neighboring planet

• not far-distant from Urantia

72:0.1By per­mis­sion of Lanaforge and with the ap­proval of the Most Highs of Eden­tia, I am au­tho­rized to nar­rate some­thing of the so­cial, moral, and po­lit­i­cal life of the most ad­vanced hu­man race liv­ing on a not far-dis­tant planet be­long­ing to the Sa­ta­nia sys­tem.

• Planetary Prince and Material Son defaulted

72:0.3This planet, like Uran­tia, was led astray by the dis­loy­alty of its Plan­e­tary Prince in con­nec­tion with the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. It re­ceived a Ma­te­rial Son shortly af­ter Adam came to Uran­tia, and this Son also de­faulted, leav­ing the sphere iso­lated, since a Mag­is­te­rial Son has never been be­stowed upon its mor­tal races.

72:1.1Not­with­stand­ing all these plan­e­tary hand­i­caps a very su­pe­rior civ­i­liza­tion is evolv­ing on an iso­lated con­ti­nent about the size of Aus­tralia. This na­tion num­bers about 140 mil­lion. Its peo­ple are a mixed race, pre­dom­i­nantly blue and yel­low, hav­ing a slightly greater pro­por­tion of vi­o­let than the so-called white race of Uran­tia. These dif­fer­ent races are not yet fully blended, but they frat­er­nize and so­cial­ize very ac­cept­ably. The av­er­age length of life on this con­ti­nent is now ninety years, fif­teen per cent higher than that of any other peo­ple on the planet.

72:1.2The in­dus­trial mech­a­nism of this na­tion en­joys a cer­tain great ad­van­tage de­rived from the unique to­pog­ra­phy of the con­ti­nent. The high moun­tains, on which heavy rains fall eight months in the year, are sit­u­ated at the very cen­ter of the coun­try. This nat­u­ral ar­range­ment fa­vors the uti­liza­tion of wa­ter power and greatly fa­cil­i­tates the ir­ri­ga­tion of the more arid west­ern quar­ter of the con­ti­nent.

72:1.3These peo­ple are self-sus­tain­ing, that is, they can live in­def­i­nitely with­out im­port­ing any­thing from the sur­round­ing na­tions. Their nat­u­ral re­sources are re­plete, and by sci­en­tific tech­niques they have learned how to com­pen­sate for their de­fi­cien­cies in the es­sen­tials of life. They en­joy a brisk do­mes­tic com­merce but have lit­tle for­eign trade ow­ing to the uni­ver­sal hos­til­ity of their less pro­gres­sive neigh­bors.

72:1.4This con­ti­nen­tal na­tion, in gen­eral, fol­lowed the evo­lu­tion­ary trend of the planet: The de­vel­op­ment from the tribal stage to the ap­pear­ance of strong rulers and kings oc­cu­pied thou­sands of years. The un­con­di­tional monar­chs were suc­ceeded by many dif­fer­ent or­ders of gov­ern­ment—abortive re­publics, com­mu­nal states, and dic­ta­tors came and went in end­less pro­fu­sion. This growth con­tin­ued un­til about five hun­dred years ago when, dur­ing a po­lit­i­cally fer­ment­ing pe­riod, one of the na­tion’s pow­er­ful dic­ta­tor-tri­umvirs had a change of heart. He vol­un­teered to ab­di­cate upon con­di­tion that one of the other rulers, the baser of the re­main­ing two, also va­cate his dic­ta­tor­ship. Thus was the sov­er­eignty of the con­ti­nent placed in the hands of one ruler. The uni­fied state pro­gressed un­der strong monar­chial rule for over one hun­dred years, dur­ing which there evolved a mas­ter­ful char­ter of lib­erty.

72:1.5The sub­se­quent tran­si­tion from monar­chy to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive form of gov­ern­ment was grad­ual, the kings re­main­ing as mere so­cial or sen­ti­men­tal fig­ure­heads, fi­nally dis­ap­pear­ing when the male line of de­scent ran out. The pres­ent re­pub­lic has now been in ex­is­tence just two hun­dred years, dur­ing which time there has been a con­tin­u­ous pro­gres­sion to­ward the gov­ern­men­tal tech­niques about to be nar­rated, the last de­vel­op­ments in in­dus­trial and po­lit­i­cal realms hav­ing been made within the past decade.

72:2.1This con­ti­nen­tal na­tion now has a rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment with a cen­trally lo­cated na­tional cap­i­tal. The cen­tral gov­ern­ment con­sists of a strong fed­er­a­tion of one hun­dred com­par­a­tively free states. These states elect their gov­er­nors and leg­is­la­tors for ten years, and none are el­i­gi­ble for re-elec­tion. State judges are ap­pointed for life by the gov­er­nors and con­firmed by their leg­is­la­tures, which con­sist of one rep­re­sen­ta­tive for each one hun­dred thou­sand cit­i­zens.

72:2.2There are five dif­fer­ent types of metropoli­tan gov­ern­ment, de­pend­ing on the size of the city, but no city is per­mit­ted to have more than one mil­lion in­hab­i­tants. On the whole, these mu­nic­i­pal gov­ern­ing schemes are very sim­ple, di­rect, and eco­nom­i­cal. The few of­fices of city ad­min­is­tra­tion are keenly sought by the high­est types of cit­i­zens.

72:2.3The fed­eral gov­ern­ment em­braces three co-or­di­nate di­vi­sions: ex­ec­u­tive, leg­isla­tive, and ju­di­cial. The fed­eral chief ex­ec­u­tive is elected ev­ery six years by uni­ver­sal ter­ri­to­rial suf­frage. He is not el­i­gi­ble for re-elec­tion ex­cept upon the pe­ti­tion of at least sev­enty-five state leg­is­la­tures con­curred in by the re­spec­tive state gov­er­nors, and then but for one term. He is ad­vised by a super­cab­i­net com­posed of all liv­ing ex-chief ex­ec­u­tives.

72:2.4The leg­isla­tive di­vi­sion em­braces three houses:

72:2.51. The up­per house is elected by in­dus­trial, pro­fes­sional, ag­ri­cul­tural, and other groups of work­ers, bal­lot­ing in ac­cor­dance with eco­nomic func­tion.

72:2.62. The lower house is elected by cer­tain or­ga­ni­za­tions of so­ci­ety em­brac­ing the so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, and philo­sophic groups not in­cluded in in­dus­try or the pro­fes­sions. All cit­i­zens in good stand­ing par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion of both classes of rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but they are dif­fer­ently grouped, de­pend­ing on whether the elec­tion per­tains to the up­per or lower house.

72:2.73. The third house—the el­der states­men—em­braces the vet­er­ans of civic ser­vice and in­cludes many dis­tin­guished per­sons nom­i­nated by the chief ex­ec­u­tive, by the re­gional (sub­fed­eral) ex­ec­u­tives, by the chief of the su­preme tri­bu­nal, and by the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers of ei­ther of the other leg­isla­tive houses. This group is lim­ited to one hun­dred, and its mem­bers are elected by the ma­jor­ity ac­tion of the el­der states­men them­selves. Mem­ber­ship is for life, and when va­can­cies oc­cur, the per­son re­ceiv­ing the largest bal­lot among the list of nom­i­nees is thereby duly elected. The scope of this body is purely ad­vi­sory, but it is a mighty reg­u­la­tor of pub­lic opin­ion and ex­erts a pow­er­ful in­flu­ence upon all branches of the gov­ern­ment.

72:2.8Very much of the fed­eral ad­min­is­tra­tive work is car­ried on by the ten re­gional (sub­fed­eral) au­thor­i­ties, each con­sist­ing of the as­so­ci­a­tion of ten states. These re­gional di­vi­sions are wholly ex­ec­u­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive, hav­ing nei­ther leg­isla­tive nor ju­di­cial func­tions. The ten re­gional ex­ec­u­tives are the per­sonal ap­pointees of the fed­eral chief ex­ec­u­tive, and their term of of­fice is con­cur­rent with his—six years. The fed­eral su­preme tri­bu­nal ap­proves the ap­point­ment of these ten re­gional ex­ec­u­tives, and while they may not be reap­pointed, the re­tir­ing ex­ec­u­tive au­to­mat­i­cally be­comes the as­so­ciate and ad­viser of his suc­ces­sor. Oth­er­wise, these re­gional chiefs choose their own cab­i­nets of ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cials.

72:2.9This na­tion is ad­ju­di­cated by two ma­jor court sys­tems—the law courts and the so­cioe­co­nomic courts. The law courts func­tion on the fol­low­ing three lev­els:

72:2.101. Mi­nor courts of mu­nic­i­pal and lo­cal ju­ris­dic­tion, whose de­ci­sions may be ap­pealed to the high state tri­bu­nals.

72:2.112. State su­preme courts, whose de­ci­sions are fi­nal in all mat­ters not in­volv­ing the fed­eral gov­ern­ment or jeop­ardy of cit­i­zen­ship rights and lib­er­ties. The re­gional ex­ec­u­tives are em­pow­ered to bring any case at once to the bar of the fed­eral su­preme court.

72:2.123. Fed­eral su­preme court—the high tri­bu­nal for the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of na­tional con­tentions and the ap­pel­late cases com­ing up from the state courts. This su­preme tri­bu­nal con­sists of twelve men over forty and un­der sev­enty-five years of age who have served two or more years on some state tri­bu­nal, and who have been ap­pointed to this high po­si­tion by the chief ex­ec­u­tive with the ma­jor­ity ap­proval of the super­cab­i­net and the third house of the leg­isla­tive as­sem­bly. All de­ci­sions of this su­preme ju­di­cial body are by at least a two-thirds vote.

72:2.13The so­cioe­co­nomic courts func­tion in the fol­low­ing three di­vi­sions:

72:2.141. Pa­ren­tal courts, as­so­ci­ated with the leg­isla­tive and ex­ec­u­tive di­vi­sions of the home and so­cial sys­tem.

72:2.152. Ed­u­ca­tional courts—the ju­ridi­cal bod­ies con­nected with the state and re­gional school sys­tems and as­so­ci­ated with the ex­ec­u­tive and leg­isla­tive branches of the ed­u­ca­tional ad­min­is­tra­tive mech­a­nism.

72:2.163. In­dus­trial courts—the ju­ris­dic­tional tri­bu­nals vested with full au­thor­ity for the set­tle­ment of all eco­nomic mis­un­der­stand­ings.

72:2.17The fed­eral su­preme court does not pass upon so­cioe­co­nomic cases ex­cept upon the three-quar­ters vote of the third leg­isla­tive branch of the na­tional gov­ern­ment, the house of el­der states­men. Oth­er­wise, all de­ci­sions of the pa­ren­tal, ed­u­ca­tional, and in­dus­trial high courts are fi­nal.

72:3.1On this con­ti­nent it is against the law for two fam­i­lies to live un­der the same roof. And since group dwellings have been out­lawed, most of the ten­e­ment type of build­ings have been de­mol­ished. But the un­mar­ried still live in clubs, ho­tels, and other group dwellings. The small­est home­site per­mit­ted must pro­vide fifty thou­sand square feet of land. All land and other prop­erty used for home pur­poses are free from tax­a­tion up to ten times the min­i­mum home­site al­lot­ment.

72:3.2The home life of this peo­ple has greatly im­proved dur­ing the last cen­tury. At­ten­dance of par­ents, both fa­thers and moth­ers, at the pa­ren­tal schools of child cul­ture is com­pul­sory. Even the agri­cul­tur­ists who re­side in small coun­try set­tle­ments carry on this work by cor­re­spon­dence, go­ing to the near-by cen­ters for oral in­struc­tion once in ten days—ev­ery two weeks, for they main­tain a five-day week.

72:3.3The av­er­age num­ber of chil­dren in each fam­ily is five, and they are un­der the full con­trol of their par­ents or, in case of the demise of one or both, un­der that of the guard­i­ans des­ig­nated by the pa­ren­tal courts. It is con­sid­ered a great honor for any fam­ily to be awarded the guardian­ship of a full or­phan. Com­pet­i­tive ex­am­i­na­tions are held among par­ents, and the or­phan is awarded to the home of those dis­play­ing the best pa­ren­tal qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

72:3.4These peo­ple re­gard the home as the ba­sic in­sti­tu­tion of their civ­i­liza­tion. It is ex­pected that the most valu­able part of a child’s ed­u­ca­tion and char­ac­ter train­ing will be se­cured from his par­ents and at home, and fa­thers de­vote al­most as much at­ten­tion to child cul­ture as do moth­ers.

72:3.5All sex in­struc­tion is ad­min­is­tered in the home by par­ents or by le­gal guard­i­ans. Moral in­struc­tion is of­fered by teach­ers dur­ing the rest pe­ri­ods in the school shops, but not so with re­li­gious train­ing, which is deemed to be the ex­clu­sive priv­i­lege of par­ents, re­li­gion be­ing looked upon as an in­te­gral part of home life. Purely re­li­gious in­struc­tion is given pub­licly only in the tem­ples of phi­los­o­phy, no such ex­clu­sively re­li­gious in­sti­tu­tions as the Uran­tia churches hav­ing de­vel­oped among this peo­ple. In their phi­los­o­phy, re­li­gion is the striv­ing to know God and to man­i­fest love for one’s fel­lows through ser­vice for them, but this is not typ­i­cal of the re­li­gious sta­tus of the other na­tions on this planet. Re­li­gion is so en­tirely a fam­ily mat­ter among these peo­ple that there are no pub­lic places de­voted ex­clu­sively to re­li­gious as­sem­bly. Po­lit­i­cally, church and state, as Uran­tians are wont to say, are en­tirely sep­a­rate, but there is a strange over­lap­ping of re­li­gion and phi­los­o­phy.

72:3.6Un­til twenty years ago the spir­i­tual teach­ers (com­pa­ra­ble to Uran­tia pas­tors), who visit each fam­ily pe­ri­od­i­cally to ex­am­ine the chil­dren to as­cer­tain if they have been prop­erly in­structed by their par­ents, were un­der gov­ern­men­tal super­vi­sion. These spir­i­tual ad­vis­ers and ex­am­in­ers are now un­der the di­rec­tion of the newly cre­ated Foun­da­tion of Spir­i­tual Prog­ress, an in­sti­tu­tion sup­ported by vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tions. Pos­si­bly this in­sti­tu­tion may not fur­ther evolve un­til af­ter the ar­rival of a Par­a­dise Mag­is­te­rial Son.

72:3.7Chil­dren re­main legally sub­ject to their par­ents un­til they are fif­teen, when the first ini­ti­a­tion into civic re­spon­si­bil­ity is held. There­after, ev­ery five years for five suc­ces­sive pe­ri­ods sim­i­lar pub­lic ex­er­cises are held for such age groups at which their obli­ga­tions to par­ents are less­ened, while new civic and so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the state are as­sumed. Suf­frage is con­ferred at twenty, the right to marry with­out pa­ren­tal con­sent is not be­stowed un­til twenty-five, and chil­dren must leave home on reach­ing the age of thirty.

72:3.8Mar­riage and di­vorce laws are uni­form through­out the na­tion. Mar­riage be­fore twenty—the age of civil en­fran­chise­ment—is not per­mit­ted. Per­mis­sion to marry is only granted af­ter one year’s no­tice of in­ten­tion, and af­ter both bride and groom pre­sent cer­tifi­cates show­ing that they have been duly in­structed in the pa­ren­tal schools re­gard­ing the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of mar­ried life.

72:3.9Di­vorce reg­u­la­tions are some­what lax, but de­crees of sep­a­ra­tion, is­sued by the pa­ren­tal courts, may not be had un­til one year af­ter ap­pli­ca­tion there­for has been re­corded, and the year on this planet is con­sid­er­ably longer than on Uran­tia. Not­with­stand­ing their easy di­vorce laws, the pres­ent rate of di­vorces is only one tenth that of the civ­i­lized races of Uran­tia.

72:4.1The ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem of this na­tion is com­pul­sory and co­ed­u­ca­tional in the pre­col­lege schools that the stu­dent at­tends from the ages of five to eigh­teen. These schools are vastly dif­fer­ent from those of Uran­tia. There are no class­rooms, only one study is pur­sued at a time, and af­ter the first three years all pupils be­come as­sis­tant teach­ers, in­struct­ing those be­low them. Books are used only to se­cure in­for­ma­tion that will as­sist in solv­ing the prob­lems aris­ing in the school shops and on the school farms. Much of the fur­ni­ture used on the con­ti­nent and the many me­chan­i­cal con­trivances—this is a great age of in­ven­tion and mech­a­niza­tion—are pro­duced in these shops. Ad­ja­cent to each shop is a work­ing li­brary where the stu­dent may con­sult the nec­es­sary ref­er­ence books. Agri­cul­ture and hor­ti­cul­ture are also taught through­out the en­tire ed­u­ca­tional pe­riod on the ex­ten­sive farms ad­join­ing ev­ery lo­cal school.

72:4.2The fee­ble-minded are trained only in agri­cul­ture and an­i­mal hus­bandry, and are com­mit­ted for life to spe­cial cus­to­dial colonies where they are seg­re­gated by sex to pre­vent par­ent­hood, which is de­nied all sub­nor­mals. These re­stric­tive mea­sures have been in op­er­a­tion for sev­enty-five years; the com­mit­ment de­crees are handed down by the pa­ren­tal courts.

72:4.3Ev­ery­one takes one month’s va­ca­tion each year. The pre­col­lege schools are con­ducted for nine months out of the year of ten, the va­ca­tion be­ing spent with par­ents or friends in travel. This travel is a part of the adult-ed­u­ca­tion pro­gram and is con­tin­ued through­out a life­time, the funds for meet­ing such ex­penses be­ing ac­cu­mu­lated by the same meth­ods as those em­ployed in old-age in­sur­ance.

72:4.4One quar­ter of the school time is de­voted to play—com­pet­i­tive ath­let­ics—the pupils pro­gress­ing in these con­tests from the lo­cal, through the state and re­gional, and on to the na­tional tri­als of skill and prowess. Like­wise, the or­a­tor­i­cal and mu­si­cal con­tests, as well as those in sci­ence and phi­los­o­phy, oc­cupy the at­ten­tion of stu­dents from the lower so­cial di­vi­sions on up to the con­tests for na­tional hon­ors.

72:4.5The school gov­ern­ment is a replica of the na­tional gov­ern­ment with its three cor­re­lated branches, the teach­ing staff func­tion­ing as the third or ad­vi­sory leg­isla­tive di­vi­sion. The chief ob­ject of ed­u­ca­tion on this con­ti­nent is to make ev­ery pupil a self-sup­port­ing cit­i­zen.

72:4.6Ev­ery child grad­u­at­ing from the pre­col­lege school sys­tem at eigh­teen is a skilled ar­ti­san. Then be­gins the study of books and the pur­suit of spe­cial knowl­edge, ei­ther in the adult schools or in the col­leges. When a bril­liant stu­dent com­pletes his work ahead of sched­ule, he is granted an award of time and means where­with he may ex­e­cute some pet project of his own de­vis­ing. The en­tire ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem is de­signed to ad­e­quately train the in­di­vid­ual.

72:5.1The in­dus­trial sit­u­a­tion among this peo­ple is far from their ide­als; cap­i­tal and la­bor still have their trou­bles, but both are be­com­ing ad­justed to the plan of sin­cere co-op­er­a­tion. On this unique con­ti­nent the work­ers are in­creas­ingly be­com­ing share­hold­ers in all in­dus­trial con­cerns; ev­ery in­tel­li­gent la­borer is slowly be­com­ing a small cap­i­tal­ist.

72:5.2So­cial an­tag­o­nisms are less­en­ing, and good will is grow­ing apace. No grave eco­nomic prob­lems have arisen out of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery (over one hun­dred years ago) since this ad­just­ment was ef­fected grad­u­ally by the lib­er­a­tion of two per cent each year. Those slaves who sat­is­fac­to­rily passed men­tal, moral, and phys­i­cal tests were granted cit­i­zen­ship; many of these su­pe­rior slaves were war cap­tives or chil­dren of such cap­tives. Some fifty years ago they de­ported the last of their in­fe­rior slaves, and still more re­cently they are ad­dress­ing them­selves to the task of re­duc­ing the num­bers of their de­gen­er­ate and vi­cious classes.

72:5.3These peo­ple have re­cently de­vel­oped new tech­niques for the ad­just­ment of in­dus­trial mis­un­der­stand­ings and for the cor­rec­tion of eco­nomic abuses which are marked im­prove­ments over their older meth­ods of set­tling such prob­lems. Vi­o­lence has been out­lawed as a pro­ce­dure in ad­just­ing ei­ther per­sonal or in­dus­trial dif­fer­ences. Wages, prof­its, and other eco­nomic prob­lems are not rigidly reg­u­lated, but they are in gen­eral con­trolled by the in­dus­trial leg­is­la­tures, while all dis­putes aris­ing out of in­dus­try are passed upon by the in­dus­trial courts.

72:5.4The in­dus­trial courts are only thirty years old but are func­tion­ing very sat­is­fac­to­rily. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment pro­vides that here­after the in­dus­trial courts shall rec­og­nize le­gal com­pen­sa­tion as falling in three di­vi­sions:

72:5.51. Le­gal rates of in­ter­est on in­vested cap­i­tal.

72:5.62. Rea­son­able salary for skill em­ployed in in­dus­trial op­er­a­tions.

72:5.73. Fair and eq­ui­table wages for la­bor.

72:5.8These shall first be met in ac­cor­dance with con­tract, or in the face of de­creased earn­ings they shall share pro­por­tion­ally in tran­sient re­duc­tion. And there­after all earn­ings in ex­cess of these fixed charges shall be re­garded as div­i­dends and shall be pro­rated to all three di­vi­sions: cap­i­tal, skill, and la­bor.

72:5.9Ev­ery ten years the re­gional ex­ec­u­tives ad­just and de­cree the law­ful hours of daily gain­ful toil. In­dus­try now op­er­ates on a five-day week, work­ing four and play­ing one. These peo­ple la­bor six hours each work­ing day and, like stu­dents, nine months in the year of ten. Va­ca­tion is usu­ally spent in travel, and new meth­ods of trans­porta­tion hav­ing been so re­cently de­vel­oped, the whole na­tion is travel bent. The cli­mate fa­vors travel about eight months in the year, and they are mak­ing the most of their op­por­tu­ni­ties.

72:5.10Two hun­dred years ago the profit mo­tive was wholly dom­i­nant in in­dus­try, but to­day it is be­ing rapidly dis­placed by other and higher driv­ing forces. Com­pe­ti­tion is keen on this con­ti­nent, but much of it has been trans­ferred from in­dus­try to play, skill, sci­en­tific achieve­ment, and in­tel­lec­tual at­tain­ment. It is most ac­tive in so­cial ser­vice and gov­ern­men­tal loy­alty. Among this peo­ple pub­lic ser­vice is rapidly be­com­ing the chief goal of am­bi­tion. The rich­est man on the con­ti­nent works six hours a day in the of­fice of his ma­chine shop and then has­tens over to the lo­cal branch of the school of states­man­ship, where he seeks to qual­ify for pub­lic ser­vice.

72:5.11La­bor is be­com­ing more hon­or­able on this con­ti­nent, and all able-bod­ied cit­i­zens over eigh­teen work ei­ther at home and on farms, at some rec­og­nized in­dus­try, on the pub­lic works where the tem­porar­ily un­em­ployed are ab­sorbed, or else in the corps of com­pul­sory la­bor­ers in the mines.

72:5.12These peo­ple are also be­gin­ning to fos­ter a new form of so­cial dis­gust—dis­gust for both idle­ness and un­earned wealth. Slowly but cer­tainly they are con­quer­ing their ma­chines. Once they, too, strug­gled for po­lit­i­cal lib­erty and sub­se­quently for eco­nomic free­dom. Now are they en­ter­ing upon the en­joy­ment of both while in ad­di­tion they are be­gin­ning to ap­pre­ci­ate their well-earned leisure, which can be de­voted to in­creased self-re­al­iza­tion.

72:6.1This na­tion is mak­ing a de­ter­mined ef­fort to re­place the self-re­spect-de­stroy­ing type of char­ity by dig­ni­fied gov­ern­ment-in­sur­ance guar­an­tees of se­cu­rity in old age. This na­tion pro­vides ev­ery child an ed­u­ca­tion and ev­ery man a job; there­fore can it suc­cess­fully carry out such an in­sur­ance scheme for the pro­tec­tion of the in­firm and aged.

72:6.2Among this peo­ple all per­sons must re­tire from gain­ful pur­suit at sixty-five un­less they se­cure a per­mit from the state la­bor com­mis­sioner which will en­ti­tle them to re­main at work un­til the age of sev­enty. This age limit does not ap­ply to gov­ern­ment ser­vants or philoso­phers. The phys­i­cally dis­abled or per­ma­nently crip­pled can be placed on the re­tired list at any age by court or­der coun­ter­signed by the pen­sion com­mis­sioner of the re­gional gov­ern­ment.

72:6.3The funds for old-age pen­sions are de­rived from four sources:

72:6.41. One day’s earn­ings each month are req­ui­si­tioned by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment for this pur­pose, and in this coun­try ev­ery­body works.

72:6.52. Be­quests—many wealthy cit­i­zens leave funds for this pur­pose.

72:6.63. The earn­ings of com­pul­sory la­bor in the state mines. Af­ter the con­script work­ers sup­port them­selves and set aside their own re­tire­ment con­tri­bu­tions, all ex­cess prof­its on their la­bor are turned over to this pen­sion fund.

72:6.74. The in­come from nat­u­ral re­sources. All nat­u­ral wealth on the con­ti­nent is held as a so­cial trust by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, and the in­come there­from is uti­lized for so­cial pur­poses, such as dis­ease pre­ven­tion, ed­u­ca­tion of ge­niuses, and ex­penses of es­pe­cially promis­ing in­di­vid­u­als in the states­man­ship schools. One half of the in­come from nat­u­ral re­sources goes to the old-age pen­sion fund.

72:6.8Al­though state and re­gional ac­tu­ar­ial foun­da­tions sup­ply many forms of pro­tec­tive in­sur­ance, old-age pen­sions are solely ad­min­is­tered by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment through the ten re­gional de­part­ments.

72:6.9These gov­ern­ment funds have long been hon­estly ad­min­is­tered. Next to trea­son and mur­der, the heav­i­est penal­ties meted out by the courts are at­tached to be­trayal of pub­lic trust. So­cial and po­lit­i­cal dis­loy­alty are now looked upon as be­ing the most heinous of all crimes.

72:7.1The fed­eral gov­ern­ment is pa­ter­nal­is­tic only in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of old-age pen­sions and in the fos­ter­ing of ge­nius and cre­ative orig­i­nal­ity; the state gov­ern­ments are slightly more con­cerned with the in­di­vid­ual cit­i­zen, while the lo­cal gov­ern­ments are much more pa­ter­nal­is­tic or so­cial­is­tic. The city (or some sub­di­vi­sion thereof) con­cerns it­self with such mat­ters as health, san­i­ta­tion, build­ing reg­u­la­tions, beau­ti­fi­ca­tion, wa­ter sup­ply, light­ing, heat­ing, recre­ation, mu­sic, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

72:7.2In all in­dus­try first at­ten­tion is paid to health; cer­tain phases of phys­i­cal well-be­ing are re­garded as in­dus­trial and com­mu­nity pre­rog­a­tives, but in­di­vid­ual and fam­ily health prob­lems are mat­ters of per­sonal con­cern only. In med­i­cine, as in all other purely per­sonal mat­ters, it is in­creas­ingly the plan of gov­ern­ment to re­frain from in­ter­fer­ing.

72:7.3Cities have no tax­ing power, nei­ther can they go in debt. They re­ceive per capita al­lowances from the state trea­sury and must sup­ple­ment such rev­enue from the earn­ings of their so­cial­is­tic en­ter­prises and by li­cens­ing var­i­ous com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

72:7.4The rapid-tran­sit fa­cil­i­ties, which make it prac­ti­cal greatly to ex­tend the city bound­aries, are un­der mu­nic­i­pal con­trol. The city fire de­part­ments are sup­ported by the fire-pre­ven­tion and in­sur­ance foun­da­tions, and all build­ings, in city or coun­try, are fire­proof—have been for over sev­enty-five years.

72:7.5There are no mu­nic­i­pally ap­pointed peace of­fi­cers; the po­lice forces are main­tained by the state gov­ern­ments. This de­part­ment is re­cruited al­most en­tirely from the un­mar­ried men be­tween twenty-five and fifty. Most of the states as­sess a rather heavy bach­e­lor tax, which is re­mit­ted to all men join­ing the state po­lice. In the av­er­age state the po­lice force is now only one tenth as large as it was fifty years ago.

72:7.6There is lit­tle or no uni­for­mity among the tax­a­tion schemes of the one hun­dred com­par­a­tively free and sov­er­eign states as eco­nomic and other con­di­tions vary greatly in dif­fer­ent sec­tions of the con­ti­nent. Ev­ery state has ten ba­sic con­sti­tu­tional pro­vi­sions which can­not be mod­i­fied ex­cept by con­sent of the fed­eral su­preme court, and one of these ar­ti­cles pre­vents levy­ing a tax of more than one per cent on the value of any prop­erty in any one year, home­sites, whether in city or coun­try, be­ing ex­empted.

72:7.7The fed­eral gov­ern­ment can­not go in debt, and a three-fourths ref­er­en­dum is re­quired be­fore any state can bor­row ex­cept for pur­poses of war. Since the fed­eral gov­ern­ment can­not in­cur debt, in the event of war the Na­tional Coun­cil of De­fense is em­pow­ered to as­sess the states for money, as well as for men and ma­te­ri­als, as it may be re­quired. But no debt may run for more than twenty-five years.

72:7.8In­come to sup­port the fed­eral gov­ern­ment is de­rived from the fol­low­ing five sources:

72:7.91. Im­port du­ties. All im­ports are sub­ject to a tar­iff de­signed to pro­tect the stan­dard of liv­ing on this con­ti­nent, which is far above that of any other na­tion on the planet. These tar­iffs are set by the high­est in­dus­trial court af­ter both houses of the in­dus­trial congress have rat­i­fied the rec­om­men­da­tions of the chief ex­ec­u­tive of eco­nomic af­fairs, who is the joint ap­pointee of these two leg­isla­tive bod­ies. The up­per in­dus­trial house is elected by la­bor, the lower by cap­i­tal.

72:7.102. Roy­al­ties. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment en­cour­ages in­ven­tion and orig­i­nal cre­ations in the ten re­gional lab­o­ra­to­ries, as­sist­ing all types of ge­niuses—artists, au­thors, and sci­en­tists—and pro­tect­ing their patents. In re­turn the gov­ern­ment takes one half the prof­its re­al­ized from all such in­ven­tions and cre­ations, whether per­tain­ing to ma­chines, books, artistry, plants, or an­i­mals.

72:7.113. In­her­i­tance tax. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment levies a grad­u­ated in­her­i­tance tax rang­ing from one to fifty per cent, de­pend­ing on the size of an es­tate as well as on other con­di­tions.

72:7.124. Mil­i­tary equip­ment. The gov­ern­ment earns a con­sid­er­able sum from the leas­ing of mil­i­tary and naval equip­ment for com­mer­cial and recre­ational us­ages.

72:7.135. Nat­u­ral re­sources. The in­come from nat­u­ral re­sources, when not fully re­quired for the spe­cific pur­poses des­ig­nated in the char­ter of fed­eral state­hood, is turned into the na­tional trea­sury.

72:7.14Fed­eral ap­pro­pri­a­tions, ex­cept war funds as­sessed by the Na­tional Coun­cil of De­fense, are orig­i­nated in the up­per leg­isla­tive house, con­curred in by the lower house, ap­proved by the chief ex­ec­u­tive, and fi­nally val­i­dated by the fed­eral bud­get com­mis­sion of one hun­dred. The mem­bers of this com­mis­sion are nom­i­nated by the state gov­er­nors and elected by the state leg­is­la­tures to serve for twenty-four years, one quar­ter be­ing elected ev­ery six years. Ev­ery six years this body, by a three-fourths bal­lot, chooses one of its num­ber as chief, and he thereby be­comes di­rec­tor-con­trol­ler of the fed­eral trea­sury.

72:8.1In ad­di­tion to the ba­sic com­pul­sory ed­u­ca­tion pro­gram ex­tend­ing from the ages of five to eigh­teen, spe­cial schools are main­tained as fol­lows:

72:8.21. States­man­ship schools. These schools are of three classes: na­tional, re­gional, and state. The pub­lic of­fices of the na­tion are grouped in four di­vi­sions. The first di­vi­sion of pub­lic trust per­tains prin­ci­pally to the na­tional ad­min­is­tra­tion, and all of­fice­hold­ers of this group must be grad­u­ates of both re­gional and na­tional schools of states­man­ship. In­di­vid­u­als may ac­cept po­lit­i­cal, elec­tive, or ap­pointive of­fice in the sec­ond di­vi­sion upon grad­u­at­ing from any one of the ten re­gional schools of states­man­ship; their trusts con­cern re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in the re­gional ad­min­is­tra­tion and the state gov­ern­ments. Di­vi­sion three in­cludes state re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, and such of­fi­cials are only re­quired to have state de­grees of states­man­ship. The fourth and last di­vi­sion of of­fice­hold­ers are not re­quired to hold states­man­ship de­grees, such of­fices be­ing wholly ap­pointive. They rep­re­sent mi­nor po­si­tions of as­sis­tantship, sec­re­tary­ships, and tech­ni­cal trusts which are dis­charged by the var­i­ous learned pro­fes­sions func­tion­ing in gov­ern­men­tal ad­min­is­tra­tive ca­pac­i­ties.

72:8.3Judges of the mi­nor and state courts hold de­grees from the state schools of states­man­ship. Judges of the ju­ris­dic­tional tri­bu­nals of so­cial, ed­u­ca­tional, and in­dus­trial mat­ters hold de­grees from the re­gional schools. Judges of the fed­eral su­preme court must hold de­grees from all these schools of states­man­ship.

72:8.42. Schools of phi­los­o­phy. These schools are af­fil­i­ated with the tem­ples of phi­los­o­phy and are more or less as­so­ci­ated with re­li­gion as a pub­lic func­tion.

72:8.53. In­sti­tu­tions of sci­ence. These tech­ni­cal schools are co-or­di­nated with in­dus­try rather than with the ed­u­ca­tional sys­tem and are ad­min­is­tered un­der fif­teen di­vi­sions.

72:8.64. Pro­fes­sional train­ing schools. These spe­cial in­sti­tu­tions pro­vide the tech­ni­cal train­ing for the var­i­ous learned pro­fes­sions, twelve in num­ber.

72:8.75. Mil­i­tary and naval schools. Near the na­tional head­quar­ters and at the twenty-five coastal mil­i­tary cen­ters are main­tained those in­sti­tu­tions de­voted to the mil­i­tary train­ing of vol­un­teer cit­i­zens from eigh­teen to thirty years of age. Pa­ren­tal con­sent is re­quired be­fore twenty-five in or­der to gain en­trance to these schools.

72:9.1Al­though can­di­dates for all pub­lic of­fices are re­stricted to grad­u­ates of the state, re­gional, or fed­eral schools of states­man­ship, the pro­gres­sive lead­ers of this na­tion dis­cov­ered a se­ri­ous weak­ness in their plan of uni­ver­sal suf­frage and about fifty years ago made con­sti­tu­tional pro­vi­sion for a mod­i­fied scheme of vot­ing which em­braces the fol­low­ing fea­tures:

72:9.21. Ev­ery man and woman of twenty years and over has one vote. Upon at­tain­ing this age, all cit­i­zens must ac­cept mem­ber­ship in two vot­ing groups: They will join the first in ac­cor­dance with their eco­nomic func­tion—in­dus­trial, pro­fes­sional, ag­ri­cul­tural, or trade; they will en­ter the sec­ond group ac­cord­ing to their po­lit­i­cal, philo­sophic, and so­cial in­cli­na­tions. All work­ers thus be­long to some eco­nomic fran­chise group, and these guilds, like the noneco­nomic as­so­ci­a­tions, are reg­u­lated much as is the na­tional gov­ern­ment with its three­fold di­vi­sion of pow­ers. Reg­is­tra­tion in these groups can­not be changed for twelve years.

72:9.32. Upon nom­i­na­tion by the state gov­er­nors or by the re­gional ex­ec­u­tives and by the man­date of the re­gional su­preme coun­cils, in­di­vid­u­als who have ren­dered great ser­vice to so­ci­ety, or who have demon­strated ex­traor­di­nary wis­dom in gov­ern­ment ser­vice, may have ad­di­tional votes con­ferred upon them not of­tener than ev­ery five years and not to ex­ceed nine such super­fran­chises. The max­i­mum suf­frage of any mul­ti­ple voter is ten. Sci­en­tists, in­ven­tors, teach­ers, philoso­phers, and spir­i­tual lead­ers are also thus rec­og­nized and hon­ored with aug­mented po­lit­i­cal power. These ad­vanced civic priv­i­leges are con­ferred by the state and re­gional su­preme coun­cils much as de­grees are be­stowed by the spe­cial col­leges, and the re­cip­i­ents are proud to at­tach the sym­bols of such civic rec­og­ni­tion, along with their other de­grees, to their lists of per­sonal achieve­ments.

72:9.43. All in­di­vid­u­als sen­tenced to com­pul­sory la­bor in the mines and all gov­ern­men­tal ser­vants sup­ported by tax funds are, for the pe­ri­ods of such ser­vices, dis­en­fran­chised. This does not ap­ply to aged per­sons who may be re­tired on pen­sions at sixty-five.

72:9.54. There are five brack­ets of suf­frage re­flect­ing the av­er­age yearly taxes paid for each half-decade pe­riod. Heavy tax­pay­ers are per­mit­ted ex­tra votes up to five. This grant is in­de­pen­dent of all other rec­og­ni­tion, but in no case can any per­son cast over ten bal­lots.

72:9.65. At the time this fran­chise plan was adopted, the ter­ri­to­rial method of vot­ing was aban­doned in fa­vor of the eco­nomic or func­tional sys­tem. All cit­i­zens now vote as mem­bers of in­dus­trial, so­cial, or pro­fes­sional groups, re­gard­less of their res­i­dence. Thus the elec­torate con­sists of so­lid­i­fied, uni­fied, and in­tel­li­gent groups who elect only their best mem­bers to po­si­tions of gov­ern­men­tal trust and re­spon­si­bil­ity. There is one ex­cep­tion to this scheme of func­tional or group suf­frage: The elec­tion of a fed­eral chief ex­ec­u­tive ev­ery six years is by na­tion-wide bal­lot, and no cit­i­zen casts over one vote.

72:9.7Thus, ex­cept in the elec­tion of the chief ex­ec­u­tive, suf­frage is ex­er­cised by eco­nomic, pro­fes­sional, in­tel­lec­tual, and so­cial group­ings of the cit­i­zenry. The ideal state is or­ganic, and ev­ery free and in­tel­li­gent group of cit­i­zens rep­re­sents a vi­tal and func­tion­ing or­gan within the larger gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­ism.

72:9.8The schools of states­man­ship have power to start pro­ceed­ings in the state courts look­ing to­ward the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of any de­fec­tive, idle, in­dif­fer­ent, or crim­i­nal in­di­vid­ual. These peo­ple rec­og­nize that, when fifty per cent of a na­tion is in­fe­rior or de­fec­tive and pos­sesses the bal­lot, such a na­tion is doomed. They be­lieve the dom­i­nance of medi­ocrity spells the down­fall of any na­tion. Vot­ing is com­pul­sory, heavy fines be­ing as­sessed against all who fail to cast their bal­lots.

72:10.1The meth­ods of this peo­ple in deal­ing with crime, in­san­ity, and de­gen­er­acy, while in some ways pleas­ing, will, no doubt, in oth­ers prove shock­ing to most Uran­tians. Or­di­nary crim­i­nals and the de­fec­tives are placed, by sexes, in dif­fer­ent ag­ri­cul­tural colonies and are more than self-sup­port­ing. The more se­ri­ous ha­bit­ual crim­i­nals and the in­cur­ably in­sane are sen­tenced to death in the lethal gas cham­bers by the courts. Nu­mer­ous crimes aside from mur­der, in­clud­ing be­trayal of gov­ern­men­tal trust, also carry the death penalty, and the vis­i­ta­tion of jus­tice is sure and swift.

72:10.2These peo­ple are pass­ing out of the neg­a­tive into the pos­i­tive era of law. Re­cently they have gone so far as to at­tempt the pre­ven­tion of crime by sen­tenc­ing those who are be­lieved to be po­ten­tial mur­der­ers and ma­jor crim­i­nals to life ser­vice in the de­ten­tion colonies. If such con­victs sub­se­quently demon­strate that they have be­come more nor­mal, they may be ei­ther paroled or par­doned. The homi­cide rate on this con­ti­nent is only one per cent of that among the other na­tions.

72:10.3Ef­forts to pre­vent the breed­ing of crim­i­nals and de­fec­tives were be­gun over one hun­dred years ago and have al­ready yielded grat­i­fy­ing re­sults. There are no pris­ons or hos­pi­tals for the in­sane. For one rea­son, there are only about ten per cent as many of these groups as are found on Uran­tia.

72:11.1Grad­u­ates of the fed­eral mil­i­tary schools may be com­mis­sioned as “guard­i­ans of civ­i­liza­tion” in seven ranks, in ac­cor­dance with abil­ity and ex­pe­ri­ence, by the pres­i­dent of the Na­tional Coun­cil of De­fense. This coun­cil con­sists of twenty-five mem­bers, nom­i­nated by the high­est pa­ren­tal, ed­u­ca­tional, and in­dus­trial tri­bu­nals, con­firmed by the fed­eral su­preme court, and pre­sided over ex of­fi­cio by the chief of staff of co-or­di­nated mil­i­tary af­fairs. Such mem­bers serve un­til they are sev­enty years of age.

72:11.2The courses pur­sued by such com­mis­sioned of­fi­cers are four years in length and are in­vari­ably cor­re­lated with the mas­tery of some trade or pro­fes­sion. Mil­i­tary train­ing is never given with­out this as­so­ci­ated in­dus­trial, sci­en­tific, or pro­fes­sional school­ing. When mil­i­tary train­ing is fin­ished, the in­di­vid­ual has, dur­ing his four years’ course, re­ceived one half of the ed­u­ca­tion im­parted in any of the spe­cial schools where the courses are like­wise four years in length. In this way the cre­ation of a pro­fes­sional mil­i­tary class is avoided by pro­vid­ing this op­por­tu­nity for a large num­ber of men to sup­port them­selves while se­cur­ing the first half of a tech­ni­cal or pro­fes­sional train­ing.

72:11.3Mil­i­tary ser­vice dur­ing peace­time is purely vol­un­tary, and the en­list­ments in all branches of the ser­vice are for four years, dur­ing which ev­ery man pur­sues some spe­cial line of study in ad­di­tion to the mas­tery of mil­i­tary tac­tics. Train­ing in mu­sic is one of the chief pur­suits of the cen­tral mil­i­tary schools and of the twenty-five train­ing camps dis­tributed about the pe­riph­ery of the con­ti­nent. Dur­ing pe­ri­ods of in­dus­trial slack­ness many thou­sands of un­em­ployed are au­to­mat­i­cally uti­lized in up­build­ing the mil­i­tary de­fenses of the con­ti­nent on land and sea and in the air.

72:11.4Al­though these peo­ple main­tain a pow­er­ful war es­tab­lish­ment as a de­fense against in­va­sion by the sur­round­ing hos­tile peo­ples, it may be re­corded to their credit that they have not in over one hun­dred years em­ployed these mil­i­tary re­sources in an of­fen­sive war. They have be­come civ­i­lized to that point where they can vig­or­ously de­fend civ­i­liza­tion with­out yield­ing to the temp­ta­tion to uti­lize their war pow­ers in ag­gres­sion. There have been no civil wars since the es­tab­lish­ment of the united con­ti­nen­tal state, but dur­ing the last two cen­turies these peo­ple have been called upon to wage nine fierce de­fen­sive con­flicts, three of which were against mighty con­fed­er­a­tions of world pow­ers. Al­though this na­tion main­tains ad­e­quate de­fense against at­tack by hos­tile neigh­bors, it pays far more at­ten­tion to the train­ing of states­men, sci­en­tists, and philoso­phers.

72:11.5When at peace with the world, all mo­bile de­fense mech­a­nisms are quite fully em­ployed in trade, com­merce, and recre­ation. When war is de­clared, the en­tire na­tion is mo­bi­lized. Through­out the pe­riod of hos­til­i­ties mil­i­tary pay ob­tains in all in­dus­tries, and the chiefs of all mil­i­tary de­part­ments be­come mem­bers of the chief ex­ec­u­tive’s cab­i­net.

72:12.1Al­though the so­ci­ety and gov­ern­ment of this unique peo­ple are in many re­spects su­pe­rior to those of the Uran­tia na­tions, it should be stated that on the other con­ti­nents (there are eleven on this planet) the gov­ern­ments are de­cid­edly in­fe­rior to the more ad­vanced na­tions of Uran­tia.

72:12.2Just now this su­pe­rior gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to es­tab­lish am­bas­sado­rial re­la­tions with the in­fe­rior peo­ples, and for the first time a great re­li­gious leader has arisen who ad­vo­cates the send­ing of mis­sion­ar­ies to these sur­round­ing na­tions. We fear they are about to make the mis­take that so many oth­ers have made when they have en­deav­ored to force a su­pe­rior cul­ture and re­li­gion upon other races. What a won­der­ful thing could be done on this world if this con­ti­nen­tal na­tion of ad­vanced cul­ture would only go out and bring to it­self the best of the neigh­bor­ing peo­ples and then, af­ter ed­u­cat­ing them, send them back as emis­saries of cul­ture to their be­nighted breth­ren! Of course, if a Mag­is­te­rial Son should soon come to this ad­vanced na­tion, great things could quickly hap­pen on this world.

72:12.3This recital of the af­fairs of a neigh­bor­ing planet is made by spe­cial per­mis­sion with the in­tent of ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion and aug­ment­ing gov­ern­men­tal evo­lu­tion on Uran­tia. Much more could be nar­rated that would no doubt in­ter­est and in­trigue Uran­tians, but this dis­clo­sure cov­ers the lim­its of our per­mis­sive man­date.

• no missions of Paradise Sons so far

72:12.4Uran­tians should, how­ever, take note that their sis­ter sphere in the Sa­ta­nia fam­ily has ben­e­fited by nei­ther mag­is­te­rial nor be­stowal mis­sions of the Par­a­dise Sons. Nei­ther are the var­i­ous peo­ples of Uran­tia set off from each other by such dis­par­ity of cul­ture as sep­a­rates the con­ti­nen­tal na­tion from its plan­e­tary fel­lows.

• Urantia far better prepared for planetary government

72:12.5The pour­ing out of the Spirit of Truth pro­vides the spir­i­tual foun­da­tion for the re­al­iza­tion of great achieve­ments in the in­ter­ests of the hu­man race of the be­stowal world. Uran­tia is there­fore far bet­ter pre­pared for the more im­me­di­ate re­al­iza­tion of a plan­e­tary gov­ern­ment with its laws, mech­a­nisms, sym­bols, con­ven­tions, and lan­guage—all of which could con­tribute so might­ily to the es­tab­lish­ment of world-wide peace un­der law and could lead to the some­time dawn­ing of a real age of spir­i­tual striv­ing; and such an age is the plan­e­tary thresh­old to the utopian ages of light and life.

72:12.6[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]