Does anyone question that the instant war was declared Japan would seize Alaska and the Philippines and the Hawaiian Islands, and cut off all possibility of our navy operating anywhere except close to our few coaling stations on the mainland? If so, they should surely read "The Valor of Ignorance" by Homer Lea, not for the author's opinions, but just to get the cold hard facts which our national heedlessness makes it so difficult to get the people of this country to realize.
In "The Valor of Ignorance" the fact is pointed out with the most specific detail that the number of transports Japan had, when that book was published—1909—was a transport fleet of 95 steamers with a troop capacity of 199,526 as against ten American transports. The author makes this further comment:
"Should Japan embark on these two fleets an average of two Japanese to the space and tonnage ordinarily deemed necessary for one American, then the troop capacity on a single voyage of these fleets would exceed three hundred thousand officers and men together with their equipment and supplies. That this would be easily possible and would work no hardship on the men was demonstrated by the Japanese winter quarters in Manchuria during the Russian War."
Is there anyone so blind as to believe that if such an army of invasion was started from Japan, convoyed by the Japanese navy, that we could find and destroy that entire navy and then find and destroy ninety-five transports before they could land their soldiers on the beaches along the peaceful shores of California, Oregon, and Washington? The greater part of every year they are peaceful shores. That is why the name Pacific was chosen for that great ocean.
The unique feature about this whole subject is that while the American people are utterly indifferent, Japan, in an incredibly short space of time, has equipped herself with everything needful for such an invasion,—Navy, Transports, and Soldiers, probably the most perfectly organized army in the world.
That is the situation of California from the side of the Pacific Ocean. What is it from the land side?
If Japan contemplated an invasion of our territory, how many are there who realize that just five dynamite bombs exploded in the right places would block a tunnel on every one of the railroads leading into the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley?
The California and Oregon from the north.
The Southern Pacific from the south.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Central Pacific and the Western Pacific from the east.