THE AMERICAN
EMPIRE

By

SCOTT NEARING

Author of
"Wages in the United States"
"Income"
"Financing the Wage-Earner's Family"
"Anthracite"
"Poverty and Riches," etc.

NEW YORK
THE RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
7 EAST 15TH STREET
1921

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1921,
by the
Rand School of Social Science

First Edition, January, 1921
Second Edition, February, 1921

CONTENTS

PART I

WHAT IS AMERICA?

PART II

THE FOUNDATIONS OF EMPIRE.

A. The Conquest of America.

B. Plutocracy.

PART III

MANIFEST DESTINY.

PART IV

THE UNITED STATES—A WORLD EMPIRE.

PART V

THE CHALLENGE TO IMPERIALISM.

INDEX

The American Empire

I. THE PROMISE OF 1776

1. The American Republic

The genius of revolution presided at the birth of the American Republic, whose first breath was drawn amid the economic, social and political turmoil of the eighteenth century. The voyaging and discovering of the three preceding centuries had destroyed European isolation and laid the foundation for a new world order of society. The Industrial Revolution was convulsing England and threatening to destroy the Feudal State. Western civilization, in the birthpangs of social revolution, produced first the American and then the French Republic.

Feudalism was dying! Divine right, monarchy, aristocracy, oppression, despotism, tyranny—these and all other devils of the old world order were bound for the limbo which awaits outworn, discredited social institutions. The Declaration of Independence officially proclaimed the new order,—challenging "divine right" and maintaining that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Life, liberty and happiness were the heritage of the human race, and "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or