Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1898-02-25
"a HUNDRED YEARS
FROM NOW" "
WfLL 1T BE WEEL OR WOE.
The Closing century.-0 u r
Country's Prospect,
New York World.1

New York World1
81 should like to see this country again
in hundred years from now'
How often this sentence is heard ON the
lips of men OF all classes aud conditions
in the history of nations a hundred
years is brief period. Yet while there
are centuries that appear monotonous
and changeless, there have been centuries
that were critical and crucial-centuries
that made or marred the fortunes of
states and the destinies OF nations.
Such were the centuries of Pericles and
OF the Christian era, pf the crusades and
of the Reformation.
The century which is drawing to it's
close has been an epoch-marking period.
The century which is ready to dawn ON
us promises to be even more momentous.
Some of it's results we can forecast: 9th
ers we may conjecture.
In this country we may Judge the fu-
turr 10y the past" We may to a certain
extent guide our feet 10y the lamp of ex-
perirncr." Ils light will shine on won
derfuI changes
In the mere matter of population we
have "a right to anticipate astounding
results
We shall increase. not by 30 per cent.
decennial periods, as heretofore. but
surely by 20 per cent. Merely doubling
every hall century, we shall number
300, 100000 of people-not helpesss
liindoos nor bloodles Chinese, but Amer
lean citizens. This alone will present a
problem such as the world has never
faced.
Our increase in population will be sur
passed by our increase in wealth. We
have multiplied the- wealth-producing
capacity OF the human machine ten fold
in the last century. What limit shall be
set to it's expansion OF capacity i'm the
next hundred years? May we not multi
ply it tenfold again, and again tenfold?
And il we do, how will this wealth be
divided? ? No dream of avarice a hun
dred years age could picture the indi-
vidual fortunes which are the common
places OF today. Are the men with the
hundred millions to be as numerous ms
the men with a million today? Shall
we DO called on to contemplate the pluto
crat with thousand millions before we
have got over our amazement at his
predecessors with a mere one or two
hundred millions?
And out OF this growth i'm numbers and
wealth and power what will be the re-
sultant effect on our political and social
conditions?
That political corruption OF the age,
which is spreading with a movement as
that of the tides OF the sea, is no delus-
ion born of fear and ignorance, but afact
visible to all eyes. 1t is not an accident
but the working OF natural laws vast in
their scale and resistless in their force.
Its immediate impulse comes from the
greed OF gain among the rich working on
the greed OF gain among those who want
to be rich; and this hunger for wealth
regardless of how it is got, common
alike to the needy schemer and the pbi-
lanthropic plutocrat, is seemingly the
strongest, most eager and persistence in
fiuence in oar national developement. In
the shape in which we know it now it
did not exist hundred years ago. In
the intensity OF its greed, in its energy
and its eagerness, in the resources il
commands and the courage of its sue
cess, it was unknown thirty years ago.
1t is in lis infancy. What will it be in
it's full manhood? II we have not been
able to resist its beginnings, how shall
we be able to make Roadway against it's
gathering strength? And il we do not
resist it and overcome it and destroy its
supremacy utterly, what is the alterna-
tive? ID.
~AAHH< 50. 60 ysAss, .;As