a great, rich, brutal Empire,
setting her heel and laying her fist where necessity calls. Men and
women inside the United States think of themselves and of their fellow
citizens as human beings. The people in the other countries read the
records of the lynchings, the robberies and the murders inside the
United States; of the imperial aggression toward Latin America, and they
are learning to believe that the United States is made up of ruthless
conquerors who work their will on those that cross their path.

The plain American men and women, living quietly in their simple homes,
are none the less citizens of an aggressive, conquering Empire. They may
not have a thought directed against the well-being of a single human
creature, but they pay their taxes into the public treasury; they vote
for imperialism on each election day; they read imperialism in their
papers and hear it preached in their churches, and when the call comes,
their sons will go to the front and shed their blood in the interest of
the imperial class.

The plain people of the German Empire did not desire to harm their
fellows, nevertheless, they furnished the cannon-fodder for the Great
War. America's plain folks, by merely following the doctrine, "My
country, right or wrong--America first!" will find themselves, at no
very distant date, exactly where the German people found themselves in
1914.

6. _The Price_

The historic record, in the matter of empire, is uniform. The masters
gain; the workers pay.

The workers of the United States will not be exempt from these
inexorable necessities of imperialism. On the contrary they will be
called upon to pay the same price for empire that the workers in Britain
have paid; that the workers in the other empires have paid. What is the
price? What will world empire cost the American workers?

1. It will cost them their liberties. An empire cannot be run by a
debating society. Empires must act. In order to make this action mobile
and efficacious, authority must be centered in the hands of a small
group--the ruling class, whose will shall determine imperial policy.
Self-government is inconsistent with imperialism.

2. The workers will not only lose their own liberties, but they will be
compelled to take liberties away from the peoples that are brought under
the domination of the Empire. Self-determination is the direct opposite
of imperialism.

3. The American workers, as a part of the price of empire, will