i94 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



employed, and wages are unusually high and still going up. So 

 fortunate do we consider ourselves that a great political party, with a 

 complacency that almost compels admiration, taking credit to itself 

 for the conditions that have produced these unprecedented results, 

 presents as its watchword, borrowing an elegant phrase from the 

 gambler, the injunction to " Stand pat," on the assumption that condi- 

 tions are so near perfection that they can not be improved. 



Conditions being as I have described, let us imagine an intelligent 

 traveler from Altruria, or from Mars, coming among us, and let us 

 fancy his observations. " Surely," he will say, falling into the super- 

 lative, " this is the greatest country in the world. The easy circum- 

 stances of your people have undoubtedly left them time for the enjoy- 

 ment of art, of literature and, of science, and have enabled them to 

 cultivate the love of beauty and of truth as no other nation has done. 

 Your rich men have had the leisure to educate themselves to the 

 highest pitch, to patronize the arts so that your architecture, your 

 paintings and your music surpass all others, and have been able to con- 

 stitute themselves a leading class whose influence by their writings, 

 their scientific discoveries and their civic devotion has made them an 

 aristocracy such as the world has not seen." I fancy I see a slight 

 shade of embarrassment spread over the face of his cicerone, say in 

 New York or Pittsburg, from which he presently rallies, as he points 

 out to the stranger, " To be sure, speaking of architecture, that office 

 building is the tallest structure in the world, overtopping the cathedral 

 of Cologne, and doubling the height of the pyramids; either of those 

 two railway stations is larger than any other; as for music, every 

 family has an automatically played piano, in these two opera houses 

 sing artists paid salaries higher than anywhere else, mostly Europeans 

 to be sure; in this gallery are the most expensive pictures to be had in 

 Europe, no princely family in Europe being able to resist our offers; 

 as to literature, our newspapers are larger, printed faster, in larger 

 type, and containing more news, unimportant it is true, than any 

 others, and as for science, these dynamos furnish more current than 

 any others in the world. As for the power of our rich men, one of 

 them controls more miles of railway than would go around the earth, 

 which he manages all for the benefit of the public, while others freely 

 give their energies to the management of great public institutions 

 which insure what poor we have against the terrors of old age and 

 death." 



But enough of imaginary conversation, and let us examine in all 

 seriousness what are the fruits by which America shall be known. 

 Within the last few years we have frequently heard the exultant state- 

 ment that the United States is now a world-power. What is a world- 

 power? Is it a nation whose armaments are able to wring from all 



