Our National Defense: The Patriotism of Peace Part 18

What it would mean to get an army across the mountains into the great central valley of California cannot be appreciated by anyone who is unfamiliar with the stupendous canyons and chasms and the towering peaks of the Siskiyou and Sierra Nevada Mountains. Those who toiled over them with the Donner party could have told the tale to those who calculate on scaling those mountains with an army in the face of j.a.panese batteries defending every pa.s.s. It would be a task greater than the capture of Port Arthur to capture one pa.s.s and get it away from the j.a.panese after we had got into motion and started in with the job of reconquering California.

The difficulty of getting an American army into Southern California after the j.a.panese had once occupied it, is described by Homer Lea in "The Valor of Ignorance" in the following warning words:

"Entrance into southern California is gained by three pa.s.ses--the San Jacinto, Cajon and Saugus, while access to the San Joaquin Valley and central California is by the Tehachapi. It is in control of these pa.s.ses that determines j.a.panese supremacy on the southern flank of the Pacific coast, and it is in their adaptability to defence that determines the true strategic value of southern California to the j.a.panese.

"Los Angeles forms the main centre of these three pa.s.ses, and lies within three hours by rail of each of them, while San Bernardino, forming the immediate base of forces defending Cajon and San Jacinto pa.s.ses, is within one hour by rail of both pa.s.ses.

"The mountain-chains encompa.s.sing the inhabited regions of southern California might be compared to a great wall thousands of feet in height, within whose enclosures are those fertile regions which have made the name of this state synonymous with all that is abundant in nature. These mountains, rugged and inaccessible to armies from the desert side, form an impregnable barrier except by the three gateways mentioned.

"Standing upon Mt. San Gorgonio or San Antonio one can look westward and southward down upon an endless succession of cultivated fields, towns and hamlets, orchards, vineyards and orange groves; upon wealth amounting to hundreds of millions; upon as fair and luxuriant a region as is ever given man to contemplate; a region wherein shall be based the j.a.panese forces defending these pa.s.ses. To the north and east across the top of this mountain-wall are forests, innumerable streams, and abundance of forage. But suddenly at the outward rim all vegetation ceases; there is a drop--the desert begins.

"The Mojave is not a desert in the ordinary sense of the word, but a region with all the characteristics of other lands, only here Nature is dead or in the last struggle against death. Its hills are volcanic scoria and cinders, its plains bleak with red dust; its meadows covered with a desiccated and seared vegetation; its springs, sweet with a.r.s.enic, are rimmed, not by verdure, but with the bones of beast and man. Its gaunt forests of yucca bristle and twist in its winds and brazen gloom. Its mountains, abrupt and bare as sun-dried skulls, are broken with canons that are furnaces and gorges that are catacombs. Man has taken cognizance of this deadness in his nomenclature.

There are Coffin Mountains, Funeral Ranges, Death Valleys, Dead Men's Canons, dead beds of lava, dead lakes, and dead seas. All here is dead. This is the ossuary of Nature; yet American armies must traverse it and be based upon it whenever they undertake to regain southern California. To attack these fortified places from the desert side is a military undertaking pregnant with greater difficulties than any ever attempted in all the wars of the world."

Now after so easily taking California away from us because we stolidly refused, like the English people, to heed repeated warnings, what would the j.a.panese do? Southern California they would simply occupy with a military force and continue to occupy it. Its irrigable lands in the coast basin are already all reclaimed and densely populated.

_The Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys would be the paradise that they would develop into a new j.a.pan._

Already we have shown how they could duplicate the 12,500,000 acres of irrigated and cultivated land in j.a.pan in the drainage Basin of the Colorado River.

They could do it again in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys in California. There are 12,500,000 acres of the richest land in the world in those valleys and within two years after they had taken possession of it they would have several million j.a.panese reclaiming and cultivating it.

They would bring their people over as fast as all the steamers of j.a.pan could carry them. And long before we had got real good and ready to reconquer California they would have peopled its great central valley with a dense j.a.panese population who would fight us, the original owners of the country, to defend their homes from invasion.

_What should the United States do to prevent all this?_

It should _immediately_, with just the same energy and expedition that it would act if an invading Armada had actually sailed from j.a.pan, buy 100,000 acres of land in the San Joaquin Valley that can be irrigated from the Calaveras River and from the Calaveras Reservoir if it were built. It should subdivide that tract into one acre Homecrofts and put 100,000 Homecroft Reservists on it. It should go to work and build, right now and without any dilly-dallying or delay, the Calaveras Reservoir. Those 100,000 Homecroft Reservists should be set to work to build the Calaveras Reservoir and the irrigation system necessary to irrigate that particular Homecroft Reserve tract, and all the works necessary to protect the entire delta of the San Joaquin River from overflow and protect the channel of the river and broaden it below Stockton--"open the neck of the bottle" as they say in that locality.

The government should go over onto the west side of the Sacramento Valley and buy another 100,000 acres, and subdivide it into one acre Homecrofts and enlist another corps of 100,000 Homecroft Reservists and put them on that land. Then it should set them to work to build a great wasteway, to temporarily carry off the flood waters of the Sacramento River--one that will not split the Sacramento River but that will safeguard Sacramento from that catastrophe. That work should be continued until it is finished.

Another 100,000 acres in the neighborhood of Fresno should be likewise bought and another 100,000 Homecroft Reservists enlisted and located on it.

They should be set to work to open a navigable waterway to Fresno and dig a great drainage ca.n.a.l that would also be a navigable ca.n.a.l, from Suisun Bay to Tulare Lake.

Another 100,000 acres in the upper end of the west side of the Sacramento Valley should be acquired and settled with 100,000 Homecrofters who would work on the construction of the Iron Canyon Reservoir and other reservoirs on the Sacramento River and its tributaries, and on a great main line West Side Ca.n.a.l from the Sacramento River to the Straits of Carquinez.

Another 100,000 acres on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley should be acquired and settled with 100,000 Homecrofters who would work on the construction of the lower section of the West Side Ca.n.a.l from the Straits of Carquinez to the lower end of the San Joaquin Valley.

The government should not stop there. It should, as soon as the necessary legislative machinery can be evolved, go into the extreme southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and acquire 500,000 acres of land for a Homecroft Reserve of 500,000 families. It should build the works necessary to bring the water to irrigate this land from the Sacramento River by the great main-line ca.n.a.l from the river to the straits of Carquinez. Those straits should be crossed on a viaduct and the ca.n.a.l carried on down the west side of the valley, starting at an elevation high enough to cover the land to be irrigated in the lower valley. The increased value of the million acres would cover the entire cost of the works. Additional revenue could be earned by the furnishing of water to other lands under the ca.n.a.l in the Sacramento and also in the San Joaquin Valley.

The cooperation of the State of California would be gladly extended and complete plans carried out for the reclamation of the San Joaquin Valley by a great ca.n.a.l on the east side of the valley heading in the Sacramento River near Redding, or at the Iron Canyon, and extending to the extreme southern end of the valley, as recommended by the Commission appointed by General Grant when President of the United States. That Commission was composed of General Alexander, Colonel Mendel, and Professor Davidson, three of the most eminent engineers and scientists of those days.

An aggregate area of 12,500,000 acres would, as the result of this policy, be reclaimed and settled in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Having created a dense population ourselves in that country there would be no unoccupied land to tempt the j.a.panese. And with 1,000,000 Homecroft Reservists ready at any time to meet and repel an invasion, our occupancy of the country would be a.s.sured forever.

There would not be room left for many j.a.panese immigrants, and if some of them did come they would be in such a hopeless minority that no danger would result from their being here. No condition could then be imagined in the future that would create a possibility of j.a.pan, even with all the countless millions of China combined with her, being able to land on the Pacific Coast an army large enough to stand a moment against a Homecroft Reserve of a million soldiers from the Colorado River Valley and another million from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.

Whether it would be advisable to establish other Homecroft Reserves in Oregon and Washington would depend largely on the att.i.tude of mind of the people of those States. If a few connecting railroad lines were built, troops could be transported by railroads running north across Southern California and Nevada to a connection with the railroads running down the Columbia River to Portland. These railroads would all be east of the mountains until they connected with the Columbia River Railroad and would be free from danger of being destroyed by the blowing up of tunnels.

Of course it is a remote contingency that such a thing should ever become necessary, but if it ever did, the Canadian border could be defended with troops brought north through Nevada and Utah from the Colorado River Valley to great concentration camps at Chehalis and Spokane, in Washington, Havre in Montana, and Williston in North Dakota. As a matter of military precaution, the necessary connecting links should be built as military railroads, if nothing else,--such links as from Yuma to Cadiz, Pioche to Ely, Tonopah to Austin, Indian Springs to Eureka, and from Battle Mountain or Winnemucca as well as from Cobre on the Central Pacific line north to a connection with the Oregon Short Line. The ease with which these connections could be made, and the facility, in that event, with which troops from the Colorado River Valley could be transported to any point in North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, or Oregon, as well as their

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sumption 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._

It is a fact capable of absolute demonstration that a large portion of the damage resulting from those floods was due to the stubborn refusal of the Army engineers to approve or adopt any plan for flood control that would supplement the levee system by source stream control of the floods on the upper tributaries, and by controlled outlets and spillways and auxiliary flood water channels in the lower valley. It is very doubtful whether the people of the delta of the Mississippi River will ever succeed in getting protection against the recurrence of devastating floods until this baleful influence of the Army engineers can be eliminated.

There are several reasons why this military control of inland waterways is detrimental to the country. The military caste in the United States has developed remarkable capacity for turning to their own advantage the influence which their control over appropriations for river and harbor improvements has centered in them. The Army engineers are wedded to the present piecemeal system of appropriations, popularly known as the "Pork Barrel" System. The reason for this is that it practically vests in them the autocratic authority to determine whether the demands of the const.i.tuents of any Senator or Congressman for some local river or harbor improvement shall or shall not be granted. The representatives of the people, whether they be Congressmen or Senators, must humbly bow to a higher power and secure its gracious grant of consent or face the disappointment of their const.i.tuents. It ought not to be difficult for anyone with common sense, and with the most superficial knowledge of the manipulation of social and political influences in shaping legislation to understand the evils of this system, or the influence exerted through it by the military caste which is adverse to the best interest of the people at large.

The "Pork Barrel" System, with its piecemeal appropriations for local improvements, without any underlying comprehensive plan, as long as it prevails, will block the way to all efficient waterway development, or protection from periodical damage by devastating floods. And it will never be changed until popular indignation and protest breaks the stranglehold that the military caste now has upon this cla.s.s of legislation in Congress.

Their att.i.tude in this whole field of public development is in humiliating contrast with that of the Samurai of j.a.pan when the whole system of government of that nation was reconstructed and reorganized. The Samurai, actuated by a patriotic and self-sacrificing desire to promote the general welfare, surrendered entirely the privileges and prerogatives that they held as a military cla.s.s, and accepted a system which took from them all power and submerged them in the ma.s.s of the people.

The military caste of this country apparently think only of their own aggrandizement, and persistently oppose any modifications of an evil system which would in the slightest degree involve a surrender of their autocratic authority or official prestige and power for the general welfare.

In this stupendous field of national development, where immediate progress is so vital to the people of the entire country, the stubborn opposition of the military caste is the most serious obstacle in the way of a complete coordination of all the departments of the government in the solution of the whole problem of river regulation and flood control and the upbuilding of a great inland waterway system.

Aside from that, there is an additional reason why the present system can never be relied upon for a complete solution of the problem of river regulation. This further difficulty lies in the system under which the military caste is organized. The military system which prevails in all matters administered through the Army, strangles all individual initiative and opinion. It automatically subordinates every engineer in the military service to the mental and personal domination of the chief of the Army engineers, whoever he may be. All original and creative engineering genius is muzzled or chloroformed as soon as it is born. If by any Caesarian operation it chances to come into being it is promptly strangled.

Another incurable defect in the military system when applied to civil construction and internal development of the resources of the country, lies in the transfer of engineers from one a.s.signment of duty to another after brief periods of service. This plan is no doubt advisable and possibly necessary in the military service. Its tendency is to bring all Army engineers up to a common general level of ability and experience. It destroys the peculiar originality and genius which can only result from long experience and training in one of the many special fields for which engineers must be developed in civil life.

This Army system might not work so badly if applied only to harbors and harbor improvement work, but it destroys efficiency when applied to such problems as those presented by a great river system like the Mississippi River and its tributaries. An army engineer in charge of the Lower Mississippi River district may have learned something of that problem, but by the time he has learned it he is transferred to some other part of the country and given a different problem to study. Another engineer is put in his place, and by the time he in his turn has partially familiarized himself with the problem he is likewise transferred. And so it goes on, ignorance succeeds ignorance as fast as knowledge can be obtained.

A martinet at the head of the Army Engineering corps can stifle and render useless to the country the most brilliant engineering genius if it blossoms forth with any new theory or original suggestion. The Army engineer corps is bound hand and foot by prejudice and pride of caste. The engineering corps is a unit, arbitrarily dominated, intellectually and professionally, by the chief of the corps. Nothing original can develop under such an atmosphere of mental repression. The best engineering talent in the world is suppressed and rendered valueless by that system of organization. It can never solve the intricate and novel hydraulic problems presented by the Mississippi River which, with all its tributaries, must be treated as a unit in order to control its floods.

The people of the lower Mississippi Valley have for years endeavored to secure the construction of controlled outlets and spillways, but their most urgent efforts have fallen dead at the door of the Army engineers or their a.s.sociates or subordinates. The contractors profit financially by the "Levees Only" system. The politicians share the power developed by the local political machines which control the huge expenditures for levee construction and maintenance. Both are ardent advocates and devotees of the military caste system which perpetuates their powers, privileges, and perquisites. The rest of the people, wherever they dare to entertain an independent opinion, recognize that the Mississippi Valley can never be rightly developed so long as the present "Levees Only" system continues to prevail.

An engineering service composed entirely of engineers in civil life should be created to take over all the work relating to river regulation, flood control, and inland waterway construction, operation, and maintenance. The opposition to such a system for the administration of civil affairs by civil officials, instead of by the Army, has been based upon the plea that n.o.body but army officers can be trusted to be honest in the expenditure of the funds of the national government. Such an opposition is an insult to the civil engineering profession of the United States and is completely refuted by the splendid constructive accomplishments of the United States Reclamation Service. No one questions the personal honesty of the Army engineers, but their methods are enormously wasteful and without results anywhere near commensurate to the amount of their expenditures. The system championed and supported by them has resulted in the waste of about $200,000,000. That vast sum, if it had been wisely and economically expended, would have gone a long way towards creating conditions on our river systems in which the water that now runs to waste in devastating floods would have been put into the river at the low water season to float boats on that would carry our inland commerce.

There never can be any escape from this carnival of waste and extravagance and impotent and useless expenditure until the whole system of river control and improvement is changed. Control of it must be taken away from the Army and vested in civil control. Another reason for divorcing the Army entirely from control of river work is that it seems impossible for an Army engineer to recognize or reason back to original causes. He can see in a flood only something against which he must build a fortification after the flood has been formed. This is well ill.u.s.trated by the blind adherence of the Army engineers, or at least of their chiefs, to the delusion that floods of the lower Mississippi Valley can be safeguarded against by the "Levees Only" system of flood protection in that valley. They utterly ignore the cause of the floods and therefore refuse to consider any system of source stream control or of controlled outlets, spillways, and wasteways.

Another ill.u.s.tration of this persistent adherence to mere local protection, instead of safeguarding against an original cause, is furnished by the work of the Army engineers in building the Stockton cut-off ca.n.a.l in California.

This ca.n.a.l was built ostensibly to prevent the Stockton channel from being filled with sediment to the detriment of navigation. In fact it was built to protect the city of Stockton from overflow and flood damage.

The first big flood that came filled up the cut-off ca.n.a.l and it is now useless. It would be clearly unavailing to reexcavate it, because it would fill up again with the next big flood. The sediment which filled the ca.n.a.l was gathered by the river after it left the foothills and tore its way as a raging torrent through farms and fertile fields. It washed or caved them into the river and carried down and deposited the earth material in the cut-off ca.n.a.l.

The Army engineers, however, or at least their chiefs, had steadfastly set their faces against reservoir construction for flood control. But for this they might have built the great Calaveras Reservoir which would have afforded complete protection for the city of Stockton against floods. By controlling the flood at its source, storing the flood waters, and letting them into the river below only in a volume not larger than the channel would carry, all damage to the valley and to farms lying between the foothills and the city of Stockton would have been avoided. No sediment would have been carried into the Stockton channel to impede navigation. The surplus flood water instead of running to waste would have been conserved and held back until needed for beneficial use.

Any such plan as this would have been contrary to all the precedents and theories of the military engineers. All the damages resulting from failure to adopt it merely ill.u.s.trate the necessity of escaping from those precedents and theories, and the pride of opinion which clings to them with such desperate tenacity. That escape must be accomplished, if we are ever to get river regulation and flood protection in this country. Stockton will never get it until the Calaveras Reservoir has been built, and no flood-menaced section of the country will get protection until it is afforded to it by engineering and constructive forces dominated by the civil and not by the military authority of the Government.

The whole training of an Army engineer is wrong, when it comes to dealing with river problems and the control of floods which can only be safeguarded against by controlling the remote causes which result in the formation of the flood. The idea of preventing the formation of floods by controlling those original causes, preserving forest and woodland cover, preserving the porosity of the soil, slowing up the run-off from the watershed, or holding back the flood waters in reservoirs or storage basins, seems to be beyond the scope of the powers of conception and construction of the military engineers of the United States Army. They see only results, and seem unable to comprehend original causes. Not only this, but they also oppose, by all the political arts in which the Army engineers are so well versed, every proposition to coordinate the work of the Army engineers in the field of channel work and local flood defense, with the work of other departments of the national government. Every department of the national government must be coordinated which deals with water control, or with any beneficial use of water that would check rapid run off and hold back the flood water on the watershed where it originated, and in that way prevent the formation of a destructive flood.