| Summary |
Following President Woodrow Wilson's war message to Congress on April 2, 1917, North Carolina college students responded patriotically to the call to arms. By commencement, 1917, large numbers had abandoned the campuses for military training camps. Academicians across the state who realised the impact war would have on enrollments, were heartened by President Wilson's midsummer plea for all students below twenty-one years of age to return to college. Throughout the war educators and student publications In North Carolina echoed President Wilson. They maintained that the college educated would be responsible for rebuilding a shattered post-war world. During the 1917-1918 academic year, military instruction was integrated into the college and university curriculums. Professional army personnel and educators, with chauvinistic exhortations, infused campus with a vibrant patriotism. Student authors reiterated the refrain and college students reflected a patriotically fired spirit in all their activities. In October, 1918, Students Army Training Corps units were activated on campuses throughout North Carolina. Academicians eagerly endorsed the SATC plan. However, the War Department's plans to make student-soldiers of college age youth were denounced as undemocratic by Judge Walter Clark and Governor Thomas Walter Cickett. Contending the plan was biased in favor of academically superior students and contrary to 2 the reasons for the draft age extension, it would appear that their stand was well taken. Hundreds of college age youth, denied admission to the "bomb proof* sanctuaries of the SATC units, were entrained for the front. With the cessation of hostilities the SATC was condemned "to the autocratic junk pile" by college administrators and students, who Judas-like, turned their backs on the War Department's program. And the vibrant campus patriotism, so blatant during the nineteen months of war, quickly abated. On April 7, 1917, the War Department announced its plans to raise an array by conscription, North Carolina's "rank and file" both denounced and praised the proposal. But in late April, when the Selective Service Act passed Congress, a vast majority of the state's citizens favored its passage. After the Act was signed into law, Governor Bickett moved swiftly to establish the state's draft machinery. Following the initial nationwide registration for all men between twenty-one to thirty-one years of age, a Washington lottery on July 20, 1917, determined the liability for selective service registrants. North Carolina draft boards summoned the prospective draftees. Although there were many rejections for physical defects and large numbers of exemption claims, most draft boards in North Carolina had secured their assigned quotas by late August. During the early weeks of August overt hostility to the draft law was encouraged by a small, highly vocal, hard-core element. However, a militant, chauvinistic crusade led by Governor Bickett quickly silenced the anti-conscription forces. In November, 1917, a questionnairewas adopted as a means of classifying registrants. Governor Bickott, who had urged a more equitable and humane draft procedure, championed the new regulations. Accompanying the implementation of the questionnaire system, the well-intentioned Governor launched a personal crusade. Using authoritarian methods he pursued relentlessly a policy of sending "to the front" any man who did not "habitually and cheerfully support his family." The emergency calls for more draftees in the spring of 1918 increased the numbers of draft dodgers in North Carolina. In Ashe County open violence finally erupted on June 23, 1918. Made aware of the critical situation that existed between the anti-conscription minority and the patriotic majority, Governor Bickett traveled to the scene of the trouble. In an address on June 29, 1918, he stated that all draft dodgers who surrendered voluntarily would receive a personal letter from him asking for leniency. His speech resulted in the return of hundreds of deserters and delinquents to training camps. When the announcement was made in early August, 1918, that the age limits liable for selective service would be extended from eighteen to forty-five, citizens from every "rank and file" in North Carolina opposed the measure. However, as the pressing need for more men on the Western Front was brought home to the people, public opinion gradually swung toward the age extension measure. The fourth and final registration, September 12, 1918, was meritorlously completed in North Carolina. Until the end of the war the draft machinery operated smoothly except for a brief interruption by the Spanish Influenza epidemic. With the Armistice the state conscripted of every "rank and file" enlisted Governor Bickett's aid to insure their speedy return to the non-militarized world that had prevailed before 1917. |
