hich no
former world ever dreamed. The imperial width of the thing,--the
heaven-defying audacity--makes its modern newness.

The scheme of Europe was no sudden invention, but a way out of
long-pressing difficulties. It is plain to modern white civilization
that the subjection of the white working classes cannot much longer be
maintained. Education, political power, and increased knowledge of the
technique and meaning of the industrial process are destined to make a
more and more equitable distribution of wealth in the near future. The
day of the very rich is drawing to a close, so far as individual white
nations are concerned. But there is a loophole. There is a chance for
exploitation on an immense scale for inordinate profit, not simply to
the very rich, but to the middle class and to the laborers. This chance
lies in the exploitation of darker peoples. It is here that the golden
hand beckons. Here are no labor unions or votes or questioning onlookers
or inconvenient consciences. These men may be used down to the very
bone, and shot and maimed in "punitive" expeditions when they revolt. In
these dark lands "industrial development" may repeat in exaggerated form
every horror of the industrial history of Europe, from slavery and rape
to disease and maiming, with only one test of success,--dividends!

This theory of human culture and its aims has worked itself through warp
and woof of our daily thought with a thoroughness that few realize.
Everything great, good, efficient, fair, and honorable is "white";
everything mean, bad, blundering, cheating, and dishonorable is
"yellow"; a bad taste is "brown"; and the devil is "black." The changes
of this theme are continually rung in picture and story, in newspaper
heading and moving-picture, in sermon and school book, until, of course,
the King can do no wrong,--a White Man is always right and a Black Man
has no rights which a white man is bound to respect.

There must come the necessary despisings and hatreds of these savage
half-men, this unclean _canaille_ of the world--these dogs of men. All
through the world this gospel is preaching. It has its literature, it
has its secret propaganda and above all--it pays!

There's the rub,--it pays. Rubber, ivory, and palm-oil; tea, coffee, and
cocoa; bananas, oranges, and other fruit; cotton, gold, and
copper--they, and a hundred other things which dark and sweating bodies
hand up to the white world from pits of slime, pay and pay w