We have become a nation of cowards. Not in a military sense; our beleaguered war fighters are doing the best they can, given the circumstances in Iraq and Afghanistan. What bothers me is the fear exhibited everywhere else. Global climate change is going to end our world in a decade, so we might as well end it now by dismantling our economy. Iraq, North Korea and a dozen other punk countries threaten us and we try to appease them. We act as if we're powerless to keep 13 year olds from having sex and then having children. We can't arrest teenagers who make our cities ugly with graffiti because the American Civil Liberties Union will do anything to keep criminals on the street where they belong.

It may be instructive to look at the kind of people Americans used to be, especially when looking at the future. We once had boundless confidence in our ability to solve problems and to improve life for our citizens, so much so that we called it the American Way. The only thing that has changed is that nowadays, believing in ourselves is considered selfish.

In March of 1931, an article in the San Antonio Express looked forward to that distant year of 2000, seeing not utopia - it said the idea of people living in rows of 100-story buildings was silly - but reality that we now deny. "The further development of electrical power and the expansion
of territories served by natural gas," it noted, "will make it possible for our cities in the future to be smokeless, and free from dirt and soot...I believe that our future cities will use this fuel for factory and heating purposes, and that the consequent elimination of smoke and soot will make cities veritable garden spots, and that their buildings will glisten in far purer air than we have ever known." And guess what - that's exactly what happened. Of course, few people alive today remember just how sooty and polluted our cities were by coal and wood fires, so all we do nowadays is complain about the tiny amount of pollution that remains. New cars, for example, emit 95% less pollution than those manufactured in 1970, yet all we hear is more end-of-the-world caterwauling.

The start of the year 1950 was a good one for looking ahead. A January 3, 1950 Associated Press article on the year 2000 claimed "you'll live far longer than before. Cancer is controlled, the common cold licked, and diseases like polio are on the run." Not bad for a fifty-year guess. Polio disappeared, and cancer is much more treatable now than then. What they didn't know was that the "common cold" is a package of over 100 different rhinoviruses we can be exposed to - not so easy to knock out. The same article says "you'll have a wrist-watch radio and carry a television set in your pocket." Sounds to me a lot like an IPhone or other modern cell phone. The chairman of RCA (a once-huge communications company) claimed live TV would link "New York, London or Shanghai," and that "mail will be whizzed around the world by radio," a pretty good description of CNN and e-mail. The chairman of the National Bureau of Standards claimed atomic energy would be developed as a power source, and aircraft and industrial processes would be controlled "through 'semi-thinking' electronic devices." Movie producer Cecil B. De Mille claimed in the year 2000, "100 million Americans would be looking at films every day." With Blockbuster, downloads and hundreds of cable channels, he actually guessed a bit low.

On the first of January, 1951, the Associated Press did it again (remember those people who claimed the new century didn't begin until 2001? This was for their parents). "Man Made Star May Circle Earth by End of This Century," was one headline. Of course, a satellite was in orbit just seven years later. Another called for "Foolproof Flying" by 2000, with commercial air transportation safer "than in any of today's travel methods." A wild-eyed article on farming claimed "U.S. to Be Able to Feed 300 Million in 50 Years," thanks to progress. In 2009, the U.S. can easily feed its own 300 million and hundreds of millions more. Another prediction was that farmers, who were 40% of the population in 1900 and 20% in 1950, would be fewer than 10% by 2000. Reality ran right past that - today less than 2% of Americans are full-time agriculturists.

An article in September of 1949 described a get-together of UN scientists who talked over the distant future. They correctly claimed giant windmills would be producing electricity, that atomic-powered ships would cross the oceans, and that "tremendous acreages in the former jungles of Africa and Latin America...will be pouring their products into man's breadbasket" (of course nowadays Americans protest the right of Brazilians to use their own land, but this came true anyway). The same article predicted that the humans of 2000 "will not have cracked the secret of the universe and the creation of life, nor will [they] have found the fountain of everlasting youth." True, but they'd be amazed at how close we're coming on all fronts.

The real problem with these predictions? They weren't crazy enough. None of the ones I saw predicted the internet, Google, GPS, DNA, biotechnology, birth control pills or personal computers. Certainly the people of 1950 would be shocked by our pessimism when surrounded by such progress. As one article noted, "We've feared the worst, while hoping for the best, ever since we have been a nation. We've come through wars and depressions. And we've come through - free."

So cheer up. I predict things will be getting better no matter how much we complain.

(Articles from the San Antonio Express, March 15, 1931; Lubbock Avalanche, January 3, 1950; the Paris (Texas) News, January 1, 1951; and the Galveston News, September 11, 1949. All from newspaperarchive.com)

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