John Jones's Dollar Read online

number of years which we careto consider, following the date of deposit. By a simple calculation,those of you who are today mentally alert can check up the results thatI shall set forth in my lecture.

  "At the time that John Jones died, the amount in the First National Bankof Chicago to the credit of John Jones the fortieth, was as follows."

  The professor seized the chalk and wrote rapidly upon the oblong space:

  1931 10 years elapsed $1.34

  "The peculiar sinuous hieroglyphic," he explained, "is an ideographrepresenting the Dollar.

  "Well, gentlemen, time went on as time will, until a hundred years hadpassed by. The First National Bank still existed, and the locality,Chicago, had become the largest center of population upon the earth.Through the investments which had taken place, and the yearlycompounding of interest, the status of John Jones's deposit was now asfollows." He wrote:

  2021 100 years elapsed $19.10

  "In the following century, many minor changes, of course, took place inman's mode of living; but the so-called socialists still agitated widelyfor the cessation of private ownership of wealth; the First NationalBank still accepted Dollars for safe keeping, and the John Jones Dollarstill continued to grow. With about thirty-four generations yet to come,the account now stood:

  2121 200 years elapsed $364

  "And by the end of the succeeding hundred years, it had grown to whatconstituted an appreciable bit of exchange value in those days--thus:

  2221 300 years $6,920

  "Now the century which followed contains an important date. The date Iam referring to is the year 2299 A.D., or the year in which every humanbeing born upon the globe was registered under a numerical name at thecentral bureau of the National Eugenics Society. In our future lessonswhich will treat with that period of detail, I shall ask you to memorizethat date.

  "The socialists still agitated, fruitlessly, but the First National Bankof Chicago was now the first International Bank of the Earth. And howgreat had John Jones's Dollar grown? Let us examine the account, both onthat important historical date, and also at the close of the 400th yearsince it was deposited. Look:

  2299 378 years $68,900 2321 400 years $132,000

  "But gentlemen, it had not reached the point where it could be termed anunusually large accumulation of wealth. For larger accumulations existedupon the earth. A descendant of a man once known as John D. Rockefellerpossessed an accumulation of great size, but which, as a matter offact, was rapidly dwindling as it passed from generation to generation.So, let us travel ahead another one hundred years. During this time, aswe learn from our historical and political archives, the socialistsbegan to die out, since they at last realized the utter futility ofcombating the balance of power. The account, though, now stood:

  2421 500 years $2,520,000

  "It is hardly necessary for me to make any comment. Those of you who aremost astute, and others of you who flunked my course before and are nowtaking it the second time, of course know what is coming.

  "During the age in which this John Jones lived, there lived also a man,a so-called scientist called Metchnikoff. We know, from a study of ourvast collection of Egyptian Papyri and Carnegie Library books, that thisMetchnikoff promulgated the theory that old age--or rather senility--wascaused by colon-bacillus. This fact was later verified. But while he wascorrect in the etiology of senility, he was crudely primeval in thetherapeutics of it.

  "He proposed, gentlemen, to combat and kill this bacillus by utilizingthe fermented lacteal fluid from a now extinct animal called the cow,models of which you can see at any time at the Solaris Museum."

  A chorus of shrill, piping laughter emanated from the brass cylinder.The professor waited until the merriment had subsided and thencontinued:

  "I beg of you, gentlemen, do not smile. This was merely one of the manysimilar quaint superstitions existing in that age.

  "But a real scientist, Professor K122B62411Male, again attacked theproblem in the twenty-fifth century. Since the cow was now extinct, hecould not waste his valuable time experimenting with fermented cowlacteal fluid. He discovered the old _v_-rays of Radium--the rays whichyou physicists will remember are not deflected by a magnetic field--werereally composed of two sets of rays, which he termed the _g_ rays andthe _e_ rays. These last named rays--only when isolated--completelydevitalized all colon-bacilli which lay in their path, without in theleast affecting the integrity of any interposed organic cells. The greatresult, as many of you already know, was that the life of man wasextended to nearly two hundred years. That, I state unequivocally, was agreat century for the human race.

  * * * * *

  "But I spoke of another happening--one, perhaps, of more interest thanimportance. I referred to the bank account of John Jones the fortieth.It, gentlemen, had grown to such a prodigious sum that a special bankand board of directors had to be created in order to care for, andreinvest it. By scanning the following notation, you will perceive thetruth of my statement:

  2521 600 years $47,900,000

  "By the year 2621 A.D., two events of stupendous importance took place.There is scarcely a man in this class who has not heard of how ProfessorP222D29333Male accidentally stumbled upon the scientific fact that theeffect of gravity is reversed upon any body which vibratesperpendicularly to the plane of the ecliptic with a frequency which isan even multiple of the logarithm of 2 of the Naperian base 'e.' Atonce, special vibrating cars were constructed which carried mankind toall planets. That discovery of Professor P222D29333Male did nothing lessthan open up seven new territories to our inhabitants; namely: Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. In the great landrush that ensued, thousands who were previously poor became rich.

  "But, gentlemen, land which so far had been constituted one of the mainsources of wealth, was shortly to become valuable for individual golflinks only, as it is today, on account of another scientific discovery.

  "This second discovery was in reality, not a discovery, but theperfection of a chemical process, the principles of which had been knownfor many centuries. I am alluding to the construction of the vastreducing factories, one upon each planet, to which the bodies of allpersons who have died on their respective planets are at once shipped byAerial Express. Since this process is used today, all of you understandthe methods employed; how each body is reduced by heat to its componentconstituents: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, phosphorus,and so forth; how these separated constituents are stored in specialreservoirs together with the components from thousands of other corpses;how these elements are then synthetically combined into food tablets forthose of us who are yet alive--thus completing an endless chain from thedead to the living. Naturally then, agriculture and stock-raisingceased, since the food problem, with which man had coped from timeimmemorial, was solved. The two direct results were, first--that landlost the inflated values it had possessed when it was necessary fortillage, and second--that men were at last given enough leisure to enterthe fields of science and art.

  "And as to the John Jones Dollar, which now embraced countlessindustries and vast territory on the earth, it stood, in value:

  2621 700 years $912,000,000

  "In truth, gentlemen, it now constituted the largest private fortune onthe terrestrial globe. And in that year, 2621 A.D., there were thirteengenerations yet to come, before John Jones the fortieth would arrive.

  "To continue. In the year 2721 A.D., an important political battle wasconcluded in the Solar System Senate and House of Representatives. I amreferring to the great controversy as to whether the Earth's moon was asufficient menace to interplanetary navigation to warrant its removal.The outcome of the wrangle was that the question was decided in theaffirmative. Consequently--

  "But I beg your pardon, young men. I occasionally lose sight of the factthat you are not so well informed upon historical matters as myself.Here I am, talking to you about the moon, totally forgetful tha
t many ofyou are puzzled as to my meaning. I advise all of you who have not yetattended the Solaris Museum on Jupiter, to take a trip there some Sundayafternoon. The Interplanetary Suburban Line runs trains every half houron that day. You will find there a complete working model of the oldsatellite of the Earth, which, before it was destroyed, furnished thisplanet light at night through the crude medium of reflection.

  "On account of this decision as to the inadvisability of allowing themoon to remain where it was, engineers commenced its removal in the year2721. Piece by piece, it was chipped away and brought to the Earth inInterplanetary freight cars. These pieces were then propelled byZoodolite explosive, in the direction of the Milky Way, with a velocityof 11,217 meters per second. This velocity, of course, gave eachdeparting fragment exactly the amount of kinetic energy it required toenable it to overcome the backward pull of the Earth from here toinfinity. I dare say those moon-hunks are going