nsibility created by precariousness and hunger. Here we are creating
a culture for war bacteria. The concentration of wealth at the top of
our society acts similarly. We are developing in America, the type of
big business adventurer, who desires an aggressive foreign policy, not
only for his direct business interests, but also to allay unrest at
home by pointing a minatory finger at the foreigner beyond our borders.

{164}

Already we have many of the elements that go to make up the war spirit.
In the present conflict we have been pacific owing to the division of
our sympathies, the deadening realisation of the immense forces engaged
and losses incurred, and the realisation that our interests were not
involved. To these factors there was added a sudden prosperity
contingent upon our remaining at peace. But even as early as 1898,
when the proletarisation of America was less developed, we had millions
of inflamed patriots, who would willingly have fought all Europe rather
than "haul down our flag" in the Philippines. What will happen twenty
years from now, when our export trade is greater and more necessary and
when (unless we change conditions) there will be more poverty and
insecurity than to-day? If at such a time Germany, Japan or Russia, or
all three, determine upon an action, which will injure our pretensions
and throw many of our citizens out of work, we shall surely feel
resentment. We cannot safely predict that we will adopt a gentle
attitude. Like France in 1870, like Russia in 1905, we may stumble
into a war over our rights and pretensions, may be rushed into it not
only because of a conflict of interests which we did not foresee but
because of a vicious internal development which we did not avert.

All our customary self-assurances that we shall never fight nations now
friendly are mere deception. So we thought just before the war of
1812. We were never more pacific than in 1895 when we ventured on a
desperate challenge to England, or in 1898 when we attacked Spain.
Though we averted war with Germany over the _Lusitania_ matter, our
public mind was so uninformed that we might easily have been pushed
into the conflict by a more bellicose President. We should have a
better chance of keeping the peace if we were not so blindly confident
of our {165} peacefulness. It takes only one to make a quarrel, and
the aggressor might not impossibly be ourselves. Nor can peace be
predicted on the ground that