Our National Defense: The Patriotism of PeaceMaxwell, George Hebard
History
Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace
Maxwell, George Hebard
United States -- Defenses
This great Cavalry Service of our citizen soldiery in the State of Nevada
could be so quickly transported to and mobilized at any point on the
Pacific Coast between Seattle and Los Angeles, in the event of threatened
invasion, that no nation could by any possibility land an army on our
Pacific shores without being almost instantly confronted by an organized
force of citizen soldiers with its full quota of cavalry--not an untrained
mob of volunteers but hardened and trustworthy men of training and
experience in all that a soldier can learn to do in preliminary training
without actual warfare.
The fact that such an overwhelming and irresistible force was known by all
other nations to exist and to be available for immediate mobilization and
defense, would in and of itself prove the best assurance we could have
against the breaking out of a war which otherwise might well occur because
of our hopelessly inadequate regular standing army and our utter
unpreparedness so long as we have no adequate force of citizen soldiery.
A citizen soldiery is what we must undoubtedly have in this country, but it
must be a citizen soldiery trained and inured at all times in advance to
the real hardships of war. They must have the physical stamina necessary to
endure such hardships. They must be kept at all times physically fit by the
labor of their daily life and the occupations whereby they earn their
bread. They must be trained thoroughly and well in time of peace, as it is
contemplated they shall be trained under the military system of Switzerland
and Australia. That system would to a large extent be the model which would
be the guide for the creation of the Homecroft Reserve, except that under
the latter system the regular annual training period would be longer and
the training more thorough and complete. It would be sufficiently so to
make a reservist in every way the equal, so far as training goes, of a
soldier in the regular army.
The creation of a great Military Reserve under the plan proposed for a
Homecroft Reserve in the Colorado River Valley for the national defense
would require, for its complete and satisfactory fruition, the acquisition
by the United States of the territory through which the Colorado River now
flows from the present boundary line to the Gulf of California and
extending around the head of the Gulf of California.
The Gulf of California should be made neutral waters forever, by treaty
between the United States and Mexico, and this treaty should be agreed to
by all the nations of the world. The neutral waters thus created should
extend far enough into the open sea so that all commerce from the shores of
the Gulf of California or reaching the markets of the world through that
waterway from any of the vast interior territory embraced in the drainage
basin of the Colorado River, could at any time reach the ocean highways of
commerce without danger of being waylaid by the hostile ships of war of any
nation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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