Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace

by George Hebard Maxwell

The burden of the Standing Army of less than 100,000 men now maintained by the United States could be very considerably reduced by establishing as large a portion of it as possible in the Homecroft System, were it not for the false ideals as to human values that are apparently so deeply imbedded in the minds of the military caste.

The entire Homecroft Reserve System should be organized as a separate department of the National government like the Forest Service or Reclamation Service, and should be known as the Homecroft Service.

The Homecroft Reserve in Minnesota should be known as the Department of the Reserves of the North; the Reserve in Louisiana as the Department of the Reserves of the South; the Reserve in West Virginia as the Department of the Reserves of the East; the Reserve in the Colorado Valley and Nevada as the Department of the Reserves of the West; and the Reserve in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys in California as the Department of the Reserves of the Pacific.

The Louisiana Reservists would be trained as Homecrofters and sailors; the West Virginia and Minnesota Reservists would be trained as Homecrofters and Foresters; the Colorado River and California Reservists would be trained as Homecrofters and Irrigators—Conquerors of the Desert; the Nevada Reservists would be trained as Homecrofters and Cavalrymen,—the Cossack Cavalry of America,—and all would be good soldiers, as well as the very highest type of good citizens.

Map showing Territorial Divisions and Locations of the Departments of the National Homecroft Reserves. Also showing the Corrected Mexican Boundary Line and Neutral Zone between the United States and Mexico, and the New State of South California.

During the entire two months devoted to the regular annual march, encampment, and field maneuvers, the members of the Homecroft Reserve would be under the military control and direction of the War Department, exactly as they would be in times of actual warfare. During the remaining ten months they would be under the civil jurisdiction of the Homecroft Service.

One of the insuperable obstacles in the way of efficient national defense by State Militia is the impossibility of rapid mobilization, and the practical certainty that in case of actual war none of the States on the coast of the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico would permit their State Militia to be diverted from the protection of their own State. This would leave the great seaboard cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, or cities located near the Atlantic Coast like Baltimore and Washington, without an adequate force for their protection in case of war.

One of the chief reasons for concentrating a million of the Homecroft Reserves in one State would be to facilitate the establishment of a perfect military organization on a large scale as is required by modern warfare; and to avoid delay in mobilization and expense for transportation to annual encampments and field maneuvers. The Homecroft Reserve plan contemplates that there shall be no expenditure for railroad transportation except in the event of actual warfare. The Reserves in California and in the Colorado River Valley would be marched with their full equipment to one great concentration camp in Nevada for their annual encampment and for field maneuvers. The whole military organization, officers, auxiliaries, and military machinery, for an army of two million men would thus be given actual training every year in the complicated work of handling a great army in the field. That would not be possible if they were scattered over the United States from Dan to Beersheba, in little bunches of a company here and another there.