Valdez daily prospector., 1916-05-15
HOW IT WOULD BE IF THE
 U. $. HAD CONSCRIPEION

U. $. HAD CONSCRIPEION
 Berne, May 15..A little blue book, MT. American, with your name and your photograph and score of facts about your life written in it, which you would carry in your pocket all the time, would be the token of the upheavel in Amercan life which would he caused by the introduction of the Swiss military system, in its entirety, in the United States.
 Here's my book" said Luigi Cor,i a storekeeper of Chiasso, who used to live in Texas.
 Every Swiss must carry his book with him. When l go to the bank I take it. When I go to strange Swiss city am asked for it. show it when I register at the hotel, when l draw money, when I send telegram. My book shows how much military ser vice I've done. If I neglected my duty my book will show it,
 Do you think Americans would like to have to carry book like that?"
 Not the kind of Americans used to know in Texas twenty years ago. Americans don't like the government to interfere with them" said Luigi.
 Luigi was in the American army during the Spanish-American war
 This little book" he explained, ''is isued by the federal government. Down in Texas folks get along al right with the moyar and the police men and the sheriff, but the minute you said United States Marshall they pricked up their ears. ., American folks don't like to be governed by Washington" Luigi Corti had his Texas folks right. He had lot of other Ameri- cans right, too. This little blue book would mean that you were tabbed and listed by the federal government.
 Some years ago this would have SOuuuSu llAoh IL does today, because in reality you are now tabbed and listed on the federal income rolls. But this little book of military service and citizenship would keep you in your niche, right under the eye of the federal military author ities, all the time.
 lnf< to live fr land you would be forced to have your military book vised by the mili- tary authorities.
 A centralized government would have its grip on you. Even the Swiss after eighteen months of war, are becoming restless under the central military control of Berne. In peace times the local com mander is an officer chosen by the soldiers in the local troop; he is al ways a man from the neighborhood. But during the war high officers from Berne have gone to the various corners of Switzerland to take con- trol and the independent Swiss citi- zens don't like it. Not any more than Americans in California would like to have an army officer from Washing ton come and rule their lives and ac- tions. There have been half a dozen parliamentary quarrels in the Swiss congress within the past four months ouor thfo m offor
 The little blue book, issued by the state government, wouldn't be an in- convenience. Americans in every dis trict, to judge by tn experience of the Swiss, would want to eject their own officers and be under the control of their own state government. Any Swiss can tell you that to sub init to any other arrangement is to upset the fundamental ideas on which both the United States and the Swiss federation were founded.
 Military men in Switzerland want federal control.
 The citizens want canton or state control. And when they don't have it they raise row that serves to ease up the federal pressure on them.