The American Empire - Garet Garrett.pdf

7/28/2019 The American Empire - Garet Garrett.pdf

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The American Empire By CARET GARRETT

One of the most perceptive and felici tous wr it er sof the Old Right was the doughty and fi ercelyindependent Gare t Gar ret t, who, during hi s longca ree r in journalism, was an edito r of the SaturdayEvening Post and of the quar te rly Amer ic an Affairs.Unlike so many of his colleagues on the Old Right,Mr. Garret t did not succumb to the lure of Americanimperial ism af te r World War 11; on the cont rary.he-levelled against it some of h is most eff ecti ieonslaughts. The following is a condensation of Gar re tt 'spamphlet The Rise of Empire , published in 1952,and included in h is collection T h e , P e o ~ l e ' sPottage(Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers , 1953). We a r eindebted to Caxton Pr in te rs fo r permiss ion to printthe ar ti cle below.

We have cr os se d the boundary that li es betweenRepublic and Empire. If you ask when, the answeris that you cannot make a single s trok e betweenday and night; the prec is e moment does not mat ter .There was no painted sign to say: "You now a r eentering Imperium." Yet it wa s a ve ry old roadand the voice of history was saying: "Whether youknow it or not, the act of cr os si ng may be i r r e -versible."That a republic may vanish is an elementaryschool book fact.The Roman Republic passed into the Roman Empire,


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and yet never could a Roman cit izen have said, 'Thatwas yesterday.' Nor is the historian, with al l theadvantages of perspect ive, able to place that mo-mentous event a t an exact point on the dia l of time.The Republic had a long, unhappy twilight. It isagreed that the Empire began with Augustus Caesar .What Augustus Caesa r did was to demonstrate aproposition found i n Aristotle's Pol itics , one thathe must have known by heart, namely this: =Peopledo not easily change, but love their own ancientcustoms; and it is by sm al l degree s only that onething takes the place of another; so that the ancientlaws will remain, while the power will be in thehands of those who have brought about a revolutionin the state."

Revolution within the form.There is no comfort in history f o r those who puttheir faith i n forms; who think there is safeguard inwords inscribed in parchment, prese rved in a gla sscase , reproduced in facsimi le and hauled to and f roon a Freedom Tra in.Let i t be cu rr en t history. How much does theyounger half of th is generation ref lect upon the factthat i n it s own time a complete revolution ha s takenplace in the relat ions between government and people?The extent to which the original precep ts andintentions of Constitutional, representative , limitedgovernment, i n the r e p u b l i c a n form, have beeneroded away by argument and dia lec tic is a separatesubject, long and ominous, and belongs to a treatise

on political science. The one fact now to be em-phasized is that when the pr ocess of erosion ha sgone on until there is no saying what the supremelaw of the land i s at a given time, then the Constitu-tion begins to be flouted by executive will, with some-thing like impunity. The ins tances may not be cruc ia lat f ir st and all the mo re dangerous fo r that reason.A s one is condoned another follows and they becomeprogressive.

To outsmart the Constitution and circumvent itsrestraints became a popular exercise of the ar t ofgovernment in the Roosevelt regime. In defense ofh i s attempt to pack the Supreme Court with social-minded judges aft er seve ra l of h i s New Deal lawshad been declared unconstitutional, Pres iden t Roose-37


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velt wrote: 'The reactionary mem ber s of the Courthad apparently determined to rema in on the benchfo r a s long a s life continued--for the sole purposeof blocking any progra m of reform."Among the mil lions who at the ti me applauded thatstatement of contempt the re we re v ery few, if the rewas indeed one, who would not have been frightenedby a revelation of the logical sequel. They believed,a s everyone else did, that th er e was one thing aPres ident could never do. The re was one sentenceof the Constitution that could not fal l, s o long a sthe Republic lived.

The Constitution says: 'The Congress shall havepower to d ecl are war."That, there fore , was the one thing no Pres iden tcould do. By h is own will he could not de cl ar e war.Only Congress could declare war, and Congresscould be tr us ted never to do it but by will of thepeople. And that was the innermost safeguard of therepublic. The decis ion whether o r not to go to war wasin the hands of the people--or so they believed. Noman could make it fo r them.t is tr ue that Pres ident Roosevelt got the countryinto World War 11 That is not the s ame thing. Fo r adeclaration of war he went to Congress--a fte r theJapanese had attacked Pe ar l Harbor. He wanted it,and yet the Constitution forbade him to declare warand he durst not do it.Nine ye a r s lat er a much weaker Pre sid ent did.

After Pres id en t Truman, alone and without eitherthe consent o r knowledge of Congress, had dec laredwar on the Korean aggresso r, 7000 miles away,Congress condoned hi s usurpation of its exclusivConstitutional power. More than that, h is politicalsupporters i n Congress argued that in the moderncase that sentence in the Constitution confe rring uponCongress the so le power to dec la re war was obsolete.Mark you, the words had not been erased; they st illexisted in fo rm . Only, they had become obsolete.And why obsole te? Because war may now begin sudden-ly, with bombs fall ing out of the sky, and we mightpe ri sh while waiting fo r Congress to dec lare war.The reasoning is puerile. The Korean war, whichmade the precedent, did not begin that way; secondly,Congress was in session at the time, so that the


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delay could not have been more than a few hours,provided Congress had been willing t o declare war;and, thirdly, the President a s Commander-in-Chiefof the armed fo rc es of the republic may in a legalmanner act defensively before a declara tion of warhas been made. It is bound to be made if the nationhas been attacked.Mr. Truman's suppor ter s argued that in the Koreaninstance his act was defensive and therefore withinhi s powers a s Commander-in-Chief. In that case , tomake it Constitutional, he was legally obliged to askCongress for a declaration of war afterward. This

he never did. For a week Congress relied upon thepapers fo r news of the country's en try into war;then the President called a few of it s leader s to theWhite House and told them what he had done. A yearla te r Congress wa s stil l debating whether o r not thecountry was at war, in a legal, Constitutional sense.A few months la te r Mr. Truman sent Americantroops to Europe to join an international army, and

did it not only without a law, without even consultingCongress, but challenged the power of Congress tostop him. C ongress made all of the neces sary soundsof anger and then poulticed it s dignity with a resolu-tion saying it was al l right fo r that one time, sinceanyhow it had been done, but that hereafter it wouldexpect to be consulted.At that time the Foreign Relations Committee of t heSenate asked the State Department to se t forth inwrit ing what might be called the position of Execu-tive Government. The State Depar tment obliginglyresponded with a document entitled, 'Powers of thePresident fo Send T Outside of the UnitedStates, February 28. 1951." F o r the information ofthe United Sta tes Senate i t said:

A s thi s discussion of the respect ive powers of thePresident and Congress ha s made clear, con-stitutional doctrine has been largely moulded byprac tical necess ities . Use of the congressionalpower to de cl ar e war, for example, has fallen intoabeyance because wars a r e no longer declared inadvance.Ca es ar might have said it to the Roman Senate. Ifconstitutional doctrine is moulded by necessity, what

is a written Constitution fo r?39


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Thus an argument that seemed at fi rs t to re s tupon puer ile reasoning turned out to be deep andcunning. The immediate use of it was to defend theunconstitutional Korean precedent, namely, the dec-larat ion of war a s an act of the Pres id en t' s ownwill. Yet it was not invented fo r tha t purpose alotie.It stands a s a fo re cas t of executive intentions, amanifestation of the executive mind, a mo rt alchallenge to the parl iamentary principle.The question is: =Whose hand shall control theinstrument of war?"It is la te to ask. It may he too late, fo r when thehand of the Republic begins to relax another handis already putting itself forth .

If you may have Emp ir e with o r without a constitu-tion, even within the form of a republ ican constitu-tion, and if also you may have Empire with o rwithout an emperor, then how may the t ru e marksof Empi re be distinguished with cer tainty? Whata r e they?The fi rs t requisite of Emp ire is:T& executive power of government shall hq dominant.It may be dominant originally, a s in the days ofhereditary kingship, o r it may come to be dominantby change, as-when the Roman republic passed underthe rule of Caesars.What Empire needs above all in government is anexecutive power that can make immedia te decisions,such a s a decis ion in the middle of the night by thePresident to d ecl are war on the agg res sor in Korea,o r, on the opposite side, a decision in the Politburoin the Kremlin, pe rhaps al so in the middle of the

~ight, to move a piece on the chess boar d of cold war. .The Federal income-tax law of 1914 gave thegovernment unlimited acce ss to wealth and, more-

over, power fo r the fi r s t time to levy t axes not f o rrevenue only but fo r social purposes, in cas e th er eshould arise a popular demand for redistributionof the national wealth. World War I immediately fol-lowed. Looking backward we can s e e that these two .even ts marked the beginning of a gr ea t r i s e in theexecutive power of government. Then ca me in rapidsuccession (1) the Great Depression (2 ) the revolu-


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tionary Roosevelt regime, and (3) World War 11, allwithin an a r c of twenty years.In those twenty years the sphe re of ExecutiveGovernment increased with a kind of explosive force.Congress received from the White House laws thatwere marked "must'. It s principal function was toenact and engross them. The pa rt of the SupremeCourt was to make everything square with the Con-stitution by a liberal reinterpretation of i t s language.The word executive came to have its new connota-tion. For al l the years before when you spoke of theexecutive power of government you meant only thepower to execute and administer the laws. Hence-forth it would mean the power to govern.

A further very subtle change was taking place.Only a few years ago if you had asked such a questionas , 'Who speaks fo r the people?' o r =What organ ofgovernment ut te rs the ir sovereign will?' the answerwould have been 'The Congress of the United States".Certainly. That was what Congress was for .Now it is the President , standing at the head of theExecutive Government, who says: .I speak for thepeople., o r "I have a mandate from the people.'Thus the man who happens to be the embodimentof the executive principle stands between the Con-g re s s and the people and assumes the right to expresstheir will.There is more to this. How much more than Con-g r e s s the President ac ts directly upon the emotionsand passions of the people to influence thei r thinking.A s he controls Executive Government, s o he con-trols the la rges t propaganda machine in the world,unless it be the Russian machine; and this machineis the exclusive possession of Executive Government.The Congress has no propaganda apparatus at alland continually finds itself under pressure from thepeople who have been moved for o r against some-thing by the ideas and thought mate rial broadcastin the land by the administrative bureaus in Wash-ington.The result i s Bureau Government, administeredby bureaucrats who a r e not elected by the people.

In me Grandeur that was Rome, Stobart says thatfor a long time af ter the Republic had become anEmpire a stout republican could still believe that41


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he was governed by the Senate; yet little by litt lea s a complete imper ial bureaucracy was evolved theSenate sank into insignificance. It was really thebureaucracy of the imperia l palace that governed th eRoman world and strangled it with good intentions.The growth of the bureaucracy was both symptomand ca us e of the increasing power of the executiveprinciple.Aggrandizement of the executive principle of gov-ernment takes place in several ways, mainly these:

(1) E% delegation. That is when the Congressdelegates one or more of its Constitutional powersto the Pres ident and authorizes him to exerc ise them.That procedure touched a ve ry high point dur ing thelong Roosevelt regime, when an obliging Congressdelegated to the President, among othe r powers,the cruc ia l one of all, namely, power over the publicpurse, which until then had belonged exclusivelyto the House of Representatives, where the Con-stitution ~ u tt.(2) By kein te r~re ta t ionof the language of the Con-stitution. That is done by a sympathetic SupremeC o u r t(3) B innovation. That is when, in this changingworld, the Pres ident does things that a r e not specifi-ca lly forbidden by the Constitution because thefounders never thought of them.(4) B t& appeaFance in the sph ere of ExecutiveGovernment of what a r e called administrative a enc iewith power to issue rules and regulations tet avethe fo rce of law. These agencies have built up ala rg e body of admini strative law which people a r eobliged to obey. And not only do they make theirown laws; they enforce the ir own laws, acting a sprosecutor, jury and judge; and appeal f rom thei rdecisions to the regular courts is difficult becausethe regula r cou rts a r e obliged to take the ir findingsof fact a s final. Thus the Constitutional separation ofthe th re e governmental powers, namely, the legisla-tive, the executive and the judicial, is entirely lost.(5) E usurpation. That is when the Presidentwilfully confronts Congress with what in statescraftis called the fait accompli--a thing al ready done--which Congress cannot repudiate without exposing theAmerican government to the rid icule of nations.It might be, for example, an executive agreement


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with foreign countri es crea ting an international bodyto govern trade , in place of the International Trad eOrganization Tr ea ty which the Senate would probablynot have approved. The point i s that the Constitutiondoe s not specifically forbid the Pre sid ent to enterinto executive agreements with foreign nations; itprovides only for treaties. In any case, when anexecugve agreemen t h a s been signed the Congressis very loath to humiliate the President before theworld by repudiating h i s signature . O r again, it maybe such a thing a s going to war in Korea by agreementwith the United Nations, withour. the consent of Con-gr es s, o r sending troops to join an internationalarm y in Europe, by agreement with the North AtlanticTreatv Organization.(6) &, the powers of Executive Governmentare bound Q increase the cou ntr v becomes moreand mo re involved in fore ign affairs. Th is is tr ue be-cause , both tradi tionally and by the t e rm s of theConstitution. the orovince of foreinn af fa ir s is onethat belongs in aa ve ry special s e k e to the Presi-dent.

So much f o r the r i s e in the executive power ofgovernment to a colossal dimension, a ll in ou r owntime. It is no longer a coequal power; it is the dominantpower in the land, a s Empire req uir es.

A second mark by which you may unmistakablydistinguish Empire is: "pomestic policv becomessubordinate to foreign &y.#That happened to Rome. It has happened to everyEmpire. The consequences of i t s having happenedto the British Empi re a r e tragically appearing. Thefac t now to be faced is that i th a s happened al so to us.It needs hardly to be argued that a s we convertthe nation into a g ar ri so n st at e to build the mostte rr ib le war machine that ha s ev er been imaginedon earth, eve ry domestic policy is bound to be condi-tioned by our foreign policy.The voice of government i s saying that if ourforeign policy fa il s we a r e ruined. It i s a l l o r nothing.Our survival as a fr e e nation i s at hazard.That makes it simple, f or in that c a se th ere is nodomestic policy that may not have to be-sacrificedto the necess it ie s of foreign policy--even freedom.


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It is no longer a question of what we can afford todo; it is what w e must do to survive.We a r e no longer able to choose between peaceand war. We have embraced perpetua l war. We a r eso committed by the Truman Doctrine, by examplesof our intention, and by such fo rm al engagementsa s the North Atlantic Trea ty and the Pacific Pact.Le t it be a quest ion of survival, and how relativelyunimportant a r e domestic policies--touching, fo rexample, the r igh ts of private property, when, ifnecessary , all priva te proper ty may be confiscated;o r touching individual freedom, when, if necessary,all labor may be conscripted; or touching welfareand social secur ity, when in a ga rr ison state thehungry may have to be fed not by c hecks fr om theTr ea su ry but in soup kitchens!

The American mind i s already conditioned. F o rproof of that you may take the dumb resignationwith which such forebodings a s the following, f romthe lead editor ial of The New York T imes . October31, 1951, a r e received by the people:. . .the Korean war has brought a g re at andprobably long-lasting change in our his tory andour way of life. . .forcing us to adopt measureswhich a r e changing the whole American sc eneand our rel at io ns with the re s t of the world. . .We have embarked on a partial mobilization forwhich about a hundred billion do ll ar s have alreadybeen made available. . .Finally , we have beenforced not only to re ta in but to expand the dr af tand to p r e s s fo r a sys tem of universal milita rytra ining which will affect the li ves of a wholegeneration. The productive effor t and the taxburden resulting fr om these me as ur es a r e changingthe economic pa tt ern of the land.What is not s o clearly understood, h ere o rabroad, is that these a r e no temporary mea sure sf o r a temporary emergency but ra th er the beginningof a wholly new mi li tary sta tus for the UnitedStates, which s e e m s cer tain to be with us fo r along time to come.

What a loss it would be to the Bible if the prophetshad been editorial wr i te rs on The New York Times.Never before in our history, probably never beforein any history, could so d ir e a fo re ca st have been


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made in these level tones. But what they a r e sayingis true. And certainly never before could peoplehave fe lt so h elp less about it, a s if th is were not theharvest of our foreign policy but Jehovah actingthrough the Russia ns to afflict us--and nobody e l seresponsible.

Another brand mark of Emp ir e is: "Ascendancvof themilitarv mind, Q such a point at las t that thecivilian mind i s intimidated..The grea t symbol of the American mil itary mindis the Pentagon in Washington with its seventeen andone half mi les of co rr id or , in which ad mi ra ls andgenerals so m e t in es get lost; i t s twenty-eight thou-sand people at desks, eight thousand automobilesparked outside--the la rg es t indoor city in the world.It was built a t a cos t of seventy million do ll ar sduring World War 11, not a s temporary housingsuch a s was built during World War I, but a s a dwell-ing for Mars. What i t represents is a forethoughtof perpetual war.

There global strategy is conceived; there, nobodyknows how, the es t imates of what it will c os t ar earr ived at; and surrounding it i s our own iron curtain.The information that co mes f ro m the inner s ide isonly such a s the milit ary authorities a r e willing todivcllge, o r have a reas on fo r imparting to the people.All the r e s t is stamped "classified" o r "restrict ed,"in the name of national security, and Congress itselfcannot get it. That is a s it must be of course ; themost important se c r e t s of Empi re a r e militaryse cr et s. Even information that is without any in tr insicmil itary value may be classified, on the groundthat if it got out it mig htgi veri se to popular cr it i cismof the mi li ta ry establishment and cause bad publicrelations.

It was Genera l MacArthur himself who uttered thesedevastating words: "Talk of imminent th reat to ou rnational securi ty through the applicat ion of externalforce is pure nonsense. . . Indeed, it is a par t of thegenera l pat te rn of misguided policy that our coun-try is now geared to an a r m s economy which wasbred i n an ar ti ficial ly induced psychosis of warhyste ria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda


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of fea r. While such an economy may produce a senseof seeming prosper ity fo r the moment, it r e s t s onan illusory foundation of complete unreliabil ity andre nd er s among our political le aders ,almost a gr ea terfear of peace than is thei r fear of war."The bald interpre tat ion of General MacArthur'swords is this. War becomes an ins trumen t of domesticpolicy. Among the control mechanism on the govern-ment's panel board now is a dia l marked War. Itmay be set to increase or decr eas e the tempoofmilitary expenditures, a s the planners decide thatwhat the economy needs is a little more inflationo r a littl e less--but of cou rs e never any deflation.And whereas it was foreseen that when ExecutiveGovernment is resolved to control the economy itwill come to have a vested interest in the power ofinflation, so now we pe rceive that it will comeal so to have a kind of p roprie tary in te rest in theinstitution of perpetual war.Yet in the ve ry nature of Empire, the mi litarymind must keep i t s s ec re ts . A Republic may putits armor on and off. War is an interlude. Whenwar come s it i s a civilian business, conducted underthe advice of mi li ta ry expert s. Both in peace andwar military expe rts a r e excluded from civiliandecisions. But with Em pi re it is different; Empiremust wear i ts armor. Its l ife is in the hands of theGeneral Staff and war is supremely a militarybusiness, requiring of the civilian only acquiescence,exertion and loyalty.Another histor ic fe ature of Empire, and th is is astructural feature, is:- system of sa te ll ite nations.We use that word only for nations that have beencaptured in the Russ ian orbit, with some inflectionof contempt. We speak of our own sat el li te s a s al l ie sand fr iends o r a s freedom loving nations. Neverthe-le ss , satell ite i s the right word. The meaning of iti s the hired guard. When people say we have lostChina or that if we lose Europe it will be a disaster,what do they mean? How could we lose China o rEurope, since they never belonged to us? What theymean is that we have lost o r may lo se a followingof dependent people who act a s an outer guard.It is a long li st , and satelli te tra ffic in the Americanorbit is already pretty dense without taking into

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account client nations, suppliant nations and waifsate lli tes, all looking to the American governmentfor a r m s and economic aid. These a r e scatt eredall over the body of the sick world like fe s ters .F or any one of them to involve u s in war it is neces-sar y only fo r the Executive Power at Washingtonto decide that i t s defense is somehow essential tothe securi ty of the United States. That i s how theKorean War started. Korea was a waif satellite.Empire must put i t s faith in arms.

Fea r at la st assumes the phase of a patrioticobsession. It is stronger than any political party.Any candidate fo r office who t r i fl es with i ts basicconviction will be scourged. The basic convictioni s simple. We cannot stand alone. A capitalist iceconomy, though it p osses ses half the industria l powerof the whole world, cannot defend i ts own hemisphere.It may be able to sa ve the world; alone it cannotsa ve itself. It must have allies. Fortunately , it isable to buy them, bribe them, a r m them, feed andclothe them; it may cost us mo re than we can afford,yet we must have them o r peri sh. Th is voice of fe ar1s the voice of government. -F ea r mav be understood. But a curiou s and char-ac te ri st ic &motional weakness of Em pi re is:A c o m ~ l e xof vaunting and fear.The vaunting i s from what may be called thatTitanic feeling. Many passengers on the doomedTitanic would not believe that a ship s o big and

grand could sink. So long a s it was above water herlist ing deck seemed sa fe r than a life boat on theopen sea. So with the people of Empire. They a r emighty. They have per formed prodigious works, evenmany that seemed beyond their powers. Reversesthey have known but never defeat.So those must have felt who lived out the grandeurthat was Rome. So the Br it ish fe lt while they ruledthe world. So now Americans feel.As we as su me unlimited political liabilit ies allover the world, a s billions in multiples of ten a r evoted for the ever expanding global intention, there

is only scorn f o r the one who says: "We a r e notinfinite. Let u s calculate ou r utmost power of pe r-formance, weigh it against what we a r e proposing todo, and s ee if the scal es will balance.' The answer


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is: 'We do not know what our utmost is. What wewill to do, that we can do. Let u s resolve to do whati s necessary . Necessity will cr ea te the means.'Conversely, the fear . Fe ar of the barbar ian. Fearof standing alone. A time comes when the guarditself, that is , your sys tem of satell ites, i s a sourceof fear . Satellites a r e often willful and the moreyou rely upon them the more willful and demandingthey are.And then at la st the se cret , irreducib le fear ofallies--not th is one o r that one invidiously, buiforeign al lies in human principle, each with a lifeof i ts own to save. How will they behave when thetes t comes?--when they face, in th is ca se , the te rr ib lereal ity of becoming the European battlefield whereonthe securi ty of the United States shall be defended?If they fa l te r o r fa il , what will become of the weaponswith which we have supplied them? What if they weresur rendered o r captured and turned against us?The possibility of havlng to fa ce i t s own weaponson a foreign field is one of the nightmares of Empire.

A s we have se t them down so fa r , the things thatsignify Empire a r e these, namely:(1) Rise of the executive principle of governmentto a position of dominant power,(2) Accommodation of domest ic policy to foreignpolicy,( 3 ) Ascendancy of the mil itary mind,(4) A system of satellite nations fo r apur po se calledcollective security, and,(5) An emotional complex of vaunting and fear.

There is yet another sign that defines itself gradually.When it is clearly defined it may be already too lateto do anything about it. That is to say, a time comeswhen Empire finds itself--- prisoner o_f historv.The historv of a Re ~ ub l i cis its own historv. Itspast does i o t contain it s futu re, like a sekd. ARepublic may change its course, or reverse it, andthat will be i ts own business. But the history ofEmpire is world history and belongs to many people.A republic is not obliged to ac t upon the world,either to change o r instruct it. Empi re, on the otherhand, must put forth its power.What is it that now obliges the American people toact upon the world?


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A s you ask that question the f e a r theme playsitself down and the one that takes its place ismagnifical. It is not only ou r secur ity we a r e thinkingof--our secur ity in a f r ame of collec tive secur ity.Beyond that l i e s a grea te r thought.It is our turn.Our turn to do what?Our turn to ass um e the responsibilities o r mor alleadership in the world.Our turn to maintain a balance of power againstthe forces of evil everywhere--in Europe and Asiaand Africa, in the Atlantic and in the Pacific, bya i r and by sea--evil in th is ca s e being the Russianbarbarian.Our turn to keep the peace of the world.Our tu rn to sa ve civilization.Our turn to s e rv e mankind.But this is the language of Empire . The RomanEmpire never doubted that it was the defender ofcivilization. It s good intentions were peace, law andor de r. The Spanish Empire added salvation. TheBrit ish Em pi re added the noble myth of the whiteman's burden. We have addedfreedom and democracy.Yet the more that may be added to it the mo re itis the same language st ill . A language of power.

Always the ba nner s of Empire proclaim that theends in view sanctify the means. The ironies, sub-lime and pathetic, a r e two. The f i r s t one i s thatEmp ire believes what it says on its banner; thesecond is that the word fo r the ultimate end isinvariably Peace. Pe ac e by gr ac e of fo rce.

One must see that on the road to E mpire there issoon a point f ro m which the re i s no turning back.The argument for going on i s well known. AsWoodrow Wilson once asked, "Shall we break thehear t of the world?* So now many a r e saying, "Wecannot le t the f r e e world down."What does going on mean? You never know.On June 24, 1941, a s he extended Lend-Lease toRussia in World War 11, President Roosevelt said:"We will accept only a world consecratedto freedomof speech and expression--freedom of ev er y personto worship God in his own way--freedom from wantand freedom fro m terrorism..Senator Taft wa s one of the ver y few at that timewho could imagine what going on f rom there might

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mean. He asked: 'Will that part of the world whichStalin conquers with our airp lanes and our tanks beconsecrated to freedom of speech and expression?Will it be consecra ted to freedom fr om want andfreedom fro m te rr or is m? Or, after a Russian victorywith our aid, must we step in with our ar mie s toimpose the four freedoms on two hundred millionpeople, ten thousand mi le s away, who have neverknown freedom fr om want o r freedom fr om te rr or -ism?'In October, 1951, only ten years la te r , Collier'smagazine devoted one entir e is su e to a previewof World War 111, with twenty ar t icles wri tten byprofessors, military people, publicists and otherswho mieht call themselves makers of ~ u b l i c o ~ i n i o n - -and t h c sequel of it was he l iberat ioif * '~uss ianpeople. The answer to Mr. Taft's question.

Between government in the republ ican meaning, thatis, Constitutional, representative, limited govern-ment, on the one hand, and Emp ire on the other hand,the re i s mortal enmity. Either one mus t forbid theother o r one will destroy the other. That we know.Yet never has the choice been put to a vote of thepeople.The country has been committed to the course ofEmpire by Executive Government, one step at a time,with slogans, concealments , equivocations, a propa-ganda of fea r , and i n every c r i s i s an appeal fo runity, le s t we pr esen t to the world the aspec t of adivided nation, until at la st it may be proclaimedthat events have made the decis ion and it isirrevocable. Thus, now to al te r the cour se is im-possible.Who s ay s it i s impossible? The Pres ident say s it;the State Department says it; all globalist s and one-worlders ar e saying it .Do not ask whether or not i t is possible. Ask your-self this: If it were possible, what would it take?How could the people r e s to re the Republic if theywould? or , before that, how could they re cover thei rConstitutional sovereign right to choose fo r them-selves.When you have put it that way you ar e hound toturn and look at the lost ter ra in . What a r e the posi-tions, forgotten or surrendered, that would have tobe recaptured?


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The height in the foreground is a state of mind.To recover the habit of decision the people mustlearn again to think for themselves; and this wouldrequ ire a kind of self-awakening, a s from a wee sm al lalar m in the depths.The second height to be regained is that where ofold foreign policy was submitted to public debate.How long ago that seems! And how was that heightlost? There was no battle fo r it. The governmentseized it without a struggle; and now the Presidentmay say the people ought to accept the government'sforeign policy without debate.

In a speech to the National Women's DemocraticClub on November 20, 1951, Pres iden t Truman said:'You remember what happened in 1920. When thepeople voted for Harding, that meant a tremendouschange in the cours e the United States was following.It meant that we turned ou r backs on the new-bornLeague of Nations. . . 1 think most people now recog-nize that the country chose the wrong cours e in 1920.. . .Since I have been President I have sought tos te er a stra ight co urse of handling fore ign policyma tter s on the so le ba si s of the national interest.The people I have chosen to fill the major positionsconcerned with fore ign policy have been picked solelyon merit, without re ga rd to par ty labels. I want tokeep it that way. I want tokeep our foreign policy outof domestic politics."So fa r had the American mind been conditioned bvthe infatuate phrase, bi-p-artisan foreign policv. thAextraordinary statement was vacantly received. Whatwas the Pres ident saying? He was- saying that be-cause, in his opinion, the people. once voted wrongon foreign policy, they ought not t o vote on it at al lany more. Let them leave it to the President. Itfollows logically that the people have no longer any-thing to say about war and peace.On this height, where foreign policy once moreshall be debated by the people who may have to di efor it, let the wind be cold and mercile ss . Let thosebe nakedly exposed to it who have brought the countryto this impasse.

On the next height lies control of the public purse.Until the people have recovered that they cannottame Executive Government. Pass ing laws to control


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o r res t ra in it i s of no avail whatever. The only way toreason with it is to cut it off a t the pockets. Thepeople have not always managed the purs e well .They have sometimes stuffed it with bad money;they have sometimes.flung its contents around in areckless manner. But there is this difference, thatno matt er how badly the people may manage thepublic purse it cannot control them, whereas in thehands of the government control of the purse be-comes the single most powerful instrument of execu-tive policy touching the l ives of the people.

The positions in the l ost te rr ai n that have beennamed a r e vital. To se rv e the Republic they mustall be stormed and captured. But there is sti ll onemore, the la st and highest of all. The slopes a r esteep and barren. No enemy is visible. The enemyis in yourself. F o r this may be named the Peak ofFortitude.What you have to face is that the cost of savingthe Republic may be extremely high. It could berelatively a s high a s the co st of setting it up in thef i r s t place, one hundred and seventy-five yea rs ago,when love of pol itical liberty was a mighty passion,and people we re willing to di e fo r it.When the economy has for a long time been movingby jet propulsion, the higher the fa s te r, on the fuelof perpetual war and planned inflation, time co meswhen you have to choose whether to go on and onand dissolve in the st ra t~ sp h er e , .~ o recelerate. Butdeceleration will ca use a te rr i fi c shock. Who willsay. "Now!" Who is willing to f ac e the gr im anddangerous re a li t ies of deflation and depression?

When Moses had brought h is people ne ar to thePromised Land he sent out scouts to explore it.They returned with rapturous words fo r it s beautiesand it s f ru it s, whereupon the people we re shri llwith joy, until the scou ts said: 'The only thing is,th is land is inhabited by ve ry f ie rc e men.'Moses said: 'Come. Let u s fall upon them and takethe land. It is ou rs f r om the Lord.'At that the people turned bi tter ly on Moses, andsaid: "What a ~ r 0 ~ h e tou have turned out to be!Sodlle land is du r i if wk can take it? We needed no$rophet to tell u s that.'No doubt the people know they can have th ei r


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Republic back if they want it enough to fight for itand to pay the pri ce . The only point is that no leaderh a s yet appeared with the cour age to m ake themchoose .

The American Empire - Garet Garrett.pdf

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Transcript of The American Empire - Garet Garrett.pdf