eories which he had
enunciated, and to stand by the cause that he had espoused. These
critics overlook the incidental character of the war as a factor in
American domestic policy. The war never assumed anything like the
importance in the United States that it did among the European
belligerents. On the surface, it created a furore, but underneath the
big fact staring the administration in the face was the united front of
the business interests, and their organized demands for action. The
far-seeing among the business men realized that the plutocratic
structure the world over was in peril, and that the fate of the whole
imperial regime was involved in the European struggle. The Russian
Revolution of March 1917 was the last straw. From that time on the
entrance of the United States into the war became a certainty as the
only means of "saving (capitalist) civilization."

The thoughtful student of the situation in the United States is not
deceived by personalities and names. He realizes that the events of
1917-1918 have behind them generations of causes which lead logically to
just such results; that he is witnessing one phase of a great process in
the life of the American nation--a process that is old in its principles
yet ever new in its manifestations.

Traditional liberties have always given way before imperial necessity.
An examination of the situation in which the ruling class of the United
States found itself in 1917, and of the forces that were operating to
determine public policy, must convince even the enthusiast that the
occurrences of 1917 and the succeeding years were the logical outcome of
imperial necessity. To what extent that explanation will account for the
discrepancy between the promise of 1776 and the twentieth century
fulfillment of that promise must appear from a further examination of
the evidence.

III. SUBJUGATING THE INDIANS

1. _The Conquering Peoples_

The first step in the establishment of empire--the conquest of territory
and the subjugation of the conquered populations,--was taken by the
people of the United States at the time of their earliest settlements.
They took the step naturally, unaffectedly, as became the sons of their
fathers.

The Spanish, French, and English who made the first settlement in North
America were direct descendants of the tribes that have swept across
Europe and portions of Asia during the past three or four thousand
years. These tribes, grouped on the