E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) 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? CHAPTER PAGE I The Promise of 1776 7 II The Course of Empire 14 PART II THE FOUNDATIONS OF EMPIRE. A. THE CONQUEST OF AMERICA. III Subjugating the Indians 26 IV Slavery for a Race 38 V Winning the West 49 VI The Beginnings of World Dominion 60 B. PLUTOCRACY. VII The Struggle for Wealth and Power 74 VIII Their United States 88 IX The Divine Right of Property 103 PART III MANIFEST DESTINY. X Industrial Empires 120 XI The Great War 143 XII The Imperial Highroad 158 PART IV THE UNITED STATES--A WORLD EMPIRE. XIII The United States as a World Competitor 177 XIV The Partition of the Earth 192 XV Pan-Americanism 202 XVI The American Capitalist and World Empire 218 PART V THE CHALLENGE TO IMPERIALISM. XVII The New Imperial Alignment 229 XVIII The Challenge in Europe 243 XIX The American Worker and World Empire 256 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.