Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-11-30
WHAT ROOSEVELT MEANT WHEN
HE SAID HE SAW PLANS OF TWO
/ NATIONS FOR INVADING u. S.
Soundness of His Startling Statement in Trenton Shown
General Won EdeIsheins Br ochure Germans Plan of At
tack and General Homer Lees Revelations About Japan

to the transports in order TO land at
some other place.
at should be pointed out that
Germany Is the only great power
which is capable of battling with the
United States single-handed. Eng
land is strong enough to win on the
sea, but she could not protect Can
ada, where the Americans would
seek compensation for their losses
afioat. OF the other great powers
not one of them possesses a fleet of
transports required for such an over
sea campaign. We stand alone in our
dual strength in the combined forces
of army and navy together with the
merchant fleet of speedy liners for
transport service"
General Wood has recently de-
scribed the peril of such an attack
as Won Edelsheim has outlined. This
country is unprepared in the matter
of a sufficient force of soldiers either
in the regular army or the organized
militia. Yes, we have forts to be
sure. but of these Major General J.
P. Story, U. S. A., has said: THE
sole function of these is to defend
port against direct naval attack.
Against an enemy powerful enough
to land the coast fort has no defen-
siEe FdIuo anu may even prove an
element of weakness" The late
Lieutenant General Adna r. Chaffee,
u. s. A., in his introduction to Homer
LEAFS book, THE Valor of Ignorance"
said:
THE popular belief that the United
States is free of opportunities for
invasion is all 'tommyrot.'
No nation offers more numerous op-
portunities for invasion by foreign
nation than does the United
States whenever cause therefore Is
sufficiently great to induce prepaIa-
lions by any other nation that win
beat aside our resistance on the sea.
Our mobile army is so ridic-
ulously small in the worlds war game
that 1t amounts to nothing better
than a discard"
How the Japanese Would Attack.
General Homer Lea, that unique
soldier of fortune. spent years in the
Orient and had unusual facilities for
finding out many things about the
military purposes of Japan. AS a
patriotic duty, as he conceived 1t, he
revealed some of these facts in his
book, and both General Chaffee and
General Story paid tribute to the
military acumen of the author.
Homer Lea showed how the Japan
ese would attack the Pacific coast.
and here, again, Colonel Roosevelt
probably learned more intimate de-
tails than the author saw fit to pub
lish.
Military problems are determined
by Typographical conditions and by
the number of troops available and
the existing facilities for their trans
port and subsistence. Homer Lea
wrote his book five years ago. Since
hoe ahan0ad In the hII-
man or mechanical phases of our
strength to alter the force of his con-
illusions, and the Typographical cir
cumstances are unaltered. German
influence moulded the armies of
Japan which defeated Russia, and
Captain Won Edelsheim's proposed
oversee campaign does not diner
fundamentally from what Lea tells
us Is the way in which the forces OF
the Mikado might undertake the con-
quest of the Pacific slope. He says:
"a war between Japan and the
United States will be determined not
by naval, but by land battles. Under
the present military system this re-
public, could not mobilize in any one
place field army of $4,000 regular
soldiers in the same period OF time
that Japan could assemble. ready to
take the field, 500 000 veteran troops
For the United States to enlist, equip
and train to the same degree of eff
ficiepcy q similar force would require
no less than three years.
Japan has such complete means OF
ocean transportation that she can
move her vast armies to any portion
of the Pacific with greater ease than
Napoleon moved similar armies from
Paris across the River Elbe or the
Danube. The Japanese gov
eminent possesses sufficient transport
tation facilities to carry in a single
voyage, if necessary, more than
10000 troops"
The armed forces of the United
States in Hawaii viii some day be
5000 men, if all goes well. 1t is far
below this figure today. Now read
what Homer Lea says of these
islands, which, reasonably, would
constitute an advance base for japan
in attacking our Pacific coast:
''While the establishment or an
American naval and military power
in the Pacific or Hawaii has not
been attempted, Japan has prepared
herself in so effective O manner that,
Notwithstanding what the naval
forces of the United States may be
in the future, these islands can be
seized from within and converted
into q Japanese naval and military
base so quickly that they will be
impregnable to the power of this
republic regardless of what it may
be on the mainland"