The slaughter of 900,000 men of ours, the
disablement of many more than that, had depleted our ranks of labor,
and there was a paralysis of all our industry, owing to the
dislocation of its machinery for purposes of war, the soaring cost of
raw material, the crippling effect of high taxation, the rise in wages
to meet high prices, and the lethargy of the workers. Ruin, immense,
engulfing, annihilating to our strength as a nation and as an empire,
stares us brutally in the eyes at the time I write this book, and I
find no consolation in the thought that other nations in Europe,
including the German people, are in the same desperate plight, or
worse.
IX
The nation, so far, has not found a remedy for the evil that has
overtaken us. Rather in a kind of madness that is not without a
strange splendor, like a ship that goes down with drums beating and
banners flying, we are racing toward the rocks. At this time, when we
are sorely stricken and in dire poverty and debt, we have extended the
responsibilities of empire and of world--power as though we had
illimitable wealth.
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