Priest of the Ideal

I

THE huge raft they call a liner, a floating bridge propelled along by steam, an unworthy contrivance, liable to all manner of accident and often faithless in its keeping of the ‘wonderful humanity committed to its charge; mankind divided into four distinct classes — first class, second class, third class, and those who live in a state of damnation, by which I mean the captain and the servants of the ship, who see the whole world thus divided. In the first class sits the American passenger, Washington King, and talks about his native land.

:< At the moment of peace America will have all the money in the world, and the warring countries will be without a cent. That serves the warring countries right. If they choose to waste millions of money in fireworks, the more fools they. But still I do not condemn them. They had to fight. The state of Europe, with its many nationalities, and’ kings, and tsars, means war. We of the United States, who have solved the problem by uniting under one president and in one common interest all the peoples of Europe, know that Europe is an anachronism, an old-fashioned thing, and that the Old World is really old.”