Joseph Smith read off several other names at which Cosmo shook his head.
Then he came to:
"Richard Edward, by the grace of God, King of Great--"
"Enough," broke in Cosmo; "we all know him--the man who has done more
for peace by putting half the British navy out of commission than any
other ruler in history. I can't leave him out."
"Achille Dumont, President of the French republic."
"I'll take him."
"William IV, German Emperor."
"Admitted, for he has at last got the war microbe out of the family
blood."
Then followed a number of rulers who were not lucky enough to meet with
Cosmo Versál's approval, and when Smith read:
"Alexander V, Emperor of all the Russias," the big head was violently
shaken, and its owner exclaimed:
"There will be many Russians in the ark, for tyranny has been like a
lustration to that people; but I will carry none of its Romanoff seeds
to my new world."
The selection was continued until fifteen names had been obtained,
including that of the new, dark-skinned President of Liberia, and Cosmo
declared that he would not add another one.
Then came the ten statesmen who were chosen with utter disregard to
racial and national lines.
In selecting his ten business magnates, Cosmo stated his rule:
"I exclude no man simply because he is a billionaire. I consider the way
he made his money. The world must always have rich men. How could I have
built the ark if I had been poor?"
"Philanthropists," read Smith.
"I should have taken a hundred if I could have found them," said Cosmo.
"There are plenty of candidates, but these five [naming them] are the
only genuine ones, and I am doubtful about several of them. But I must
run some chances, philanthropy being indispensable."
For the fifteen representatives of art Cosmo confined his selection
largely to architecture.
"The building instinct must be preserved," he explained. "One of the
first things we shall need after the flood recedes is a variety of all
kinds of structures. But it's a pretty bad lot at the best. I shall try
to reform their ideas during the voyage. As to the other artists, they,
too, will need some hints that I can give them, and that they can
transmit to their children."
Under the head of religious teachers, Cosmo remarked that he had tried
to be fair to all forms of genuine faith that had a large following. The
school-teachers represented the principal languages, and Cosmo selected
the names from a volume on "The Educational Systems of the World,"
remarking that he ran some risk here, but it could not easily be
avoided.
"Doctors--they get a rather liberal allowance, don't they?" asked Smith.
"Not half as large as I'd like to have it," was the response. "The
doctors are the salt of the earth. It breaks my heart to have to leave
out so many whose worth I know."
"And only one lawyer!" pursued Joseph. "That's curious."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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