4. The American workers must be prepared to create and maintain an imperial class, whose function it is to determine the policies and direct the activities of the Empire. This class owes its existence to the existence of empire, without which such a ruling class would be wholly unnecessary.
5. The American workers must be prepared, in peace time as well as in war time, to provide the "sinews of war": the fortifications, the battle fleet, the standing army and the vast naval and military equipment that invariably accompany empire.
6. The American workers must furthermore be ready, at a moment's call, to turn from their occupations, drop their useful pursuits, accept service in the army or in the navy and fight for the preservation of the Empire—against those who attack from without, against those who seek the right of self-determination within.
7. The American workers, in return for these sacrifices, must be prepared to accept the poverty of a subsistence wage; to give the best of their energies in war and in peace, and to stand aside while the imperial class enjoys the fat of the land.
7. A Way Out
If the United States follows the course of empire, the workers of the United States have no choice but to pay the price of Empire—pay it in wealth, in misery, and in blood. But there is an alternative. Instead of going on with the old system of the masters, the workers may establish a new economic system—a system belonging to the workers, and managed by them for their benefit.
The workers of Europe have tried out imperialism and they have come to the conclusion that the cost is too high. Now they are seeking, through their own movement—the labor movement—to control and direct the economic life of Europe in the interest of those who produce the wealth and thus make the economic life of Europe possible.
The American workers have the same opportunity. Will they avail themselves of it? The choice is in their hands.
Thus far the workers of the United States have been, for the most part, content to live under the old system, so long as it paid them a living wage and offered them a job. The European workers felt that too in the pre-war days, but they have been compelled—by the terrible experiences of the past few years—to change their minds. It was no longer a question of wages or a job in Europe. It was a question of life or death.