The whole training of an Army engineer is wrong, when it comes to dealing with river problems and the control of floods which can only be safeguarded against by controlling the remote causes which result in the formation of the flood. The idea of preventing the formation of floods by controlling those original causes, preserving forest and woodland cover, preserving the porosity of the soil, slowing up the run-off from the watershed, or holding back the flood waters in reservoirs or storage basins, seems to be beyond the scope of the powers of conception and construction of the military engineers of the United States Army. They see only results, and seem unable to comprehend original causes. Not only this, but they also oppose, by all the political arts in which the Army engineers are so well versed, every proposition to coördinate the work of the Army engineers in the field of channel work and local flood defense, with the work of other departments of the national government. Every department of the national government must be coördinated which deals with water control, or with any beneficial use of water that would check rapid run off and hold back the flood water on the watershed where it originated, and in that way prevent the formation of a destructive flood. The entire willingness of the Army engineers to subordinate the welfare of the people in every flood-menaced valley to the stubborn determination of the military caste to retain and broaden their own powers and privileges in this one field of action, shows what might be expected from any increase in the members of that caste, or any enlargement of their control over the civil affairs of the country. The military caste in the United States will never approve any plan for national defense that does not center in and radiate from them. They will oppose it unless it broadens their influence and power, and imbeds it more strongly in the foundations of the Government. A plan such as is advocated in this book, will never have their coöperation, support, or endorsement, for the very simple reason that its primary object would be to remove the original cause of war and to contribute to the lessening of the power and prestige of the Army. The fact that it would at the same time supply the first and greatest need in the event of war--the need for toughened and trained men who could and would fight and dig trenches as well as seasoned soldiers--would gain no favor for the plan in the eyes of our military caste. The development of that system and the expenditures to be made for that purpose and the control of the men enlisted in it would not be vested in the War Department.