World War I

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Apparently the first official action taken by the University under the impact of war in Europe sprang from humanitarian considerations. At its first meeting in the fall of 1914, the Board of Trustees appropriated $1500, to be used at the President's discretion, for European college students who, because of war conditions, would be unable to pursue courses at their respective colleges.

Joint action on the part of the administration, trustees and student body produced the University's first major contribution to preparedness for the war that was bound to involve this country sooner or later. Initiative was taken on the part of the Board by General Maxwell Van Zandt Woodhull.

General Woodhull's home, bequeathed by him to the University and bearing the family name, still stands on the northeast corner of Twenty-first and G Streets, a superb example of mid-nineteenth century architecture. The General had been largely responsible for moving the University to Foggy Bottom and in the purchase of 2023 G Street as the University's first building in the area. He had had a distinguished career. Brevetted Brigadier General at the age of twenty-two on the nomination of General O. O. Howard, he had served in the American Legation at London and as Chief of the Consular Bureau of the Department of State.

On June 2, 1915, on General Woodhull's motion, the Board resolved: "That it is the judgment of the President and Trustees of The George Washington University that a company or battalion of Infantry or of Coast Artillery drilled as Infantry, organized in the student body, and be affiliated with the Militia of the District of Columbia." The General was named chairman of a committee to carry the resolution into effect. On December 8, 1915, a company was formally mustered into service as the First Company, Coast Artillery Corps, National Guard of the District of Columbia. Walter W. Burns LL.B. '12, was commissioned as captain and Chester C. Baxter LL.B '17 and Howard W. Hodgkins B.S. in C.E. '13, LL.B. '16 as first and second lieutenants, respectively.

Thus was started a famous organization which was to see service in two World Wars. Of the eighty-three members of the original unit, all received commissions with the exception of the bugler who was underage. During its history, the organization produced an astounding number of officers, among them twenty-eight colonels and 126 lieutenant-colonels.

In spite of the growing likelihood of American involvement in the war, student activities, coming out of a period of suspended animation, developed amazingly in the period. The Student Council was organized in June 1916 as a result of action taken at a mass meeting a month before and with the encouragement of Dean Everett Fraser of the Law School. Its declared purpose was to supervise and encourage the revived student activities program. Rhesa M. Norris, LL.B. '18 was the chairman and Elmer Louis Kayser A.B. ' 17, M.A. ' 18 the first Secretary-Treasurer.

The earliest official act of the Student Council was not concerned with student activities, however. It was the organization of the University men and women for participation in the great Preparedness Parade of June 14, 1916. The students and faculty had marched in many great parades; in the parade escorting General Lafayette, in the funeral procession of John Quincy Adams, the College's great benefactor. Each of these had been described at the time as the greatest the city had ever seen. All of them pale into insignificance beside the great parade of 1916. It was Flag Day. It was also the opening day of the Democratic National Convention. The president wanted to emphasize loyalty to America. Woodrow Wilson led the parade, followed by the members of the Cabinet, the Court and the Congress, each one carrying an American Flag. Sixty thousand, flag-bearing marchers followed them. The whole University community participated in cap and gown led by President Charles H. Stockton: the Trustees, the Faculty and the entire student body. It was as Wilson said in his speech to the marchers "an almost unprecedented outpouring of thousands of sober citizens to manifest their interest in the safety of the country and the sacredness of the flag which is its emblem." It was not, as he said, merely a day of sentiment: it was a day of purpose.

As the months went on strains on American neutrality constantly increased. Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare, destructive of both American life and property, had been limited for a time by her agreement with Wilson after the sinking of the Sussex. It was renewed with marked intensity. Pushed beyond the limit, the United States Government broke off diplomatic relations with Germany February 3, 1917. Two months later, continued sinking of American shipping and evidence of German efforts to enlist Mexican support led Wilson to ask Congress to recognize the existence of a state of war with Germany. On the day after the President appeared before the Congress, the Board of Trustees in a formal resolution called upon the Senate and House "to take such action as will insure freedom to citizens to go and come with safety upon the high seas and to carry on their lawful commerce." The Trustees endorsed the message submitted to the Congress by the President and pledged their loyal support to him as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy.

Preparedness was no longer a slogan: it was now action. On April 6, 1917, war was declared.

What would be the effect of war on the University? No one knew. During the Civil War, practically the entire student body joined the armed forces of the Union or of the Confederacy. President Lincoln took over the College property which became Camp Carver for the period of the War. The few students who remained were instructed in the homes of the professors. This time, as a novel experience in American life, universal military service legislation was enacted.

By contrast with Civil War experience, registration in the University was but slightly affected as to number of students. Actually, student enrollment during the whole period 1914-19 showed no falling off at any time. In fact, a normal rate of increase was shown for each year during the war years, with marked increases thereafter. The total registration for the year ending June 1914 was 1611, for the year ending June 1917 it was 2213. This can be explained by a variety of factors. During the Great War, the University was coeducational in all its branches. In the second place, the number of civil servants in Washington increased tremendously, adding vastly to the number of part-time students. Finally, the early draft legislation provided for compulsory registration of those twenty-one and older. By the time that later laws required the registration of the eighteen-year olds, the Student Army Training Corps was in the process of development.

The SATC program, novel then, but commonplace now, permitted young men subject to the draft to continue their education as members of the armed forces under military discipline and instruction at approved colleges and universities. An SATC unit and a naval unit were established in this University. The SATC unit had 13 officers and 443 men under the command of Henry H. Ludlow, Colonel, Coast Artillery, U.S.A. (Ret.) and the Naval Unit 50 men under the command of Giles B. Harber, Rear Admiral, U.S.N. (Ret.)

The problem of finding accommodations for housing and feeding five hundred men in Washington in the late summer of 1918 was not a small one. There was a change in administration. Admiral Stockton, full of years and honors, retired as of the end of the year 1917-1918.

Charles Herbert Stockton (1845-1923) had had a career of great distinction in the Navy. In 1864 as a midshipman he had been on board the Macedonian in pursuit of the confederate steamers Florida and Tallahassee and in the four decades of active service which followed he had held many important commands. He had been President of the Naval War College, Naval Attache at London, and after his retirement, Delegate Plenipotentiary to the London Naval Conference of 1919. The author of several books, he was the Navy's outstanding authority on international law. At the time a member of the Board of Trustees, he had been elected President of the University in 1910 to succeed Charles Willis Needham (1848-1935). At no period in its history had the University faced more serious problems. For several years President Stockton served without compensation. With the loyal cooperation of men like Dean Hodgkins, Dean Wilbur, Secretary Cobb and Treasurer Holmes, the Admiral restored the University to financial solvency and increased its prestige in every way. No man ever served it better or more unselfishly. Dean William Allen Wilbur's eulogy of him found echoes in a thousand hearts as he concluded with these words:

"So down the horizon and beyond our vision, but under other skies-
'Home is the sailor,
`Home from the sea.'
"The University remembers him whom God gave in a stormy time. And the mercy of God endures."

William Miller Collier, had been elected president to take over his duties on September 1. Richard Cobb, the Secretary of the University, was retiring at the same time and the Board elected as his successor Elmer Louis Kayser, then awaiting assignment to the Field Artillery Officers School. Without waiting for the formal beginning of their terms of office, the new President and Secretary with Charles W. Holmes, the Treasurer, began working around the clock to find the needed facilities. It was often a frustrating business.

The University itself had no facilities that could be used in the Foggy Bottom area. Aside from 2023 G Street, it then owned only a half dozen remodeled residences. The redevelopment of the area was a quarter of a century off. Some property owners would not consider the University offer. Others would, but too often accepted a better one from the Government. The Pastor and the Trustees of Concordia Evangelical Lutheran Church at Twentieth and G Streets were most cooperative. The Church's large basement room, then used as a parish hall, was made available to the University as a mess-hall for the military units and cooking equipment was installed. The continuing kindness of Concordia Church made this room able for lecture purposes after the war when this first and less dramatic veterans' bulge strained classroom facilities.

Living quarters were planned for the building on the northeast corner of Nineteenth and G Streets and in the upper stories of three larger buildings on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue, west of Seventeenth Street. At noon on October 3, 1918, the five hundred student soldiers and sailors were drawn up in formation on the grounds back of 2023 G Street. The United States Marine Band was in attendance. President William Miller Collier presided. The oath was administered by the Honorable Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, who was escorted by the Honorable Henry White, a Trustee of the University and one of the principal members of the American delegation at the Paris peace conference.

Less than six weeks after the induction of the SATC the Armistice was signed. It seemed as though the herculean efforts of the University were being put forth in vain. As late as November 6, President Collier reported to the Board, that although the building at Nineteenth and G Streets had been rented, it was held for the Government. The Armistice came so quickly that final preparations some of the barracks for occupancy and liquidation of the whole operation went along at the same time. Thanks to the efficiency of the Treasurer and his staff, the President was able to report to the Board of Trustees on April 25, 1919, the complete settlement of all SATC claims against the Government. The SATC passed into history.

The War, as has been noted, did not affect the total number of students registered appreciably. The post war increase appeared in the year 1919-20 when there was almost a fifty per cent gain in registration. While totals in the war years seem quite normal, many students' study was interrupted military service. One example was the case of William Mitchell, the great champion of air power. General Mitchell was within a year of graduation from Columbian College when he enlisted in the 1st Wisconsin Infantry to serve in the Spanish-American War. He remained in the Army, expecting to complete his work for the degree when his career brought him to a post in or near Washington. This opportunity did not come until the eve of the Great War. Once again his course was interrupted and his A.B. was finally conferred "as of the Class of 1899."

The extent of the participation of the men of the University in the armed forces was suggested dramatically by an enormous service flag that hung for years on the wall of the old chapel and reached all the way from the ceiling to the floor. Symbolic of the gratitude of America's allies was a German 150 mm. field piece captured by the 4th Zouaves near Fort Donaumont on the Verdun front and presented to the University in 1920 by the French Government. This gun was mounted on a concrete foundation on the grounds in front of the Administration Building, first on the northwest and then on the northeast corner of 21st and G Streets.

During the war, the student body was energetic in many patriotic causes. There was a successful drive for the purchase of Liberty Bonds, the funds raised to be applied by the University to some project of student interest. The bonds were left in the custody of the Graduate Manager of Activities Elmer Louis Kayser, who was to designate the use to be made of them. These bonds were used to supplement the funds of the University in the construction of the gymnasium, "the Tin Tabernacle," which stood in the University Yard.

The University came through the war years stronger in every way. It had contributed fully to the achievement of the national purpose and at the same time had laid the foundation for rapid growth. The celebration of the centennial in 1921 symbolized the start of a new era with the inauguration of a major campaign for funds and the building of the first new University structures, Corcoran Hall and Stockton Hall.

Document Information

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Author or Source: GW Magazine, 1964; Bricks Without Straw
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: April 26, 2007
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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