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rolled into the square and served a
hot breakfast The men stood in
their places, each with his rifle and
accoutrements neatly piled at his
feet. -.
Then the officer in command gave
some order, I don't know what, and
the lines straightened up and there
was some kind of a wonderfully rigid
inspection. ' Then there were some
more orders and the companies
marched away down the street, fine,
stalwart, upstanding men, both rug
ged and intelligent.
As they passed, two faces in one of
the companies suddenly struck me as
familiar. I looked again and saw
that marching in the ranks as a pri
vate was the proprietor of the hotel
where I lived, and in. front of him
strode as his commanding officer,
lieutenant or captain or something,
his head waiter.
Of course I laughed at this; it
seemed funny. But I found the Swiss
didn't laugh at it They found it
perfectly right and in accordance
with their customs and ideas. All
about Switzerland you can find such
things, and more than one proprietor
of a store or factory has marched
under the orders of one of his clerks.
In Switzerland every man (unless
he is physically or mentally disquali
fied) is a member of the Swiss army.
Advancement and a career in that
army are open to anyone that will
undertake the necessary studies, and
I remember that once the highest
ranking officer in that army was a
hotel keeper of Luzerne. He was
an extremely able man, too, and the
maneuvers under his directions
called forth unstinted praise from all
beholders.
So this illustrates the second great
point In Switzerland there is uni
versal military training, but anything
like -a military caste or an officer class
is impossible because military train
ing is carried on simultaneously-with
civil careers and does not interfere
with them. A man may be a first
Class and "highly successful lawyer, i
1 journalist, engineer, business man or
what you will and at the same time
be a skilled soldier of developed train
ing and able to serve his country at
any time in a place of high command.
There is a small body of permanent
officers, about 200 all told, maintain- .
ed at instructors, whose business is W
to study and teach modern military
science. These learned men get
every wrinkle in the business as fast
as it shows up anywhere, testit, adopt
it if good, throw it away if bad, and
carefully teach the selected residue
to the soldiers under their care.
Which, as you will see, is another
good point It keeps the Swiss army
up to date, but avoids unprofitable
expense, cumbersome establishments
and the unspeakable black curse of.
militarism as it is known in mon
archical countries and to the preju
dices of the American people. But
this is different
The total expense of the Swiss
army in times of peace is $7,000,000
a year.
Each American soldier costs the
American government 28 times as
much as each Swiss soWier costs the
Swiss government
If we had the Swiss system we
should have an army of 10,000,000
trained men, and it would not cost us
very much more than our present
army ot as.uuu men.
But about that incident at Mon
treaux. They marched out that morn
ing for their two weeks of field train
ing. I was there when they came
back. They went to their homes, de
posited their rifles, knapsacks, uni- a
forms and the rest, donned citizen's
attire and took up again their usual
work, the blacksmiths, clerks, plas
terers, mill hands, proprietors and
the rest Our hotel keeper beamed
again in his accustomed place, the
headwaiter affably commanded the
dining room as before. Everything
was the same except that each had a
larger share of health, a new sense
of democracy and a faith renewed to
serve the country they loved.
