Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1916 — State Troops Can’t Be Sent Over Border, Is Official Opinion. [ARTICLE]

State Troops Can’t Be Sent Over Border, Is Official Opinion.

Washington, July 29.—Mooted questions about the status of state troops called into the federal service for the Mexican emergency are decided in an exhaustive opinion given Secretary Baker today by Brig. Gen. Crowder, judge advocate general of the army. Gen. Crowder holds that the state soldiers are not subject t< duty outside of the United States unless they are formally drafted by order of the President; that they aie under control of the federal govern nient and not of their respective state governors, and that they are entitled to the same pensions and privileges as regulars. While congress by joint resolu tfon has conferred# upon the Presi dent authority to draft the militia and national guard, the general points out that the President has no! exercised that authority. In the meantime, he says, the status of the state troops “is that of militia called into the service of the United States for one of the purposes specified in the constitution, that is, to protect the United States from invasion.”