text:
#!/usr/bin/env python3

# This script provides a convenient wrapper for the Virtuoso SPARQL server.
# Adapted from Sempre (https://github.com/percyliang/sempre)

import os
import sys
import subprocess
import argparse

virtuosoPath = "/home/dki_lab/tools/virtuoso/virtuoso-opensource"
if not os.path.exists(virtuosoPath):
  print(f"{virtuosoPath} does not exist")
  sys.exit(1)

# Virtuoso has two services: the server (isql) and SPARQL endpoint
def isqlPort(port): return 10000 + port
def httpPort(port): return port

def run(command):
  print(f"RUNNING: {command}")
  res = subprocess.run(command, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
  return res.stdout

def start(dbPath, port):

  if not os.path.exists(dbPath):
    os.mkdir(dbPath)

  # Recommended: 70% of RAM, each buffer is 8K
  # Use a fraction of the free RAM. The result may vary across runs.
  # memFree = parseInt(`cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemFree | awk '{print $2}'`) # KB
  # Use a fraction of the total RAM. The result is the same across runs.
  memFree = int(run("cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemTotal | awk '{print $2}'")) # KB
  numberOfBuffers = memFree * 0.15 / 8
  maxDirtyBuffers = numberOfBuffers / 2
  print(f"{memFree} KB free, using {numberOfBuffers} buffers, {maxDirtyBuffers} dirty buffers")

  # Configuration options:
  #   http://docs.openlinksw.com/virtuoso/dbadm.html
  #   http://virtuoso.openlinksw.com/dataspace/doc/dav/wiki/Main/VirtConfigScale
  config = (
    f"[Database]\n"
    f"DatabaseFile = {dbPath}/virtuoso.db\n"
    f"ErrorLogFile = {dbPath}/virtuoso.log\n"
    f"LockFile = {dbPath}/virtuoso.lck\n"
    f"TransactionFile = {dbPath}/virtuoso.trx\n"
    f"xa_persistent_file = {dbPath}/virtuoso.pxa\n"
    f"ErrorLogLevel = 7\n"
    f"FileExtend = 200\n"
    f"MaxCheckpointRemap = 2000\n"
    f"Striping = 0\n"
    f"TempStorage = TempDatabase\n"
    f"\n"
    f"[TempDatabase]\n"
    f"DatabaseFile = {dbPath}/virtuoso-temp.db\n"
    f"TransactionFile = {dbPath}/virtuoso-temp.trx\n"
    f"MaxCheckpointRemap = 2000\n"
    f"Striping = 0\n"
    f"\n"
    f"[Parameters]\n"
    f"ServerPort = {isqlPort(port)}\n"
    f"LiteMode = 0\n"
    f"DisableUnixSocket = 1\n"
    f"DisableTcpSocket = 0\n"
    f"ServerThreads = 100 ; increased from 20\n"
    f"CheckpointInterval = 60\n"
    f"O_DIRECT = 1 ; increased from 0\n"
    f"CaseMode = 2\n"
    f"MaxStaticCursorRows = 100000\n"
    f"CheckpointAuditTrail = 0\n"
    f"AllowOSCalls = 0\n"
    f"SchedulerInterval = 10\n"
    f"DirsAllowed = .\n"
    f"ThreadCleanupInterval = 0\n"
    f"ThreadThreshold = 10\n"
    f"ResourcesCleanupInterval = 0\n"
    f"FreeTextBatchSize = 100000\n"
#    f"SingleCPU = 0\n"
    f"PrefixResultNames = 0\n"
    f"RdfFreeTextRulesSize = 100\n"
    f"IndexTreeMaps = 256\n"
    f"MaxMemPoolSize = 200000000\n"
    f"PrefixResultNames = 0\n"
    f"MacSpotlight = 0\n"
    f"IndexTreeMaps = 64\n"
    f"NumberOfBuffers = {numberOfBuffers}\n"
    f"MaxDirtyBuffers = {maxDirtyBuffers}\n"
    f"\n"
    f"[SPARQL]\n"
    f"ResultSetMaxRows = 50000\n"
    f"MaxQueryCostEstimationTime = 600 ; in seconds (increased)\n"
    f"MaxQueryExecutionTime = 180; in seconds (increased)\n"
    f"\n"
    f"[HTTPServer]\n"
    f"ServerPort = {httpPort(port)}\n"
    f"Charset = UTF-8\n"
    f"ServerThreads = 15 ; increased from unknown\n"
  )

  configPath = f"{dbPath}/virtuoso.ini"
  print(config)
  print()
  print(configPath)
  print(f"==== Starting Virtuoso server for {dbPath} on port {port}...")
  with open(configPath, 'w') as f:
      f.write(config)
  run(f"{virtuosoPath}/bin/virtuoso-t +configfile {configPath} +wait")

def stop(port):
  run(f"echo 'shutdown;' | {virtuosoPath}/bin/isql localhost:{isqlPort(port)}")

def status(port):
  run(f"echo 'status();' | {virtuosoPath}/bin/isql localhost:{isqlPort(port)}")

############################################################
# Main

if __name__ == "__main__":
  parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="manage Virtuoso services")
  parser.add_argument("action", type=str, help="start or stop")
  parser.add_argument("port", type=int, help="port for the SPARQL HTTP endpoint")
  parser.add_argument("-d", "--db-path", type=str, help="path to the db directory")

  args = parser.parse_args()
  if args.action == "start":
    if not args.db_path:
      print("please specify path to the db directory with -d")
      sys.exit()

    if not os.path.isdir(args.db_path):
      print("the path specified does not exist")
      sys.exit()

    start(args.db_path, args.port)
  elif args.action == "stop":
    stop(args.port)
  else:
    print(f"invalid action: ${args.action}")
    sys.exit()

repo_name: dki-lab/Freebase-Setup

repo_language: Python

mime_type: text/plain


text:
This repository contains instructions for setting up a SPARQL endpoint to Freebase via Virtuoso as well as some useful materials about Freebase.

## Requirements
* OpenLink Virtuoso 7.2.5 (download from this [link](https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtuoso/files/virtuoso/7.2.5/virtuoso-opensource.x86_64-generic_glibc25-linux-gnu.tar.gz/download))
* Python 3 (required if using the provided Python script)

## Setup

### Freebase data dump

The latest offical data dump of Freebase can be downloaded [here](https://developers.google.com/freebase). However, in the official dump, the format of some literal types is not fully compatible with the N-Triples RDF standard (it's missing type decoration such as `^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#integer>`), which may cause it to fail to load into triplestores like Virtuoso. We fixed this issue. Our processed Virtuoso DB file can be downloaded from either this [OneDrive link](https://buckeyemailosu-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/su_809_osu_edu/Ed0SY7sAS_ZGqNTovDYhVCcBxEmZfhL3B-chAiuoZCrpVg?e=vpHUei), [Dropbox link](https://www.dropbox.com/s/q38g0fwx1a3lz8q/virtuoso_db.zip) or via wget (WARNING: 53G+ disk space is needed):

```
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/q38g0fwx1a3lz8q/virtuoso_db.zip
```

In case you'd like to load your own RDF into Virtuoso, see [here](http://vos.openlinksw.com/owiki/wiki/VOS/VirtBulkRDFLoader) for instructions. If you prefer some other triplestore, try fixing the literal format issue of Freebase using the script `fix_freebase_literal_format.py` to get the N-Triples-formatted data.

### Managing the Virtuoso service

We provide a wrapper script (`virtuoso.py`, adapted from [Sempre](https://github.com/percyliang/sempre)) for managing the Virtuoso service. To use it, first change the `virtuosoPath` in the script to your local Virtuoso directory. Assuming the Virtuoso db file is located in a directory named `virtuoso_db` under the same directory as the script `virtuoso.py` and 3001 is the intended HTTP port for the service, to start the Virtuoso service:

```
python3 virtuoso.py start 3001 -d virtuoso_db
```

and to stop a currently running service at the same port:

```
python3 virtuoso.py stop 3001
```

A server with at least 100 GB RAM is recommended. You may adjust the maximum amount of RAM the service may use and other configurations via the provided script.

## Useful materials about Freebase
- Some basic concepts: https://developers.google.com/freebase/guide/basic_concepts
- A brief review of Freebase: https://github.com/nchah/freebase-mql
- [RDF](https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/) and [SPARQL](https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/)
- Freebase is strongly typed (in terms of terminology, type=class, property=relation=predicate). Each property has one and only one _domain type_ (the type of the subject entity) and _range type_ (the type of the object entity). For example, the property `people.person.place_of_birth`'s domain type is `people.person` and range type is `location.location`.
- A list of frequently used relations for meta-information:
  - `common.topic`: the type of all entities. An item is an entity if it has this type.
  - `type.object.name`: the canonical name of an item (entity/type/property). Filter by the language decorator (e.g., `@en`) if only a certain language is of interest.
  - `common.topic.alias`: a list of common aliases of an entity.
  - `common.topic.description`: a textual description of an entity.
  - `type.object.type`: the list of types of an entity.
  - `type.type.properties`: the list of properties with a type as the domain type.
  - `type.type.expected_by`: the list of properties with a type as the range type.
  - `type.property.expected_type`: the range type of a property.
  - `freebase.type_profile.strict_included_types` and `freebase.type_profile.included_types`: the parent types of a type.
  - `freebase.type_hints.mediator`: true if a type is a CVT (Compound Value Type), Freebase's way of model Neo-Davidsonian event semantics via event reification.
  - `type.property.master_property` and `type.property.reverse_property`: Freebase has twin properties. These two properties let you find the twin.


text:
brew "pandoc"
brew "epubcheck"

repo_name: lizadaly/utopia-novels

repo_language: HTML


text:
for dir in books/*
  do
    book="$(basename "$dir")"
    epubcheck "${dir}/${book}.epub" --quiet
  done


text:
#!/bin/bash

# Expects a local pandoc installation
pandoc=`which pandoc`
readme="README.md"
tmp=".tmp.md" # Temporary metadata for autogenerated README output

if [ ! -f "$pandoc" ]; then echo "Please install pandoc from https://pandoc.org/"; exit; fi

# Automatically generate the top-level README based on introspection
cat > $readme <<END
# 19th century utopian novels by women
A small collection of 19th/20th century utopian fiction.

This collection was part of the research material for the interactive fiction story, [Harmonia](https://lizadaly.com/pages/harmonia/) and is the subject of an article on [early women's utopian fiction](https://lizadaly.com/pages/her-stories/).

Contributions, corrections, and proofed new editions are very welcome; please issue a pull request against one of the Markdown files.

## Installation

Requires:

* [pandoc](https://pandoc.org/) to generate the HTML and EPUB output
* [epubcheck](https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck) (optional) to validate the EPUB output
### MacOS
Install [brew](https://brew.sh/) and run \`brew bundle\`.

## The current collection:
END

for dir in books/*
  do
    book="$(basename "$dir")"

    echo "Generating HTML, EPUB, and README files for $book as $dir/$book.html"

    # Generate HTML version with appropriate paths
    $pandoc  -o $dir/$book.html $dir/book.md  --css ../../shared/web.css \
      --template shared/html-template.html --resource-path $dir:shared &

    # Generate EPUB
    $pandoc -o $dir/$book.epub $dir/book.md --epub-embed-font=shared/fonts/* \
      --css shared/epub.css --template shared/epub-template.html --epub-cover-image $dir/cover.png &

    # Generate per-book README
    $pandoc -o $dir/README.md -V book=$book $dir/book.md --template shared/readme-template.md &

    # Build up the main project README with a dynamic book list
    $pandoc  -o $tmp $dir/book.md -V book=$book -V dir=$dir --template shared/metadata-template.md
    cat $tmp >> $readme
    rm $tmp

  done


text:
# 19th century utopian novels by women
A small collection of 19th/20th century utopian fiction.

This collection was part of the research material for the interactive fiction story, [Harmonia](https://lizadaly.com/pages/harmonia/) and is the subject of an article on [early women's utopian fiction](https://lizadaly.com/pages/her-stories/).

Contributions, corrections, and proofed new editions are very welcome; please issue a pull request against one of the Markdown files.

## Installation

Requires:

* [pandoc](https://pandoc.org/) to generate the HTML and EPUB output
* [epubcheck](https://github.com/w3c/epubcheck) (optional) to validate the EPUB output
### MacOS
Install [brew](https://brew.sh/) and run `brew bundle`.

## The current collection:
* [Three Hundred Years Hence](books/300-years-hence/) by Mary
Griffith (1836)
* [ArQtiQ](books/arqtiq/) by Anna Adolph (1899)
* [Mizora](books/mizora-a-prophecy/) by Mary E. Bradley Lane (1889)
* [Moving the Mountain](books/moving-the-mountain/) by Charlotte Perkins
Gilman (1911)
* [The Republic of the Future](books/republic-of-the-future/) by Anna
Bowman Dodd (1887)
* [Unveiling a Parallel](books/unveiling-a-parallel/) by Alice
Ilgenfritz Jones and Ella Merchant (1893)


text:
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
  text-align: center;
}
h1 {
  font-family: "Latin Modern Roman Dunhill", serif;
  font-size: 44px;
  line-height: 1.1em;
}

div.rights {
  font-family: "Latin Modern Roman Dunhill", serif;
  font-size: 14px;
  margin-top: 3em;
  text-align: center;
}

div.rights:before {
  content: "Rights: ";
  font-family: "Latin Modern Roman Dunhill", serif;
}

p.author {
  text-align: center;
  font-family: "Latin Modern Roman Dunhill", serif;
}

p.date:before {
  content: "Publication date: ";
}
p.date {
  text-align: center;
  font-family: "Latin Modern Roman Dunhill", serif;
}
h2 {
  font-size: 20px;
}

h2, h3 {
  font-family: "Latin Modern Roman Dunhill", serif;
  line-height: 1em;
  margin: .25em;
  padding: 0;
}

h3 {
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}

p {
  font-family: Baskerville, serif;
  line-height: 1.4em;
  text-indent: 1em;
  margin: .5em;
}

blockquote p {
  text-align: left;
  text-indent: 0;
  font-style: italic;
  padding-left: 2em;
  max-width: 90%;
  margin: 2em 0;
}


text:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html>

  <meta charset="utf-8" />
  <meta name="generator" content="pandoc" />
  <title>$pagetitle$</title>

$if(highlighting-css)$

$endif$
$for(css)$
  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="$css$" />
$endfor$
$for(header-includes)$
  $header-includes$
$endfor$

$if(titlepage)$

$for(title)$
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$title.text$

$else$

$title$

$endif$
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$subtitle$

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$author$

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$date$

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$rights$

$endif$

$if(description)$

$description$

$endif$

$if(cover-credit)$

About the cover

Cover design by $cover-credit$.

$endif$

$if(cover-source)$

$cover-source$

$endif$

$else$
$for(include-before)$
$include-before$
$endfor$
$body$
$for(include-after)$
$include-after$
$endfor$
$endif$


text:
body {
  font-family: 'Libre Baskerville', serif;
}
a {
  color: firebrick;
  text-decoration: underline;
}
a:hover {
  color: gray;
}
.book {
  margin: auto;
  width: 60vw;
}
.book .col {

}
.jumbotron {
  min-height: 500px;
  max-width: 1000px;
  margin: auto;
}
figure {
  margin-left: 2em;
}
.cover img {
  max-height: 400px;
}
.cover figcaption {
  text-align: center;
  font-size: 13px;
  padding-top: 5px;
}
.cover figcaption p {
  display: inline;
}
.description {
  margin-top: 2em;
}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6,
  .titlepage p, .titlepage div {
  font-family: 'Playfair Display', serif;
  text-align: left;
}
h1 {
  font-size: 44px;
  line-height: 1.4em;
}
.book h1 {
  margin-top: 2em;
  text-align: center;

}
h1.subtitle {
  font-size: 30px;
  margin-bottom: 1em;
  font-style: italic;
}

.rights:before {
  content: "Rights: ";
}

.date:before {
  content: "Publication date: ";
}

h2, h3 {
  line-height: 1em;
  padding: 0;
}
h6 {
  font-weight: bold;
}

.book h2 {
  margin: .25em;
  text-align: center;
}

.book h3 {
  margin: 2em;
  text-align: center;
}

.book blockquote p {
  text-align: left;
  text-indent: 0;
  font-style: italic;
  padding-left: 2em;
  font-size: 0.85em;
  line-height: 1.7em;
  max-width: 90%;
  margin: 2em 0;
}

.book p {
  line-height: 1.7em;
  text-indent: 1em;
  margin: 1em 0;
}

footer {
  background: rgb(200,200,200);
  text-align: center;
  padding: 1rem;
  font-size: smaller;
}


text: * [$pagetitle$]($dir$/) by $author$ ($date$)


text:
<!doctype html>

  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
  <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" crossorigin="anonymous">
  <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Playfair+Display|Libre+Baskerville" rel="stylesheet">
$for(author-meta)$
  <meta name="author" content="$author-meta$" />
$endfor$
$if(date-meta)$
  <meta name="date" content="$date-meta$" />
$endif$
  <title>$if(title-prefix)$$title-prefix$ - $endif$$pagetitle$</title>

$if(quotes)$

$endif$
$if(highlighting-css)$

$endif$
$for(css)$
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="$css$" $if(html5)$$else$type="text/css" $endif$/>
$endfor$
$if(math)$
  $math$
$endif$
$for(header-includes)$
  $header-includes$
$endfor$

    Utopia Novels repository

          $if(cover-credit)$

Cover image by $cover-credit$

          $endif$

        $for(title)$
          $if(title.type)$

$title.text$

          $else$

$title$

          $endif$
        $endfor$

        $if(subtitle)$

$subtitle$

        $endif$
        $for(author)$

$author$

        $endfor$
        $for(creator)$

$creator.text$

        $endfor$
        $if(publisher)$

$publisher$

        $endif$
        $if(date)$

$date$

        $endif$
        $if(rights)$

$rights$

        $endif$

EPUB version of this book: $epub-file$

        $if(description)$

        $description$

        $endif$

        $body$

This material is in the public domain. Source code for this book.


text:
# $pagetitle$
## By $author$
### Published ($date$)

$if(description)$
  $description$
$endif$

Read [$pagetitle$](https://lizadaly.github.io/utopia-novels/books/$book$/$book$.html) in a web browser.

Download an [EPUB ebook version](https://lizadaly.github.io/utopia-novels/books/$book$/$book$.epub).

$if(cover-image)$
## Book cover
<img src="https://lizadaly.github.io/utopia-novels/books/$book$/cover.png" height="300" align="right">
$endif$

$if(cover-credit)$
Cover design by $cover-credit$
$endif$

$if(cover-source)$
$cover-source$
$endif$


text:
<!doctype html>

  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
  <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" crossorigin="anonymous">
  <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Playfair+Display|Libre+Baskerville" rel="stylesheet">
  <meta name="author" content="Anna Bowman Dodd" />
  <meta name="date" content="1887-01-01" />
  <title>The Republic of the Future</title>

  <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../shared/web.css" />

    Utopia Novels repository

Cover image by
Liza Daly

The Republic of the
Future

or,
Socialism a Reality

Anna Bowman Dodd

1887

Public Domain

EPUB version of this book: republic-of-the-future.epub

The Republic of the Future: or, Socialism a Reality
        is a novella by the American writer Anna
        Bowman Dodd, first published in 1887. The book is a dystopia
        written in response to optimistic stories of the period.

Letters from a Swedish nobleman living in the 21st century to
        a friend in Christiania

I.

New York Socialistic
        City

December 1st, 2050 A. D.

Dear Hanniveg,

At last, as you see, my journey is safely accomplished, and I
        am fairly landed in the midst of this strange socialistic
        society. To say that I was landed, is to make use of so obsolete
        an expression that it must entirely fail to convey to you a true
        idea of the processes of the journey. Had I written—I was safely
        shot into the country—this would much more graphically describe
        to you the method of my arrival.

You may remember, perhaps, that before starting I found
        myself in very grave doubt as to which route to take—whether to
        come by balloon or by tunnel. As the latter route would enable
        me to enjoy an entirely novel spectacle, that of viewing
        sub-marine scenery, I chose, and wisely I now know, to come by
        the Pneumatic Tube Electric Company. The comforts and luxuries
        of this sub-marine route are beyond belief. The perfection of
        the contrivances for supplying hot and cold air, for instance,
        during the journey, are such that the passengers are enabled to
        have almost any temperature at command. The cars are indeed
        marked 70 degrees Fahr., 80 degrees and 100 degrees. One buys
        one’s seat according to his taste for climate. Many of the
        travellers, I noticed, booked themselves for the bath
        department, remaining the entire journey in the Turkish,
        Russian, vapor or plunge departments-as the various baths
        attached to this line surpass a Roman voluptuary’s dream of such
        luxuries. I, however, never having been through the great tunnel
        before, was naturally more interested in what was passing so
        swiftly making the journey of three thousand miles just ten
        hours long. In spite of the swiftness of our transit, we were
        enabled by the aid of the instantaneous photographic process, as
        applied to opera-glasses and telescopes, to feel that we lost
        nothing by the rapidity of our meteor-like passage. I was
        totally unprepared for the beauties and the novelties which met
        my eye at every turn. The sightseers’ car is admirably arranged.
        Fancy being able to take in all the wonders of oceanland through
        large glass portholes in the concave sides of circular cars. The
        tube itself, which is of iron, enormously thick, has glass
        sides, also of huge thickness, running parallel with the windows
        of the car so that the view is unobstructed. The sensations
        awakened, therefore, both by the novelty of the situation and by
        the wonders we passed in review, combined to make the journey
        thrillingly exciting. We were swept, for instance, past armies
        of fishes, beautiful to behold in such masses, shimmering in
        their opalescent armor as they rose above, or sank out of sight
        into the depths below. The sudden depressions and abrupt
        elevations of the sea-level made the scenery full of diversity.
        There was a great abundance of color, with the vivid crimson of
        the coralline plants and the delicate pinks and yellows of the
        many varieties of the sub-marine flora. It seemed at times as if
        we were caught in a liquid cloud of amber, or were to be
        enmeshed in a grove of giant sea-weeds.

Beyond all else, however, in point of interest, was the
        spectacle of the wholesale cannibalism going on among the finny
        tribes, a cannibalism which still exists, in spite of the
        persistent and unwearying exertions of the numerous Societies
        for the Prevention of Cruelty among Cetacea and Crustacea. We
        passed any number of small boats darting in and out among the
        porpoises, dolphins and smaller fish, delivering supplies (of
        proper Christian food) and punishing offenders. A sub-marine
        missionary, who chanced to sit next to me, told me that of all
        vertebrate or invertebrate animals, the fish is the least
        amenable to reformatory discipline; fishes appear to have been
        born, he went on to say without the most rudimentary form of the
        moral instinct, and curiously enough, only flourish in
        proportion as they are allowed to act out their original
        degenerate nature. He also confessed privately to me, that after
        some twenty-five years active work among them, the results of
        his labors were most discouraging. Since, however, the
        Buddhistic doctrine of metempsychosis has come to be so
        universally accepted, and as each one of these poor creatures is
        in reality a soul in embryo, it behoves mankind to do all that
        lies in its power to elevate all tribes and species.

As you may well imagine, my dear Hannevig, with such
        spectacles and speculations to enliven the journey, I found it
        all too short. Its shortness was, in truth, the only drawback to
        my complete enjoyment. The wonders of the journey, I found,
        were, however, only a fitting prelude to the surprises that
        awaited me on my arrival. I leave an account of both these
        surprises and of my first impressions of the great city until my
        next letter, as this one, I find, has already grown to the
        proportions of an ancient epistle.

I am, my dear Hannevig. Your life-long friend and comrade,
        WOLFGANG.

II.

Dear Hanniveg,

The three days’ time which has elapsed since my last letter
        to you, has been so crowded with a confusion of bewildered
        impressions produced by this astonishing city and its still more
        astonishing inhabitants, that I am in doubt whether I shall be
        able to convey to you any clearer pictures than those which fill
        the disordered canvas of my own mind. I will, however, strive to
        reproduce my experiences in the order in which they came to me,
        and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

The first amazing thing that happened to me was the way in
        which I reached my hotel. Fancy being blown up on the shore, for
        the pneumatic tube being many hundreds of feet below the shore
        level, we were literally blown up on the beach; there we found
        air-balloon omnibuses, into which we and our luggage were
        transported by means of little electrical cars, about a thousand
        feet into the air, affording a fine view of the city. Great is
        not a large city of the Socialists-it has the immensity of an
        unending plain, and the flatness of one also. In former times, I
        believe, the original city was an island, on either side of
        which flowed a river; but as more and more land became necessary
        new channels for these rivers were dug, and the river-beds
        filled in, so that now, far as the eye can reach, there is a
        limitless expanse of rooftops.

As seen from an aerial elevation, there was nothing to
        attract the eye from the picturesque standpoint-there were few
        large buildings of noticeable size or beauty. The city was
        chiefly remarkable because of its immensity. When landed at my
        hotel I found these first impressions confirmed by a nearer
        view.

First let me tell you, however, that after entering the
        vestibule of the hotel, I felt as if I had stepped into some
        dwelling of gnomes or sprites. Not a human being presented
        himself. No one appeared to take my luggage, nor was a clerk or
        hall boy visible anywhere. The great hall of the hotel was as
        deserted and silent as an empty tomb; at first I could not even
        discover a bell. Presently, however, I saw a huge iron hand
        pointing to an adjacent table. On the table lay a big book with
        a placard on which was printed, ”Please write name, country,
        length of stay and number of rooms desired.” All of which I did.
        The book then miraculously closed itself and disappeared! The
        next instant a tray made its appearance where the book had been,
        on the tray was a key, and on the key a tag with a number and
        the words, “The elevator at your left to third right.” The
        elevator as I stepped into it, stopped as if by magic at the
        third story, when another iron hand shot out of the wall,
        pointing me to the left. Soon I found the room assigned me,
        opened it, and entered to discover the apartment in complete
        order, and the faucets in the bath—chamber actually turned
        on!

My dear Hannevig, can you believe me when I tell you that I
        have been in this hotel four mortal days, have eaten three
        substantial meals a day, have been fairly comfortable, and yet
        have not seen a human creature, from a landlord to a servant?
        The whole establishment apparently is run by machinery. There is
        a complicated bell apparatus which you ring for every
        conceivable want or need. Meals are served in one’s own room, by
        a system of ingenious sliding shelves, which open and shut, and
        disappear into the wall in the most wizardlike manner. Of course
        the reason of all these contrivances is obvious enough. In a
        society where labor of a degrading order is forbidden by law,
        machinery must be used as its substitute. It is all well enough,
        I presume, from the laborer’s point of view. But for a
        traveller, bent on a pleasure trip, machinery as a substitute
        for a garrulous landlord, and a score of servants, however bad,
        is found to be a poor and somewhat monotonous companion. I amuse
        myself, however, with perpetually testing all the bells and the
        electrical apparatus, calling for a hundred things I don’t want,
        to see whether they will come through the ceiling or up the
        floor.

Most of my time, however, is spent in the streets. My earlier
        impressions of the city I find remain unchanged. It is as flat
        as your hand and as monotonous as a twice-told tale. Never was
        there such monotony or such dullness. Each house is precisely
        like its neighbor. Each house has so many rooms, so many
        windows, so many square feet of garden, which latter no one
        cultivates, as flowers and grass entail a certain amount of
        manual labor, which, it appears, is thought to be degrading by
        these socialists. Imagine, therefore, miles upon miles of a city
        composed of little two-story houses as like one unto another as
        two brown nuts. There are parks and theatres and museums, and
        libraries, the Peoples’ Clubs, and innumerable state buildings;
        but these are all architecturally tasteless, as utility has been
        the only feature considered in their construction. Every thing
        here, from the laying out of the city to the last detail
        concerning the affairs of commerce or trade is arranged
        according to the socialistic principle—by the people for the
        People. The city itself was rebuilt a hundred years ago, in
        order that the houses and the public buildings might be in more
        fitting harmony with the new order and principles of Socialism.
        What the older City of New York may have been, it is difficult
        to determine, although it is supposed to have been ugly enough.
        But this modern city is the very acme of dreariness. It is the
        monotony I think, which chiefly depresses me. It is not that the
        houses do not seem comfortable, clean and orderly, for all these
        virtues they possess. But fancy seeing miles upon miles of
        little two-story houses! The total lack of contrast which is the
        result of the plan on which this socialistic city has been
        built, comes, of course, from the principle which has decreed
        that no man can have any finer house or better interior, or
        finer clothes than his neighbor. The abolition of poverty, and
        the raising of all classes to a common level of comfort and
        security, has resulted in the most deadening uniformity. Take
        for example, the aspect of the shop windows. All shops are run
        by the government on government capital. There is, consequently,
        neither rivalry nor competition. The shop keepers, who are in
        reality only clerks and salesmen under government jurisdiction,
        take naturally, no personal or vital interest either in the
        amount of goods sold, or in the way in which these latter are
        placed before the public. The shop-windows, therefore, are as
        uninviting as are the goods displayed. Only useful, necessary
        objects and articles are to be seen. The eye seeks in vain
        throughout the length and breadth of the city for anything
        really beautiful, for the lovely, or the rare. Objects of art
        and of beauty find, it seems, no market here. Occasionally the
        Government makes a purchase of some foreign work of art, or
        seizes on some on some of those recently excavated from the
        ruins of some tgth century merchant’s palace. The picture or
        vase is then placed in the museums, where the people are
        supposed to enjoy its possession.

To connect the word enjoyment with the aspect of these
        serious socialists is almost laughable. A more sober collection
        of people I never beheld. They are as solemn as the oldest and
        wisest of owls. They have the look of people who have come to
        the end of things and who have failed to find it amusing. The
        entire population appear to be eternally in the streets,
        wandering up and down, with their hands in their pockets, on the
        lookout for something that never happens. What indeed, is there
        to happen? Have they not come to the consummation of everything.
        of their dreams and their hopes and desires? A man can’t have
        his dream and dream it too. Realization has been found before
        now, to be exceedingly dull play.

As it is, I am free to confess, that the dullness and apathy
        of these ideally-perfect socialists weighs on me. My views of
        their condition may change when I come to know them better.

It is late and I must close. Ever yours, W.

III.

Curiously enough, my dear fellow, the very next day after
        dispatching my last, I found myself involved in a long and most
        interesting conversation with the daughter of one of the city
        residents. I had brought letters of introduction to a certain
        gentleman, and after a search of some hours through the eternal
        labyrinth of these unending streets, found the house to which I
        had been directed. The gentleman, or rather citizen, as all men
        are called here, was not at home. I was, however, received by
        his daughter, a plain but seemingly agreeable, intelligent young
        woman. The women dress so exactly like the men in this country
        that it is somewhat difficult to tell the sexes apart. Women,
        however, usually betray themselves as soon as they speak by
        their voices.

This young lady had an unusually pleasant voice and manner,
        and we were soon deep in the agreeable intricacies of a lengthy
        conversation. I had any number of questions to ask, and she
        appeared to be most willing to answer them.

My first question, I remember, was an eminently practical
        one. It was on the subject of chimneys and cooking. I had
        noticed almost immediately on my arrival that, throughout the
        entire city, not a chimney was to be seen. It was this fact more
        than any other that gave the city the appearance of a plain, and
        made the houses seem curiously deformed. It naturally followed
        that, there being no chimneys, there was also no smoke, which
        therefore made this already sufficiently clear atmosphere as
        pure as the air on a mountaintop. All very beautiful, I said to
        myself, but how do the people get along without cooking? I, in
        my quality of stranger and foreigner, had made the interesting
        discovery that my own meals were prepared to my taste by
        specially appointed State cooks—a law only recently passed to
        facilitate international relations. The latter, it appears, had
        become somewhat strained, when travelers had found themselves
        forced to abide by the rules and regulations governing the
        socialists’ diet. But what was this diet? This was the mystery
        which had been puzzling me ever since my arrival. So that when I
        found myself face to face with my young lady, I promptly
        implored her to solve my dilemma. “Oh,” she replied, “cooking
        has gone out long ago. To do any cooking is considered
        dreadfully old-fashioned.” “Has eating also gone out of fashion
        in this wonderful country?” I asked in amazement.

She laughed as she replied, “Eating hasn’t, but we do it in a
        more refined way. Instead of kitchens we now have conduits,
        culinary conduits.”

“Culinary conduits?” I asked, still in a daze of
        wonderment.

“Oh, I see you don’t understand,“ she answered, “you haven’t
        been here long enough to know how such things are arranged. Let
        me explain. The State scientists now regulate all such matters.
        Once a month our Officer of Hygiene comes and examines each
        member of the household. He then prescribes the kind of food he
        thinks you require for the next few weeks, whether it shall be
        more or less phosphates, or cereals, or carnivorous
        preparations. He leaves a paper with you. You then touch this
        spring—see?” and here she put her pretty white finger on a
        button in the wall. “You whistle through the aperture to the
        Culinary Board, put in the paper, and it is sent to the main
        office. You then receive supplies for the ensuing month.”

”And where is this wonderful board?”

“It is in Chicago, where all the great granaries are. You
        know Chicago supplies the food for the entire United
        Community.”

“But Chicago is a thousand miles off. Isn’t all the food
        stale by the time it reaches you?”

Here she laughed, although I could see she tried very hard
        not to do so. But my ignorance was evidently too amazingly
        funny. When she had regained composure she answered: “The food
        is sent to us by electricity through the culinary conduits.
        Everything is blown to us in a few minutes’ time, if it be
        necessary, if the food is to be eaten hot. If the food be
        cereals or condensed meats, it is sent by pneumatic express,
        done up in bottles or in pellets. All such food is carried about
        in one’s pocket. We take our food as we drink water, wherever we
        may happen to be, when it’s handy and when we need it.
        Although,” she added with a sigh, “I sometimes do wish I had
        lived in the good old times, in the nineteenth century, for
        instance, when such dear old-fashioned customs were in vogue as
        having four-hour dinners, and the ladies were taken into dinner
        by the gentlemen and everyone wore full dress—the dress of the
        period, and they used to flirt—wasn’t that the old word? over
        their wine and dessert. How changed everything is now! However,”
        she quickly added, “if kitchens and cooking and long dinners
        hadn’t been abolished, the final emancipation of women could
        never have been accomplished. The perfecting of the desire of
        women to please their husbands by dressing and cooking to suit
        them. When the last pie was made into the first pellet, woman’s
        true freedom began. She could then cast off her subordination
        both to her husband and to her servants. Women were only free,
        indeed, when the State prohibited the hiring of servants. Of
        course, the hiring of servants at all was as degrading to the
        oppressed class as it was a clog to the progress of their
        mistresses’ freedom. The only way to raise the race was to put
        everyone on the same level, to make even degrees of servitude
        impossible.”

“But how, may I be permitted to ask, is the rest of the
        housework accomplished, if no servants exist to take charge of
        so pretty a house as this one?” (The house, my dear Hannevig.
        was in reality hideous, as bare and as plain as are all the
        houses here. Each is furnished by state law, exactly alike).

“Oh, everything is done by machinery, as at your hotel.
        Everything, the sweeping. bed making, window scrubbing and
        washing. Each separate department has its various appliances and
        apparatus. The women of every household are taught the use and
        management of the various machines, you know, at the expense of
        the state, during their youth; when they take the management of
        a house they can run it singlehanded. Most of the machinery goes
        by electricity. A house can be kept in perfect order by two
        hours’ work daily. The only hard work which we still have to do
        is dusting. No. invention has yet been effected which dusts
        satisfactorily without breakage to ornaments, which accounts for
        the fact, also, that the fashion of having odds and ends about a
        home has gone out. It was voted years ago by the largest womans’
        vote ever polled, that since men could not create
        self-adjusting, non-destructive dusters, their homes must
        suffer. Women were not to be degraded to hand machines for the
        sake of ministering to men’s aesthetic tastes. So you see we
        have only the necessary chairs and tables. If men want to see
        pictures thy can go to the museums.”

Perhaps it is this latter fact which accounts for my never
        being able to find the good citizen A—at home. He is gone to the
        public club, or to the bath, or to the Communal Theater, I am
        told, when I appear again and again. This wonderful community
        has done much, of that I am convinced, in the development of
        ideal freedom; but there appears to be a fatal blight somewhere
        in its principles, a blight which seems to have destroyed all
        delight in domestic life. In my next I will tell you more and at
        length, of the peculiar development which the race has attained
        under these now well-established emancipation doctrines, and of
        their results on the two sexes.

I hope you are not wearying of my somewhat lengthy
        descriptions, but you yourself are to blame, as you bound me to
        such rigid promises of detail and accuracy.

Farewell, dear companion, would you were here to use your
        wiser philosopher’s eyes. I am yours, WOLFGANG.

IV.

DEAR FRIEND: No one thing, I think, strikes the foreigner’s
        eye, on his arrival in this extraordinary land so strongly as
        does the lack of variety and of taste displayed in the dress of
        either the men or the women. Both sexes dress, to begin with, as
        I said in my last, precisely alike. As it is one of the
        unwritten social laws of the people to dress as simply,
        economically and sensibly as possible, it results that there is
        neither brightness nor color nor beauty of line in any of the
        garments worn. In passing the Government Clothing Distribution
        Bureaus, nothing so forcibly suggests the ideal equality
        existing between the sexes, as does the sight of the big and the
        little trowsers, hanging side by side, quite unabashed, the
        straight and the baggy legs being the only discernible
        difference. Baggy trowsers and a somewhat long, full cloak for
        the women—straightlegged trowsers and a shorter coat for the
        men, this is the dress of the entire population. Some of the
        women are still pretty, in spite of their hideous clothes. But
        they all tell me, they wouldn’t be if they could help it, as
        they hold that the beauty of their sex was the chief cause of
        their long-continued former slavery. They consider comeliness
        now as a brand and mark of which to be ashamed. From what I have
        been able to observe, however, I should say that the prettiness
        which has descended to some of the women fails to awaken any
        old-time sentiment or gallantry on the part of the men. There
        has, I learn, been a gradual decay of the erotic sentiment,
        which doubtless accounts for the indifference among the men; a
        decay which is due to the peculiar relations brought about by
        the emancipation of woman.

It is now nearly two hundred years since women have enjoyed
        the same freedom and rights as men. It is interesting and
        curious to note the changes, both upon the character and nature
        of the two sexus, which has been the result of this development.
        One’s first impression, in coming here, is that women are the
        sole inhabitants of the country. One sees them everywhere—in all
        the public offices, as heads of departments, as government
        clerks, as officials, as engineers, machinists, aeronauts, tax
        collectors, firemen, filling, in fact, every office and vocation
        in civil, political and social life. The few men—by comparison,
        whom I saw seemed to me to be allowed to exist as specimen
        examples of a fallen race. OI course, this view is more or less
        exaggeration. But the women here do appear to possess by far the
        most energy, vigor, vitality and ambition. Their predominance in
        office just now is owing to their over-powering number, the
        women’s vote polled being ten to one over that of the men. This
        strong sex influence has been fruitful in greatly changing and
        modifying the domestic, social and political laws of the
        community.

Women, for instance, having satisfactorily emancipated
        themselves from the bondage of domestic drudgery and the
        dominion of servants, by means of the improvement in machinery
        and the invention of the famous culinary conduits, found one
        obstacle still in their path to complete and coequal
        man-freedom. There still remained the children to be taken care
        of and brought up. As motherhood came in course of time to be
        considered in its true light, as perhaps the chief cause of the
        degradation of women, it was finally abolished by act of
        legislature. Women were still to continue to bear children, or
        else the socialistic society itself would cease to be. A law was
        passed providing that children almost immediately after birth,
        should be brought up, educated and trained under state direction
        to be returned to their parents when fully grown, and ready for
        their duties as men and women citizens. In this way women stand
        at last on as absolutely equal a physical plane with men as it
        is possible to make them.

It has followed, of course, that with the jurisdiction of the
        state over the children of the community, all family life has
        died out. Men and women live together as man and wife, but the
        relation between them has become more nominal than rural. It is
        significant of the changes that have been brought about between
        the sexes, that the word “home” has entirely dropped out of the
        language. A man’s house has in truth ceased to be his home.
        There are no children there to greet him, his wife, who is his
        comrade, a man, a citizen like himself, is as rarely at home as
        he. Their food can be eaten anywhere—there is no comm on board;
        there is not even a servant to welcome the master with a smile.
        The word wife has also lost all its original significance. It
        stands for nothing. Husband and wife are in reality two men
        having equal rights, with the same range of occupation, the same
        duties as citizens to perform, the same haunts and the same
        dreary leisure.

Is it therefore, my dear Hannevig, to be wondered at, that
        all ideas of love, and that all strong mutual attraction and
        affections should have died out between the sexes? Man loves,
        longs for passionately and protects with tender solicitude only
        that which is difficult to conquer. The imagination must at
        least be inflamed. But where there is no struggle, no
        opposition, no conditions which breed longing, desire, or the
        poetry of a little healthy despair, how is love or any sentiment
        at all to be awakened or kindled? Here there is no parental
        authority to make a wall between lovers, nor is there inequality
        of fortunes, nor any marked difference between the two sexes,
        even in their daily. duties or in their lives. I am more and
        more impressed with the conviction, as I look into this
        question—this question of what we should consider the growth of
        an abnormal indifference between the sexes—that the latter cause
        is perhaps the one which has been chiefly instrumental in the
        bringing about so complete a change over the face of the
        passions. Woman has placed herself by the side of man, as his
        coequal in labor and vocation, only to make the real distance
        between them the greater. She has gained her independence at the
        expense of her strongest appeal to man, her power as mistress,
        wife and mother. How can a man get up any very vivid or profound
        sentiment or affection for these menwomen—who are neither
        mothers nor housekeepers, who differ in no smallest degree from
        themselves in their pursuits and occupation? Constant and
        perpetual companionship, from earliest infancy to manhood and
        old age has resulted in blunting all sense of any real
        difference between the sexes. Whatever slight inequalities may
        still exist between men and women in the matter of muscular
        energy or physical strength is more than counterbalanced by the
        enormous disproportion between them, numerically, as
        voters’.

Some very curious and important political changes have been
        effected by the preponderance of the woman’s vote.

Wars, for instance, have been within the last fifty years
        declared illegal. Woman found that whereas she was eminently
        fitted for all men’s avocations in time of peace, when it came
        to war she made a very poor figure of a soldier. Wars,
        therefore, were soon voted down; foreign difficulties were
        adjusted by arbitration. As women, as a rule, were sent on these
        foreign diplomatic missions, I have heard it wickedly whispered
        that the chief cause of the usually speedy conclusion of any
        trouble with a foreign court was because of the babel of tongues
        which ensued: a foreign court being willing to concede anything
        rather than to continue negotiations with women diplomatists.
        But this of course, is to be put down to pure maliciousness.
        Women since time immemorial, have had the best of man whenever
        it came to contests of the tongue, and this appears to be the
        one insignia of their former prestige which the sex insists on
        claiming.

In my next I shall try to give you some conception of the
        position which man occupies, as a citizen and as worker in this
        community. I shall, I think, also be able to give you some most
        interesting results of the effects produced by the communistic,
        socialistic principles which have been incorporated into the
        constitution of this people.

It is late and I am weary, so farewell for a few days. Ever
        and ever, —

V.

More and more, as I study these institutions, am I reminded
        of the resemblance between these American socialists and the
        ancient Spartans. The Spartan was also a part of the State—had
        all things on a grand Communal scale—had public games, public
        theaters, baths, museums and festivals, being brought up by the
        state and his womenkind considered as a part of it. In this
        modern community, however, there are two important features
        which the simpler Spartans did not have to cope with.

The Greeks stood at the dawn of civilization. The American
        finds himself at what he considers is the completion of it.
        Break away from his past as hard as ever he may try, he has
        still found himself heir to this past, and his heredity
        dominates him in spite of all his attempts to throw it off. The
        Greeks also were a warlike people, and the American is a peace
        lover, preferring the pipe to the sword. Perhaps above all else
        in the sum of these differences ought we to remember, the great
        factor of machinery as a substitute for manual labor. The sword
        raised man out of the dust. The piston has levelled him with it.
        I believe, my dear Hannevig, that if machinery had never been
        invented, socialism would never have been dreamed of. Machinery
        was the true cause of the conflict between capital and labor,
        and not the unequal distribution of land, as the great founder
        of this Communal Society, Henry George, asserted in this book,
        the bible of this people. Machinery needed capital to run it,
        and was more or less indifferent to labor. The laborer, with
        machinery as his rival, stood a far less possible chance of
        becoming a capitalist himself than he did when battling against
        men; his duties more and more closely resembling in their
        monotony and routine, the very machine that he was called on to
        feed, in turn re-acting in his natural aptitude.

However, to go into the depths of this knotty question
        involves too much space for a letter. Let me, instead recall to
        your mind, as I have recently done to my own, the chief features
        of importance in the history of this people which have placed
        them where they now are.

You recollect, of course. the terrible reign of blood that
        took place during the awful conflict between the republican
        Americans and the socialists and anarchists in 1900. The war
        began, nominally, as an act of resistance on the part of the
        Americans against the encroaching and insistent demands of the
        socialists, demands covering the abolishment of private
        ownership in land, of the division of property, both real and
        personal, and the overthrow, generally of all the then existing
        economic and social institutions. These socialists and
        anarchists represented the foreign element in the country, those
        who had imported their revolutionary doctrines with them. (If I
        remember rightly the early Americans had given all rights of
        citizenship to this foreign contingency, in a moment of mistaken
        Republican zeal, a political mistake they lived to rue bitterly
        later). Well, at first in this anarchist war, the Americans won,
        did they not? I find my memory tripping me at times—possibly
        would have continued to win had the war been conducted on strict
        military tactics. But the anarchists finding themselves
        unsuccessful as soldiers and warriors, resorted to the ingenious
        means of destroying their enemies by the use of explosives.
        Dynamite accomplished what the cannon and the bayonet were
        powerless to effect. Towns, cities and even the villages and
        hamlets, were lighted by the torch of electricity and seared
        level with the ground. Dynamite was reserved for the armies and
        for individual offenders. During that reign of destruction, it
        seemed as if not a man, woman or child would survive to carry
        even the memory of the great tragedy to their graves with
        them.

However, since the anarchist’s plan was to reconstruct the
        whole face of society on a new basis, it was to be expected, of
        course, that the revolution they undertook as the means of
        effecting this would be carried through at whatever cost.

There is one feature of this war which has always struck me
        as possessing a very humorous side. The anarchists, you
        remember, were foreigners, chiefly Germans, Irishmen and a few
        Russians. When the war was ended, by the destruction of very
        nearly all the Republican contingency, the anarchists broke out
        into dissension among themselves. The German element would not
        submit to Irish dictation—the latter leaders having. Apparently,
        a great opinion of their own talent for political leadership—and
        the Irish in turn violently resisted the German dicta. A
        veritable anarchy ensued a war so fierce that it looked at one
        time as if the whole continent might be left a howling
        wilderness, with neither conqueror nor conquered to enter and
        take possession of what however, a few of the Americans had
        survived. Among them were some of the descendants of the ancient
        New England statesmen. These men, although under sentence of
        death, were liberated, that they might act as peacemakers
        between the two factions. Americans, you see, had had so much
        experience in reconciling. conciliating and pacifying the
        difficulties between the Irish and German parties during the
        American Republican era, that these survivors were eminently
        fitted to adjust affairs at issue between them now. The American
        Council decided that the Irishmen should draw up the laws and
        regulations for the new Communal and Socialistic constitution,
        while the Germans should see that the new society was properly
        organized; a decision which proves the real genius for
        statescraft which these ingenious Americans possessed. For
        Irishmen are proverbially affluent of ideas and incapable of
        putting them into action, unless it be violent action, while the
        Germans have proved themselves practical organizers and ideal
        political policemen. The sagacity of the old American
        Republicans was shown in the manner in which they themselves, in
        their era of power, had made use of the distinguishing qualities
        of the two races, when such hordes overflowed. The land during
        the great emigration period. The Irishmen were kept in the large
        cities, where they were allowed to misgovern the towns to their
        hearts’ desire, being thus given a vent for their turbulent
        political spirit; while the Germans, on the contrary, were sent
        into the still unconquered wilderness to turn it into a garden
        by their industry and thrift. The American having thus made use
        of the Irishmen to run his political machinery for him, and of
        the Germans to extend the territorial lines of order and
        civilization, secured unto himself all his own time for money
        making. Hence the colossal American fortunes, which, as we read
        of them now, seem to us like a tale of magicians. Such a policy
        must have seemed to a nineteenth-century American as a very
        shrewd and ingenious way of utilizing clements which otherwise
        might prove dangerous. The policy was, in truth, a fatally
        shortsighted one, as was proved later; since it was the enormous
        accumulation of fortunes in a few hands and the supposed tyranny
        of capital which wrought to a frenzy the envy and anger of the
        foreign poorer classes, then under the sway of the anarchist
        revolutionists.

After the American statesmen had made peace between the
        conquering but quarrelsome anarchists, these latter set about
        organizing the new society. Anarchy itself, although the
        principles for which it had fought and conquered now .prevailed,
        it was found, must subordinate itself to some form or order
        before it could hope to enforce order upon others.

The Anarchist’s war-cry had been, as you remember—Away with
        private property! away with all authority! away with the State!
        away with all political machinery! But now the leaders
        discovered that a belief in the reign of anarchy was one thing,
        and its practice was quite another. For a time, as you know,
        there was a terrible period of disorder, during which the
        grossest excesses were practiced under the name of “Perfect
        Individualism,” “a common property, common freedom, common
        distribution for all.” After a few years of the wildest
        indulgence, rapacity, crime, and cruelty—for, of course, there
        being no government, there could be neither restraints imposed
        nor crimes punished—the people themselves at last began to cry
        aloud for some form of government which should include at least
        order and decency. The Socialists’ doctrines were then decided
        upon as being more in conformity with the demands of the people
        and with the necessities of organizing a state than were the
        formless theories of the anarchists.

The leaders among the people, as has been done so many times
        before in the history of the world, began again the making of
        new laws, for the establishment of an ideal government and the
        forming of a new constitution which was to insure perfect and
        complete happiness to the individual and the race.

For over a hundred and fifty years, now, this ideal
        socialistic society had existed, and what are the results? No
        people ever assuredly had a more wonderful chance at
        constructing a society on an ideal basis than had these
        socialists. Think of it! An entire continent at their disposal,
        their enemies or opponents all killed or in exile, and they
        themselves united in desire and in political interest. Well, if
        some of the ineradicable, indestructible principles in human
        nature could be changed as easily as laws are made and unmade,
        the chances for an ideal realization of the happiness of mankind
        would be the more easily attained. But the Socialists committed
        the grave error of omitting to count some of these determining
        human laws into the sum of their calculations.

Time and paper are, however, finite, and also, presumably,
        your patience. I will postpone until my next the few remaining
        conclusions to which a brief study of this people and their
        government have led.

Your faithful WOLFGANG.

VI.

DEAR FRIEND: The longer I stay here the more I am impressed
        with the profound melancholy which appears to have taken
        possession of this people. The men, particularly, seem sunk in a
        torpor of dejection and settled apathy. The women, although by
        no means so vivacious and vigorous as our women, are, however,
        far more animated, and seem to have a keener relish for life,
        than the men. Probably the comparatively recent emancipation of
        the women, their new political and social freedom, adds a zest
        to the routine of life here which men do not feel.

So universal is the dreary aspect of the people, whether at
        work or play—and they play, I observe, far more languidly than
        they work that the type of face among them has undergone a
        strange and interesting transformation. You remember in the old
        prints the typical “Yankee” face, with its keen, penetrating
        eye, its courageous, determined chin, its intelligent brow, and
        its extraordinarily shrewd and intently alert expression. This
        vivacity and energy, once the chief charm of the American face,
        has entirely disappeared. In its stead, imagine wooden, almost
        sodden features, heavy, dull eyes, receding chins. and a brow on
        which dullness that very nearly approaches stupidity is writ in
        large letters. On all the faces is a stereotyped expression, a
        mingling of discontent and dejection. There is the same lack of
        variety of types among the faces I have noticed, as there is a
        want of contrast in the houses and streets. The entire
        population appears to have one face; wherever one turns one sees
        it repeated ad infinitum, whether it be that of man or woman,
        youth or old age.

I have accounted to myself for this curious physiological
        uniformity by finding in it simply a reflection of the
        uniformity seen in the life and occupations of this people. The
        race having been leveled to a common plane, there has been a
        gradual dying out of individuality. The inevitable curtailment
        of individual aims, individual struggle, individual ambitions,
        has naturally resulted in producing a featureless type of
        character, common to all. Since, of course, it is character
        alone which mulds feature, this people, being all more or.less
        alike, have come, in process of time, to look alike. Nature,
        after all, is only clay in the potter’s hand. Man, with his laws
        and creeds, fashions in the end

I found it, however, far more difficult to tion which appears
        to have settled upon this people, than to seek the causes of the
        above physiological aspect. I asked myself. again and again, why
        should this people, of all people, be full of this discontent
        and unhappiness? Haven’t they come to the realization of all
        their dreams? Have they not attained to the very summit and to
        the full glory of the possession of their social, civic and
        political desires and aspirations? Is there not equality of sex?
        Has not leisure instead of labor become a law? Is not private
        property abolished—is not the land the property of the State—the
        wage system become a thing of the past, and the possession of
        capital made a crime punishable by law? Does not the State also
        exist for the people, educating them, training them for their
        work in life, distributing among them any surplus funds that the
        public treasury may accumulate, and furnishing for their
        amusement and leisure a vast system of educational clubs,
        educational theaters, public games, museums and shows? If a
        people are not happy under such conditions, what will insure
        content?

Yet come with me. Let us walk through the principal
        thoroughfares, and watch the multitudes of people wandering
        listlessly up and down the streets; let us see them as they
        drift aimlessly into the theaters, museums, clubs; let us look
        in on them as they idly finger the new books and newspapers,
        yawning over them as they read, and you will agree with me, that
        the entire population seems to have but one really serious
        purpose in life—to murder time which appears to be slowly
        killing them.

After much thought on the reasons of this strange apathy,
        this inertia, and sloth of energy. I have come to two
        conclusions which have helped me to solve the problem of this
        people’s unhappiness. My first conclusion is that the people are
        dying for want of work—of downright hard work—my second
        conclusion is that in trying to establish the law of equality,
        the founders of this ideal community committed the fatal mistake
        of counting out those indestructible, ineradicable human
        tendencies and aspirations which have hitherto been the source
        of all human progress, to which I alluded in my last letter.

First, let us take the subject of work. As all work, men and
        women alike, and as machinery has been brought here to a
        wonderful degree of perfection, the actual labor necessary to
        maintain the people is, of necessity, very light. At first, a
        hundred or so years ago, in the early days of the community, the
        time of labor was fixed at five hours per day. But every decade,
        with the growth of the population, the labor hours have been
        diminishing. Recently a law has been put into effect, forbidding
        any one’s working more than two hours a day. This latter law has
        been found to be an actual necessity, from an economic point of
        view, as a provision against surplus production. A man,
        therefore, has the whole of the rest of his day on his hands, to
        spend as best he may.

The original hope and belief of the founders of Socialism was
        that if the people could only be given sufficient leisure, the
        whole race would be lifted to an extraordinary plane of
        perfection; that, were men given time enough, each man and woman
        would devote himself and herself to the development and
        improvement of his or her mental tastes and capacities. At
        first, I believe, such was the case. For at least thirty years
        there was an extraordinary zeal for learning and
        self-improvement. But in time, a reaction came. The founders had
        forgotten to make allowances for the mass of sluggards, idlers,
        and ne’er-do-wells who are always the immovable block in the
        reformer’s path of progress. Two parties were soon developed;
        the party of enlightenment and the conservative party. ILearning
        being the sole channel for the exercise of individual capacity
        or individual ambition, the old baneful system of competition
        soon developed itself. A superior class, a class composed of
        scholars, students, artists and authors, arose, whose views and
        whose political ideas threatened the very life and liberties of
        the community. The aristocracy of intellect, it was found was as
        dangerous to the State as an aristocracy founded on pride of
        descent or on the possession of ancestral acres. It became
        necessary, therefore, to make a law against learning and the
        sciences. All scholars, authors, artists and scientists who were
        found on examination to be more gifted than the average, were
        exiled.

A strict law was passed, and has since been rigidly enforced,
        forbidding mental or artistic development being carried beyond a
        certain fixed standard, a standard attainable by all. Quite
        naturally learning and the arts have gradually died out among
        this people. Whcre there are no rewards either of fame or
        personal advancement, the spur to mental or artistic achievement
        is found wanting. The arts particularly have languished. Art, as
        is well known, can only live by the strength of the
        imagination—and the imagination is fed by contrasts of life and
        degrees of picturesqueness. One of the old American sages,
        Emerson I think it was, well said of the artist, “If the rich
        were not rich, how poor would the poet be!” Quite naturally, in
        such a civilization as this, no conditions exist for either
        creating or maintaining artistic ability.

Can you not imagine, my dear Hannevig. that under such a
        system and order of life, time might be found to be a weighty
        burden? After the two hours devoted to labor, there are still
        fourteen waking hours to be be disposed of. The people have, it
        is true, their clubs and their theaters, the national games,
        their libraries and gardens. But just because all these are free
        and at their command, is, I presume, reason enough for their
        finding the amusements thus provided tame and uninteresting.
        Most of the inhabitants of this city spend their days at the
        gymnasium. In the exercises and games there practiced, one sees
        the only evidence or show of excitement and interest indulged
        in. Both men and women are muscled like athletes, from their
        continual exercises and perpetual bathing. The athletic party is
        now trying to pass a law to permit races and contests on the old
        Greek plan. But the conservatives will scarcely pass it, as they
        urge that the Olympian games, by developing the physical powers,
        was in reality only a training-school for the Greek army, and
        internecine trouble and dissension would surely follow any such
        public games, as they did in the Greek states.

You have, I believe, asked me if the people here are not
        allowed to find a scope for their superfluous energies in
        politics. But politics, as a profession, as a separate and
        independent function of activity, has ceased to exist. The state
        or Government is run on the great universal principle of
        reciprocity which governs the entire community. It exists for
        the people, is administered by the people, and acts for the
        people. All surplus revenues, derived from a minimum of
        equalized taxation are turned over to the public fund, being
        applied to public use. The machinery of the Government is run on
        the same principle of light labor which governs individual
        exertions. Each citizen, men and women alike, of course, serves
        his or her term as a government official, as in old Prussia men
        served in the army. As no one is ever reelected, no matter what
        his capacity or ability, and as each citizen only serves once
        during his life-time, there is no such thing known as political
        strife, or bribery or corruption. Neither is there any political
        life. The government is as automatic a performance as one of the
        silklooms of a factory.

There are certain changes which have lately taken place in
        the political and international affairs of the people which lead
        one into a labyrinth of speculation. There has, for instance,
        been a noticeable and lamentable dying out of international
        commerce and a general sluggishness of trade which greatly
        alarms the community at large. All trade and commerce are
        conducted on the socialistic principle, which forbids the
        venture of private capital, did such here exist, or of private
        enterprise.

It is the State which directs all such ventures. But the
        State, for some reason or other, does not appear to be a success
        as a merchant or as commercial financier. For one thing, the
        State is tremendously absorbed in its own affairs. As it takes
        care of its people, educating, training and developing them; as
        it looks after the material comforts and necessities of its vast
        population, its own internal duties really absorb all its
        energies. Then, in a government, founded as this one is, on a
        principle of equality, which principle is the sworn enemy of
        ambition there must of necessity be a lack of initiative, a
        feebleness in aggressive attack, and a want of determination in
        the pursuance of any given policy. It is only ambitious staple
        governments which can command and maintain a definite policy of
        national action. Even the American republic found it difficult.
        with its recurrent changes in official departments, to carry
        into effect great international projects. The people, here have
        ended by contenting themselves with the exercise of only so much
        executive, political or commercial activity as is found actually
        necessary to maintain their own existence. Men, whether as
        individuals or as a collective body, are indeed only actively
        aggressive, ambitious or audacious in proportion as they meet
        with opposition. It is struggle, and not the absence of it,
        which makes both men and a nation great.

I have, therefore, ceased to ask myself where are the old
        magnificent energies which once characterized this people. One
        looks in vain for the former warfare of intelligence, for the
        old time audacity of invention, for the fray of commercial
        contest, for the powerful massing of capital we read of as
        characteristic of Americans two hundred years ago. All this has
        gone with the old competitive system.

With the abolishment of competition have died out, naturally,
        all the prizes and rewards in life which came from individual
        struggle. As accumulation of personal property, in lands or in
        moneys, and the possibility of personal advancement are
        forbidden by law, under this form of government, all incentives
        to personal activity have disappeared. The law of equality, with
        its logical decrees for the suppression of superiority, has
        brought about the other extreme, sterility. The crippling of
        individual activity has finally produced its legitimate
        result—it has fatally sapped the energies of the people.

It is a curious and interesting feature in one’s study of
        this people, to find that it is not the establishment of the law
        of equality which has been the cause of decay in this people,
        but the enforcement of the opposite law—the law it was soon
        found necessary to establish against inequality. It naturally
        and logically followed that if men are to be made equal, such
        equality can only be maintained by the suppression of degrees of
        inequality. Mentally, for instance, the standard must be made
        low enough for all to attain it; each man, therefore, in time,
        no matter what his fitness, capacity or gift, was forced to
        subordinate his particular qualities to the general possibility
        of attainment. This level of a common mediocrity was more or
        less difficult to enforce and develop. Their own i historians
        record many interesting accounts of the slow death of
        inequality. In one I read only ß yesterday,” So instinctive
        through long centuries of oppression and misuse of power was the
        impulse among men to aspire to superiority of attainment, to
        excel in mental development, or to exhibit richer creative
        power, that for years the state penitentiaries were filled with
        men whose crime was their unconquerable desire selfishly to
        surpass their less fortunate brothers. It is only within our own
        enlightened twenty-first century that this grave fault has been
        remedied. Now, happily, no one dreams of insuring his own
        personal happiness at the expense of others.”

And so, my dear Hannevig, the old drama of history is enacted
        anew. Years ago men were unhappy because the many had to
        struggle against the favored few. Here, where all are equal, men
        are miserable because they are so; because all having equal
        claims to happiness, find life equally dull and aimless. The
        perpetual moan here is, O for a chance to be something, to do
        something, to achieve something!

I shall be able to send you only one more letter, as I return
        in a few days—by balloon this time, I think, instead of by
        tunnel.

VII.

Christmas Day

My good Hanniveg: I have only just time to send you one more
        incident and scene. It being, as you may have observed at the
        top of my letter, Christmas Day, I was curious to see how this
        festival would be observed here. Somewhat to my surprise I
        observed that the population went about their avocations just as
        usual. Then I reflected, in a country, where every day after
        eleven in the morning a true holiday sets in, there being
        nothing for anyone to do except to enjoy themselves, it would be
        difficult fitly to celebrate any special fete day. In point of
        fact, there are none such. The people voted them out of the
        calendar, saying they had all they could do to kill the ordinary
        enjoyment hours of each week without having to invent new games
        or occupations for a dozen different feast days. So all holidays
        are prescribed by law except Christmas. This day is kept up for
        two reasons—because it is thought to be an excellent time to
        show off the children brought up by the State to the people, and
        also because on Christmas Day each child is allowed to spend the
        day at home.

The exercises of the day began at the great Ethical Temple.
        Here ten thousand children were gathered to listen first to a
        lecture on the history of Christmas. There was a play in which
        Santa Claus appeared and a number of other legendary characters,
        to show the children in what mythological, absurd beings the
        children of the unenlightened nineteenth century believed in.
        Then ten thousand toys were distributed, dolls and whips and
        tops, and sleighs and skates. But as all were distributed
        indiscriminately by State officers to the children as they
        passed out on review, of course all the boys got the dolls and
        the girls the whips and tops. An hour afterward, outside the
        great building, I saw groups of the children doing a tremendous
        exchange, far more interested in bartering damaged dolls for
        shining skates than in endeavoring to establish the identity of
        their own parents, whom, indeed, having only seen a few times in
        the course of their lives, they barely know by sight.

I was slowly walking homeward, speculating on these and other
        revelations made by a more intimate knowledge of the workings of
        this great community, when I encountered a familiar face. It was
        that of my young lady-friend, whose conversation I reported to
        you above. She joined me and we walked on together.

“I hear you are going back to Sweden; is it true?” she
        asked.

“Yes, I return in a few days.”

“But you have enjoyed your trip-and—us?”

“Immensely. You are a wonderful country.”

“That, if I remember, is just what foreigners said to
        Americans two hundred years ago.” (I like this young girl
        particularly. She is more intelligent than most of the women one
        meets here. She is allowed to be, she told me, because she was
        so much less good looking than others, which is true. But in
        this land of dead equality one is grateful for a little
        intelligence, even if it be served up with homeliness).

“There is one thing I can not become accustomed to,” I said
        not wishing to be called to closer account for my impressions,
        ”and that is that there are no church steeples or spires. The
        absence of them gives such a uniform look to all your
        cities.”

“Churches? Oh, they went out long ago, you know. Religion, it
        was found, brought about discussion. It was voted immoral.”

“Yes, I know. Only I thought a few spires or churches might
        possibly have been preserved in a kind of sentimental pickle, as
        castles and ruins are kept in England, to add what an old writer
        calls” the necessary element of decay to the landscape.”

“That was Ruskin, was it not? What a quaint old writer! His
        books read as if they were written in a dead language. As for
        the churches, they were all destroyed, you know, in the war
        between the radicals and the orthodox, and not a stone was left
        standing. Since then the State has erected these huge Ethical
        Temples, where all the religions are explained and where the
        philosophy of ethics is taught the people. The finest of all
        these temples is the Temple of the Liberators; have you seen it
        yet?” she asked.

“I have not, but I should like to do so. WilI you be my
        guide?”

She led me thither.

We soon came to a structure which being smaller, and of
        fairly good and symmetrical proportions, was a little less
        hideous than the other temples I had seen. Inside, in the center
        of the building was a colossal statue—a portrait it is said—of
        the founder, Henry George. Around the sides of the wall, were
        niches where portrait busts of the martyrs stand—the nihilists,
        early anarchists, and socialists who endured persecution and
        often death in the early days of socialism. A book I noticed was
        placed near the Henry George statue. It was the socialistic
        bible “Poverty and Progress” which with a number of other such
        books forms the chief literature of the people. Once a year, my
        young friend told me, there is a sacred reading to the people
        from this book.

As we turned to pursue our way homeward she again began to
        question me—“But you haven’t told me yet what you think of us as
        a country and a people,” she persisted.

“Well, since you will have it I will tell you. You are a
        great and surprising people.” I mean her, as I must you, for my
        letter is a volume. In a few days I shall be telling you all I
        can not write. Adieu,

Yours, WOLFGANG.

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