"The Secret of Nippon's Power" is another pertinent article, in "The First Book of the Homecrofters." A new and enlarged edition of this book will soon be issued. In the meantime copies of the first edition can be had for twenty-five cents from the Rural Settlements Association. More has been accomplished in Duluth, Minnesota, to prove the benefits of the Homecroft Life than in any other City in the United States. A special publication, descriptive of the Homecroft Work in Duluth, and a pamphlet by George H. Maxwell entitled, "The Cost of Living," which shows the relation to that subject of the Homecroft System of Education and Life, can be obtained by sending ten cents in stamps to the Rural Settlements Association, Cotton Exchange Building, New Orleans, La. The legislative machinery necessary to inaugurate the plans for work to be done through the Forest Service and the Reclamation Service is all provided for in the Newlands-Broussard River Regulation Bill. That bill provides for river regulation, flood prevention, land reclamation and settlement, and the establishment of forest plantations in all parts of the United States. It also brings the departments of the national government into coördinating by forming the Board of River Regulation. Through that board, all necessary plans would be worked out for coördinating other departments with the War Department, and completing the organization of the National Construction Reserve and the Homecroft Reserve. When perfected, those plans would be presented to Congress with a recommendation for their enactment. Those who favor the plan advocated in this book are urged to concentrate their influence first on the passage of that bill as the entering-wedge to the ultimate adoption of the entire plan. They are also urged to do all in their power to enlist the active interest of their friends by inducing them to study the subject and _get the facts_. Copies of the Newlands-Broussard River Regulation Bill and explanatory printed matter may be had without charge by writing to the National Reclamation Association, 331 Maryland Building, Washington, D. C. This book, OUR NATIONAL, DEFENSE--THE PATRIOTISM OF PEACE, has been published by the Rural Settlements Association. The price of the book is $1.25, including postage, and orders for copies, with remittance for that amount, should be sent to Rural Settlements Association, Cotton Exchange Building, New Orleans, La. GEORGE H. MAXWELL, _Executive Director_, Rural Settlements Association, National Reclamation Association. FOREWORD _Would it interest you to know_ that the people of the United States, having first blindfolded themselves with the self-complacence of ignorance, are walking along the crest of a ridge with a precipice on one side falling sheer into the abyss of devastation by war with an invading foreign power, while on the other side boils the seething crater of a social volcano?