Map showing Routes of Railway Transportation to Concentration Centers for Troops of the Reserves for the defense of the North Pacific Coast and Northern Boundary of the United States: 1, Albany; 2, Chehalis; 3, Spokane; 4, Havre; 5, Williston.
proximity when at home in the Colorado Valley, to any point where they might be needed along the Mexican border or in Southern California, emphasizes the advantages of the Colorado River Valley as a location for the first great Homecroft Reserve force of 1,000,000 men, supplemented by another force of an equal number of men in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys in California. Once that was done, the question of the defense of the Pacific Coast would be settled for all time, so long as this Homecroft Reserve force was maintained and kept always in readiness for immediate service.
CHAPTER XI
The most dangerous aspect of the awakening of the people of the United States to a realization of their unpreparedness for war, and the appalling national disasters that might ensue from it, is the danger of creating a military caste which would gradually absorb to itself an undue control of Governmental authority and power, leading in the end to a military despotism.
Already the danger of this is seen in the assumption of the arbitrary power over inland waterway development now exercised by the corps of Army engineers and the Board of Army engineers, and the strong opposition emanating from them against the adoption of any improved system of river control that would protect the people from such appalling disasters as those which overtook the Mississippi Valley in 1912 and again in 1913.