There is only one peril about all this, in the opinion of Mr. Adams. “Society is now moving with intense velocity, and masses are gathering bulk with proportional rapidity. There is also some reason to surmise that the equilibrium is correspondingly delicate and unstable. If so apparently slight a cause as a fall of prices for a decade has been sufficient to propel the seat of empire across the Atlantic, an equally slight derangement of the administrative functions of the United States might force it across the Pacific. Prudence therefore would dictate the adoption of measures to minimise the likelihood of sudden shocks.... If the New Empire should develop, it must be an enormous complex mass, to be administered only by means of a cheap, elastic and simple machinery; an old and clumsy mechanism must, sooner or later, collapse, and in sinking may involve a civilisation.” By “an old and clumsy mechanism” Mr. Adams explains elsewhere that he means our American political system. Our ancestors were opposed to much consolidation, and they formed a constitution that was practically unchangeable, because they believed they had “reached certain final truths of government.” “The language of the Declaration of Independence, in which they proclaimed one of these truths (that all men are created equal), varies little from that of a Catholic council,” says Mr. Adams. An American is apt to believe such formulas, being “dominated by tradition.” But a modern thinker views them “as having no necessary relation to the conduct of affairs in the twentieth century.” “If men are to be observed scientifically, the standard by which customs and institutions must be gauged cannot be abstract moral principles, but success.... Institutions are good when they lead to success in competition, and bad when they hinder.” The United States now forms a “gigantic and growing empire. She occupies a position of extraordinary strength. Favoured alike by geographical position, by deposits of minerals, by climate, and by the character of her population, she has little to fear either in peace or war, from rivals, provided the friction created by the movement of the masses with which she has to deal does not neutralise her energy.”... “The alternative presented is plain. We may cherish ideals and risk substantial benefits to realise them. Such is the emotional instinct. Or we may regard our government dispassionately, as we would any other matter of business.... The United States has become the heart of the economic system of the age, and she must maintain her supremacy by wit and force, or share the fate of the discarded. What that fate is the following pages tell.... With conservative populations _slaughter_ is nature’s remedy.”