public life know this. Some shrink from the issue, because they are
unaccustomed to dream great dreams, and are terrified by the immensity
of large thoughts. Others lack the courage to face the new issues. Still
others are steadily maneuvering themselves into a position where they
may take advantage of a crisis to establish their authority and work
their imperial will. The situation grows daily more inviting; the
opportunity daily more alluring. The war-horse, saddled and bridled, is
pawing the earth and neighing. How soon will the rider come?

4. _Eat or Be Eaten_

The American ruling class has been thrown into a position of authority
under a system of international economic competition that calls for
initiative and courage. Under this system, there are two
possibilities,--eat or be eaten!

There is no middle ground, no half way measure. It is impossible to
stop or to turn back. Like men engaged on a field of battle, the
contestants in this international economic struggle must remain with
their faces toward the enemy, fighting for every inch that they gain,
and holding these gains with their bodies and their blood, or else they
must turn their backs, throw away their weapons, run for their lives,
and then, hiding on the neighboring hills, watch while the enemy
despoils the camp, and then applies a torch to the ruins.

The events of the great war prove, beyond peradventure, that in the wolf
struggle among the capitalist nations, no rules are respected and no
quarter given. Again and again the leaders among the allied
statesmen--particularly Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson--appealed to the
German people over the heads of their masters with assurances that the
war was being fought against German autocracy, not against Germans.
"When will the German people throw off their yoke?" asked one Allied
diplomat. The answer came in November, 1918. A revolution was contrived,
the Kaiser fled the country, the autocracy was overthrown. Germans
ceased to fight with the understanding that Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points
should be made the foundation of the Peace. The armistice terms violated
the spirit if not the letter of the fourteen points; the Peace Treaty
scattered them to the winds. Under its provisions Germany was stripped
of her colonies; her investments in the allied possessions were
confiscated; her ships were taken; three-quarters of her iron ore and a
third of her coal supply were turned over to other powers; motor truck