September 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Praised by io9 as the first lesbian science fiction novel, *An Anglo-American Alliance* is a whimsical exploration of love, transformation, and geopolitics set in the imaginative year of 1960. In this world, the Anglo-American Alliance reigns as a global government, heralding a new era of technological and social progress. Yet, even in this seemingly utopian time, the love that dare not speak its name remains taboo. The narrative centers on the secret romance blossoming between two women, Margaret MacDonald and Aurora Cunningham, at a ladies seminary in Cornwall. As they navigate their hidden desires, they also learn to harness the powers of science and technology to turn their dreams into reality. Please note While the novel offers progressive insights on sexuality and gender identity, it also reflects the prejudices of its era, containing instances of ethnocentrism, antisemitism, and casual racism that may be uncomfortable for some listeners. - Summary by ChuckW
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter four of an Anglo American Alliance by Gregory Casparian.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter four,
Historical Events of the twentieth Century. The senior class of
(00:21):
the Diana Seminary were assembled in the auditorium, listening in
a trance of respectful attention to Professor C. L. O. Allenson.
He had just begun his review of the historical events
of the twentieth century now and then giving his individual
comments upon the subjects presented. Nineteen hundred an era of
(00:47):
false prosperity. With the beginning of the twentieth century was
inaugurated an era of false prosperity. The Census Bureau at
that time time furnishes statistics and comments upon the wonderfully
perceptible decrease of the criminal classes called footpads, sneak thieves,
(01:10):
and highwaymen, which was attributed chiefly to the existing national prosperity.
It overlooks the fact, however, that a new species of miscreants,
comparatively more dangerous had begun to thrive like mushrooms and
prolific numbers, that of so called commercial brigands or financial buccaneers,
(01:36):
who under fascinating and attractive names, such as mining syndicates
with their fabulous deposits of gold offering bucketfuls of shares
for a dime, banking and building loan associations with palatial
homes thrown in grottis to every subscriber, VORs of illusory
(02:01):
inventions seeking shareholders which would make them millions in the
twinkling of an eye. Alchemists who with their artful empirics
of Leger domain, transmuted base metals into gold and were
willing to dispose of their precious wares for pennies. Wall
(02:23):
Street and racetrack spiders, posing as benevolent philanthropists, scattering fortunes
right and left to every applicant, sapped the avaricious Sottish
public of its dearly bought earnings. Strange to say, despite
(02:44):
many colossal exposures and failures, As these adroit swindlers grew
more subtle and audacious, the more the gambling crazed public
rushed to their destruction. The effect was appalling. Consequence of
the depredations of these pirates of industry, their reputable business
(03:06):
and financial firms were the greatest sufferers. Their legitimate transactions
were paralyzed to such a tremendous degree that they were
compelled to advise ways and means to counteract its evils.
In nineteen o eight, after mature deliberation at a general
convention in Washington, it was decided to raise ample funds
(03:30):
and create a bureau under the auspices of the Federal
government called the Bureau of Frauds and Swindlers. The duties
imposed upon its officers were the ferreting out and prosecuting
of the wildcat schemes, and to warn the public against them.
(03:50):
The measure, being approved by the national government, had the
desired effect of freeing, to a great degree, the financial
world from its parasites of industrial malefactors, and to some extent,
established again the stability and integrity of honorable financiers, in
(04:11):
the meanwhile safeguarding foolish persons from being fleeced out of
their savings. Nineteen o two, the Cataclysm at Martinique. Saint
Pierre Martinique was destroyed by a volcanic eruption of Mount
Peley on the eighth day of May. In a few minutes,
(04:36):
more than thirty thousand human beings were hurled into eternity.
Nineteen o eight the Mormon question. The anti plural wives
laws were enforced to the letter. Its emphatic application to
all members of the sect was brought about principally by
(04:56):
the women's clubs, whose persistent and overwhelming aggressiveness played an
important factor in the stamping out of this demoralizing and
materialistic religion. In this era of civilization. The existence of
a religious organization of this character, like a cancerous growth,
(05:18):
was threatening to debase womanhood and lead the communities to
unbridled licentiousness. Nineteen o nine Capital and labour. Every new movement,
be it religious, political, or economic, has its birth like
(05:40):
a volcano, and unionism was no exception to this rule.
The labour unions at first had their violent agitators, who,
possessing greater physical than mental caliber, laid the crude foundation
of a force in an arbitrary manner that consequently had
(06:00):
its gradual evolution of development. Their constant conflicts with Capital
were characterised by an unreasonable amount of physical argument, which
resulted in more or less disastrous denouments. But these very
acts of lawlessness and disturbances awakened a third party, the
(06:21):
consumers in general, who were equally affected by the disturbances
between capital and labour and brought about a realization of
the true relative positions. Labour certainly had its unalienable rights
and was entitled to due consideration and justice. However, like
(06:43):
the negative and positive polls of electricity, which are both
essential in order that a circuit of effective force be generated,
capital and labour likewise had their dual relative values of importance,
without which there could be no constancy of harmonious production.
By the gradual awakening of both capital and labor to
(07:06):
their true limitations, the questions involved began to assume a
more intelligent basis under the codes of arbitration. At the
same time, the violent agitators of labor were succeeded in
the trend of this onward development by more intelligent organizers.
(07:29):
These latter were merged into accomplished, rational leaders, and, through
the efficient medium of the ballot box, into national representatives. Consequently,
the more dignified, orderly, and responsible labour became, the more
the workers became entitled to the benefits of their labor.
(07:53):
A department of capital in labor, which so far had
been merely probationary, became a permanent institution at the capital
and in every state of the Union as well nineteen ten.
The expense of living. It is one of the strangest
(08:14):
and consistencies of social problems that, although political economists and
scholars have preached the doctrine that inventions and improved methods
in mechanical lines contribute to the blessings of mankind by
cheapening the necessities of life, yet in spite of their
(08:35):
plausible declarations, the cost of living year by year grew
higher and higher, entailing untold suffering and despair among the
poorer classes. The cause of this lamentable perversion was due
to a certain clique and scrupulous progeny of mammon called
(08:57):
trusts and corporations, who, being blinded with an insatiable desire
for pelf and lust, and stupefied with a frenzied avarice,
monopolized all the necessities of life. The vast occidental domain
of our country was of unlimited resources and was capable
(09:20):
of producing an abundance the products which they cornered. The
modus operandi of their rapacious operations were manifold. They limited
the output of nature's bounty in order to keep them
at prohibitive values and at the same time deprived hosts
(09:41):
of sons of toil of earning their livelihood. They kept
at their inoperative mercy by their abominable tactics of purchase
the producer from receiving his just share, and they also
molted the helpless consumer by the unlimited inflation of their
capital stock and fictitious expenses, until at length the burden
(10:06):
of their avarice became unendurable. Although attempts have repeatedly been
made by sincere executives of the nation by the advocation
of measures for curbing the rapacity of these trusts, their
endeavors met with failure on account of the vague and
flexible laws already in existence, and by the array of
(10:30):
syncophantic traders and high circles, who prevented any legislation which
was conducive to the tranquility and welfare of the masses.
At last, only after a series of sanguinary demonstrations by
the people, which almost endangered the stability of the republic,
(10:52):
they were compelled to yield by the passage of clearly
defined laws. The career of their noses farious system of
exploitation was brought to an end. One of the most
effacious laws passed was the creation of a body of
competent men of supreme power, who appraised approximately the capitalization
(11:15):
of these concerns and licensed them as such under oath.
The states, in the meantime assumed the power of fixing
a maximum value for their commodities which might be placed
on the market. By the above legislations, the inflation of
their capital and extortion from the consumer were made securely impossible.
(11:43):
Nineteen eleven death of an imminent scholar, Professor Henry Richfield,
a profound scholar in the author of How to Get Rich,
a ponderous work in twelve Octavo volumes, passed away in
an attic, an abject penury and squalor. Nineteen twelve The
(12:06):
annihilation of mosquitoes. Although the mortality statistics in the United
States for last year reached the round number of two
million persons from various diseases, among them chiefly from consumption pneumonia,
typhoid fever, and epidemics of smallpox in diphtheria, a few
(12:28):
sporadic cases of death were recorded resulting from mosquito bites,
which gave grave concern to the medical fraternity. The outcome
of this alarm was the calling of a general conference
of bacteriological experts. The mosquito that it hitherto enjoyed unbridled freedom,
(12:49):
since the creation of his race was now looked upon
as the arch enemy of mankind. A noted philanthropist, interested
in oil wells and having on hand a great bulk
of unmarketable crude petroleum, donated a large sum for research
in order to discover ways and means of curbing the
(13:11):
ravages of these nefarious pests which threatened the annihilation of
the human race. It was decided by this savants that
the distribution of crude petroleum in stagnant pools and humid
marshes was the only effective method for the extermination of
mosquito life. The distribution of greenbacks for their valuable services,
(13:37):
notwithstanding the fact that under the microscope they were found
to contain two hundred and fifty seven diseases and thirty
eight million microbes to the square inch, were grabbed with
unprecedented avidity by these same specialists. Nineteen thirteen. Child labor,
(13:59):
the dwarfing and crippling of the mental, moral, and physical
growth of tender children by the avaricious employers, and its
baleful consequences of peopling the community with moral and bodily
degenerates devoid of the desirable elements of good citizenship, had
become so appallingly flagrant that a general sentiment of the
(14:24):
people was aroused in a mighty protest to the federal authorities.
Thanks to the aggressive and strenuous legislative warfare of labor
unions in every state, aided by the persistent moral agitation
of women's clubs all over the country, child labor was
(14:45):
entirely abolished in many channels of industry, such as mills, factories, collieries,
and plantations. In more gentle occupations, the employment of miners
was placed on a health and more humane basis than
had ever before been the case. Nineteen fourteen, the Great
(15:10):
Radium swindle. The fabulously high price of this medal had
awakened the cupidity of a coterie of adroit schemers who
had palmed off on unsuspecting men of science, a rank
substitute which caused only a trifle to manufacture. After securing
(15:31):
an enormous sum of money, the schemers had decamped to
parts unknown. It was discovered that the spurious metal thus
disposed was nothing more than a highly compressed form of phosphorus.
Nineteen fifteen death of an imminent physician, Doctor Wisehardt, the
(15:54):
brilliant young physician and surgeon who discovered the electromagnetic germ
cells of life and invented methods to prolong life itself
by the cultivation of these cells, died in the twenty
seventh year of his age from premature senility. Nineteen sixteen
(16:16):
A tidal wave. The most memorable event of this year
was a gigantic tidal wave of tremendous height which swept
over the lower coast of Florida in a few minutes.
It inundated and destroyed a vast area of the coast,
doing incalculable damage to shipping. It was estimated that nearly
(16:40):
fifteen thousand persons lost their lives in this cataclysm. Nineteen
seventeen War between United States and Columbia. The stubborn attitude
of the Central American Republic Columbia towards the United States
by her minute using antagonism to the construction of the
(17:03):
Interoceanic Canal, gradually created a breach of the peace that
led ultimately to a forcible demonstration by the United States
and precipitated the invasion by the latter of the Republic
of Panama. Peace was re established after a crushing defeat
of the Colombians the famous Waterway. The Republic of Panama
(17:29):
then became United States territory by annexation nineteen eighteen. The
Women's Clubs. The women's clubs, which during their first inception
were the subject of much ridicule and the proceedings of
their meetings a theme for rebeled jokes in the secular press,
(17:53):
gradually developed into such gigantic proportions that their influence became
a powerful fact in every public question of the day,
and in fact so continues unabated unto this day. The
last federal statistics show more than two thousand institutions in
the form of sanitariums, refuges, technical schools of practical utility,
(18:21):
entirely under the auspices of club women. The constitutions of
these laudable organizations invariably stand for something which is ennobling,
and their achievements are monumental tributes to the upward trend
of womanhood. There was, however, a crucial period in their
(18:43):
affairs worth mentioning. Some of these noble but over zealous
women of that period, in their exuberant enthusiasm for women's rights,
forgetting the limitations of their sex, considered by the greatest
thinkers the past ages to be the sphere of home,
(19:03):
agitated a propaganda of political equality and suffrage, and from
time to time created a stir among their organizations, until
at last, in nineteen eighteen, the National Federation of Women's
Clubs decided to hold a conclave in order to decide
the following momentous question should women enter politics. More than
(19:30):
four thousand, five hundred delegates from all over the Union
assembled at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Sympathizers
of the suffragists, with their eloquence, tried to railroad through
a measure in their behalf, but equally able leaders of
the opposition, benefited by the warning of the Sages, succeeded
(19:55):
in counterbalancing the efforts of their fair antagonists. After a
heated symposium, the question was put to a vote, which
resulted decisively in a victory for those who opposed the movement.
It was further voted that they should confine all their
energies to civic, educational, and humanitarian channels. And things pertaining
(20:20):
to home. This was a most happy and wise decision
for the world at large needs mothers who will beget
and nurse a Florence Nightingale, a Clara Barton, a Washington,
or a Lincoln, rather than mothers would become a Jezebel,
a Delilah, or a Cleopatra. Nineteen nineteen, the tornado, a
(20:50):
cyclonic tornado of intense velocity and destructive force, struck New
York City, demolishing in its path in the shape of
a semicir circle from the Battery to thirty third Street West,
two hundred and seventy five buildings. Fortunately, the day being
(21:11):
a holiday, the loss of life was comparatively small. Nineteen twenty,
the power of the press, through emancipation from its shackles
of monarchic censorship and subserviency to despotic masters. The upward
(21:31):
rise of the press to usefulness and power was without
a parallel, a power to which even Napoleon Bonaparte was
sensible when he said I fear three newspapers more than
one hundred thousand bayonets. But like everything else in the universe,
the press also had its dual personality. Like a two
(21:55):
edged sword, it could be wielded for good or evil.
In the bands of an unscrupulous politician, it was a
treacherous weapon, while in the control of the righteous citizen
a tremendous power of good. Thus, the press, for many decades,
(22:17):
subsidized by the traitorous capitalist and under the guise of
a pious mask, catered to the evil designs of the plutocracy,
until the gradual awakening of the people through the independent press,
at last understood their hypocrisy. The independent press, however, attained
(22:38):
its highest degree of efficiency by the establishment of the
College of Journalism. Its foundation slogan publicity on all political
and economic questions, had created a force of trained journalists,
a force mightier than the sword, and in a manner
(22:59):
far more penn trading than the x ray. Pledged to
defend the rights of the citizens by an educational propaganda,
it taught the masses how to eradicate existing evils by
the mere exercising of their unalienable right the ballot box. Indeed,
(23:20):
in a government of the people, for the people and
by the people, resort to force or revolution was absolutely unnecessary.
While these two most effectual weapons the world had ever seen,
the voting Booth and the free press were at their
command nineteen twenty one balloons and airships. Strange to say,
(23:46):
from the time of Architas of Tarantum to Otto Lilienthal,
and from Montgolfier Brothers to Santos Dumont Bell maximin Langley,
very little or no price progress has been made in
practical and safe aerial navigation. Though all these inventors, whether
(24:07):
cranks with a smattering of mechanical knowledge, were veritable savants
and scientists efficient in physics, according to their own accounts,
had studied the subject of aerial flight from the fowls
of the air. The failure of their experiments showed that
they were far from grasping the mysteries of that subtle
(24:27):
sagacity and subconsciousness of the birds by which they balanced
themselves against the currents and velocity of the winds, and
by their intuitive sensitiveness utilized to the fullest extent their
vast numbers of muscles and feathers with such marvelous subtlety,
(24:48):
like the Italian alchemist in the Middle Ages, who had
constructed the wings of his flying machine with feathers gathered
from a dunghill, and who when attempting to fly, had
found himself dumped by a strange sympathetic affinity on the
very dungkill from which he had gathered the feathers. The efforts,
(25:08):
likewise of these illustrious experimenters were crowned by successful failures
by a similar force of attraction, their apparatus either alighting
on the branches of trees or diving into the waters
like ducks. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the
consensus on scientific opinion had reached the conclusion that the
(25:31):
successful flying machines of the future would be one which
would be heavier than air and with either a very
small balloon or none at all. The various forms of
balloons and flying craft exhibited at the Saint Louis Exposition
became an incentive for renewed efforts by scientists to solve
(25:52):
the problem of aerial flight, and continued with unremitting zest
for nearly a quarter of a century. It was in
the early part of nineteen nineteen that the science of
aeronautics was radically improved by the discovery of a process
for hardening and soldering of aluminium by which comparatively light
(26:13):
but strong framework and machinery were constructed, and thus gradually
the elimination of inflated balloons had become possible. Nineteen twenty
two The flood and Mississippi Valley. In the spring of
this year, the Mississippi Valley was flooded and submerged by
(26:35):
terrible cloudbursts, which combined with melting of snows on the
mountains and subsequent bursting of dams and levees, devastated a
vast area. According to records, the lives lost in the
inundated districts reached the total of sixty thousand. Nineteen twenty
(26:57):
three Uniform divorce law. The unprecedented increase of divorce all
over the United States and the attendance scandalous proceedings at
the courts had reached such a maximum, and its baneful
influence on the public morals had developed into such a
point of danger that a great awakening among the clergy
(27:20):
and lawmakers of the nation was the result. At a
conclave of representatives of the legal profession from every state
in the Union was promulgated a uniform divorce law for
the United States of America. Nineteen twenty four. The Zionist
movement or the bursting of the zion bubble. The Zionist movement,
(27:47):
which for thirty years past gained more than two million
converts and within that period had collected more than fifteen
million dollars, was declared impractical and illusion at the estimable
originators of this sentimental movement, herzel Nordau, Zangwill and others,
(28:09):
although beyond the shadow of a doubt, sincere and well
meaning through the intensity of their zeal for the amelioration
of their less fortunate brethren, were entirely blindfolded to the
intricacies of politics and the eventual history of the Jewish race.
From an ethnological and psychological point of view, some of
(28:33):
these true yet misguided philanthropists had passed away, and other leaders,
less impressed with the object of the society, had taken
their places. As the Jews are not a pioneer race,
the magnanimous scheme of the British government to place them
upon a tract of virgin soil at Uganda in Central
(28:56):
Africa for the purpose of colonization proved chaotic failure on
account of both sociological and economic reasons. The idea also
of establishing a Jewish principality in Palestine under an absolute,
despotic and semi barbarous government which butchered her subjects. Ad
(29:19):
Lebitum was so ridiculous in the extreme that the questions
had become the laughing stock at the political sancta sanctorums
of various governments. In nineteen twenty three, a tremendous agitation
was brought about by the leaders of the opposition, and
those in power of the movement were challenged to public debate.
(29:43):
The question grew to such proportions that it became a
subject in every orthodox and gentile pulpit. In the press. Sociologists,
ethnologists and anthropologists took part in the ephemeral arena and
analyzed every phase of the subject relating to the Hebrew
(30:04):
race and the Zionist movement, laying bare every fact without reserve.
It was stated by the opposition that though a stream
of money had been pouring in from every quarter of
the globe year after year for the cause, no result
as yet had been obtained. That great sums had been
(30:25):
spent in salaries of the officials and at the dilly dallying,
corrupt courts of the Turkish Sultan. A learned sociologist likened
the Hebrews to a parasitic plant which derived its existence
from the living sap of another. An Israelite. He declared,
(30:47):
can only exist favorably among civilized centers of Christian and
Gentile communities, that whenever a colony of Hebrews were isolated
by themselves, they would inevitably and gradually retrograde, impoverish, and
at last form a ghetto of misery and squalor. Another
(31:10):
ethnologist of repute expounded the fact that the Jews were
the life and essence of commercial activity and consequently formed
an integral part of a prosperous commonwealth. Sublimely industrious, instinctively provident,
and economical by nature, the Jews were persecuted because of
(31:33):
their inherent virtues. He proved by clever historical documents that
their expulsion from Babylon, in Egypt, Spain, Russia, or wherever
their rights were abrogated, were the fundamental causes of the
decadence of these countries from which they were expelled. Others
(31:53):
accused the Hebrews of perverting the Golden rule, of taking
advantage of others and theirs their inborn instinct of commercial sagacity,
which well nigh approached on scrupulousness, and that being a
mere commercial people, their patriotism could well be challenged. Many
(32:14):
others advised, however, a propaganda of judicious assimilation of the Israelite,
with the Christians contending that the sum total of their
virtues and faults was the same as that of their
Christian brethren. Meanwhile, they advised the Jews that wherever they lived,
(32:35):
they ought to make their their zions and temples. After
much heated argument and discussion, which occupied several days, they
at last arrived at the conclusion that the Zionist movement
was chimerical. The balance of the funds, amounting to many
million dollars, were voted for the establishment of technical and
(32:58):
commercial schools for Israeli, and for a fund to aid
the judicious immigration of the Jews from ill favored and
contested districts to more favorable localities. Nineteen twenty five to
twenty six The Anglo American Alliance. The Anglo American alliance
(33:21):
by which these two foremost nations of the Earth were
brought into a happy, fraternal union, and for the achievement
of which for nearly a quarter of a century there
had been a great effort, and this year had become
an accomplished fact. It was celebrated in a manner unprecedented
(33:42):
in the annals of the world's history, having a profound
and far reaching effect. It became an ultimatum for other
nations to keep the peace, and goaded them toward the
adoption of similar laws in order to secure the same
reciprocal blessings of universal brotherhood. Much credit was due to
(34:03):
that eminent English statesman, now Lord Cunningham, through whose tactful
diplomacy this long sought commercial, social, offensive and defensive alliance
became a reality. I am restrained, said the professor, looking
in the direction of Aurora Cunningham, to avoid eulogizing him,
(34:27):
as he justly deserves, for obvious reasons. At this sentence,
the students, under the impulse of a sudden admiration, arose
to their feet in mass, and, glancing smilingly at Aurora,
began rapturously to clap their hands. The interruption of sympathetic
(34:50):
appreciation was brought to a close by a ringing cry
of the seminary yell d de ya ya Na Na Diana, Hurrah,
Hurrah Hurrah. Aurora, blushing deeply, gracefully bowed her acknowledgment, and
(35:11):
in due form, the class was dismissed for the day.
End of chapter four
Chapter four of an Anglo American Alliance by Gregory Casparian.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter four,
Historical Events of the twentieth Century. The senior class of
(00:21):
the Diana Seminary were assembled in the auditorium, listening in
a trance of respectful attention to Professor C. L. O. Allenson.
He had just begun his review of the historical events
of the twentieth century now and then giving his individual
comments upon the subjects presented. Nineteen hundred an era of
(00:47):
false prosperity. With the beginning of the twentieth century was
inaugurated an era of false prosperity. The Census Bureau at
that time time furnishes statistics and comments upon the wonderfully
perceptible decrease of the criminal classes called footpads, sneak thieves,
(01:10):
and highwaymen, which was attributed chiefly to the existing national prosperity.
It overlooks the fact, however, that a new species of miscreants,
comparatively more dangerous had begun to thrive like mushrooms and
prolific numbers, that of so called commercial brigands or financial buccaneers,
(01:36):
who under fascinating and attractive names, such as mining syndicates
with their fabulous deposits of gold offering bucketfuls of shares
for a dime, banking and building loan associations with palatial
homes thrown in grottis to every subscriber, VORs of illusory
(02:01):
inventions seeking shareholders which would make them millions in the
twinkling of an eye. Alchemists who with their artful empirics
of Leger domain, transmuted base metals into gold and were
willing to dispose of their precious wares for pennies. Wall
(02:23):
Street and racetrack spiders, posing as benevolent philanthropists, scattering fortunes
right and left to every applicant, sapped the avaricious Sottish
public of its dearly bought earnings. Strange to say, despite
(02:44):
many colossal exposures and failures, As these adroit swindlers grew
more subtle and audacious, the more the gambling crazed public
rushed to their destruction. The effect was appalling. Consequence of
the depredations of these pirates of industry, their reputable business
(03:06):
and financial firms were the greatest sufferers. Their legitimate transactions
were paralyzed to such a tremendous degree that they were
compelled to advise ways and means to counteract its evils.
In nineteen o eight, after mature deliberation at a general
convention in Washington, it was decided to raise ample funds
(03:30):
and create a bureau under the auspices of the Federal
government called the Bureau of Frauds and Swindlers. The duties
imposed upon its officers were the ferreting out and prosecuting
of the wildcat schemes, and to warn the public against them.
(03:50):
The measure, being approved by the national government, had the
desired effect of freeing, to a great degree, the financial
world from its parasites of industrial malefactors, and to some extent,
established again the stability and integrity of honorable financiers, in
(04:11):
the meanwhile safeguarding foolish persons from being fleeced out of
their savings. Nineteen o two, the Cataclysm at Martinique. Saint
Pierre Martinique was destroyed by a volcanic eruption of Mount
Peley on the eighth day of May. In a few minutes,
(04:36):
more than thirty thousand human beings were hurled into eternity.
Nineteen o eight the Mormon question. The anti plural wives
laws were enforced to the letter. Its emphatic application to
all members of the sect was brought about principally by
(04:56):
the women's clubs, whose persistent and overwhelming aggressiveness played an
important factor in the stamping out of this demoralizing and
materialistic religion. In this era of civilization. The existence of
a religious organization of this character, like a cancerous growth,
(05:18):
was threatening to debase womanhood and lead the communities to
unbridled licentiousness. Nineteen o nine Capital and labour. Every new movement,
be it religious, political, or economic, has its birth like
(05:40):
a volcano, and unionism was no exception to this rule.
The labour unions at first had their violent agitators, who,
possessing greater physical than mental caliber, laid the crude foundation
of a force in an arbitrary manner that consequently had
(06:00):
its gradual evolution of development. Their constant conflicts with Capital
were characterised by an unreasonable amount of physical argument, which
resulted in more or less disastrous denouments. But these very
acts of lawlessness and disturbances awakened a third party, the
(06:21):
consumers in general, who were equally affected by the disturbances
between capital and labour and brought about a realization of
the true relative positions. Labour certainly had its unalienable rights
and was entitled to due consideration and justice. However, like
(06:43):
the negative and positive polls of electricity, which are both
essential in order that a circuit of effective force be generated,
capital and labour likewise had their dual relative values of importance,
without which there could be no constancy of harmonious production.
By the gradual awakening of both capital and labor to
(07:06):
their true limitations, the questions involved began to assume a
more intelligent basis under the codes of arbitration. At the
same time, the violent agitators of labor were succeeded in
the trend of this onward development by more intelligent organizers.
(07:29):
These latter were merged into accomplished, rational leaders, and, through
the efficient medium of the ballot box, into national representatives. Consequently,
the more dignified, orderly, and responsible labour became, the more
the workers became entitled to the benefits of their labor.
(07:53):
A department of capital in labor, which so far had
been merely probationary, became a permanent institution at the capital
and in every state of the Union as well nineteen ten.
The expense of living. It is one of the strangest
(08:14):
and consistencies of social problems that, although political economists and
scholars have preached the doctrine that inventions and improved methods
in mechanical lines contribute to the blessings of mankind by
cheapening the necessities of life, yet in spite of their
(08:35):
plausible declarations, the cost of living year by year grew
higher and higher, entailing untold suffering and despair among the
poorer classes. The cause of this lamentable perversion was due
to a certain clique and scrupulous progeny of mammon called
(08:57):
trusts and corporations, who, being blinded with an insatiable desire
for pelf and lust, and stupefied with a frenzied avarice,
monopolized all the necessities of life. The vast occidental domain
of our country was of unlimited resources and was capable
(09:20):
of producing an abundance the products which they cornered. The
modus operandi of their rapacious operations were manifold. They limited
the output of nature's bounty in order to keep them
at prohibitive values and at the same time deprived hosts
(09:41):
of sons of toil of earning their livelihood. They kept
at their inoperative mercy by their abominable tactics of purchase
the producer from receiving his just share, and they also
molted the helpless consumer by the unlimited inflation of their
capital stock and fictitious expenses, until at length the burden
(10:06):
of their avarice became unendurable. Although attempts have repeatedly been
made by sincere executives of the nation by the advocation
of measures for curbing the rapacity of these trusts, their
endeavors met with failure on account of the vague and
flexible laws already in existence, and by the array of
(10:30):
syncophantic traders and high circles, who prevented any legislation which
was conducive to the tranquility and welfare of the masses.
At last, only after a series of sanguinary demonstrations by
the people, which almost endangered the stability of the republic,
(10:52):
they were compelled to yield by the passage of clearly
defined laws. The career of their noses farious system of
exploitation was brought to an end. One of the most
effacious laws passed was the creation of a body of
competent men of supreme power, who appraised approximately the capitalization
(11:15):
of these concerns and licensed them as such under oath.
The states, in the meantime assumed the power of fixing
a maximum value for their commodities which might be placed
on the market. By the above legislations, the inflation of
their capital and extortion from the consumer were made securely impossible.
(11:43):
Nineteen eleven death of an imminent scholar, Professor Henry Richfield,
a profound scholar in the author of How to Get Rich,
a ponderous work in twelve Octavo volumes, passed away in
an attic, an abject penury and squalor. Nineteen twelve The
(12:06):
annihilation of mosquitoes. Although the mortality statistics in the United
States for last year reached the round number of two
million persons from various diseases, among them chiefly from consumption pneumonia,
typhoid fever, and epidemics of smallpox in diphtheria, a few
(12:28):
sporadic cases of death were recorded resulting from mosquito bites,
which gave grave concern to the medical fraternity. The outcome
of this alarm was the calling of a general conference
of bacteriological experts. The mosquito that it hitherto enjoyed unbridled freedom,
(12:49):
since the creation of his race was now looked upon
as the arch enemy of mankind. A noted philanthropist, interested
in oil wells and having on hand a great bulk
of unmarketable crude petroleum, donated a large sum for research
in order to discover ways and means of curbing the
(13:11):
ravages of these nefarious pests which threatened the annihilation of
the human race. It was decided by this savants that
the distribution of crude petroleum in stagnant pools and humid
marshes was the only effective method for the extermination of
mosquito life. The distribution of greenbacks for their valuable services,
(13:37):
notwithstanding the fact that under the microscope they were found
to contain two hundred and fifty seven diseases and thirty
eight million microbes to the square inch, were grabbed with
unprecedented avidity by these same specialists. Nineteen thirteen. Child labor,
(13:59):
the dwarfing and crippling of the mental, moral, and physical
growth of tender children by the avaricious employers, and its
baleful consequences of peopling the community with moral and bodily
degenerates devoid of the desirable elements of good citizenship, had
become so appallingly flagrant that a general sentiment of the
(14:24):
people was aroused in a mighty protest to the federal authorities.
Thanks to the aggressive and strenuous legislative warfare of labor
unions in every state, aided by the persistent moral agitation
of women's clubs all over the country, child labor was
(14:45):
entirely abolished in many channels of industry, such as mills, factories, collieries,
and plantations. In more gentle occupations, the employment of miners
was placed on a health and more humane basis than
had ever before been the case. Nineteen fourteen, the Great
(15:10):
Radium swindle. The fabulously high price of this medal had
awakened the cupidity of a coterie of adroit schemers who
had palmed off on unsuspecting men of science, a rank
substitute which caused only a trifle to manufacture. After securing
(15:31):
an enormous sum of money, the schemers had decamped to
parts unknown. It was discovered that the spurious metal thus
disposed was nothing more than a highly compressed form of phosphorus.
Nineteen fifteen death of an imminent physician, Doctor Wisehardt, the
(15:54):
brilliant young physician and surgeon who discovered the electromagnetic germ
cells of life and invented methods to prolong life itself
by the cultivation of these cells, died in the twenty
seventh year of his age from premature senility. Nineteen sixteen
(16:16):
A tidal wave. The most memorable event of this year
was a gigantic tidal wave of tremendous height which swept
over the lower coast of Florida in a few minutes.
It inundated and destroyed a vast area of the coast,
doing incalculable damage to shipping. It was estimated that nearly
(16:40):
fifteen thousand persons lost their lives in this cataclysm. Nineteen
seventeen War between United States and Columbia. The stubborn attitude
of the Central American Republic Columbia towards the United States
by her minute using antagonism to the construction of the
(17:03):
Interoceanic Canal, gradually created a breach of the peace that
led ultimately to a forcible demonstration by the United States
and precipitated the invasion by the latter of the Republic
of Panama. Peace was re established after a crushing defeat
of the Colombians the famous Waterway. The Republic of Panama
(17:29):
then became United States territory by annexation nineteen eighteen. The
Women's Clubs. The women's clubs, which during their first inception
were the subject of much ridicule and the proceedings of
their meetings a theme for rebeled jokes in the secular press,
(17:53):
gradually developed into such gigantic proportions that their influence became
a powerful fact in every public question of the day,
and in fact so continues unabated unto this day. The
last federal statistics show more than two thousand institutions in
the form of sanitariums, refuges, technical schools of practical utility,
(18:21):
entirely under the auspices of club women. The constitutions of
these laudable organizations invariably stand for something which is ennobling,
and their achievements are monumental tributes to the upward trend
of womanhood. There was, however, a crucial period in their
(18:43):
affairs worth mentioning. Some of these noble but over zealous
women of that period, in their exuberant enthusiasm for women's rights,
forgetting the limitations of their sex, considered by the greatest
thinkers the past ages to be the sphere of home,
(19:03):
agitated a propaganda of political equality and suffrage, and from
time to time created a stir among their organizations, until
at last, in nineteen eighteen, the National Federation of Women's
Clubs decided to hold a conclave in order to decide
the following momentous question should women enter politics. More than
(19:30):
four thousand, five hundred delegates from all over the Union
assembled at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Sympathizers
of the suffragists, with their eloquence, tried to railroad through
a measure in their behalf, but equally able leaders of
the opposition, benefited by the warning of the Sages, succeeded
(19:55):
in counterbalancing the efforts of their fair antagonists. After a
heated symposium, the question was put to a vote, which
resulted decisively in a victory for those who opposed the movement.
It was further voted that they should confine all their
energies to civic, educational, and humanitarian channels. And things pertaining
(20:20):
to home. This was a most happy and wise decision
for the world at large needs mothers who will beget
and nurse a Florence Nightingale, a Clara Barton, a Washington,
or a Lincoln, rather than mothers would become a Jezebel,
a Delilah, or a Cleopatra. Nineteen nineteen, the tornado, a
(20:50):
cyclonic tornado of intense velocity and destructive force, struck New
York City, demolishing in its path in the shape of
a semicir circle from the Battery to thirty third Street West,
two hundred and seventy five buildings. Fortunately, the day being
(21:11):
a holiday, the loss of life was comparatively small. Nineteen twenty,
the power of the press, through emancipation from its shackles
of monarchic censorship and subserviency to despotic masters. The upward
(21:31):
rise of the press to usefulness and power was without
a parallel, a power to which even Napoleon Bonaparte was
sensible when he said I fear three newspapers more than
one hundred thousand bayonets. But like everything else in the universe,
the press also had its dual personality. Like a two
(21:55):
edged sword, it could be wielded for good or evil.
In the bands of an unscrupulous politician, it was a
treacherous weapon, while in the control of the righteous citizen
a tremendous power of good. Thus, the press, for many decades,
(22:17):
subsidized by the traitorous capitalist and under the guise of
a pious mask, catered to the evil designs of the plutocracy,
until the gradual awakening of the people through the independent press,
at last understood their hypocrisy. The independent press, however, attained
(22:38):
its highest degree of efficiency by the establishment of the
College of Journalism. Its foundation slogan publicity on all political
and economic questions, had created a force of trained journalists,
a force mightier than the sword, and in a manner
(22:59):
far more penn trading than the x ray. Pledged to
defend the rights of the citizens by an educational propaganda,
it taught the masses how to eradicate existing evils by
the mere exercising of their unalienable right the ballot box. Indeed,
(23:20):
in a government of the people, for the people and
by the people, resort to force or revolution was absolutely unnecessary.
While these two most effectual weapons the world had ever seen,
the voting Booth and the free press were at their
command nineteen twenty one balloons and airships. Strange to say,
(23:46):
from the time of Architas of Tarantum to Otto Lilienthal,
and from Montgolfier Brothers to Santos Dumont Bell maximin Langley,
very little or no price progress has been made in
practical and safe aerial navigation. Though all these inventors, whether
(24:07):
cranks with a smattering of mechanical knowledge, were veritable savants
and scientists efficient in physics, according to their own accounts,
had studied the subject of aerial flight from the fowls
of the air. The failure of their experiments showed that
they were far from grasping the mysteries of that subtle
(24:27):
sagacity and subconsciousness of the birds by which they balanced
themselves against the currents and velocity of the winds, and
by their intuitive sensitiveness utilized to the fullest extent their
vast numbers of muscles and feathers with such marvelous subtlety,
(24:48):
like the Italian alchemist in the Middle Ages, who had
constructed the wings of his flying machine with feathers gathered
from a dunghill, and who when attempting to fly, had
found himself dumped by a strange sympathetic affinity on the
very dungkill from which he had gathered the feathers. The efforts,
(25:08):
likewise of these illustrious experimenters were crowned by successful failures
by a similar force of attraction, their apparatus either alighting
on the branches of trees or diving into the waters
like ducks. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the
consensus on scientific opinion had reached the conclusion that the
(25:31):
successful flying machines of the future would be one which
would be heavier than air and with either a very
small balloon or none at all. The various forms of
balloons and flying craft exhibited at the Saint Louis Exposition
became an incentive for renewed efforts by scientists to solve
(25:52):
the problem of aerial flight, and continued with unremitting zest
for nearly a quarter of a century. It was in
the early part of nineteen nineteen that the science of
aeronautics was radically improved by the discovery of a process
for hardening and soldering of aluminium by which comparatively light
(26:13):
but strong framework and machinery were constructed, and thus gradually
the elimination of inflated balloons had become possible. Nineteen twenty
two The flood and Mississippi Valley. In the spring of
this year, the Mississippi Valley was flooded and submerged by
(26:35):
terrible cloudbursts, which combined with melting of snows on the
mountains and subsequent bursting of dams and levees, devastated a
vast area. According to records, the lives lost in the
inundated districts reached the total of sixty thousand. Nineteen twenty
(26:57):
three Uniform divorce law. The unprecedented increase of divorce all
over the United States and the attendance scandalous proceedings at
the courts had reached such a maximum, and its baneful
influence on the public morals had developed into such a
point of danger that a great awakening among the clergy
(27:20):
and lawmakers of the nation was the result. At a
conclave of representatives of the legal profession from every state
in the Union was promulgated a uniform divorce law for
the United States of America. Nineteen twenty four. The Zionist
movement or the bursting of the zion bubble. The Zionist movement,
(27:47):
which for thirty years past gained more than two million
converts and within that period had collected more than fifteen
million dollars, was declared impractical and illusion at the estimable
originators of this sentimental movement, herzel Nordau, Zangwill and others,
(28:09):
although beyond the shadow of a doubt, sincere and well
meaning through the intensity of their zeal for the amelioration
of their less fortunate brethren, were entirely blindfolded to the
intricacies of politics and the eventual history of the Jewish race.
From an ethnological and psychological point of view, some of
(28:33):
these true yet misguided philanthropists had passed away, and other leaders,
less impressed with the object of the society, had taken
their places. As the Jews are not a pioneer race,
the magnanimous scheme of the British government to place them
upon a tract of virgin soil at Uganda in Central
(28:56):
Africa for the purpose of colonization proved chaotic failure on
account of both sociological and economic reasons. The idea also
of establishing a Jewish principality in Palestine under an absolute,
despotic and semi barbarous government which butchered her subjects. Ad
(29:19):
Lebitum was so ridiculous in the extreme that the questions
had become the laughing stock at the political sancta sanctorums
of various governments. In nineteen twenty three, a tremendous agitation
was brought about by the leaders of the opposition, and
those in power of the movement were challenged to public debate.
(29:43):
The question grew to such proportions that it became a
subject in every orthodox and gentile pulpit. In the press. Sociologists,
ethnologists and anthropologists took part in the ephemeral arena and
analyzed every phase of the subject relating to the Hebrew
(30:04):
race and the Zionist movement, laying bare every fact without reserve.
It was stated by the opposition that though a stream
of money had been pouring in from every quarter of
the globe year after year for the cause, no result
as yet had been obtained. That great sums had been
(30:25):
spent in salaries of the officials and at the dilly dallying,
corrupt courts of the Turkish Sultan. A learned sociologist likened
the Hebrews to a parasitic plant which derived its existence
from the living sap of another. An Israelite. He declared,
(30:47):
can only exist favorably among civilized centers of Christian and
Gentile communities, that whenever a colony of Hebrews were isolated
by themselves, they would inevitably and gradually retrograde, impoverish, and
at last form a ghetto of misery and squalor. Another
(31:10):
ethnologist of repute expounded the fact that the Jews were
the life and essence of commercial activity and consequently formed
an integral part of a prosperous commonwealth. Sublimely industrious, instinctively provident,
and economical by nature, the Jews were persecuted because of
(31:33):
their inherent virtues. He proved by clever historical documents that
their expulsion from Babylon, in Egypt, Spain, Russia, or wherever
their rights were abrogated, were the fundamental causes of the
decadence of these countries from which they were expelled. Others
(31:53):
accused the Hebrews of perverting the Golden rule, of taking
advantage of others and theirs their inborn instinct of commercial sagacity,
which well nigh approached on scrupulousness, and that being a
mere commercial people, their patriotism could well be challenged. Many
(32:14):
others advised, however, a propaganda of judicious assimilation of the Israelite,
with the Christians contending that the sum total of their
virtues and faults was the same as that of their
Christian brethren. Meanwhile, they advised the Jews that wherever they lived,
(32:35):
they ought to make their their zions and temples. After
much heated argument and discussion, which occupied several days, they
at last arrived at the conclusion that the Zionist movement
was chimerical. The balance of the funds, amounting to many
million dollars, were voted for the establishment of technical and
(32:58):
commercial schools for Israeli, and for a fund to aid
the judicious immigration of the Jews from ill favored and
contested districts to more favorable localities. Nineteen twenty five to
twenty six The Anglo American Alliance. The Anglo American alliance
(33:21):
by which these two foremost nations of the Earth were
brought into a happy, fraternal union, and for the achievement
of which for nearly a quarter of a century there
had been a great effort, and this year had become
an accomplished fact. It was celebrated in a manner unprecedented
(33:42):
in the annals of the world's history, having a profound
and far reaching effect. It became an ultimatum for other
nations to keep the peace, and goaded them toward the
adoption of similar laws in order to secure the same
reciprocal blessings of universal brotherhood. Much credit was due to
(34:03):
that eminent English statesman, now Lord Cunningham, through whose tactful
diplomacy this long sought commercial, social, offensive and defensive alliance
became a reality. I am restrained, said the professor, looking
in the direction of Aurora Cunningham, to avoid eulogizing him,
(34:27):
as he justly deserves, for obvious reasons. At this sentence,
the students, under the impulse of a sudden admiration, arose
to their feet in mass, and, glancing smilingly at Aurora,
began rapturously to clap their hands. The interruption of sympathetic
(34:50):
appreciation was brought to a close by a ringing cry
of the seminary yell d de ya ya Na Na Diana, Hurrah,
Hurrah Hurrah. Aurora, blushing deeply, gracefully bowed her acknowledgment, and
(35:11):
in due form, the class was dismissed for the day.
End of chapter four
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