The "vital area" of the country, so called, is the coast territory between Portland, Maine, and Washington, District of Columbia, and resting east of the sharp ridges of the Alleghenies. Here is a great part of the wealth, the population, and the banking of the United States. Fortunately, however, this is the district best supplied with efficient railroads, double-tracked, triple-tracked, quadruple-tracked. And a reference to the map will quickly show that these lines are particularly well adapted to coast defense. From the extreme northeastern tip of Maine down to Key West and around the white and curving shore of the Gulf to Brownsville and the mouth of the Rio Grande there is hardly a strategical point that is not well served by existing railroads. North of Boston, the Boston and Maine and the Maine Central systems run, not alone parallel to the coast, but by means of a network of other lines intersecting their coast lines, are prepared to serve them from the inland country every few miles. The importance of this last fact comes to mind when one realizes the possibility of an invading force eluding our naval patrols and cutting our coast line railroads. With a network of adequate line behind the one actually closest to the shore, important communication would not be interrupted for any considerable time. Boston is linked with New York by three distinct routes of the New Haven system; with Chicago by the Boston and Albany, in practical effect a branch stem of the New York Central system. Nor are these three stems the only protection that the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad extends to New England. The exposed and bended arm of Cape Cod is a weak point in the nation's "vital area." The New Haven holds and controls the one-time Old Colony Railroad which reaches the old whaling ports of Plymouth, New Bedford, and Provincetown--a railroad which might at any time become of vast strategic importance and which should be at once double-tracked, by the Federal government, if necessary, for the same reason that Germany double-tracked her lines leading to her French and Belgian border. And only second in importance to the Old Colony in case of an attempted invasion from across the Atlantic is the Long Island Railroad, stretching straight out of the city of New York to the very tip of the island. Between the Rockaways and Montauk there are many points on the south edge of Long Island that offer possibilities to landing parties. And it is essential that the railroad that serves this peculiarly barren bit of coast within two hours' rail run of the largest city upon the American continent be prepared to serve it well in the case of military necessity. Fortunately the Long Island Railroad has been vastly improved--its double-track increased--within the past ten years. It is no longer barred by the East River from actual track connections with the other railroads of the country. The great Pennsylvania tunnels already