labor there; no poverty; every person had all the
benefits of modern developments in power, transportation, and
communication, and of all other resources provided by scientific
progress.

So much, visitors and reporters were able to say.

The rumors that it was a vast socialistic organization, without private
property, with equal sharing of all privileges, were never confirmed. It
is a curious observation that it was possible, in this country of ours,
for a city to exist about which we knew so little. However, it seemed
evident from the vast number and elaboration of public buildings, the
perfection of community utilities such as transportation, streets,
lighting, and communication, from the absence of individual homes and
the housing of people in huge dormitories, that some different, less
individualistic type of social organization than ours was involved. It
was obvious that as an organization, the Science Community must also be
wealthy. If any of its individual citizens were wealthy, no one knew it.

I knew Benda as well as I knew myself, and if I was sure of anything in
my life, it was that he was not the type of man to leave a fifty
thousand dollar job and join a communist city on an equal footing with
the clerks in the stores. As it happens, I was also intimately
acquainted with John Edgewater Smith, recently Power Commissioner of New
York City and the most capable power engineer in North America, who,
following Benda by two or three months, resigned his position, and
accepted what his letter termed the place of Director of Power in the
Science Community. I was personally in a position to state that neither
of these men could be lightly persuaded into such a step, and that
neither of them would work for a small salary.

* * * * *

Benda's first letter to me stated that he was at the Science Community
on a visit. He had heard of the place, and while at Washington on
business had taken advantage of the opportunity to drive out and see it.
Fascinated by the equipment he saw there, he had decided to stay a few
days and study it. The next letter announced his acceptance of the
position. I would give a month's salary to get a look at those letters
now; but I neglected to preserve them. I should like to see them because
I am curious as to whether they exhibit the characteristics of the
subsequent letters, some of which I now have.

As I have stated, Benda and I had been on the most i