Herbert George Wells

The Future in America Herbert George Wells

"ARE you a Polygamist?""Are you an Anarchist?"The questions seem impertinent. They are part of a long paper of interrogations I must answersatisfactorily if I am to be regarded as a desirable alien to enter the United States of America. I wantvery much to pass that great statue of Liberty illuminating the World (from a central position inNew York Harbor), in order to see things in its light, to talk to certain people, to appreciate certainatmospheres, and so I resist the provocation to answer impertinently. I do not even volunteer that Ido not smoke and am a total abstainer; on which points it would seem the States as a whole stillkeep an open mind. I am full of curiosity about America, I am possessed by a problem I feel Icannot adequately discuss even with myself except over there, and I must go even at the price ofcoming to a decision upon the theoretically open questions these two inquiries raise. My problem I know will seem ridiculous and monstrous when I give it in all its starkdisproportions-attacked by me with my equipment it will call up an image of an elephant assailedby an ant who has not even mastered Jiu-jitsu-but at any rate I've come to it in a natural sort ofway and it is one I must, for my own peace of mind, make some kind of attempt upon, even if at lastit means no more than the ant crawling in an exploratory way hither and thither over that vastunconscious carcass and finally getting down and going away. That may be rather good for the ant, and the experience may be of interest to other ants, however infinitesimal from the point of view ofthe elephant, the final value of his investigation may be. And this tremendous problem in my caseand now in this-simply; What is going to happen to the United States of America in the next thirtyyears or so