Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1915-01-06

Of the council speedily passed to con-
structions Of more permanent type.
They found far less friction than might
have been expected in turning the loose
population on their hands to these
things. People were extraordinarily
tanned by that year of suffering and
death; they were disillusioned of their
traditions, bereft of once obstinate pre-
JUDGES; they felt foreign in strange
world and ready to follow any con-
fident leadership. The orders Of the
new government come with the best Of
all credentials, rations. The people ev-
erywhere We're as easy to control, one
of the old labor experts who had sur
vived until the new time witnesses,
las gangs of emigrant workers in
new land"
And now it was that the social pos
sibilities of the atomic energy began
to appear. The new machinery that
had come into existence before the
last wars increased and multiplied, and
the council found itself not only with
millions Of hands at it's disposal, but
with power and apparatus that made
it's first conceptions Of the work it had
to do seem pitifully timid. The camps
that were planned in iron and deal
were built in stone and brass; the
roads that were to have been mere iron
tracks became spacious ways that in
sisted upon architecture; the cultiva-
lions of foodstuffs that were to have
supplied emergency rations, were
presently, with synthesizers, fertilizers,
actinic light and scientific direction, In
excess Of every human need.
The government had begun with the
idea of temporarily reconstituting the
social and economic system that had
prevailed before the first coming of
the atomic engine, because it was to
this system that the ideas and habits
of the great mass of the worlds dis
possessed population was adapted.
Subsequent Encouragement it had hop
ed to leave to it's successors
they might be. But this, it became
more and more manifest, was abso-
lutely impossible. AS we'll might the
council have proposed revival Of
slavery. The capitalistic system had
already been smashed beyond repair
by the onset Of limitless gold and en-
ergy. IL fell to pieces at the first
endeavor to stand it up again. Already
before the war half Of the industrial
class had been out of work. The at
tempt to put them back into wages
employment on the old lines was futile
from the outset-the absolute shatter-
ing of the currency system alone
would have been sufficient to prevent
that-and it was necessary therefore
to take over the housing, feeding and
clothing of this worldwide multitude
without exacting any return in labor
whatever. In little while the mere
absence of occupation for so great a
multitude of people everywhere be-
came an evident social danger, and the
government was obliged to resort to
s'ch devices as simple decorative work
in wood and stone, the manufacture
of hand woven textiles, fruit growing,
flower growing and landscape garden
ing on grand scale to keep the less
adaptable out Of mischief and of pay
ing wages to the younger adults for
attendance at schools that would equip
them to use the new atomic ma
chinery. So quite insensibly the coun-
Gil drifted into complete reorganization
Of urban and Industrial life, and in
deed of the entire social system.