meant that we could invoke the all-purpose Monroe Doctrine (the invention of John Quincy Adams, Brooks’s grandfather). But as we might have lost such a war, nothing happened. Nevertheless, Roosevelt kept on beating his drum: “ No triumph of peace,” he shouted, “ can equal the armed triumph of war.” Also: “we must take Hawaii in the interests of the white race.” Even Henry Adams, who found TR. tiresome and Brooks, his own brother, brilliant but mad, suddenly declared, “ In another fifty years. . the white race will have to reconquer the tropics by war and nomadic invasion, or be shut up north of the 50th parallel.” And so at century’s end, our most distinguished ancestral voices were not prophesying but praying for war. An American warship, the Maine, blew up in Havana harbor. We held Spain responsible; thus, we got what John Hay called “ a splendid little war. We would liberate Cuba, drive Spain from the Caribbean. As for the Pacific, even before the Maine was sunk, Roosevelt had ordered Commodore Dewey and his fleet to the Spanish Philippines—just in case. Spain promptly collapsed, and we inherited its Pacific and Caribbean colonies. Admiral Mahan’s plan was working triumphantly. In time we allowed Cuba the appearance of freedom while holding on to Puerto Rico. Then President William McKinley, after an in-depth talk with God, decided that we should also keep the Philippines, in order, he said, to Christianize them. When reminded that the Filipinos were Roman Catholics, the President said, Exactly. We must Christianize them. Although Philippine nationalists had been our allies against Spain, we promptly betrayed them and their leader, Aguinaldo. As a result it took us several years to conquer the Philippines, and tens of thousands of Filipinos died that our empire might grow. The war was the making of Theodore Roosevelt. Surrounded by the flower of the American press, he led a group of so- called Rough Riders up a very small hill in Cuba. For this proto-photo opportunity Lieut. Ulysses S. Grant, who fought at Vera Cruz, said in his memoirs, “The war was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.” . he became a national hero, Governor of New York, McKinley’s running mate and, when McKinley was killed in 1901, President. Not everyone liked the new empire. After Manila, Mark Twain thought that the stars and bars of the American flag should be replaced by a skull and crossbones. He also said “We cannot maintain an empire in the Orient and maintain a republic in America.” He was right, of course. But as he was only a writer who said funny things, he was ignored. The compulsively vigorous Roosevelt defended our war against the Philippine population, and he attacked the likes of Twain. “ Every argument that can be made for the Filipinos could be made for the Apaches,” he explained, with his lovely gift for analogy. “And every word that can be said for Aguinaldo could be said for Sitting Bull. As peace, order and prosperity followed our expansion over the land of the Indians, so they will follow us in the Philippines.” Despite the criticism of the few, the Four Horsemen had pulled it off. The United States was a world empire. And one of the horsemen not only got to be president but for his pious meddling in the Russo-Japanese conflict, our greatest apostle of war was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. One must never underestimate the Scandinavian wit. Empires are restless organisms. They must constantly renew themselves; should an empire start leaking energy, it will die. Not for nothing were the Adams brothers fascinated by entropy. By energy. By force. Brooks Adams, as usual, said the unsayable. “ Laws are a necessity,” he declared. “ Laws are made by the strongest, and they must and shall be obeyed.” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. thought this a wonderful,observation, while the philosopher William James came to a similar conclusion, which can also be detected, like an invisible dynamo, at the heart of the novels of his brother Henry. According to Brooks Adams, “ The most difficult problem of modern times is unquestionably how to protect property under popular governments.” The Four Horsemen fretted a lot about this. They need not have. We have never had a popular government in the sense that they feared, nor are we in any danger now. Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. “We have a single system,” he wrote, and “ in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.” But none of this was for public consumption. Publicly, the Four Horsemen and their outriders spoke of the American mission to bring to all the world freedom and peace, through slavery and war if necessary. Privately, their constant fear was that the weak masses might combine one day against the strong few, their natural leaders, and take away their money. As early as the election of 1876 socialism had been targeted as a vast evilithat must never be allowed to corrupt simple American persons. When Christianity was invoked as the natural enemy of those who might limit the rich and their games, the combination of cross and dollar sign proved—and proves—irresistible. During the first decade of our disagreeable century, the great world fact was the internal collapse of China. Who could pick up the pieces? Britain grabbed Kowloon; Russia was busy in the north; the Kaiser’s fleet prowled the China coast; Japan was modernizing itself, and biding its time. Although Theodore Roosevelt lived and died a dedicated racist, the Japanese puzzled him. After they sank the Russian fleet, Roosevelt decided that they were to be respected and feared even though they were our racial inferiors. For those Americans who served in World War II, it was an article of faith—as of 1941, anyway—that the Japanese could never win a modern war. Because of their slant eyes, they would not be able to master aircraft. 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