000,000.00

Average income per person $2,413.33

(B) Total of personal income (Wages, dividends, insurance, pensions, etc.) $434,400,000,000.00

(C) Difference or under-consumption $105,600,000,000.00

Practical check:

(D) Value of estimated excess in inventories (under-consumption) $110,400,000,000.00 Error $4,800,000,000 or ±4.45%

(E) Empirical control figure (C±D) $108,000,000,000.00

Divide by population of 180,000,000 to obtain under-consumption per person per year of 2010 $600.00

Divide by 12 to obtain under-consumption per person per month $50.00 Issue one-half of this directly $25 per month per person Ratio to (A) all consumption goods produced of (E) unconsumed consumption goods is one to five or 20%. Discount is to handle one-half of this. Therefore discount is 20%.

Q.E.D.

I have taken the liberty of using round numbers. The exact figures from the Washington Archives show $27.813 per month and discount of 11.87%.

The Author]

Cathcart grinned. "He got the cash money the same way we have gotten all cash money since Roosevelt put the gold back in the ground—right off the printing presses. But he didn't have to print much of it. The checks were issued at the Bank and the merchant and a great many others had accounts at the Bank and very little cash money changed hands. The bulk of it was mere bookkeeping entries, made by the bank clerks. Holmes had implemented what the bankers had known for centuries but were barred by LaGuardia from doing—taking money out of an inkwell. What's the matter, son? Still not satisfied?"

"Well, I don't know. Everything you have said seems okay, but how about this? If you keep pouring money into a country indefinitely, you are bound to get inflation, fixed prices or no fixed prices."

"You don't pour it in. You add just enough to keep it running. Each fiscal period the additional amount is the closest possible approximation of the amount necessary to prevent a spread between consumption and production, based on the value of the nation's inventories."

"But why do you have to keep adding money all the time?"

"I said I would stay away from theory but I'll give you this hint to chew over: the amount necessary to add each period is theoretically equal to the amount of savings invested as capital in the preceding period. And one more hint: Doesn't it take more money to run the country's industry now than it did when George Washington was President? But now let's pass on to the New Crusade. It's getting late."

"OK."

"It is difficult to assay the causes of any religious movement. There appear to be mass movements of the human spirit that we do not fully understand. Karl Marx attempted to interpret all history in terms of a rigid materialistic causation, but how does that account for the Children's Crusade? Carlysle would have us believe that history is no more than the acts of certain great men, heroes. I find that equally hard to believe. Would George Washington have been more than a gentleman planter if England's rule of the colonies had been more liberal? It is my belief that history is a story of the action of individuals, acting according to their characters in the environments in which they find themselves. A change either in character or in environment would change the resulting action. In the interplay of lives there are strong characters—Carlysle's Heroes—who exert powerful influences of personality and intellect on their fellow men, and thereby shape the environment in which less dominant creatures act. If these strong characters are born in a period and are able to reach an environment in which their peculiar talents find maximum expression, they will write their names large on the pages of history. 'There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.'

"Such a dominant character was Nehemiah Scudder, founder of the New Crusade and leader of the Neo-Puritans. He found the opportunity to use his exceptional talents in the Middle West in the third decade of this century. He was first heard of about 2030 as an itinerant evangelist of an obscure fundamentalist sect. He preached over most of the Mississippi valley, and although not prominent enough to make a splash in the news of the day, he had a reputation in his denomination for the forcefulness of his preaching, and the virulence with which he called the vengeance of the Lord upon the erring brother. But his fortunes took no great change until the death in 2023 of a Mrs. Rachel Biggs, the septuagenarian relict of a wealthy shoe manufacturer. Mrs. Biggs left four million dollars outright and that much more in trust to establish and maintain a tabernacle and television station to be used by the Reverend Scudder. We have had our radio priests and our political preachers many times before, but while most divines are tuned out at once, Brother Nehemiah was able to project his magnetic personality through the broadcaster and those who heard him once were thereafter his followers, if they were temperamentally ready for his brand of fire and brimstone. He was able, also, to choose and inspire other preachers to help him in the organization of his rapidly growing spiritual following. About 2024 he interpreted certain passages in the Apocalypse to mean that the new Jerusalem was here and now, that Armageddon was at hand, that his followers were called on to take up the fight. He organized the Knights of the New Crusade to implement him for Armageddon. This organization was modeled in nearly every respect after the Ku Klux Klan of the previous century, even to many details of ritual, uniform and constitution, which Brother Nehemiah had not bothered to change.

"In order to understand what happened subsequently and to appreciate the great power which Scudder wielded, it is necessary to understand the man and the people among whom he worked. He was a man of tremendous physical vitality and nervous energy, of middle height but powerfully built. His manner and speech suggested his backwoods origin. Deep set eyes under bony brows burned and gleamed and glared. His voice was normally low and mellow, but could scream and shout praise if need be. His mouth was large, his lips full and loose. In rest they were sensuous but in speaking they expressed a sadistic delight in his work. As to his private life, not much is known. He was married and his wife accompanied him and served him, but from time to time other female acolytes were added to his staff. The obvious conclusion is possibly not true, as there is a persistent story that the man, in spite of his great strength, was actually sexually impotent.

"A large portion of the population was ripe for such a leader. In the New World, since it was first settled, there have been two strongly dissident elements in the social body. One was anarchistic, and tolerant; the other sternly authoritarian and fanatically moralistic. It is a mistake to believe that our forefathers came to this continent in search of religious freedom. On the contrary they sought a place in which to exercise their own brand of religious totalitarianism. It is probable that the religious persecutions and moralistic intolerances practiced on dissenters by the colonists of New England were more severe than any from which they had fled. It is surprising that the Constitution contained an apparent guarantee of religious freedom. This seeming oversight may be attributed to two things, the mutual suspicion with which each colony viewed the other, and the staunch feeling for liberty felt by Thomas Jefferson who wrote the provision. It is very significant to note that the religious freedom clause was an injunction to the federal government. It did not limit the states. At one time the State of Virginia had an established church, and religious intolerance had been practiced, under the law, in every state in the Union. In addition to the puritanical factor in the American culture, there was the Roman Catholic strain, strong in some parts of the country, which supported many of the same intolerances as the Protestant churches.

"All forms of organized religion are alike in certain social respects. Each claims to be the sole custodian of the essential truth. Each claims to speak with final authority on all ethical questions. And every church has requested, demanded, or ordered the state to enforce its particular system of taboos. No church ever withdraws its claims to control absolutely by divine right the moral life of the citizens. If the church is weak, it attempts by devious means to turn its creed and discipline into law. If it is strong, it uses the rack and the thumbscrew. To a surprising degree, churches in the United States were able, under a governmental form which formally acknowledged no religion, to have placed on the statutes the individual church's code of moral taboos, and to wrest from the state privileges and special concessions amounting to subsidy. Especially was this true of the evangelical churches in the middle west and south, but it was equally true of the Roman Church on its strongholds. It would have been equally true of any church; Holy Roller, Mohammedan, Judaism, or headhunters. It is a characteristic of all organized religion, not of a particular sect."

Perry interrupted. "All this may have been true in 2020 but I saw no particular evidence of it in my day. There were churches of course and I went to Sunday School when I was a kid and chapel when I was a midshipman, but Lord, I didn't notice them after I grew up. They didn't bother me and I didn't bother them."

Cathcart smiled wryly. "What one has never had one doesn't miss. It might be instructive if I were to name over a number of the laws, and customs having the effect of law, prevalent in your period whose origins may be traced directly to some powerful organized church or churches."

"Please do."

Cathcart ticked them off on his fingers. "Sunday closing laws; tax exemption for church property; practically all laws relating to marriage and the relations between the sexes—including laws forbidding divorce, country-wide rule permitting only monogamous marriages, laws against fornication and other taboo sexual relationships, and laws forbidding birth control; laws prohibiting the teaching of certain scientific doctrines, especially man's kinship to other animals; all laws of censorship, for moral reasons, of the press, stage, radio, or speech; certain taboos of word and speech forms; laws prohibiting certain parts of the body being exposed to view; laws prohibiting the drinking of alcohol per se; laws against smoking cigarettes; any law which takes a paternalistic attitude toward the citizen with the purpose of ensuring his moral perfection rather than the purpose of regulating his conduct to prevent him from damaging other persons and, vice versa, prevent others from damaging him."

"But surely most of the laws that you mention arise from common sense rather than from religion?"

"You believe so because you were reared in the environment that the churches created. You were conditioned to regard them as the natural order of things. But it is a matter of historical record that in cultures where the organized religion held different views on morals, the exact opposite of every law I have referred to has had its day. But again we are getting away from the Reverend Scudder and his band of holy fanatics. In spite of what I have said the American churches fought a rear guard action for four hundred years. It is a far cry from the blue laws of early day Massachusetts to the tolerance and easy morals of the period under discussion. The libertarian spirit had great hold especially in the cities. With the perfection of technique for controlling conception and the elimination of contagious diseases associated with sexual intercourse, the sexual customs of the people were undergoing a rapid metamorphosis. The New Economic Regime produced more changes in moral relationships and made divorce easier. It produced another effect, too, in destroying the moralistic nature of work for work's sake. All of these things were offensive to a person of an old fashioned point of view, and none found them more distasteful than the Reverend Nehemiah Scudder. He preached against them, predicting Hell's fire and brimstone for the ungodly people of the United States! He denounced the pleasures of the flesh, all frivolities, the scandalous clothing, the demon rum, dancing, gambling, worldly music, light minded literature, and vanities of every sort. He called on his followers to stamp it out, fight the battle of Armageddon, and be led at once into the New Jerusalem, where the godly would never die, but live forever, singing hymns and praising God. Furthermore he advised his flock as to just how they might accomplish this happy end. He had a genius for organization and used it to weld together the most effective minority group ever seen in American politics. In the first place he claimed to represent the whole population and claimed a majority of the population as his personal following.

"Such was the effect of his organized agitation that he convinced the easy-going unorganized mass that his adherents were in the majority. In particular he convinced the politicians that he controlled enough votes to turn an election. In response to this belief, which may or may not have been justified, he began to accomplish through political means many of the changes in law which he desired, and what he could not get legally was obtained by his night riders, the terrorist Knights of the New Crusade or Angels of the Lord as they were variously known. There is a latent streak of sadism in the best of us. The Reverend Scudder turned it loose.

"During the period from 2025 to 2030 no man was safe in his home. The night riders might come knocking at his door and spirit him away to be flogged and perhaps tarred and feathered for such crimes as neglecting to attend church or a disrespectful attitude toward the movement or any fancied slip from the stern moral code of the brethren which might occur to the fanatical intolerant mind of a Crusader. Or his daughter might be torn from her parents, stripped naked and branded with a hot iron as punishment for some innocent frivolity regarded by the brethren as mortal sin. Or a merchant might find his store windows broken and his stock vandalized for the crime of employing an ungodly man. By 2028 Scudder had an iron grip on the Mississippi Valley and was a strong force throughout the country. Blue laws controlled the whole life of the valley. Not a vehicle moved on Sunday. Churchgoing was obligatory in many places, and it was safer to do so in any case. Women wore somber clothing which completely hid their bodies. Dancing, singing other than hymns, games and other vanities were verboten. Higher education was discouraged. Idleness was dubbed vagrancy and treated as a crime. Scudder was looking forward to two national changes, the abolition of the distribution of the credit checks without work in return, and the open establishment of the church.

"However terror breeds terror and persecution brings its own reaction. The Libertarian element in the population, normally unorganized, were forced into protective coloration, but were not defeated. Under the pressure of necessity they organized, secretly and underground. They placed candidates in the field for their next congressional election and prepared to win at any cost. An underground terrorist group was formed by the more headstrong which undertook to hand the Knights some of their own medicine. The more conservative turned their attention to the coming election and flooded the country with pamphlets which denied that the Scudderites were more than a small part of the population and urged the people to vote their convictions. Election day was a shambles and the counting of the ballots resolved itself into a multitude of little battles between the Knights and the embattled individualists. When the smoke had cleared away it became evident that Scudder had lost the election. He had been heavily defeated on both coasts and clearly lost the majority of the seats in the larger cities of the valley. Even if he were conceded all the disputed contests in his rural strongholds, he nevertheless had lost every state but Tennessee and Alabama.

"The members of the new congress who had been elected on an anti-Scudder ticket were pledged to constitutional reforms to prevent a recurrence of loss of individual liberty from any cause. In consequence several hundred amendments were proposed in the first few days of the term. The parliamentary impasses resulted in a clever piece of law making. At a caucus of the Libertarians it was proposed and agreed to that a small representative committee draft and submit to the caucus an amendment in the form of a new constitution which, if adopted and ratified, would supersede the old constitution in toto. The committee consisted of five men and one woman, great minds all of them; Cyrus Fielding, Rosa Weinstein, John Delano Roosevelt, Ludvig Dixon, Joseph Berzowski, and Colin MacDonald. Fielding presided and apportioned the work. I wish we had time to go into the details of their discussions. They labored night and day for nearly four months. Fortunately we have a record of their entire proceedings which you can study at your leisure, and there are several excellent abridgments available. Their report was submitted to the caucus on 2028 April 20 and was debated in caucus for three weeks, but the members of the committee had done their work so well and in particular had been so skillful in retaining most of the wording of the original document, the new amendment was approved by the caucus without change and submitted as a single bill signed by every member of the caucus. Its adoption of course was a forgone conclusion. It was ratified by the thirty-seventh state on 2028 November 12.

"I won't go into the minutiae of the document but several changes are worthy of note tonight. The most important was the addition of a new restriction on the power of government. Henceforth no law was constitutional that deprived any citizen of any liberty of action which did not interfere with the equal freedom of action of another citizen. Pardon me, I have stated that badly. These are the words of the new constitution: 'Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person. No act shall constitute a violation of a law valid under this provision unless there is such damage, or immediate present danger of such damage resulting from that act.'

"Do you see the significance of that last provision? Up to that time, a crime had two elements; act of commission and intent. Now it had a third; harmful effect which must be proved in each case, as well as the act and the intent. The consequences of this change can hardly be exaggerated. It established American individualism forever by requiring the state to justify in each case its interference with an individual's acts. Furthermore the justification must be based on a tangible damage or potential damage to a person or persons. The person damaged might be a schoolgirl injured or endangered by a reckless driver or it might be every person in the state endangered by the betrayal of military secrets or injured by manipulation of commodity prices, but it must not be some soulless super-person, the state incarnate, or the majesty of the law. It reduced the state to its proper size, an instrument to serve individuals, instead of a god to be worshipped and glorified. Most especially it ended the possibility of the majority oppressing any minority with that hackneyed hoary lie that 'the majority is always right.'

"In another place in the constitution, corporate persons were defined and declared to have no rights of any sort except wherein they represented rights of real persons. Corporate persons could not be damaged. An act committed against a corporate person must be shown to have damaged a real person in order to constitute an offense. This was intended to clip the wings of the corporate trusts which threatened to crowd out the man of flesh and blood.

"Another new civil liberty was defined, the right of privacy. You will understand that better as you study the code of customs. Several other reforms were instituted, most of them obvious, such as the direct election of the president, and a re-definition of the 'general welfare' clause in order to give greater freedom in changing the details of government in a changing world. There were two important changes in the method of legislation. The House of Representatives was given the right to pass legislation over the veto of the Senate. There had been under consideration the abolition of the Senate, or at least to make it proportionately representative, but an obscure clause in the original document prevented this without the unanimous consent of all the states. Perhaps the most striking change was the power vested in the chief executive to initiate legislation and force its consideration. Under this provision the President with the aid of his advisers could draft bills which automatically became law at the expiration of ninety days unless Congress rejected it. The ninety days had to be while Congress was sitting of course."

"Suppose Congress wasn't in session?"

"The President could call it if he saw fit."

"Suppose the matter was too urgent to wait ninety days."

"Congress could accept it at once if there was need. Sometimes the President asks them to do so."

"Did Congress lose its power to initiate legislation?"

"Oh no, not at all. They could pass any laws they wanted and reject any laws they chose to. But if there was great disharmony, either branch of the government might force an immediate general election. The President could do so by dissolving Congress; the Congress, by a vote of no confidence. The latter vote was in the House alone, the Senate wasn't empowered. That is the least but one of the major changes. The new constitution called for a re-codification of law every ten years and laid a strong injunction on all law makers to use simple language and to avoid abstractions. A way was opened here to invalidate laws on constitutional grounds simply because they were not in clear English."

"I like that," commented Perry. "I always have thought that lawyers had deliberately clouded the issue by the cock-eyed way they talk. I had a course in school once in order writing. Although it was classed as English composition, the criterion was not style, nor literary merit, but whether or not the meaning was unmistakable. I think it would have done most lawyers a lot of good to have taken it."

"I'm sure of it. Well, that about clears us up, Perry. The past sixty years have been largely development and growth which you can best appreciate by seeing it. If you will excuse me, I'm going to bed."

"A sound idea. But I want to thank you first for the trouble you have taken for me. You have been very patient."

"Not at all, son. I enjoyed it. Someday soon I want to question you at length about your recollections of your period. If you actually have authentic and detailed personal memories of your time you will be doing me a great service."

"It will be a privilege and a pleasure."

"Well, goodnight, son."

"Goodnight, sir, and thanks again."