continue to operate. Therefore the masters of
American life have no alternative. If they would survive, they must
dispose of their surplus.

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 l