Part 40

Politically the United States is recognized as one of the leaders of the world. Despite its tradition of isolation, despite the unwillingness of its statesmen to enter new paths, despite the indifference of its people to international affairs, the resources and raw materials required by the industrial nations of Europe, the rapidly growing surplus and the newly acquired foreign markets and investments make the United States an integral part of the life of the world.

The ruling class in the United States has no more choice than the rulers of a growing city whose boundaries are extending with each increment of population. If it is to continue as a ruling class, it must accept conditions as they are. The first of these conditions is that the United States is a world power neither because of its virtue nor because of its intelligence in the delicacies of the world politics, but because of the sheer might of its economic organization.

Economic necessity has forced the United States into the front rank among the nations of the world. Economic necessity is forcing the ruling class of the United States to occupy the position of world leadership, to strengthen it, to consolidate it, and to extend it at every opportunity. The forces that played beside the yellow Tiber and the sluggish Nile are very much the same as those which led Napoleon across the wheat fields of Europe and that are to-day operating in Paris, London, and in New York. The forces that pushed the Roman Empire into its position of authority and led to the organization of Imperial Britain are to-day operating with accelerated pace in the United States. The sooner the American people, and particularly those who are directing public policy, wake up to this simple but essential fact, the sooner will doubt and misunderstanding be removed, the sooner will the issues be drawn and the nation's course be charted.

3. The Logical Goal

The logical goal of the American plutocracy is the economic and incidentally the political control of the world. The rulers of Macedon and Assyria, Rome and Carthage, of Britain and France labored for similar reasons to reach this same goal. It is economic fate. Kings and generals were its playthings, obeying and following the call of its destiny.

The rulers of antiquity were limited by a lack of transportation facilities; their "world" was small, including the basin of the Mediterranean and the land surrounding the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, nevertheless, they set out, one after another, to conquer it. To-day the rapid accumulation of surplus and the speed and ease of communication, the spread of world knowledge and the larger means of organization make it even more necessary than it was of old for the rulers of an empire to find a larger and ever larger place in the sun. The forces are more pressing than ever before. The times call more loudly for a genius with imagination, foresight and courage who will use the power at his disposal to write into political history the gains that have already been made a part of economic life. Let such a one arise in the United States, in the present chaos of public thought, and he could not only himself dictate American public policy for the remainder of his life, but in addition, he could, within a decade, have the whole territory from the Canadian border to the Panama Canal under the American Flag, either as conquered or subject territory; he could establish a Chinese wall around South American trade and opportunities by a very slight extension of the Monroe Doctrine; he could have in hand the problem of an economic if not a political union with Canada, and could be prepared to measure swords with the nearest economic rival, either on the high seas or in any portion of the world where it might prove necessary to join battle.

Such a program would be a departure from the traditions of American public life, but the traditions, built by a nation of farmers, have already lost their significance. They are historic, with no contemporary justification. The economic life that has grown up since 1870 of necessity will create new public policies.

The success of such a program would depend upon four things:

1. A coördination of American economic life.

2. A fast grip on the agencies for shaping public opinion.

3. A body of citizens, martial, confident, restless, ambitious.

4. A ruling class with sufficient imagination to paint, in warm sympathetic colors, the advantages of world dominion; and with sufficient courage to follow out imperial policy, regardless of ethical niceties, to its logical goal of world conquest.

All four of these requisites exist in the United States to-day, awaiting the master hand that shall unite them. Many of the leaders of American public life know this. Some shrink from the issue, because they are unaccustomed to dream great dreams, and are terrified by the immensity of large thoughts. Others lack the courage to face the new issues. Still others are steadily maneuvering themselves into a position where they may take advantage of a crisis to establish their authority and work their imperial will. The situation grows daily more inviting; the opportunity daily more alluring. The war-horse, saddled and bridled, is pawing the earth and neighing. How soon will the rider come?

4. Eat or Be Eaten

The American ruling class has been thrown into a position of authority under a system of international economic competition that calls for initiative and courage. Under this system, there are two possibilities,--eat or be eaten!

There is no middle ground, no half way measure. It is impossible to stop or to turn back. Like men engaged on a field of battle, the contestants in this international economic struggle must remain with their faces toward the enemy, fighting for every inch that they gain, and holding these gains with their bodies and their blood, or else they must turn their backs, throw away their weapons, run for their lives, and then, hiding on the neighboring hills, watch while the enemy despoils the camp, and then applies a torch to the ruins.

The events of the great war prove, beyond peradventure, that in the wolf struggle among the capitalist nations, no rules are respected and no quarter given. Again and again the leaders among the allied statesmen--particularly Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson--appealed to the German people over the heads of their masters with assurances that the war was being fought against German autocracy, not against Germans. "When will the German people throw off their yoke?" asked one Allied diplomat. The answer came in November, 1918. A revolution was contrived, the Kaiser fled the country, the autocracy was overthrown. Germans ceased to fight with the understanding that Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points should be made the foundation of the Peace. The armistice terms violated the spirit if not the letter of the fourteen points; the Peace Treaty scattered them to the winds. Under its provisions Germany was stripped of her colonies; her investments in the allied possessions were confiscated; her ships were taken; three-quarters of her iron ore and a third of her coal supply were turned over to other powers; motor trucks, locomotives, and other essential parts of her economic mechanism were appropriated. Austria suffered an even worse fate, being "drawn and quartered" in the fullest sense of the term. After stripping the defeated enemies of all available booty, levying an indeterminate indemnity, and dismembering the German and Austrian Empires, the Allies established for thirty years a Reparation Commission, which is virtually the economic dictator of Europe. Thus for a generation to come, the economic life of the vanquished Empires will be under the active supervision and control of the victors. Never did a farmer's wife pluck a goose barer than the Allies plucked the Central Powers. (See the Treaty, also "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," J. M. Keynes. New York, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920.)

Under the armistice terms and the Peace Treaty the Allies did to Germany and Austria exactly what Germany and Austria would have done to France and Great Britain had the war turned out differently. The Allied statesmen talked much about democracy, but when their turn came they plundered and despoiled with a practiced imperial hand. France and Britain, as well as Germany and Austria, were capitalist Empires. The Peace embodies the essential economic morality of capitalist imperialism, the morality of "Eat or be eaten."

5. The Capitalists and War

The people and even the masters of America are inexperienced in this international struggle. Among themselves they have experimented with competitive industrialism on a national scale. Now, brought face to face with the world struggle, many of them revolt against it. They deplore the necessities that lead nations to make war on one another. They supported the late war "to end war." They gave, suffered and sacrificed with a keen, idealistic desire to "make the world safe for democracy." They might as well have sought to scatter light and sunshine from a cloudbank.

The masters of Europe, who have learned their trade in long years of intrigue, diplomacy and war, feel no such repugnance. They play the game. The American people are of the same race-stocks as the leading contestants in the European struggle. They are not a whit less ingenious, not a whit less courageous, not a whit less determined. When practice has made them perfect they too will play the game just as well as their European cousins and their play will count for more because of the vast economic resources and surpluses which they possess.

American statesmen in the field of international diplomacy are like babies, taking their first few steps. Later the steps come easier and easier, until a child, who but a few months ago could not walk, has learned to romp and sport about. The masters of the United States are untrained in the arts of international intrigue. They showed their inferiority in the most painful way during the negotiations over the Paris Treaty. They are as yet unschooled in international trade, banking and finance. They are also inexperienced in war, yet, having only raw troops, and little or no equipment, within two years they made a notable showing on the battlefields of Europe. Now they are busy learning their financial lessons with an equal facility. A generation of contact with world politics will bring to the fore diplomats capable of meeting Europe's best on their own ground. What Europe has learned, America can learn; what Europe has practiced, America can practice, and in the end she may excel her teachers.

To-day economic forces are driving relentlessly. Surplus is accumulating in a geometric ratio--surplus piling on surplus. This surplus must be disposed of. While the remainder of the world--except Japan--is staggering under intolerable burdens of debt and disorganization, the United States emerges almost unscathed from the war, and prepares in dead earnest to enter the international struggle,--to play at the master game of "eat or be eaten."

Pride, ambition and love of gain and of power are pulling the American plutocrats forward. The world seems to be within their grasp. If they will reach out their hands they may possess it! They have assumed a great responsibility. As good Americans worthy of the tradition of their ancestors, they must see this thing through to the end! They must win, or die in the attempt; and it is in this spirit that they are going forward.

The American capitalists do not want war with Great Britain or with any other country. They are not seeking war. They will regret war when it comes.

War is expensive, troublesome and dangerous. The experiences of Europe in the War of 1914 have taught some lessons. The leaders and thinkers among the masters of America have visited Europe. They have seen the old institutions destroyed, the old customs uprooted, the old faiths overturned. They have seen the economic order in which they were vitally concerned hurled to the earth and shattered. They have seen the red flag of revolution wave where they had expected nothing but the banner of victory. They have seen whole populations, weary of the old order, throw it aside with an impatient gesture and bring a new order into being. They have good reasons to understand and fear the disturbing influences of war. They have felt them even in the United States--three thousand miles away from the European conflict. How much more pressing might this unrest be if the United States had fought all through the war, instead of coming in when it was practically at an end!

Then there is always the danger of losing the war--and such a loss would mean for the United States what it has meant for Germany--economic slavery.

Presented with an opportunity to choose between the hazards of war and the certainties of peace most of the capitalist interests in the United States would without question choose peace. There are exceptions. The manufacturers of munitions and of some of the implements and supplies that are needed only for war purposes, undoubtedly have more to gain through war than through peace, but they are only a small element in a capitalist world which has more to gain through peace than through war.