Lincoln High School - Lincolnian Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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THE LINCOLNIAN 23 LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL CADETS MILITARY TRAINING Last year our principal thought that it would be a great thing to start military training in our High School among our boys. He was able to get a few boys interested and also was able to get an instructor who had been in the army and knew all about military training, namely, Dr. Bruce. He was strong, straight and erect, and was a good example for all the boys. Dr. Bruce had a great deal of patience with the boys whom he succeed- ed in getting interested. The boys got a great deal from him in the little time they had last year. Since the beginning of the school year, September 5, 1916, we were fortunate enough to get Major N. Clarke Smith in our High School as our music teacher. He being an officer in the army, we were able to have military training again. There were more boys that took interest in this training this term than there were last year. We drilled this year just as we did last year in our building under great difficulty due to the fact that we did not have a gymnasium in our school. The drills were three times a week, the other two days, music. At the beginning of the year we organized two large companies; company A and company B. The officers who were picked out of the companies were the boys who were best in drilling and the boys who carried themselves well. The officers were all supposed to be juniors or Seniors. Some of our boys became discouraged and wanted to stop, but were encouraged by Major Smith and their officers, who told them of different things that they could do after they had learned to drill well. For a while during warm weather we were no longer able to drill out side, our school ground, at the north side of the buildings, but after the weather changed we were no longer able to drill oustide. The principal then, after looking around and talking of crowded conditions, got the consent of Mr. DeFrantz, our great Y. M. C. A. leader, to let the boys take their military training in the gymnasium of the new Y. M. C. A. We appreciated this very muc h. Then we were given a new officer, Sergeant Weeks, who is another straight and erect soldier and a very fine man. He was given to us by the Board of Education. He, too, drilled us three J

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22 THE LINCOLNIAN MARGUERITE ARNOLD. F. E. — H’m yes. A. I. L. — To travel some sweet day. C. D. — Sitting down. GARFIELD GREEN. F. E. — Dang bust it. A. I. L. — To be a comedian. C. D. — Acting the clown. “f 3 SI ) • 3 il •J g id :v.jfe No Photo HENRY MONROE. F. E. — Dang bust my top- lights. A. I. L. — To be a dentist. C. D. — Oh, dear me — imi- tating? No Photo LINCOLNIAN STAFF. Ora Bond Editor-in-Chief Lucile Pryor Beatrice Parson Essociate Editors Jas McLean Jas. Pryor Business Managers THE PERRY ORATORICAL CONTEST. Mr. J. W. Perry, president of the South- west National Bank of Commerce, has of- fered two prizes, one of ten dollars, and the other of five, to the students, who shall best acquit themselves in an oratorical contest, which will occur during Com- mencement week. Forty-two students gave their names to write in the contest, but only twenty- eight wrote These twenty-eight were given numbers so that the judges would not know the individual to whom the papers belong, and in this way no partiality could be shown. The judges ' wt re to select the best fif- teen and eliminate the other thirteen. The judges reported that all the papers were good. It happened that there were eight Sen- iors and seven Juniors, eight girls and seven boys. They were : Hazel Hickum, Beatrice Parson, Marguerite Arnold, Doris Wells, Bertha Maddox, Edna Robinson, Willa Kimsey, Edward Fladger, Harry Rob- erson, Neal Herriford, Felix Goodwin, Em- mett Gleed, Melvin Tolson, Ruth Redd, Beatrice Baston. There is to be a preliminary hearing before other judges the 24th, and all but eight will be eliminated. From this eight will be chosen the two best. The Lin- colnian wishes success to all, and that those who are not chosen will not be dis- couraged but will be inspired to try again. EDITOR. ' t I

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24 THE LINCOLNIAN times a week. Although a white man, he treated us just as well as he did the boys of his own race. We were all pleased with him. Lieutenant R. C. Baird, the supervisor of this military training, sent notice to our principal telling him of the color and kind o‘f uniform that we were supposed to wear, which was cadet blue, as most of you have already seen us in. We had a little difficulty in securing our suits, but through the goodness of our principal we secured them and received guns that were furnished by the government. We were not long learning to use the guns. We learned several sets of exercises with these guns which in military training are known as Butts Manual. So, after all, the boys were glad that they stuck with the train- ing. I hope that the boys next year will have as much success as the boys had this year. LIEUT. WILLIAM IRMA ANDERSON. THE USE OF WAR X OOKING back upon the mysteri- ous history of the human race, we see that Providence has made use of fearful revolutions as the means of sweeping away the abuses of ages and of bringing mankind to its present im- provement. Frightful cataclysms have marked the ending of the old and the be- ginning of the new. The signs of the times have abundantly intimated to the thoughtful that we are approaching such an era. Life is an eternal struggle between the right and wrong; a conflict between good and evil. The regeneration of the race must ever be worked out through earnest and desperate struggle. The cause of hu- manity has always to wrestle with foes. All impr Dvement is a victory won by struggle. It is especially true of those great periiodfe which have been idistin- guished by revolutions in government and religion and from which we date the most rapid movement of the human mind that they have signalized by conflict. Thus the birth of Christianity convulsed the world and it grew up amid storm and stress. The reformation of Luther was a signal to universal war, and liberty over all the world has encountered opposition over which she has triumphed only through her own irrepressible energies. We are agreed that war is deplorable, horrible, terrible in every way and at all times and the more civilized and advanced the na- tions involved, the more brutal it seems to be. Whatever a nation’s reluctance to war, however progressive ideas and ideals may be, that all else must be tried before arms are resorted to, failing all else, honor, na- tional and individual, may require this supreme arbitrament, and leave no other course to follow. In other words, when treaties, signatures and promises have no further binding force in the process of living side by side, must not life itself be put up as the stake? When a half dozen men light in a moment the fires of war throughout the world, causing Europe to bristle with bayonets, convulsing all civil- ized nations, sweeping earth and sea with an armed host, spreading desolation through field, and bankruptcy through cities, and making themselves felt through some form of suffering • throughout every household in Christendom, what is there left but war? And in such cases, where nations and individuals are staking their lives for a principle and throwing into the balance their all and making their ut- most sacrifice for their ideals, the word war is enobled and though grim as ever in aspect, bears on its physiogonomy the stern imprint of a sacrifice to duty and to a higher and inscrutable destiny. All will depend upon the motive. As in all else the decision between a right war and a wrong war will lie as to whether it was selfish or unselfish in origin ; whether it was aggressive or defensive in purpose, whether it arose from a desire to get and to have, or to defend and uphold. When the motive leading to war has been clearly a right motive, and not one of aggrandizement or rapacity at the ex- pense of others; when it has been prompt- d