Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1917 — First to Adopt Conscription. [ARTICLE]

First to Adopt Conscription.

Switzerland was the first European country to adopt universal military service. The original founders of the Swiss confederation enacted that whoever shirked military training was declared “devoid of honor and perjured,” and his house was vowed to destruction. Should a man summoned to .take part in a military expedition prove unable to respond, owing to illness or some other valid reason, he had to furnish a capable substitute at his own expense. From the earliest days of the confederation, too, the military authorities made special provisions for tending the wounded.