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In the face of foreign threats
In 1915 Europe was in the throes of World War I and German U-boats were sinking cargo and passenger ships throughout the Atlantic, indiscriminately killing American civilians on the high seas. The sinking of the Lusitania in May, in which 128 American died, released a firestorm of protest in the United States and severe warnings from President Woodrow Wilson to limit submarine warfare.
But the German submarine attacks persisted and the body count of American civilians rose. In the face of growing foreign threats, Hillsdale College students voted in favor of compulsory military training, including target practice and military drills, in November of 1915. That December, the Collegian wrote: “The men of Hillsdale, and the women likewise, are ready to pay whatever price the President and our country demand.”
It is interesting to note that the immediate threat of German U-boats was about as distant from Hillsdale students in 1915 as the immediate threat of al-Qaida terrorist attacks are to Hillsdale students today. Yet the students of 1915 had a very real and immediate concern for threats to American citizens abroad, and in the face of those threats they responded with an active commitment to prepare for the defense of the country and her citizens abroad.
The attacks of Sept. 11 opened the nation's eyes to a highly organized foreign threat in form of al-Qaida, a terrorist organization bent on the slaughter of non-combatants and directly responsible for the murder of thousands—not hundreds—of American civilians. Granted, the world is a very different place now than it was in 1915, but the response of Hillsdale students to foreign threats, then and now, is telling.
Today, we are visually connected to foreign conflicts and happenings abroad through television and mass media, but seem to be disturbingly disconnected to the gravity of what we see and read about on the screen; images and news rarely occasion a personal or intentional response. It is a wonder that in 1915, thousands of Americans were willing to risk their lives and join the Allied war effort after sustaining hundreds of civilian casualties, but in 2003, two years after sustaining thousands of civilian casualties, many Americans seem unwilling to endure any military casualties in our efforts to prevent further terrorist attacks.
Perhaps it is because we early 21st-century Americans are unaccustomed to sacrificing anything for our country. For some, the notion is so disdainful they lash out at the slightest suggestion of sacrifice, denouncing it as an unacceptable infringement on their “civil liberties.”
We would do well to consider how Hillsdale students of generations past reacted to foreign menaces and attacks on our civilian population. After voting for compulsory military training, Hillsdale students and faculty dispatched this telegram to President Wilson, quoted in the New York Times : “The faculty and students of Hillsdale College, by secret ballot, pledged you the full measure of their support and devotion, and expressed it as their sense that the college property be offered by the board of trustees to the government, if needed.”
How times change. |
