O’Flaherty on U.S. imperialism coveting not only the resources, but the geography of Hawaii.

‘A Dress Rehearsal For War’ by T.J. O’Flaherty from Workers Monthly. Vol. 4 No. 8. June, 1925.

CAPITALIST journalists grew lyrical as the steel armada of the United States steamed from its base to participate in the dress rehearsal for the coming war with Japan. A frenzy of jingoism swept through the capitalist editorial rooms of the nations as the floating bulldogs of Wall Street growled defiance at the foe on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. As the mighty monsters of steel churned the waters on their journey to the Hawaiian Islands, where the war games were to be held, American imperialism was serving notice that it was out to conquer the Pacific and would tolerate no rivals. The Hawaiian Islands are situated in the middle of the Pacific. Though useful from a profit-making point of view, it is because of their strategic value that the United States is so concerned about strengthening the islands’ defense. They are distant 2,000 miles from San Francisco and 3,400 miles from Yokohoma, Japan. Hawaii is 4,700 miles from Manila Bay and a little over 4,000 miles from Sydney, Australia. Itis 3,850 miles from Auckland, New Zealand and 2,780 miles from the nearest point in Siberia. It is called the “Hub of the Pacific.”

The average American worker who takes the Constitution as seriously as he does the fiction that this is a free country for him, spurns the suggestion that the American government is the directing power of the lustiest and most powerful imperialism in the world today. He does not understand why the American fleet is playing war around Hawaii. He thinks that perhaps the admirals, officers and sailors must be exercised once in a while to keep them from getting stiff-jointed. Or perhaps he thinks that the Japanese are spending sleepless nights preparing to descend upon our coasts and snatch our liberties from us while we are napping. Poor simpleton!

In the first place the United States forces have no particular right to be in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiians look upon the United States army of occupation as invaders. That’s just what they are. The government and its apologists tell us that the Hawaiians are not able to take care of themselves, that they shoot each other during election campaigns, that in fact their slogan is “bullets not ballots.”

But if Japan sent an expeditionary force into Cicero or Chicago to prevent the people from decimating the population in such an unseemly manner, it is more than likely that the Washington government would consider the move a decidedly unfriendly act. The truth is that modern capitalist nations do not send their armies and navies to tropical lands because the natives like to tickle their pistols or have an aversion to washing their faces. The United States army and navy forces are in Hawaii for the very good reasons that the islands are strategically indispensable to the capitalists of this country in fulfilling their “destiny” in the orient, and secondly, because sugar planters, can make nice, fat little fortunes exploiting the soil of Hawaii and the helpless working class population. Two very good reasons.

One hundred and seventy battleships are concentrated around Hawaii. Following their little rehearsal, they will pay a “friendly” visit to Australia and New Zealand and return to their base at Cuba, another convenient strategic position won by our rulers after a war to “free” that country from the “tyrannical” Spaniards. Don’t forget that the Anglo-Japanese alliance was smashed as a result of the pressure of the United States, aided by the efforts of New Zealand and Australia, as well as South Africa and Canada. So the “mother country” made the best of a bad situation and dropped the Japanese alliance for a position of lesser partner in the firm of Uncle Sam and J. Bull.

Imperialism is the last stage of capitalism. When we talk of imperialism nowadays we do not mean something like the empires of Egypt, Greece and Rome or the campaigns of Kings Tut and Nebuchadnessar against their neighbors. Those ancient pirates usually returned from the fray with a cargo of virgins, double-humped camels, she-asses and male slaves. Somebody was usually left behind with an army strong enough to control all the inhabitants of the conquered provinces who were not killed. Sometimes another conqueror came along before the first conqueror had time to sober up after his victory debauch and pick up anything the first invader forgot to take along with him.

This is not the place to trace the evolution of capitalism to the final stage of imperialism. But is necessary that we should know why the American fleet is cavorting around the islands of Hawaii. American capitalists no longer confine their profit-making activities to selling goods in South America, in China or throughout the Orient. They also export capital. And wherever they export their capital, they must have some assurance that this capital is going to remain theirs. They plant their flag wherever possible, such as in Cuba, Hawaii or the Philippines.

Wall Street does not confine its business activities in China to selling bibles, and oil cans. It has exported capital to that country and looks on Japan’s competition for the investment market with a bleared and watery eye. The Philippines are nearer to Japan than to the United States and no matter how badly the Filipinos want freedom, Wall Street needs the Philippines more.

The standard of American imperialism now waves from Alaska to Cape Horn. It has one foot inside the Chinese “open door.” The Philippine Islands are its farthest outpost in the Orient. Wall Street’s banks are bursting with money capital that must have an outlet. South America and Asia offer fertile breeding places for the American dollar. But the British pound and the Japanese yen are also good settlers and fast breeders. Therefore the American eagle must have sharp talons and many of them to protect his brood.

Hawaii is an ideal place for a United States naval base in the Pacific. Our imperialists will tell you that the object of the war games is to demonstrate whether this country could defend Hawaii against any nation capable of putting a powerful fleet and air force in the Pacific. The nation hinted at is Japan. But when the inevitable clash between the United States and Japan comes, Japan will be fighting for her very life. The object of the naval maneuvers is not defensive, but offensive.

While the guns of the United States monsters rent the air around Hawaii and the airplane engines purred overhead, two victims of imperialism, Privates Crouch and Trumbull, sat in their prison cells in Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian Islands.

They are Communists and they propagated Communism in a dangerous spot.

As well play with firecrackers around an oil well as preach Communism in an outpost of imperialism, located among a hostile people. Imperialism made an example of Privates Crouch and Trumbull. Forty years imprisonment for one; twenty-six years for the other. Wall Street will not tolerate Communist propaganda in its army anywhere, but nowhere less than in its Hawaiian block houses. Communism means freedom for colonial peoples and colonies provide too good a soil for such propaganda.

The war games around Hawaii proved that the islands could not be defended against a powerful enemy, say the capitalist press and the navy and war departments. This is as we expected. The army and navy want more and larger appropriations

But the war games tell another story. Our rulers have cast off the mask of isolation. George Washington’s farewell address is now as defunct as the declaration of independence and the clause in the Constitution guaranteeing the right of free speech and free assemblage. Finance capitalism claims the world as its country and to make profits its religion. The battleships are following the dollar. The American eagle is indeed the king of all predatory birds. It is out to conquer the world. But there is a power it cannot conquer and that is the power of the working class which is growing up side by side with imperialism. And the advance guard of this mighty power is Soviet Russia which is girding its loins for the coming struggle between the forces of capitalism and labor for the conquest of the earth.

The Workers Monthly began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Party publication. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and the Communist Party began publishing The Communist as its theoretical magazine. Editors included Earl Browder and Max Bedacht as the magazine continued the Liberator’s use of graphics and art.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/wm/1925/v4n08-jun-1925.pdf