The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

opposed to republicanism, and this is national
apostasy.
Until the summer of 1898 the word
“imperialism” was but little heard from the lips of
Americans. Now the very atmosphere is fairly
drenched with it. A perfect wave of imperialism
has swept over the land, and the desire for an
Imperial America, or an “Imperial Republic,” as it
has been styled, sits supreme upon hundreds of
scores of souls. But an imperial republic cannot
exist. With equal sense and propriety one might
talk about “good badness.”
What means this wild babel of tongues
clamoring for subjects over which to exercise
sway? What means this strange jargon, formed
from an Old World monarchical vocabulary? Are
men crazed with the madness sometimes begotten
by victory at arms? Are men drunken with the lust
of colonial empire? Are men raving in the delirium
of that dread fever, earth-hunger, in which all the
monarchies of the Old World are writhing? Think
they in the hour of triumph over a foe, outclassed at
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