XIX ALUMINUM BUILDINGS

AS Domestic Co-operation continues to become more and more extensive and universal as it certainly will, Buildings will become 86fewer, larger, more sanitary, convenient, artistic, and will be constructed of Metal and greatly improved Glass, instead of wood and other rapidly decaying materials. It is estimated that at least 7 per cent of the Earth’s crust is aluminum. Every claybank in the world is an Aluminum mine and on account of its abundance and extremely suitable qualities for architectural, mechanical, electrical, artistic and culinary purposes, will Aluminum rapidly become the building, machinery, furniture, electrical and culinary material of the world, and will also perhaps become an important element in paving.

A large Co-operative Mansion (see Mansion page 25), well constructed of Aluminum and improved Glass, and securely bolted to a well-grounded concrete foundation, will withstand almost any flood, storm, earthquake and even lightning itself. Such a Building will endure “the ravages of time” for scores of centuries.

In 1855 a pound of Aluminum cost $90. Today it can be produced for a few cents a pound, and this reduction in the actual cost of production will certainly continue until a pound will cost less than one cent. Then all the buildings, tools, machinery, furniture, culinary utensils, etc., will be made of aluminum or some alloy of it. Iron, wood, brick, plaster, 87nails, wallpaper, tin and also perhaps lead, silver and copper will then have little or no commercial and industrial values, and the same will apply to the forest, coal mines, oil wells and wind and water powers after we learn how to utilize the direct solar Energy as it continually streams from the Sun to the Earth. When our Aluminum buildings will last for thousands of years, and when few if any other metals are used, building, mining and commercialism will become very much less, and agriculture and industrialism correspondingly more.

Experience shows that political, creed, race and national Hatreds, Prejudices, Envies and Jealousies die out as intelligence and refined culture advance. We may thus see that the only permanent and harmonious solution of the “naughty race and nationality questions” can be the free and indiscriminate intermarriage of the various races and nationalities.

This future kind and friendly mutuality between the various races, nations and languages will thus surely usher in the true cosmopolitan brotherhood and sisterhood of the human family. This will naturally produce a rapidly growing tendency toward one race, one country, one language—a cosmopolitan language that is very much simplified in grammatical construction and has neither substitutes, silent 88letters nor diacritical marks; one industrialism, one ethical and moral standard, one philosophy, one sound naturalism, and one highly evolved humanity; a human race that will be neither white, black, yellow nor red, but will have all the past, present and future shades of the individuals and species harmoniously blended into one color evolved by the Law of the Survival of the Fittest.

With toil, worry, cruelty, superstition, envy, jealousy (pretended outside ownership is the cause of jealousy), immorality and poverty substantially eliminated, beauty of face and grace of form and function will, no doubt, develop to a remarkable degree; and the better adjustment of the sex-relations which will undoubtedly result from the complete self-ownership of both men and women will produce beneficial eugenic results which will be the pride of future generations. Everybody will then be handsome, intelligent, skillful and congenial and after the total work of the world including the reproduction of the race will be equitably divided between the men and the women, the women will then gradually become as tall and strong as the men; and with these beneficial improvements well established, will the span of human life likely double or treble its present duration.

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