Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/24

12 menial work. As far back as the nineteenth century the thoughts of everyone had been bent on acquiring money and possessions, but in the twenty-second century it had become an all-consuming fever that occupied everyone's thoughts day and night. There was a frightful struggle for riches; those who had superior abilities soon got hold of everything, while those who had none soon had their possessions taken away from them, and they could get no more, so they were reduced to a position little better than that of slaves. The human race, in its greediness, ate up the earth, appropriating every acre of ground, and then it inundated the planetary system. The same was the case with the intellectual giants of the age; their curiosity was insatiable, their ambition boundless, and their greed all-devouring. The planetary world which had been opened to their researches did not content them for long. Larger and improved interstellar ships were con-