A Waterway Service for _Construction_ should be created, wholly separate and apart from the War Department or any of its engineers or employees, to build for this country as complete a system of waterways as now exists in any of the countries of Europe--real waterways, waterways built to float boats on and to carry inland commerce. Waterways must be built for commerce and to constitute a national waterway system. The false pretense must stop of spending money on waterways merely as a club to lower railroad rates. That policy of indirection and sham has prompted the waste of too many millions of dollars of the people's money in this country. In this one great interrelated and interdependent work of forest and water conservation, of reclaiming land by irrigation, drainage, and protection from overflow, of regulating and developing the flow of rivers for power development and navigation, and doing everything necessary for the protection of every flood-menaced community and valley, enough men should be enlisted in the different services through which the work is to be done, to do this work with all the expedition required by the welfare of the people at large of this generation. This would necessitate the employment of an ultimate total of a million men, scattered throughout every State of the Union. Every dollar paid to them in wages, and every dollar expended in connection with their work, would prevent devastation or create values for the nation immensely larger than the total expenditure. The values created and benefits assured in time of peace would alone justify the expenditure. The value to the nation of such a great Reserve Force of trained and hardened men in time of war would again justify the expenditure. But in the initial expenditure both ends would be attained. What we pay out from year to year for the support of our Standing Army and our Navy, after each year has passed, is wasted and gone. It is too high a rate to pay for insurance, which in fact is no insurance at all against a possible war. If such a war should come, the Standing Army and the Navy would be hopelessly inadequate for our protection. The system must be changed. The Standing Army, without any increased expenditure, must be made a training school for all the officers needed for a Reserve of at least a million men. This should be done immediately! The day is at hand when the nation must take time by the forelock and in time of peace prepare for war, in a sane, intelligent, adequate, and effective way. If it is not done we run the grave risk, with the possibility of war always facing us, of being subjected by our national indifference to the fearful cost of such a conflict if we were forced into it unprepared. Shall we do this, and get back the full value of every dollar expended, or shall we face the ever growing possibility of a war of one or two or three years duration, costing us in cash outlay two or three billion dollars a year?