is strong enough to turn the blow, or unless the capitalists
decide that the safety of the capitalist world depends upon their
getting together and dividing the plunder, the result is inevitable.

The United States is a world Empire in her own right. She dominates the
Western Hemisphere. Young and inexperienced, she nevertheless possesses
the economic advantages and political authority that give her a voice in
all international controversies. Only twenty years have passed since the
organizing genius of America turned its attention from exclusively
domestic problems to the problems of financial imperialism that have
been agitating Europe for a half a century. The Great War showed that
American men make good soldiers, and it also showed that American wealth
commands world power.

With the aid of Russia, France, Japan and the United States Great
Britain crushed her most dangerous rival--Germany. The struggle which
destroyed Germany's economic and military power erected in her stead a
more menacing economic and military power--the United States. Untrained
and inexperienced in world affairs, the master class of the United
States has been placed suddenly in the title role. America over night
has become a world empire and over night her rulers have been called
upon to think and act like world emperors. Partly they succeeded, partly
they bungled, but they learned much. Their appetites were whetted, their
imaginations stirred by the vision of world authority. To-day they are
talking and writing, to-morrow they will act--no longer as novices, but
as masters of the ruling class in a nation which feels herself destined
to rule the earth.

The imperial struggle is to continue. The Japanese Empire dominates the
Far East; the British Empire dominates Southern Asia, the Near East,
Africa and Australia; the American Empire dominates the Western
Hemisphere. It is impossible for these three great empires to remain in
rivalry and at peace. Economic struggle is a form of war, and the
economic struggle between them is now in progress.

7. _Continuing the Imperial Struggle_

The War of 1914 was no war for democracy in spite of the fact that
millions of the men who died in the trenches believed that they were
fighting for freedom. Rather it was a war to make the world safe for the
British Empire. Only in part was the war successful. The old world was
made safe by the elimination of Britain's two dangerous rivals--Germany
and Russia; but