CHAPTER LVII.

A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE.

WHAT WE ARE.—WHAT WE ARE PREPARING FOR.—WHAT WE ARE DESTINED TO DO AND

TO BECOME.—WE ARE ENTERING ON AN ERA OF SEEMING IMPOSSIBILITIES.—YET

THE INCONCEIVABLE WILL BE REALIZED.

In reviewing the past, I am struck with the enormous growth of New York

as a city, New York as a State, and the United States as a Nation. The

fact is that we hustle through the business world so fast (and this is

especially applicable to Wall Street), that we do not realize how

rapidly we are going. To any one who is familiar with the appearance of

the down town or business part of the city, as it was twenty years ago,

ten years ago, or even eight years ago, the difference to-day will give

some intimation of the changes which are going on around us, and are

merely features of development. Why, even ten years ago, the old

Equitable Building was a structure to which attention was attracted

because of its greatness and its superiority over any other building in

New York city—its height, its width, its breadth, its depth, its

elevators, its beauty of arrangement inside and its artistic aspect

outside. Millions of dollars have been spent in the past few months in

making this one building about four times as large as the original

structure which brought pride to the hearts of New Yorkers, and

surprised and startled their friends from the country. To-day it is one

of the greatest buildings on the Island, and even rivals the State

Capitol, which is supposed to be the pride of the people of the Empire

State. This is only one instance. All along lower Broadway, the great

business artery of the country, four-story and five-story buildings have

been torn down, and nine-story buildings put up in their place. Four and

five buildings have been dug away and a single structure put up in their

place, and in some of the buildings—indeed in scores of them—within a

few blocks of the Stock Exchange, there are whole communities of people

who are performing life’s work in their own good way, rather than

interfering with their neighbors or themselves, and who know nothing of

what goes on around and about them, and care less. Small armies of

retainers and servants, and the most perfect mechanism, are needed to

enable these communities to carry on their work with dispatch and

convenience. That is to say, where offices are rented in the eighth and

ninth stories of a building, the occupants expect to be shot up to them,

and down from them, with no trouble to themselves, and no weariness of

limbs—and they are. This must be done, too, without loss of time—and it

is. All the attendant arrangements must have the elements of

luxuriousness and comfort—and they do.

This is a small feature of our development, however. So far as the

development of the city is concerned, this appears to be an era of

bridges, and Rapid Transit Elevated roads. So far as the development of

inter-State communication is concerned this is an era of Express Trains,

which, although they have reached a speed of a mile a minute in certain

perfected sections of the roads, do not at all indicate what will come

to pass in the future. Electricity is, of course, the means for

instantaneous communication between separate points known to human

intelligence, practically annihilating time between the New World and

the Old World, and between separated points in either world, or even in

the cities. But electricity does not travel with anything like the speed

of light and air. Now, in some few instances, we have utilized

compressed air as a means of locomotion. Efforts are being made, but are

still in a crude state of development, for the utilization of

electricity as a motive power. Suppose we look one handled years ahead,

and, calculating upon the factors and experiences of the past one

hundred years, imagine what the picture will be of this town as a city,

and this people as a nation. I believe that one hundred years hence the

era of bridges between this city and those which adjoin it across the

rivers, will have passed away, and that instead of one or two or five

bridges across the East River, we will have pneumatic tubes at every

pier, and I believe the same will be true on either side and at the end

of the island. These tubes will spread from New York, as the blood

vessels in the human body spread out and are supplied from the heart;

for New York is not only the business heart of this country, but it is

destined to be, so surely as God permits growth, the business heart of

the world, and the money centre of the world. And the arteries from this

centre will distribute the blood all over, and in all directions.

Through these pneumatic tubes I believe there will be almost

instantaneous communication or transportation of people from one point

to another. Nor will this be confined to New York city alone. In the

near future the Trunk Line Railroad to leading points, such as

Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago, will probably run trains

at the rate of one hundred miles an hour, and even this will only be a

beginning. To admit of this, steel rails will be required of about

double their present weight, and the wheels must be proportionately

massive and strong. The risk attendant upon such increased speed will be

no greater than the ordinary speed of the present day, say forty miles

an hour. But the time will come, during the next five generations, when

the pneumatic tubes will extend from here to these central points of the

East and the West and the South; and it will be possible for a man to

leave New York at seven o’clock and go to Chicago for breakfast,

transact his business and return to New York for lunch or business

appointment by twelve o’clock noon of the same day. Of course, one of

the problems to be solved in connection with this sort of meteoric speed

will be to supply air for breathing purposes; and the same compressed

air which will shoot the carriage through the tube, will be in some form

utilized for the purpose. This, however, only for a period; for I think

the time must come when electricity will be the one motive power of this

country and of the world, so far as the transportation of people and

property is concerned. Time is money, and the American idea is to save

time. We now waste little enough of it in all conscience. The greatest

business of the world, that of the New York Stock Exchange, is already

compressed into five hours’ time; and yet it is a business in which the

most trivial error or accident because of haste might cause losses of

millions. The obliteration of time is a necessity of American

enterprise. When Electricity is made the general propelling power, it is

likely that a stationary engine will be located at Niagara Falls, and

the force and power of those waters utilized to supply all the needed

propelling power for this State, if not even beyond, to remote and

far-off sections of our country. I heard it once said by an intelligent

authority, that it had been predicted that instead of the coal mines of

this country sending their products hundreds and thousands of miles

away, for transportation-power, at a great expense, that a stationary

engine would be located at the mouth of the mine, and the power derived

from the coal transmitted therefrom over an electric wire. This would,

indeed, be a great transformation, and a great improvement and a great

economy. But a greater change, one quite as likely in the future, and

perhaps possible within the lifetime of some of our children, will be

the abolition of railroads by the pneumatic tube process, and the

transmission of power as I have suggested.

A hundred years hence the people who then occupy our places will look

upon us as primitive and crude, or, in accordance with the Darwinian

theory, as the monkeys from which their perfected race has been

developed. In fact, there is a good deal of Darwinism in our

development, in a business sense, if not in a human sense. As the

surroundings grow, so does the intellect of the human race, and there is

no telling what we may do or what we may become—provided we live long

enough. We have plenty of room, plenty of power, plenty of natural

ability, and we make our own opportunities; all we lack in this world is

time and perfect science, and if time is given us we may be able to show

what giants of enterprise a free people may become; that, as the first

choice of God’s creation, we lack nothing.

We are proud now of our Brooklyn Bridge. But when the Bridge was opened,

and the foot passenger rate was made one cent per person, and the car

rates three cents, it was a grave question of consideration for the men

upon whom devolved the responsibility of the conduct of the Bridge,

whether or not the cities would supply passengers enough to make the

Bridge self-supporting. It was not expected that they could or would.

But to-day, the rate for foot passengers is one-fifth of one cent, and

the car passengers are transported for two and one-half cents. The time

is not far distant when these rates will be made much less, if not

abolished entirely. They certainly will be abolished so far as the

promenade is concerned; and, at the rate of one cent per passenger now,

the Bridge would earn dividends for each of the two cities which issued

bonds for its construction; while the taxable value of the property in

both has been so largely enhanced, that the Bridge has paid for itself

already, and, yet it has been open less than five years. More than a

year ago the experience of the Directors was that the facilities of this

Bridge were perfectly inadequate; and, while everything has been done to

increase them and extensions and improvements have been made, the Bridge

is still too slow, and its power facilities too limited for the proper

accommodation of the people who cross it from city to city.

This is only one evidence of the growth of New York; it is merely an

incident. There is another incident, which, in connection with what I

have said about the difference in construction of buildings during the

past few years, I think I will mention right here. The city of New York

donated to the Government the site in the City Hall Park where the New

York post-office now stands. It was the original intention that the

building should be only three stories in height. The capping was already

on, and the roof was in the primitive stages of construction, when,

walking down Broadway one morning, as I passed the structure, the

thought occurred to me that, for a building of its size and heavy

granite exterior, its height was disproportionate, and gave it a dwarfed

appearance, and a lack of symmetry. Besides that, whatever space could

be added to it by the increase in its height, even though the additional

room might be a surplus for the time being, the time would soon come

when even more would be needed. I wrote to Architect Mullet, calling his

attention to these facts, and insisting that, in confining the building

to three stories, he was making a mistake; that it was not in keeping

with the magnificence of the structure; that it should have one or more

additional stories, with a mansard addition besides, and that the

business experience of the past most certainly demonstrated that the

room would soon be needed by the Government for the proper conduct of

its affairs in this the greatest business center of the country. Within

a week Mr. Mullet called to see me, and I convinced him that I was

correct in my criticism and predictions. He said, in reply: “But there

is no appropriation; the money appropriated is exhausted, and the

building cannot be enlarged.” I asked him: “Well, what is necessary to

be done in the matter? Suppose I write to Mr. Boutwell, the Secretary of

the Treasury, about it, and urge that the building be enlarged as I

suggest.” Mr. Mullet approved of the suggestion, and I added: “I will

write to several members of Congress to the same effect.” This I did,

and it was not long afterward that Mr. Mullet informed me that my

efforts in the matter had been successful, and he had received orders to

go ahead and make the building four stories in height, with a mansard

roof story besides. This additional room was not needed at the time, but

it has already become inadequate for the accommodation of the Government

postal employees, and a few others who have been granted quarters there.

And now there is a proposition under consideration for the construction

of an additional Government building in this city which will cover two

blocks of ground or more, and in which may be centered the various

departments of Government, which are now scattered in a half dozen or

more places. Is not this evidence of growth? Is not this evidence of

development which justifies what has been said as to our prospective

growth? Yet this is merely incidental to the strides of progress going

on; and, if we are walking at this pace, will not our children’s

children be racing at the different paces suggested by some of the

predictions I have made?

[Illustration:

_Jay Gould_

]

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