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 buildingshave 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 welook 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 meteoricspeed 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; itis 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 informedme 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?
Jay Gould
Jay Gould
Jay Gould