to move down the page"Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps que la nôtre.... Voilà toute la differénce."
Toward the end of the year 1920 the government of the United States
had practically completed the programme adopted during the last months
of President Winthrop's administration. The country was apparently tranquil.
Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labor questions were settled. The war
with Germany, incident on that country's seizure of the Samoan Islands,
had left no visible scars upon the republic, and the temporary occupation
of Norfolk by the invading army had been forgotten in the joy over repeated
naval victories and the subsequent ridiculous plight of General Von Gartenlaube's
forces in the State of New Jersey. The Cuban and Hawaiian investments had
paid one hundred per cent., and the territory of Samoa was well worth its
cost as a coaling station. The country was in a superb state of defense.
Every coast city had been well supplied with land fortifications; the army,
under the parental eye of the general staff, organized according to the
Prussian system, had been increased to three hundred thousand men, with
a territorial reserve of a million; and six magnificent squadrons of cruisers
and battle-ships patrolled the six stations of the navigable seas, leaving
a steam reserve amply fitted to control home waters. The gentlemen from
the West had at last been constrained to acknowledge that a college for
the training of diplomats was a necessary as law schools are for the training
of barristers; consequently we were no longer represented abroad by incompetent
patriots. The nation was prosperous. Chicago, for a moment paralyzed after
a second great fire, had risen from its ruins, white and imperial, and
more beautiful than the white city which had been built for its plaything
in 1893. Everywhere good architecture was replacing bad, and even in New
York a sudden craving for decency had swept away a great portion of the
existing horrors. Streets had been widened, properly paved, and lighted,
trees had been planted, squares laid out, elevated structures demolished,
and underground roads built to replace them. The new government buildings
and barracks were fine bits of architecture, and the long system of stone
quays which completely surrounded the island had been turned into parks,
which proved a godsend to the population. The subsidizing of the state
theatre and state opera brought its own reward. The United States National
Academy of Design was much like European institutions of the same kind.
Nobody envied the Secretary of Fine Arts either his cabinet position or
his portfolio. The Secretary of Forestry and Game Preservation had a much
easier time, thanks to the new system of National Mounted Police. We had
profited well by the latest treaties with France and England; the exclusion
of foreign-born Jews as a measure of national self-preservation, the settlement
of the new independent negro state of Suanee, the checking of immigration,
the new laws concerning naturalization, and the gradual centralization
of power in the executive all contributed to national calm and prosperity.
When the government solved the Indian problem and squadrons of Indian cavalry
scouts in native costume were substituted for the pitiable organizations
tacked on to the tail of skeletonized regiments by the former Secretary
of War, the nation drew a long sigh of relief. When, after the colossal
Congress of Religions, bigotry and intolerance were laid in their graves,
and kindness and charity began to draw warring sects together, many thought
the millennium had arrived, at least in the new world, which, after all,
is a world by itself.
ARTWORK � Larry Loc 1997