of production.

The war-test revealed the United States to the world and to its own
people as a great nation playing a mighty role in international affairs.
Most Europeans had not suspected the extent of its power. Even the
Americans did not realize it. Nevertheless, the processes of economic
empire building had laid a foundation upon which the superstructure of
political empire is reared as a matter of course. Henceforth, no one
need ask whether the United States should or should not be an imperial
nation. There remained only the task of determining what form American
imperialism should take.

The Great War rounded out the imperial beginnings of the United States.
It strengthened the plutocracy at home; it gave the United States
immense prestige abroad.

The Era of Imperialism dawned upon the United States in 1898. Daylight
broke in 1914, and the night of isolation and of international
unimportance gave place to a new day of imperial power.

2. _Plutocracy in the Saddle_

The rapid sweep across a new continent had placed the resources of the
United States in the hands of a powerful minority. Nature had been
generous and private ownership of the inexhaustible wilderness seemed to
be the natural--the obvious method of procedure.

The lightning march of the American people across the continent gave
the plutocracy its grip on the natural resources. The revolutionary
transformations in industry guaranteed its control of the productive
machinery.

The wizards of industrial activity have changed the structure of
business life even more rapidly than they have conquered the wilderness.
True sons of their revolutionary ancestors, they have slashed and
remodeled and built anew with little regard for the past.

Revolutions are the stalking grounds of predatory power. Napoleon built
his empire on the French Revolution; Cromwell on the revolt against
tyrannical royalty in England. Peaceful times give less opportunity to
personal ambition. Institutions are well-rooted, customs and habits are
firmly placed, life is regulated and held to earth by a fixed framework
of habit and tradition.

Revolution comes--fiercely, impetuously--uprooting institutions,
overthrowing traditions, tearing customs from their resting places. All
is uncertainty--chaos, when, lo! a man on horseback gathers the loose
strands together saying, "Good people, I know, follow me!"

He does know; but woe to the people who follow him! Yet, what shall they