The Call of the Twentieth Century | Page 5

day they graduate, or the lawyers
who lie and cheat and procure injustice for the sake of fees.
"Most of these--even the idiots and criminals--do a little something
towards progress. This world is so happily ordered that it is impossible
for one man to do much harm or to avoid doing some good; and one of
the greatest forces for good is the power of a bad example. Still it is not
our bad examples that make us get on and earn us these smothers of
flowery compliment.
"Some of us are tall and others short, some straight and others crooked,
some strong, others feeble; some of us run, others walk, others snail it.
But all, all have their feet upon the same level of the common earth.
And America's worst enemy is he--or she--who by word or look
encourages another to think otherwise. Head as high as you please; but
feet always upon the common ground, never upon anybody's shoulders
or neck, even though he be weak or willing."
So in this strenuous and complex age, this age of "fierce democracy,"
what have we to do, and with what manner of men shall we work?
Young men of the Twentieth Century, will your times find place for
you? There is plenty to do in every direction. That is plain enough. All
the pages in this little book, or in a very large one, would be filled by a
mere enumeration. In agriculture a whole great empire is yet to be won
in the arid west, and the west that is not arid and the east that was never
so must be turned into one vast market-garden. The Twentieth Century
will treat a farm as a friend, and it will yield rich returns for such
friendship. In the Twentieth Century vast regions will be fitted to
civilization, not by imperialism, which blasts, but by permeation, which
reclaims.
The table-lands of Mexico, the plains of Manchuria, the Pampas of
Argentine, the moors of Northern Japan, all these regions in our own
temperate zone offer a welcome to the Anglo-Saxon farmer. The great
tropics are less hopeful, but they have never had a fair trial. The
northern nations have tried to exploit them in haste, and then to get

away, never to stay with them and work patiently to find out their best.
Some day the possibilities of the Torrid Zone may come to us as a great
discovery.
There is need of men in forestry; for we must win back the trees we
have slain with such ruthless hand. The lumberman of the future will
pick ripe trees and save the rest as carefully as the herdsman selects his
stock. In engineering, in mining, in invention, there are endless
possibilities. Every man who masters what is already known in any one
branch of applied science, makes his own fortune. He who can add a
little, save a little, do something better or something cheaper, makes the
fortune of a hundred others. "There is always room for a man of force,
and he makes room for many."
Andrew Carnegie once said that the foundation of his fortune lay in the
employment of trained chemists, while other men made steel by rule of
thumb. Trained chemists made better steel, just a little. They devised
ways to make it cheaper, just a little, and they found means to utilize
the slag. All this means hundreds of millions of dollars, if done on a
large enough scale.
There is no limit to the demands of engineering. A million waterfalls
dash down the slopes of the Sierras. The patient sun has hauled the
water up from the sea and spread it in snow over the mountains. The
same sun will melt the snow, and as the water falls back to the sea it
will yield again the force it cost to bring it to its heights. Thus sunshine
and falling water can be transmuted into power. This power already
lights the cities of California, and some day it may be changed into the
heat which moves a thousand factories. All these are the problems of
the Electrical Engineer. Equally rich are the opportunities in other
forms of engineering. There is no need to be in haste, perhaps, but the
Twentieth Century is eager in its quest for gold. The mother lode runs
along the foothills from Bering Straits to Cape Horn. From end to end
of the continent the Twentieth Century will bring this gold to light, and
carry it all away. The Mining Engineer who knows the mountains best
finds his fortune ready to his hand. Civil Engineers, Steam Engineers,
Naval Engineers, whoever knows how to manage things or men, even
Social Engineers, Labor Engineers, all find an eager welcome. There
are never too many of