Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 160, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1911 — FOND OF ELECTIONS. [ARTICLE]

FOND OF ELECTIONS.

In Switzerland They Select Evon Gravediggers by Ballot. According to Professor F. F. Roget of Geneva, the Swiss have the greatest political intelligence in the world today. "Every citizen of a canton is a Swiss citizen.” says Professor Roget “One must become < member of some local commune to become naturalised > and in order to do so must be accepted by the local communal council. , , •‘Every male Swiss citizen is an elector from the age of twenty, there being no property qualification. Every Swiss is a soldier and every soldier an elector. The federal elector may vote wherever he may happen to be. guarantees being taken that be votes only once. "The cantons are the political units, and no elector may exercise political rights in more than one canton. On moving from one locality to another the Swiss must wait three months before be may exercise the franchise in his new neighborhood.” Professor Roget deciares that “every collective authority in Switzerland is elected. “The foreigner,” be states, “is often surprised to see in a Swiss newspaper on a Monday the results of all kinds of elections on the Sunday. If he bad gone Into a polling booth on the Sunday be would have found in this corner a clerk at a desk, at which the elector would voteifor the local schoolmaster. “In another corner would be a desk at which he would vote for the local judge, in another part of the same room be would vote for the local gravedigger. and so on through a whole series of officials, all of whom are popularly elected. “The result of this training Is that the political intelligence of the Swiss is extremely developed, and that he thoroughly understands what he Is voting about at home in his native country, and that when fie goes abroad he finds it very easy to understand and to take part Id any political movements among which he may find himself.”— Exchange.