It may be argued that a million men instantly liable for military service to defend our Mexican border or defend Southern California against possible invasion is more than would be needed. Right there lies the incontestable assurance of Peace. Neither Japan nor any other nation would ever seriously consider undertaking to land an army anywhere on the shores of the Gulf of California or the Pacific Ocean for attack upon any section of the United States if a million soldiers stood ready to step to the colors and shoulder their guns and military equipment and give their services wherever needed to repel such an invasion.
Every man living under this Swiss-Australian Homecroft System of military service would be hardened and seasoned for the duties of that service. The activities of his life and the digging of his living from the ground would render him fit at all times for the heavy duties of soldiering. Not only would he be hardened to labor, but he would be inured to the trying climate of the Southwest, a climate so hot that people unaccustomed to it would melt in their tracks if they undertook any active physical labor under its blistering sun. Those who live in the climate, however, become readily acclimated to it, and are as satisfied with and loyal to the country as it is possible for human beings to be to the land of their home.
The plan of setting apart and developing this particular section of the country as a source of supply and place for the maintenance of an adequate citizen soldiery, would be strengthened by certain enlargements of the plan that would be entirely practicable from every point of view.
The period of the year when the men could best be spared from their homes for an interval of military training would be in the winter time. It would be found advisable, in training the men of the Colorado River Valley for military service, to move them once each year under military discipline to an encampment for field maneuvers at some point in Nevada far enough to the North to bring them within range of the cold winter climate to be found in many of the valleys of Nevada. The best possible training these men could have would be to march them with a full military equipment from the Colorado River Valley to this winter training ground, and then march them back again to their homes, once every year. That would be physical service that would qualify them for the hardest kind of long distance marching that they might be called upon to do in any event of actual warfare.