The American Empire - Scott Nearing

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The pre-war indifference to the loss of liberty; the gradual encroachments on the rights of free speech, and free assemblage and of free press; the war-time suppressions, tyrannies, and denials of justice; the subsequent activities of city, state, and national legislatures and executives in passing and enforcing laws that provided for military training in violation of conscience, the denial of freedom of belief, of thought, of speech, of press and of assemblage—activities directed specifically to the negation of those very principles of liberty which have constituted so intimate a part of the American tradition of freedom—form a contrast between the promise of 1776 and the twentieth century fulfillment of that promise which is brutal in its terrible intensity.

      Many thoughtful Americans have been baffled by this conflict between the aims of the eighteenth century and the accomplishments of the twentieth. The facts they admit. For explanation, either they may say, "It was the war," implying that with the cessation of hostilities and the return to a peace basis, the situation has undergone a radical change; or else they blame some individual or some organization for the extinction of American liberties.

      Great consequences arise from great causes. A general break-down of liberties cannot be attributed to individual caprice nor to a particular legislative or judicial act.

      The denial of liberty in the United States is a matter of large import. No mayor, governor, president, legislature, court, magnate, banker, corporation or trust, and no combination of these individuals and organizations could arbitrarily destroy the American Republic. Underneath personality and partisanship are working the forces which have stripped the American people of their essential liberties as the April sun strips the mountains of their snow.

      No one can read the history of the United States since the drafting of the Declaration of Independence without being struck by the complete transformation in the forms of American life. The Industrial Revolution which had gripped England for half a century, made itself felt in the United States after 1815. Steam, transportation, industrial development, city life, business organization, expansion across the continent—these are the factors that have made of the United States a nation utterly apart from the nation of which those who signed the Declaration of Independence and fought the Revolution dreamed.

      These economic changes have brought political changes. The American Republic has been thrust aside. Above its remains towers a mighty imperial structure—the world of business—bulwarked by usage and convention; safeguarded by legislation, judicial interpretation, and the whole power of organized society. That structure is the American Empire—as real to-day as the Roman Empire in the days of Julius Caesar; the French Empire under the Little Corporal, or the British Empire of the Great Commoner, William E. Gladstone.

      Approved or disapproved; exalted or condemned; the fact of empire must be evident even to the hasty observer. The student, tracing its ramifications, realizes that the structure has been building for generations.

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      Many minds will refuse to accept the term "empire" as applied to a republic. Accustomed to link "empire" with "emperor," they conceive of a supreme hereditary ruler as an essential part of imperial life. A little reflection will show the inadequacy of such a concept. "The British Empire" is an official term, used by the British Government, although Great Britain is a limited monarchy, whose king has less power than the President of the United States. On the other hand, eastern potentates, who exercise absolute sway over their tiny dominions do not rule "empires."

      Recent usage has given the term "empire" a very definite meaning, which refers, not to an "emperor" but to certain relations between the parts of a political or even of an economic organization. The earlier uses of the word "empire" were, of course, largely political. Even in that political sense, however, an "empire" does not necessarily imply the domain of an "emperor."

      According to the definition appearing in the "New English Dictionary" wherever "supreme and extensive political dominion" is exercised "by a sovereign state over its dependencies" an empire exists. The empire is "an aggregation of subject territories ruled over by a sovereign state." The terms of the definition are political, but it leaves the emperor entirely out of account and makes an empire primarily a matter of organization and not of personality.

      During the last fifty years colonialism, the search for foreign markets, and the competition for the control of "undeveloped" countries has brought the words "empire" and "imperialism" into a new category, where they relate, not to the ruler—be he King or Emperor—but to the extension of commercial and economic interests. The "financial imperialism" of F. C. Howe and the "imperialism" of J. A. Hobson are primarily economic and only incidentally political.

      "Empire" conveys the idea of widespread authority, dominion, rule, subjugation. Formerly it referred to political power; to-day it refers to economic power. In either case the characteristics of empire are—

      1. Conquered territory.

      

      2. Subject peoples.

      3. An imperial or ruling class.

      4. The exploitation of the subject peoples and the conquered territory for the benefit of the ruling class.

      Wherever these four characteristics of imperial organization exist, there is an empire, in all of its essential features. They are the acid-test, by which the presence of empire may be determined.

      Names count for nothing. Rome was an empire, while she still called herself a republic. Napoleon carried on his imperial activities for years under the authority of Republican France. The existence of an empire depends, not upon the presence of an "emperor" but upon the presence of those facts which constitute Empire—conquered territory; subject peoples; an imperial class; exploitation by and for this class. If these facts exist in Russia, Russia is an empire; if they are found in Germany, Germany is an empire; if they appear in the United States, the United States is an empire none the less surely—traditions, aspirations and public conviction to the contrary notwithstanding.

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      The first business of an imperial class is the preservation of the empire to which it owes its advantages and privileges. Therefore, in its very essence, imperialism is opposed to popular government. "The greatest good to the greatest number" is the ideal that directs the life of a self-governing community. "The safety and happiness of the ruling class" is the first principle of imperial organization.

      Imperialism is so generally recognized and so widely accepted as a mortal foe of popular government that the members of an imperial class, just rising into power, are always careful to keep the masses of the people ignorant of the true course of events. This necessity explains the long period, in the history of many great empires, when the name and forms of democracy were preserved, after the imperial structure had been established on solid foundations. Slow changes, carefully directed and well disguised, are necessary to prevent outraged peoples from rising against an imperial order when they discover how they have been sold into slavery. Even with all of the safeguards, under the control of the ablest statesmen, Caesar frequently meets his Brutus.

      The love of justice; the yearning for liberty; the sense of fair play; the desire to extend opportunity, all operate powerfully upon those to whom the principles of self-government are dearest, leading them to sacrifice position, economic advantage, and sometimes life itself for the sake of the principles to which they have pledged their faith.

      Therein lies what is perhaps one of the most essential differences between popular government and empire. The former rests upon certain ideas of popular rights and liberties. The latter is a weapon of exploitation in the hands of the ruling class. Popular government lies in the hopes and beliefs of the people. Empire is the servant of ambition and the shadow of

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