In 1921, a University of Wisconsin professor predicted that circa 2021, people would look back a century in time to that era’s immigration as the cause of America’s decline.

E. A. Ross, professor of sociology in the University of Wisconsin, with his study of the immigration problem in which he says:

“Not until the twenty-first century will the philosophic historian be able to declare with scientific certitude that the cause of the mysterious decline that came upon the American people early in the twentieth century was the deterioration of popular intelligence by the admission of great numbers of backward immigrants.”

Oh, and don’t forget about women.

Others have drawn alarming conclusions on the rise of the feminist movement, believing that its withdrawal from matrimony of thousands of the most intelligent women will greatly hasten the breeding out of the desirable types of citizens, while the undesirable continue to multiply and replenish the earth at top speed.

Actually, within a few decades, it’s projected that basically no type of citizens will “continue to multiply and replenish the earth at top speed.” The same New York Times which once published the above quotes is now publishing articles about how both the U.S. population and world populations have declined to their slowest growth rates ever, and will soon begin to decrease outright.

The great decline of the U.S. also didn’t quite happen. The U.S. is still the most powerful nation in the world militarily, culturally, and economically. (Although China’s economy is currently projected to overtake the U.S. in approximately 2028.)

Nonetheless, that satirical 1921 article projected a future world in which vegetables overtake humans as the primary source of earthly intelligence. That hasn’t happened yet, although it may happen on October 22 when this movie comes out:

Coming Era of Vegetable Supremacy

Published: Sunday, August 21, 1921