“This is all in our hands, say they, and if we have the nerve to carry it out, we can make the earth a perpetual paradise. All we have to do is to disqualify in their infancy the stirps whose posterity we prefer not to see.”
The Professor paused here and changed the profile to his ‘jokers’ or middle pair of hands and proceeded to roll up the 20th century and expose the 21st.
“I believe,” he resumed, “that we had better step forward another century, take our stand at the year 2100 and survey the century retrospectively, as we have done the 20th. It seems more natural to speak of it in the past tense since we have become accustomed to that way.”
“All right,” I answered, “consider it done. I am already there.”
“Do you not remember,” he went on, “that a little while ago you expressed a wish that it might have been your lot to live say 200 years later than you did, so as to share and experience the glory your race would have attained by that time? Well you are in effect now there, and while you shall never experience it in your own person, you shall have a close glimpse of it and be able to compare your anticipation with the reality.
“We are now celebrating January 1, 2100. As you look around, you see very much that is unfamiliar and miss many things you used to see. Take a map of the world and examine it. You will find only three general governments on earth. First is the “Great Union of Free States”, which you have heard of, but now comprising all America, the Pacific Islands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, The West Indies, Ireland and Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, New Guinea and the Philippines. Thus you see the principal change in this government during the century consists in the full annexation of all the South American States north of Chili and Argentine, and the Annexation of England, Scotland and Wales and the Scandinavian states. The language of this great empire is almost exclusively English, which however, has been greatly corrupted, some say, or enriched according to others, by the incorporation of a large number of foreign words, mostly Spanish, due to the intimate relations between the English speaking peoples and those who used the Spanish and Portuguese. South America has been settled and cultivated and is the most productive county on earth; a fairy land, a paradise. Nothing can compare with it except some of the finest portions of the Sahara desert, which has been developed by the French; and some of the East India Islands.