The pages of history had been turned rapidly in those years. The
United States, long known as the richest country, had also become
the most populous nation of the Caucasian world--and wealth and
population had made her vain.

But with all her material glory, there was not strength in American
sinews, nor endurance in her lungs, nor vigor in the product of her
loins. Her people were herded together in great cities, where they
slept in gigantic apartment houses, like mud swallows in a sand
bank. They overate of artificial food that was made in great
factories. They over-dressed with tight-fitting unsanitary clothing
made by the sweated labor of the diseased and destitute. They
over-drank of old liquors born of ancient ignorance and of new
concoctions born of prostituted science. They smoked and perfumed
and doped with chemicals and cosmetics--the supposed virtues of
which were blazoned forth on earth and sky day and night.

The wealth of the United States was enormous, yet it was chiefly in
the hands of the few. The laborers went forth from their rookeries
by subway and monorail, and served their shifts in the mills of
industry.

In turn, others took their places, and the mills ground night and
day.

Even the farm lands had been largely taken over by corporate
control. Crops on the plains were planted with power machinery. The
rough lands had all been converted into forests or game preserves
for the rich. Agriculture had been developed as a science, but not
as a husbandry. The forcing system had been generally applied to