Cambria Freeman, Feb. 13, 1874 Where Are We? Mr. Editor: In 100 years three millions of a population increased to forty-two millions or 14 times the original number. Now, if the next hundred years’ increase is in the same ratio, in 1976, the population of the United States will be five hundred and sixty eight millions. Where will they live and on what will they feed? Fifty years ago there was not a railroad in the United States except a tram road of a few miles in length. Now there are 70 thousand miles of railroad. According to this ratio of increase the number of miles, a hundred years hence would be incalculable. The same may be said of telegraph lines. There are now nearly 10 millions of boys over 6 years of age going to school in the United States. These will all be voters in 15 years, if they live. That is, they will be voters before 1890. Just think of an accession of 10 millions of voters! Where are we? How will the produce of the great West be transferred to the sea-board with such a grain producing population as must exist 100 years hence? These facts startle one, especially should such considerations awaken the rising generation to a preparation for this great future. Ten years ago, California did not produce a million bushels of wheat; now that State exports 20 millions of bushels annually. How much will it export in 10 or 20 or 100 years hence, when completely irrigated by means of canals? At the rate that coal is consumed, how long will it last, and what will 500 and 68 millions of people do for coal, wood, oil, etc., one hundred years hence? Or are we to presume that this ration will soon reach the zenith of prosperity and then decline as other nations have done? Have we arisen from monkeys to men and shall soon sink again to the old level of monkeys? When we take a review of the improvements in machinery within the last 50 years including steam, railroads, telegraphs and ocean cables, Alps and Hoosac tunnels, can we help wondering if inventive genius can go on another 50 or 100 years in the same ratio? Or will some earthquake burst us to atoms about the time that mind must cease to invent anything new? Will the next generation live to witness the wonderful progress in inventions that we have seen from the years 1800 to 1874? Or will some terrible catastrophe put a stop to this remarkable career? May not these fertile prairies and valleys become as arid at some future day, as are the wastes of Tadmor, the sands of Africa or the land that once flowed with milk and honey. May not some fearful pestilence sweep this dominant race from the face of the earth and leave the Western world more desolate than Columbus found it? These are reflections worthy the great subject of our future, and while they are startling, they afford no REVELATION of what we shall be, but merely fix the point of “where we are” in time and space. (signed) Rob Roy