Strategically no fortification can defend Los Angeles from a land attack, due to the topography of the adjacent country, and must capitulate immediately the hills in its vicinity were occupied by an enemy. Fort Rosecrans at Point Loma, San Diego, may be disregarded entirely. It would be ignored by an enemy and must capitulate for the mere reason of its isolation. The control or the destruction of the Santa Fe single line of railroad between Los Angeles and San Diego would clinch the isolation, although its destruction would be unnecessary, as it might be used for the transportation of Japanese allies from the South. Japan's large and fast mercantile fleet will be used for the transportation of troops. It being now possible to land a quarter of a million trained men within a few weeks on the Pacific coast. The first unit of the army, consisting of a hundred thousand men, within four weeks, landing in the State of Washington; the second and third division, landing in rapid succession in Central and Southern California. To mobilize and transport a United States army with its equipment and impedimenta, to repulse any one of these divisions, would take from four to six months. Japan in time alone, is forty per cent nearer to the Pacific Coast that the flower of the United States army and possesses greater facility in placing its military units, in that water transportation is superior to the single track railroads which must be employed by United States troops from the East. It seems incredible that without the least obstruction Japan can place an army corps on the Pacific Coast in a shorter time than it would take to march a third of that force from Los Angeles to the environs of San Francisco. The under-gunned and under-manned fortifications on the Pacific coast (excepting San Francisco) will all be taken by a military assault from the land side and long before any army with adequate equipment from the East can attempt to prevent an occupation, Oregon and Washington, Northern, Central and Southern California will be in possession of the enemy. It will be at this period that the 58,000 (fifty-eight thousand) Japanese now domiciled in Mexico and the 100,000 (one hundred thousand) Japanese of military age now on the Pacific Coast between the Mexican and Canadian frontiers, will attempt to mobilize. This, taken in connection with a warlike condition existing in Mexico, will make the position even more difficult. Where will the 80,000 or 100,000 trained and untrained men constituting the army of defense be sent? To which point? Concentrate them in any one of the Pacific Coast centers of Japanese occupation and the other centers remain undefended. Split the force and it is out-numbered and out-generalled by topography alone. Centralia, Washington, will be the objective point. Debarkation will take place on the open beaches near Grey's Harbor, out of gun range of any fortification. Centralia commands Seattle, Portland, Tacoma and Olympia, with all the fortifications at the mouth of the Columbia river and Puget sound. None of these fortifications will prevent such a landing and today are quite ineffective. Bremerton and the U. S. Navy Yard is less than two days and the rest less than seven days march from Centralia, the Japanese center, with Seattle their left and Portland their right flanks. The military value of the Columbia river and the great inland harbors, the latter accessible through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, will be fully realized by the enemy. The ports protecting these harbors have less combined. artillery power than the Japanese battle ship "Kongo" alone, and under the scheme of investment will never fire a gun for the reason that the whole system of defense of the Pacific Coast is obsolete and poor strategically. Southern California is even in a worse position. Its area covers 75 per cent of desert and mountains. The trend of the mountain chain, the San Rafael, San Gabriel and San Bernardino, is generally Northwesterly and Southeasterly, except the San Jacinto range, which is nearly North and South. These ranges form an Easterly flank some forty miles from the ocean and within its boundaries there exists one of the most fertile territories in the world. The army of occupation will have possession of this territory. To the East, and in the rear of these great natural barriers are the Colorado and Mojave deserts. The Colorado desert is, in places, two hundred and sixty-seven feet below sea level. Sand and salt. The Mojave; silica, alkali and volcanic intrusions, the latter showing their black necks and eroded cores over thousands of square miles. A climate both frigid and torrid; waterless at the surface, a portion of the globe that is dead. It is across this desert that relief must come to Southern California from the East to scale the barren walls of these mountains four. to eight thousand feet high from the desert. This wall has a front over three hundred miles long. The nearest water is over 130 miles to the East in the rear of the re |