“And what of Jupiter?” asks Mr. Smith. “Nothing as yet. We cannot quite understand their signals. Perhaps ours do not reach them.” “That’s bad,” exclaims Mr. Smith, as he hurries away, not in the best of humor, toward the hall of scientific editors. Heads bent over their electric computers, 30 scientific men are absorbed in transcendental calculations. Mr. Smith’s arrival is like the falling of a bomb among them. “Well, gentlemen, what is this I hear? No answer from Jupiter? Is it always to be thus? Come, Cooley, you have worked now 10 years on this problem, and yet–” “True enough,” replies the man addressed. “Our science of optics is still defective, and though our mile-and-three-quarter telescopes–” “Listen to that, Peer,” breaks in Mr. Smith, turning to a second scientist. “Optical science defective! Optical science is your specialty. But,” he continues, again addressing William Cooley, “failing with Jupiter, are we getting any results from the moon?” “The case is no better there.” “This time you cannot lay the blame on the science of optics. The moon is immeasurably closer than Mars, yet with Mars our communication is fully established. I presume you will not say you lack telescopes?” “Telescopes? Oh no, the trouble here is about–inhabitants!” “That’s it,” adds Peer. “So, then, the moon is positively uninhabited?” asks Mr. Smith. “At least,” answers Cooley, “on the face which she presents to us. As for the opposite side, who knows?” “Ah, the opposite side! You think, then,” remarks Mr. Smith, musingly, “that if one could but–” “Could what?” “Why, turn the moon about-face.” “Ah, there’s something in that,” cry the two men at once. And indeed, so confident is their air, they seem certain of the success of such an undertaking.
“Meanwhile,” asks Mr. Smith, after a moment’s silence, “have you no news of interest today?” “Indeed we have,” answers Cooley. “The elements of Olympus are definitely settled. That great planet gravitates beyond Neptune at a mean distance of 11,400,799,642 miles from the sun, and to traverse its vast orbit takes 1311 years, 294 days, 12 hours, 43 minutes, 9 seconds.” “Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?” cries Mr. Smith. “Inform the reporters of this straightway. You know how eager public curiosity is about these astronomical questions. That news must go into today’s issue.”
Then, the two men bowing to him, Mr. Smith passes into the next hall, an enormous gallery upward of 3200 feet long, devoted to atmospheric advertising. Everyone has noticed those enormous advertisements reflected from the clouds, so large they may be seen by the populations of whole cities or even entire countries. This, too, is one of Mr. Fritz Napoleon Smith’s ideas, and in the Earth Chronicle building a thousand projectors are constantly engaged in displaying on the clouds these mammoth advertisements. When Mr. Smith today enters the sky-advertising department, he finds the operators sitting with folded arms at their motionless projectors, and inquires as to the cause of their inaction. In response, the man addressed simply points to the sky, which is a pure blue. “Yes,” mutters Mr. Smith, “a cloudless sky! That’s too bad, but what’s to be done? Shall we produce rain? That we might do, but is it of any use? What we need is clouds, not rain. Go,” says he, addressing the head engineer, “go see Mr. Samuel Mark, of the meteorological division in the scientific department, and tell him for me to go to work in earnest on the question of artificial clouds. It will never do for us to be always at the mercy of cloudless skies!” Mr. Smith’s daily tour through the several departments of his newspaper is now finished. Next, from the advertisement hall he passes to the reception chamber, where the ambassadors accredited to the American government await a word of counsel or advice from the all-powerful editor. A discussion is going on as he enters. “Your Excellency will pardon me,” the French Ambassador is saying to the Russian, “but I see nothing in the map of Europe that requires change. ‘The North for the Slavs?’ Why, yes, of course; but the South for the Latins. Our common frontier, the Rhine, it seems to me, serves very well. Besides, my government, as you must know, will firmly oppose every movement, not only against Paris, our capital, or our two great prefectures, Rome and Madrid, but also against the kingdom of Jerusalem, the dominion of Saint Peter, of which France means to be the trusty defender.” “Well said!” exclaims Mr. Smith. “How is it,” he asks, turning to the Russian ambassador, “that you Russians are not content with your vast empire, the most extensive in the world, stretching from the banks of the Rhine to the Celestial Mountains and the Kara-Korum, whose shores are washed by the Frozen Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean? And what use are threats? Is war possible in view of modern inventions–asphyxiating shells capable of being projected a distance of 60 miles, an electric spark of 90 miles, that can at one stroke annihilate a battalion; to say nothing of the plague, the cholera, the yellow fever, that the belligerents might spread among their antagonists mutually, and which would in a few days destroy the greatest armies?” “True,” answered the Russian, “but we Russians, pressed on our eastern frontier by the Chinese, must at any cost put forth our strength for an effort toward the west.” “Let’s solve your problem at the source,” said Mr. Smith. “I will speak to the Secretary of State about this. The attention of the Chinese government will be brought to the matter, and the situation corrected.” “Under these conditions, of course–” And the Russian ambassador declares himself satisfied. “Ah, Sir John, what can I do for you?” asks Mr. Smith as he turns to the representative of the people of Great Britain, who till now has remained silent.