Western Michigan University - Brown and Gold Yearbook (Kalamazoo, MI)

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Campus from the Dramatic Arts hil Zke trees are barren, but the promise of spring is not far off. ?or onee. the road up the hill is vacant of students, and no cars are parked along the road. Zhe college sleeps. WKSTKKX stands high on a liill— its tall white columns look out over the tri ' c covered mid-west- ern city tliat is Ivahimazoo. In tlie dis- tance loom the towering smokestacks of tlie jjaper lactoiics and celery sirows in tlie ricii liiaek muck tields Ix ' low. Looking in 1 loin tlie west, on tln ' aitei y that connects the queen cities of the mid- west, the whole ])anorama comes into view: the 14 l)uildin.iis and 2 athletic fields wliere this mystical, yet commou- ])lace ])rofess of learninii: is carried on. whrri ' laui,diter is mingled with tears. and the artificialities with tlie realities of life. Here is Western. Here have conu and from liere have gone some 16,000 of the youtli of western and sontliwestern .Michigan. P ' rom the lakeside, dune-ridden cities that hordci- Lake lichigan they have come, from the gently-rolling plains of the state ' s in- terior, from the ever-lieightening liills of tlie North. From them they liave come — young, perhajis. and callow — and to thi ' iii the - have returned — young men and women, trained in the American way of life. This AVestei-n has done. Western then, is the pei ' soiiific ation of their young dreams, of the faith of tlie faculty, of the peoph- of Michigan and of their leaders, that through tliis school, the life of Michigan shall l)e l)ettered. In that faith is the essence of the Alma .Mater. -7

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' PHOTO: CHARLES STARRING 6-

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-. v of llif (lark tciTnr ri- nii tlic skies, (liiiinicil tlic li,i;hts nl ' 1l:cir lilirai-ics, llicir .natluTiiii; ' places, tlicir cities. The il(l lainiliai- ways oL ' pfacc, tlic ycai ' s of inilividualisiii and isolationism. I ' adcd t ' oicvcr. Mankind was a fast-sink- ing- shi]), and America at last was in- volved in the connnon strn,ii-,ii-le. Aiiotliei- Amei ' ican army as (ir,i;ani ' ,ed for finlit- iny- aei ' oss the seas; American ycuiths were diat ' ted, trained, killed. ivalamazoo continued to make pajx-r, grow celeiy, make a living. College students still danced, studied occasion- ally, crammed for examinations. The (iazette daily brought forth headlines announcing the spread of death and destruction. Blackouts on the west coast, sulimarines on the east coast, death in the south seas and the nortliei n Atlantic, all, all were far removed. The mid-west was imi)erturl)al)le, unattacked. But one by one the imperturbal)le, the unattacked places were attacked, and their names loom large in the history of slothfullness. Pearl Harbor, Singapore, Java, Darwin, Burma, India. And ])lanes were thought to be seen over New Ydik, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Our cities were blacked out. The Lights Go Out LHIilTS were gradually going out all over tile world in the year 1941-41 as nation al ' tiM- nation felt the blows of an all too read ' aggressoi ' , and in In all the world, oidy the mid-contin- ents of the Americas remained aglow, theii ' ] eople slee]iing calmly, or in radi- ant factories building the materials that will bring about the Amei ' ican ideal of life. But ever and ever, the lights fade on the margins, leaving only an ever- diminishing luminous belt. Wlii ' n the lights go out in Kala- mazoo . '