1900 Figures Forecast a Century's Dangers
<I>New York World</I>, Dec. 30, 1900 -- — Nothing less than a full perusal of the interesting and remarkable collection of answers received by the Sunday World Magazine to its question, “What is the chief danger that confronts us in the new century?” can serve to show how many and varied are the forms of coming peril.
The chief danger is war, say Mr. Stead and Mr. Carnegie; imperialism and militarism, say Karl Blind and John Dillon and J. Keir Hardie; mammon worship, says President Schurman; tyranny, says “Ouida;” our armies says Frederic Harrison; our naval armaments says Sir Walter Besant; the increasing influence of wealth, says William J. Bryan — an opinion which is echoed by Cardinal Gibbons, Joseph Arch, M. de Blowitz, Walter Crane and M.E. Braddon. William Watson thinks the danger is greed, Dean Farrar that it is drink, George R. Sims that it is insanity, Sarah Grand that it is laxity in the matter of marriage; and while Flora Annie Steel thinks that woman’s rights is the coming danger Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy thinks it is insufficient freedom.
Most remarkable of all are the opinions of otherwise intelligent thinkers that the press is really the coming danger. According to Conan Doyle it is the “ill-balanced, excitable and sensation-mongering press;” according to Stanley Weyman it is the “irresponsible press;” according to Max O’Rell it is “an irresponsible and unbridled press,” or what Max Beerbohm calls “jumpy journals,” or what T.M. Healy simply calls “the newspapers.”
This is an appalling array of dangers. Whether they are real or imaginary, it is no less a public service to have pointed them out. The world is optimistic enough to believe that the twentieth century, following the unvarying course of human history, will meet and overcome all perils and prove to be the best that this steadily improving planet has ever seen.
‘What is the Chief Danger, Social or Political, That Confronts the New Century?’New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1900
The Rev. Hermann Adler, chief rabbi of Great Britain
The recrudescence of racial antipathies and national animosities.
Sir L. Alma-Tadema
The increasing loss of respect for work.
Susan B. Anthony
The chief danger, socially and politically, that confronts the coming century lies in man’s ignoring woman in the making and executing of the laws that govern the world — in man’s egotism, which causes him to think he can run the government machine alone. Not until he calls to his aid the woman by his side, counting her opinion at the ballot-box in the election of every officer so that from President to policeman all must recon with her, will the world be redeemed from the social and political corruption which are now sapping and undermining the very foundations of our Republic. Yours, not for the millennium but the beginning of its possibility, Susan B. Anthony.
Joseph Arch
A large accumulation of wealth on the one hand and a large increase of pauperism on the other.
William Archer, the famous dramatic critic
I think the need of the coming century is some sort of socialism, while the danger is that it should take the form of a military socialism, mechanically enforced, instead of a democratic socialism organically developed.
The Archbishop of Armagh
Fine-spun themes, played by politicians before the eyes of the Maker, impossible to realize and leading to fierce revolution; difficulty of making available the blessed and beautiful conception of international arbitration and undue confidence in the immediate protection afforded by an idea, destined to rule humanity one day, against ambitious strength.
G. F. Savage Armstrong, fellow and professor of English at Trinity College, Dublin
The corruption of the public press.
Lady Battersea
Hurry.
Max Beerbohm
The constant circumspection for social and political danger to which we are incited by jumpy journalism.
Lord Charles Beresford
The Chinese question.
Sir Walter Besant
1. In my opinion the greatest political danger is to be found in the vastly increased naval armaments of all the powers and in their avowed jealousy and open hostility toward the whole of the English-speaking people.
These armaments, designed apparently for self-protection, will be certainly used in combination against our people—probably against England first, and the United States next if the first is successful.
What success would mean in our case is obvious—the transfer of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India &c. to Russia, Germany, France or Japan. What it would mean in the case of the United States I leave to the consideration of America.
That it would mean defeat and humiliation unless the American fleet were equal to a combination of three first-class powers is quite certain. It is also quite certain that the dream of Napoleon, which was the destruction of the English naval power first and the conquest of North America next, has never been forgotten.
2. The greatest social danger — a very terrible and imminent danger — is the increase and development of trusts.
Karl Blind
Imperialism.
Gen. Booth, commander of the Salvation Army
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