
A bustling newsroom becomes the stage for a curious hoax: a bold proclamation mailed from London declares that a single man will force every nation to disarm, or face the destruction of their fleets. The journalists, skeptical yet intrigued, examine the parchment, debate the practicality of a private citizen building a battleship, and wonder whether the message is a prank or a genuine threat. Their banter reveals a world still reeling from recent conflicts, where even a stray letter can stir political nerves and spark fierce debate.
Amid the clatter of typewriters and the hum of early‑20th‑century diplomacy, the story follows the reporter who receives the enigmatic missive and the unlikely allies he meets while trying to uncover its origin. As he delves deeper, the line between satire and serious intrigue blurs, hinting at a larger conspiracy that could reshape the very notion of war. Listeners are drawn into a tense, witty investigation that questions how far one individual might go to end humanity’s oldest scourge.
Language
en
Duration
~6 hours (377K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Shaun Pinder, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.)
Release date
2015-09-01
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1874–1936
An engineer, educator, and reform-minded college president, he wrote about science and industry in a way that helped general readers see how modern technology was changing everyday life. His career moved between classrooms, laboratories, and public leadership roles in American technical education.
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