Every man should relax in nature periodically; the cities, brimming with immigrants and mentally inferior workers, can be asphyxiating. Teddy Roosevelt understood this, and his action is why I am writing this here, in the Mesa Verde National Park created four years ago to “preserve the works of man.” The air is so pristine that I almost want to resettle here; no wonder those ultra-rich folk are moving out of the cities.

I brought my journal here to record my observations, though I should have considered bringing a pen. I purchased a pen in a nearby town, and it cost me a whole dollar; that is outright the price of seven boxes of cereal or nine bottles of Cocaine toothache drops, for Christ's sake, robbing me in bright daylight. However, that matters not in the grand scheme of things, for I am presently sitting on a log, observing the ruins of an ancient civilization. I inquired that civilization was discovered by the Spanish and named the Pueblo (although other sources claim it is Aztec ruins). For perspective, I am currently 35 years of age, and this ruin could be more than one hundred times my age. Looking at the ruins, I can conclude that they made spectacular water irrigation systems to farm in this dry soil. Settlers had learned that some land is especially waterless here in the West. Their buildings, albeit primitive and uncivilized, contain a kind of magnificence in them. It is a shame that they received God’s wrath, inflicting them with deadly illnesses like smallpox and measles, so they were unable to receive the embrace of true civilization as we take on the White man’s burden.

Maybe one day, our civilization will spread here as well. I rode at least 2000 miles on the railroad, and I got here in less than a month. I even caught the news of a newly developed "aeroplane" created by Wilbur and Orville Wright – an actual flying machine comparable to magic! Maybe if our civilization developed more, a person could travel from the United States to China in less than two days! I even heard of a new canal being constructed in Panama. Traveling is getting easier and easier.

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Also, now that I am exposed to some fresh air, I am starting to doubt whether I am really living in the golden age of humanity or if that hold is a thin layer of gilded gold. At first, I thought The History of the Standard Oil Company by Ida Tarbell was another muckraker production, but now that I read it, some of what it said makes sense. Perchance Teddy Roosevelt is not really that abominable after all. I still prefer Laissez Faire, but maybe there should be incentives for companies to ensure their meat products are clean instead of jumping to restrict freedom. Although I certainly like paying a lower price to railroad companies to travel here (as with the restriction of the ICC expanded under the Hepburn Act), it should be the freedom of the railroad companies to control the rate. Otherwise, how can we still call ourselves free and this land the “land of the free?”

The only restriction I stand for is those that restrict the immoral and dirty qualities of society, like how I supported the Mann Act (which prohibited using interstate or foreign commerce to transport women for “immoral purposes”). In the town where I bought the pen, a scantily dressed woman tried to seduce me for my money; if those prostitutes go to New York, I fear my weak-minded workers would risk betraying God while journeying through the sinful parts of the city. In my opinion, prostitution should be outlawed. I doubt those primitive people living in the ruins I am looking at had that much prostitution; prostitution likely is a sin that only gets emboldened when more people are concentrated in one place, like cities.

Yet I have to go back to New York City, an absolutely humongous city, eventually, as my vacation from work ends in about a month and a dozen days from now. I may stay here a week or two longer and admire the natural world longer. Who knows if I will get enlightenment from God during my holiday.