Part 19 (2/2)

In addition to the cultivation of their Homecrofts for food from the ground, the Homecrofters enlisted in the Louisiana Homecroft Reserve would be afforded abundant occupation in catching or producing sea-food for themselves as well as for export. Anyone not familiar with the country can form no adequate conception of the stupendous possibilities of this bayou and Gulf coast country along this line of production and development.

More than this, the luggermen of the bayous and the Gulf are the best coast-wise and shallow sea sailors in the world, and the bays and bayous of Louisiana, if inhabited by a dense population, would once again breed a race of seafaring people--sailors and fishermen--to man our navy or merchant marine.

The complete adoption of the plan advocated for the reclamation and settlement of these swamp and overflowed lands, and the establishment there of a perpetual reserve available for military service whenever needed of a million seasoned and hardened citizen soldiers, involves doing nothing that has not already been done by other nations of the world.

Holland has built dikes as defenses against the inroads of the ocean greater even than those proposed in Louisiana, and the plans of Holland for reclaiming for agriculture vast areas of land now buried beneath the waters of the Zuyder Zee are much bolder in conception and more difficult of accomplishment.

Australia and New Zealand have both demonstrated the practicability and proved the success of a national policy of land acquisition and colonization. What Australia has done in the reclamation and settlement of her deserts, we can do not only on our deserts but also in our swamps.

Switzerland and Australia have both proved the practicability of a military system similar to that which it is proposed to establish for the defense of the Gulf Gateway of this nation. The plan urged for Louisiana would in many respects be an improvement upon a plan which made it necessary to call men from commercial or industrial employment for military service.

CHAPTER XII

_The result of the adoption of the Homecroft Reserve System would be that this generation would bequeath to future generations a country freed forever from the menace of militarism or military despotism, and also freed from the burdens of military and naval establishments. At the same time, the United States would be safeguarded against internal dangers and made impregnable against attack or invasion by any foreign power. Every patriotic citizen of the United States should have that thought graven on his mind. No other plan can be devised that will accomplish those results._

The reasons why they will be accomplished by the Homecroft Reserve System may be briefly summarized.

From the standpoint of national defense, and regarding war as a possibility, the following are the advantages of the system:

_First:_ The maintenance of a Homecroft Reserve of 5,000,000 trained soldiers would ultimately cost the government nothing. The entire investment required for the establishment of the Reserve would be repaid with interest by the revenues from the Homecroft rentals, and ultimately a revenue of $300,000,000 would be annually returned to the national government in excess of the entire expense of the maintenance of the Reserves.

_Second:_ There would be no burden of a pension roll as the result of actual service by the Homecroft Reservists in the event of war. The Life Insurance System embodied in the general plan for a Homecroft Reserve would be subst.i.tuted for a pension system.

_Third:_ Every requirement of necessary military training for actual service in the field would be provided. Each Department of the Homecroft Reserve, embracing a million men, would be concentrated and fully organized, with annual field maneuvers.

_Fourth:_ The whole body of the Homecroft Reserve would be men physically hardened and trained to every duty required of a soldier in actual warfare. They would be inured to long marches and to every hards.h.i.+p of a campaign in the field. They would at all times be mobilized and ready for instant service.

_Fifth:_ The whole 5,000,000 men in the Homecroft Reserve could be sent into active service without calling a man from any industry or commercial employment where he might be needed. The United States could put an army of five million men in the field at a moment's notice, without the slightest interference with commerce, manufacturing, or any branch of industry.

_Sixth:_ No length of actual field service would impose any hards.h.i.+p or privation on the families of any of the Homecroft Reservists. Each family would continue to occupy and get its living from the Homecroft during the absence of the soldier of the family. The routine of the family and community life would continue undisturbed.

For the first fifty year period the cost of maintaining our present standing army of less than _100,000_ men will be _five billion dollars_.

_During that same period_ the revenues from the Homecroft Reserve rentals would repay the entire investment required for the establishment and maintenance of the Reserve, and the ultimate cost to the government of the maintenance for fifty years of a reserve of _five million men_ would be _nothing_.

For the second fifty year period, the net revenues from the Homecroft Reserve rentals, over and above the entire cost of the maintenance of the Reserve, would be fifteen billion dollars,--$300,000,000 a year every year for fifty years,--more than enough to cover the entire expense of our standing Army and Navy, as at present maintained.

In other words, the profit to the government from establis.h.i.+ng a Military Reserve which would be at the same time a great _Educational Inst.i.tution_ for training Citizens as well as Soldiers, and a Peace Establishment for Food Production, would be large enough to cover the entire cost of the nation's regular Military and Naval Establishments. For all time thereafter, the country would be relieved from the heavy financial burdens of maintaining them. The revenues that the regular Military and Naval Establishments will otherwise absorb could be diverted to building internal improvements, highways, waterways, railways, reclaiming lands, safeguarding against floods, preventing forest fires, planting forests, and supporting a great national educational system that would make the Homecroft Slogan the heritage of every child born to citizens.h.i.+p in the United States of America:

_Every child in a Garden, Every mother in a Homecroft, and Individual Industrial Independence For every worker in a Home of his own on the Land._

From the standpoint of peace, if there should never be another war, and as a means of national defense against the dangers that menace the country from within--civil conflict, cla.s.s conflict, social upheaval, racial deterioration, and a degenerated citizens.h.i.+p--the advantages of the Homecroft Reserve System may be epitomized as follows:

_First:_ Every Homecroft Reserve Rural Settlement of 100,000 acres--100,000 Reservists--100,000 families, created by the national government, will be a model for an industrial community which will demonstrate that the cure for city congestion is the Homecroft Life in the suburbs or in nearby Homecroft Villages.

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