Deep in the depths of old post-apocalyptic literature I came across a Jack London title I was unfamiliar with, The Scarlet Plague. Despite the fact that the short story was written during the early 1900′s, it had some fascinating predictions for the year 2012. There is not much info about the random Jack London story online. The Wikipedia article about the story is brief, so here it is:
The Scarlet Plague
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Scarlet Plague is a post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by Jack London and originally published in London Magazine in 1912.
The story takes place in 2073, sixty years after an uncontrollable epidemic, the Red Death, has depopulated the planet. James Howard Smith is one of the few survivors of the pre-plague era left alive in the San Francisco area, and as he realizes his time grows short, he tries to impart the value of knowledge and wisdom to his grandsons.World of Scarlet Plague
The world of the Scarlet Plague before the epidemic broke out was quite a civilized and advanced one, at least from the vantage point of the year 1912. It is an oligarchy where the upper class thrive and the working class are often treated little better than slaves. The theme is similar to London’s The Iron Heel (1908).
Jack London at the Bohemian Grove.
What the wiki article leaves out is the fact that the end of the world as we know it ends with the year 2012. This seems to be Jack London’s vision of 100 years in to the future. He predicted who will become the President of the United States in 2012. The US Presidency seemed to be appointed by the ruling elite. The President appointed in 2012 was named Morgan the 5th. This is more than likely a reference to JP Morgan who was at the height of his wealth when London wrote this story. London probably knew JP Morgan from their time together at the Bohemian Grove. The short story mentions that in 2012, 7 families rule the world. The story only mentions 3 of the elite families: Goldman, Morgan, and Van Warden.
The short story says that there were 8 billion people on the planet when the last US coin ever was struck in 2012. The New York City metro area was the epicenter of the Scarlet Plague with 17 million people living there at the time. The word spread quickly since everyone had wireless phones and trans-Atlantic commercial flights, but the plague was faster than mass communication and enabled by transportation. The world’s cities were consumed with chaos and death by plague. By the summer of 2013, most of the world’s population had succumbed to the Red Death. A hand-full of people survived and their descendants are now living in a stone-age like post-apocalyptic world in 2073. The short story is told by the old man. He was 27 years old at the time of the plague. He tells of the fall of civilization, how he survived in 2013, and living to an old age in a post-apocalyptic world.
Here is an excerpt from the 100 year old short story:
The old man shook his head sadly, and said: “The gunpowder will come. Nothing can stop it—the same old story over and over. Man will increase, and men will fight. The gunpowder will enable men to kill millions of men, and in this way only, by fire and blood, will a new civilization, in some remote day, be evolved. And of what profit will it be? Just as the old civilization passed, so will the new. It may take fifty thousand years to build, but it will pass. All things pass.
Only remain cosmic force and matter, ever in flux, ever acting and reacting and realizing the eternal types-the priest, the soldier, and the king. Out of the mouths of babes comes the wisdom of all the ages. Some will fight, some will rule, some will pray; and all the rest will toil and suffer sore while on their bleeding carcasses is reared again, and yet again, without end, the amazing beauty and surpassing wonder of the civilized state. It were just as well that I destroyed those cave-stored books—whether they remain or perish, all their old truths will be discovered, their old lies lived and handed down.
This short story is now my favorite Jack London piece. The descriptions of the Last Days in the The Scarlet Plague seemed to have been written in 2012, not 1912. Let’s hope that Jack London’s piece is pure fiction and nothing more than an obscure short magazine story published the year the Titanic sank and JP Morgan was still lobbying for the Federal Reserve System while convincing the world that Nikola Tesla was insane.
