IV, — 'SUNNY PROGRESSIVISM AND THE SHADOW OF WAR 



electric telegraph from a physical experiment to a commercial agency, 

 and soon nerves of steel and copper, throbbing with intelligence, were 

 follow ing the pioneer into the remotest recesses and pushing beneath the 

 ocean; Faradav, the Siemens brothers, Helmholtz, and later Sir William 

 Thomson (Lord Kelvin) freely gave genius and toil; then came Edison 

 with an eruption of brilliant inventions; and to-dav time and space are 

 as if thev were not, and from sea to sea our subjects of thought are as 

 one. It was but yesterday that half our world knew not how the other 

 half lived; now both halves read the same items at breakfast. 



Themselves harvesters after the experimentalists in physics, the early 

 telegraphers were planters for Graham Bell, and the telephone came to 

 carr\' the word of man afar, and the graphophone to perpetuate it for- 

 ever, and thus to complete the annihilation of space and time as obstacles 

 to the diffusion and unification of intelligence. Inspired by success in 

 conveying thought, inventors sought to convey grosser powers, and 

 dynamos were invented to furnish light better and cheaper than the 

 world had known before; devices for warming and even for cooking, 

 and for lowering temperature by fans and refrigerant pipes, quickly fol- 

 lowed; and now the lightning is harnessed in our houses as the thunder 

 is subdued in telephone and graphophone. Meantime, motors and trans- 

 mitters were perfected, and electric transportation came into successful 

 competition with steam locomotion, w hile the power derived from water- 

 falls and central plants was made divisible, so that units of power are 

 now sold as freely as pounds of tea or sugar were fifty years ago: and a 

 way has been found to counteract the concentration of artisans in fac- 

 tories located by w aterfall or engine. The conquest of nature by electric 

 power, gained through controlling an infinitesimal part of the vibrant 

 atomic energy of our corner of the cosmos, has come rapidly, and so 

 steadily as almost to escape notice; yet it is a marvel beside which the 

 magical lamp of Aladdin and all other figments of Oriental fancy are as 

 nothing. . . . 



Such have been a few of the advances in science of the half-century; 

 the discovery of the persistence of motion, the invention of spectroscopy, 

 the control of electricity, the discovery of the periodic law, the recogni- 

 tion of evolution, and the culture classification of mankind may be con- 

 sidered the first half-dozen. If summed in a single term, the half-century's 

 advance in science may be expressed as recognition of the unifomiity 

 and potentiality of nature; while the applications are invention on the 

 practical side, and kinetic interpretation (or interpretation in terms of 

 motion and sequence) on the philosophic side. Most of the advances 

 began in Europe, to be hastened in America, and a full half of the prog- 

 ress must be credited to cisatlantic genius and enterprise. 



In truth, America has become a nation of science. There is no in- 

 dustry, from agriculture to architecture, that is not shaped by research 

 and its results; there is not one of our fifteen millions of families that 

 does not enjoy the benefits of scientific advancement; there is no law in 

 our statutes, no motive in our conduct, that has not been made juster by 

 the straightforward and unselfish habit of thought fostered by scientific 

 methods. A nation of free minds will not be selfish or cruel; and the 



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