Section 57:  Future of the United States

Seventy-six years ago steam as a force was in its infancy; not a mite of railroad was in the United States. Between Philadelphia freight was transported by the Turnpike and the Conestoga wagon drawn by six horses was an institution in the State and the traveling public were transported from the east to the west by two lines of stages, one on the northern and one on the southern pike.

During my lifetime wood for fuel has been superseded by stove coal and in many towns in the western part of the State, natural gas has taken the place of coal. During my lifetime the tallow candle and the tin lamp fed by hog's lard have been snuffed out and their places supplied by petroleum, natural and artificial gas and electricity. I can easily recollect when our wheat was floated in flat boats down the Juniata to Baltimore to market. The Pennsylvania Canal was not made till about 1828 or 1830 and the railroad not till ten or twelve years thereafter -- crossing the Atlantic by steam, the telegraph and telephone are still later inventions.

All these, together with the vast growth of the country, show in some slight degree the changes that have taken place in one lifetime. It is hard to conceive that as many or as great changes will take place in the next three-quarters of a century.

Will the country continue to advance, or will it go back? Will the next generation grow better or worse? Will the Twentieth Century see established and practiced among all nations "Peace on earth and good will to men"? Will they learn to war no more? The history of the past gives little light on this subject.

The crowding of people into cities generally has caused an increase of poverty, vice and crime. Where the masses have to struggle for life there can be no improvement. The man becomes a mere animal, his moral nature is starved out. Can any one devise an effectual way of multiplying the necessities of life so we will have no poor? If so, it may do much to hasten the millennium.