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WILLIAM APPLEMAN WILLIAMS
tion of strategic need. But time after time the claim crumbles in the
examination. Sometimes it has been a rationalization for not wanting
strong neighbors (a revealing insight into ourselves), sometimes it has
been used as a disguise or mask for other motives, and in still other in–
stances it has been marched forward in defense of the empire. But to
talk about a strategic motive in
protecting
the empire fudges the ques–
tion about the role of a strategic motive in
acquiring
the empire.
I think I have offered more than enough to refute Schlesinger's
assertion that I reduce American imperialism (or foreign policy in
general) to economic motives. Perhaps our impasse arises from his failure
to distinguish between an economic motive, an economic idea and a
conception of American welfare (and the proper policies to sustain that
welfare) which is based upon a
Weltanschauung
that integrates the idea
of individual freedom and fulfillment with one specific political econ–
omy. As for the relationship between the
Weltanschauung
evolved by
the agriculturalists and twentieth-century foreign policy, I do not think
that Schlesinger is any more convincing than Zinn in denying the causal
connection.
Michael Harrington understands more clearly than Schlesinger what
I am about, and I find his comments more significant. The first thing
to say in response to his charge that my treatment of the Populists is
"one-sided" (p. 500) is simply that I should have been more explicit
about my awareness of their concern and agitation for domestic reforms.
Such a commentary was in an early draft, but I took it out because it
struck me as unnecessary in a book so clearly about foreign policy (and
directed toward a limited audience). Ah, so: I was wrong.
In
the broader sense, however, I modified my view of the Populists
in the course of my research and reflection. Earlier, I would have agreed
(at least in general) with Harrington's view. But I now think that there
is much less true radicalism in what Richard Hofstadter and Harrington
call the "soft" side of Populism, and I think that the "hard" side pre–
vailed long before the twentieth-century agitation for parity. Silver was
not simply an ideology, for example; nor did the subtreasury plan in–
volve a turn away from the world marketplace; and southern Populists
were
strongly engaged in the agitation for market expansion. Neither
do I think that I ignore the other components that went into the
evolution of their imperial position.
As
for some Populists' later turn
to socialism, that was beyond the scope of my effort (though I consider
it a vital question for the Left and did point to it in my book).
Turning to Harrington's emphasis on the rise of industrialism and
urbanism, I think he confuses a trend with an existing reality. I agree
with the point about the trend, but do not agree that the metropolitan