Our National Defense: The Patriotism of PeaceMaxwell, George Hebard
History
Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace
Maxwell, George Hebard
United States -- Defenses
The same Japanese System with the same Japanese population in the Colorado
River Drainage Basin would sustain an army of the same strength. And they
can do it on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, or on the Pacific Coast of South
America, or anywhere else in as good a climate where they can get a
territory of 147,000 square miles, of which 12,500,000 acres can be
irrigated and intensively cultivated.
_Is it not evident that it is the economic potentialities of the Japanese
race that we must meet?_
We can do it in the Colorado River Country. In the main valley below the
mouth of the Colorado Canyon we can maintain a permanent reserve of
5,000,000 men, Homecrofters and gardeners in time of peace, soldiers in
time of war, and all organized, trained, and equipped--instantly ready for
any emergency. All we would have to do to accomplish that, would be to
reclaim and colonize the land, and train the colonists to be Homecrofters,
and then apply the entire Military System of Switzerland or Australia to
this one small tract of five million acres of land in the Colorado River
Valley, with conveniently adjacent territory in Arizona and California in
the drainage basin of the Colorado River.
It would be entirely practicable to do that, because the National
Government would control the School System, and would control the System of
Life of the community and adapt it to the Homecroft Reserve System. Every
one of 5,000,000 Homecrofters could leave his acre without hindrance to any
organized industry and without jeopardizing the welfare of his family. The
objections to a Reserve of Citizen Soldiery in the ordinary communities of
the United States would have no application in these communities that had
been created for the purpose of furnishing soldiers trained when needed in
time of war, as well as to develop the highest type of citizenship in time
of peace.
A start could be made with 100,000 acres; 100,000 gardeners; 100,000
soldiers. The land and water required for that could be located to-morrow
and construction work begun in a month. This number should be increased as
rapidly as the land could be reclaimed and colonized with Homecrofters in
acre homes and the organization of new communities perfected. The Reserve
composed of Homecrofters occupying these acre homes should be known as the
Homecroft Reserve.
If no extension of this proposed Homecroft Reserve System were made into
any other section of the country there would be soldiers enough in the
Colorado River Valley to defend the Mexican Border, the Pacific Coast, and
the Canadian Border from North Dakota to Seattle, at any time when the
necessity arose for such defense.
The establishment of this large Homecroft Reserve in the Colorado River
Valley, fully trained and equipped for military service at a moment's
notice, exactly as the Reserves of Switzerland are trained and equipped,
would be a complete defense against any danger of Japanese invasion, which
can be safeguarded against in no other way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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