What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

'p========r^ SECTION SEVEN CL By W. L. George THERE is a good old rule which bids us never prophesy unless we know, but, all the same, when one cannot prophesy one may guess, especially if one is sure of being out of the way when the reckoning comes. Therefore it is without anxiety, that I suggest a picture of this world a hundred years hence, and venture as my first guess thrt the world at that time would be remarkable to one of our ghosts, not so much because it was so different as because it was so similar. In the main the changes which we may expect must be brought about by science. It is easier to bring about a revolutionary scientific discovery such as that of the X-ray than to alter in the least degree the quality of emotion that arises between a man and a maid. There will probably be many new rays in 2022, but the people whom they illumine will be much the same. From which the reader may conclude that I do not expect anything startling in the way of scientific discoverv. That is not the case; I am convinced that in 2022 the advancement of science will be amazing, but it will be nothing like so amazing as is the present day in relation to a hundred years ago. A sight of the world today would surprise President Jefferson much more, I suspect, than the world of 2022 would surprise the little girl who sells candies at Grand Central Station. For Jefferson knew nothing of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, automobiles, aeroplanes, gramophones, movies, radium, &c.; he did not even know hot and cold bathrooms. The-little girl at Grand Central is a blase child; to her these things are commonplace; the year 2022 would have to produce something very startling to interest her ghost. The sad thing about discovery is that it works toward its own extinction, and that the more- we discover the less there is left. % w It does not follow that, scientifically, the year 2022 should fail to be amazing. I suspect that commercial flying will have become entirely commonplace. The passenger steamer will survive on the coasts. but it will have disappeared on the main routes, and will have been replaced by flying convoys, which should cover the distance between London and New York in about twelve hours. As I am anxious that the reader should not look upon me as a visionary, I would point out that in an airplane collision which happened recently a British passenger plane was traveling at 180 miles an hour, which speed would have brought it across the Atlantic in eighteen hours. It is therefore quite conceivable that America may become separated from Europe by only eight hours. The problem is mainly one of artificial heating and ventilation to enable the aeronauts to survive. The same cause will affect the railroads, which at that time will probably have ceased to carry passengers except for suburban traffic. Railroads may continue to handle freight, but it may be that even this will be taken from them by road traffic, because the automobile does not have to carry the enormous overhead charges of tracks. Certainly food, mails and all light goods will be taken over from the railroads by road trucks. As for the horse, it will probably no longer be bred In white countries. The people of the year 2022 will probably never see a wire outlined against the sky: it Is practically certain that wireless telegraphy and wireless telephones will have crushed the cable system long before the century is done. Possibly, too, power may travel through the air when means are found to prevent enormous voltages being suddenly discharged in the wrong place. Coal will not be exhausted, but our reserves will be seriously depleted, and so will those of oil. One of the world dangers a century hence will be a shortage of fuel, but It is likely that by that time a ureal ueai 01 power win ue ooiHineo irom tides, from the sun, probably from radium and other forms of radial energy, while It may also be that atomic energy will be harnessed. If It is true that matter Is kept together by forces known as electrons. It Is possible that we shall know how to dlsV ' placed by the kinephone, which now exists only in the laboratory. That is the figures on the screen will not only move, but they will have their natural colors and spaak with ordinary voices. Thus, the stage as we know it to-day may entirely disappear, which does not mean the doom of art, since the movie actress of 2022 will not only not need to know how to smile but also how to talk. Hna mttrVif AvianH i ? A ? fi ? i i ?1 vr nn tKa V/UO "HftUt V<AtVUU 1UUC nunc 1J uu tuo number of inventions which ought to exist and will exist, but the reader can think of them for himself, and it is more interesting to ask ourselves what will be the appearance of our cities a hundred years hence. To my mind they will offer a mixed outlook, because mankind never tears anything down completely to build up something else; it erects the new while retaining the old; thus, many buildings now standing will be preserved. It is conceivable that the Capitol at Washington, many of the universities and churches will be standing a hundred yearB hence, and that they will, almost unaltered, be preserved by tradition. Also, many private dwellings will survive and will be inhabited by Individual families. I think that they will have passed through the cooperative stage, which may be expected fifty or sixty years nence, wnen ine servant pruoiem nas oecome completely unmanageable and when private dwellings organize themselves to engage staffs to cook, clean, and mend for the groups. That cooperative stage will be the last kick of the private mistress who wants to retain in her household some sort of slave. In 2022 she will have been bent by circumstances, but sh'e will have recovered her private dwelling, being served for seven hours a day by an orderly. The woman who becomes an orderly will be as well paid as If she were a stenographer, will wear her own clothes, be called "Miss," belong to her trade union and work under union rulea. Naturally the work of the household, which is being reduced day by day, will in 2022 be a great deal lighter. I believe that most of the cleaning required to-day in a house will have been done away with. In the first place, through the disappearance of coal in all places where electricity is not made there will be no more smoke, perhaps not even that of tobacco. In the second place I have a vision of walls, furniture and hangings made of more or less compressed papier mache, bound with brass or taping along the edges. Thus, instead of \ VEW YO GAZINE NEW YORK, SUNDAY, Witt^L bB

That’s a very grotesque illustration of perverse incentives. Ask anyone, I doubt they’ll tell you that it’s worth having a sick person show up to work over providing sick leave/benefits and yet, here we are.

t i ti wJ Is will go on. One may therefore preme that in 2022 most States will have tionalized railways, telegraphs, teleones, canals, docks, water supply, gas \ ' any) and electricity. Other industries 11 exist much as they do to-day, but it likely that the State will be inclined to ntrol them, to limit their profits, and to bitrate between them and the workers, e find a hint of this in America in the ti-trust acts; a hundred years hence e tendency will be much stronger. It is >rth noting as an international factor at b/that time purely national Industries 11 almost have disappeared, and that the >rk of the world will be in the hands of ntrolled combines governing the supply a commodity from China to Peru. Unfortunately these international relains through trade are not likely to have ected political conditions. There will ill be war. The wars of that period may a little less frequent than they are toy, and be limited by arrangements such the Pacific agreement, the agreement tween Canada and the United States of rierica to leave their frontier unfortified, ., but it will still be there. I suspect at those wars to come will be made horle beyond my conception by new poison ses, inextinguishable flames and light>of smoke clouds. In those wars the airane bomb will seem as out of date as is clay tne hatchet. War may ultimately sappear, but this lies beyond the limits this article and even beyond those of f mind. \s regards the United States in particu, it is likely that the country will have me to a complete settlement, with a popition of about 240,000,000. The idea of rth and South, East and West, will have noet disappeared; by that time the Amerin race will have taken so definite a form it immigration will not affect it. The nfirican from Key West and the Amerin from Seattle will be much the same nd of mic. That is to say as regards race, but I feel at mentally the American of 2022 will ve enormously changed. He is to-day e most enterprising creature in the orld, and is driven by a continual urge to se, to make money. That is because the odern American lives in a country that only partly developed, and where imense wealth still lies ready for him to ke. In 2022 that will be as finished as s to-day in England. American wealth 11 then he eithe.- developed or known, d all of it will belong to somebody, lere will he no more opportunity in nerica than there is in England to-day. lose Americans will know that it is actically certain that they will die much the same position as the one in which ey were born. Those Americans will erefore be less enterprising and much ire pleasure loving. They will have belled against long hours: the chances e that in 2022 few people will work >re than seven hours a day, if as much. The effect of this, which I am sure unds regrettable to many of my readers 11. in my opinion, be good. It was essen1 that the American race should be cable of intense labor and intense ambin if it was to develop its vast country, t one result has been haste, overwork, ise, all of which is bad for the nerves. 2022 America will have made her forae and will he enjoying it as well as she n. I think that she will be a happier counr than she is to-day. The appeal of alth will be less because wealth II be difficult to attain, so those aericans to come will be producing in t and literature infinitely more than they e producing to-day. To-day, in fiction, ? aerlca leads the world by sincerity, tli and fearlessness, hut the American vel of significance is a novel of revolt alnst the thralls of money, of convenn anrl of puritanism. In 2022 Ameriran srature will be a literature of culture, e battle will he over and the muzzle There will be no more things one n't say, and things one can't think No ubt there will be In 2022 people who nk as they would have thought in 1022, even a little earlier, but a great liberaln of mind will prevail, rt is not my business to corgrat ilat" > future, and I have no desire to do so. It Is impossible to say a thing Is good bad; all one can say is that it exists, it in case some of my readers feel relsion when they contemplate my lunch Is or my nationalized railroads, to those vould say that they are perhaps unduly xious. The world takes care of Itself; has been doing so for hundreds of cen ries nnri is still spinning; tne worm win te care of Itsplf In 2022: that Is Its chlpf r-upatlon. Morp than that. I fppl conlcpd that though thp world may Iosp icps, It will dpvolop othpr grarps, that the wholp. and as timp goes on. man id grows more intelligent, more amiable d more honpst. rhp fnturp will bp difficult: what dops it mattpr? So was thp past difficult: flcultlps did not prevent Its turning into tolerable preser^.