Cornell and Harvard

Hans Wagner was enrolled at Cornell in 1908-09. He returned to Germany and died fighting for his fatherland in the World War. Yet his name is missing in the War Memorial cloister, which bears these words at its entrance:

ON THESE WALLS ARE INSCRIBED THE NAMES OF THOSE SONS OF CORNELL WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE WORLD WAR

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Harvard's war memorial problem is thus duplicated at Cornell. But here it has not been any arbitrary decision of the authorities that accounts for the omission of those alumni who fought for Germany. Years of nationalistic tradition made the inclusion of Allied dead alone a matter of course. Very few people had any idea that there were Cornellians who had fought for the Central Powers. Fortunately the Harvard episode has brought our attention to a serious oversight and has given the University an opportunity to make a noble gesture.

The inclusion of Hans Wagner's name on our War Memorial would make that edifice a monument of international understanding. It would be a recognition that there are two sides to international questions, that war judgments are distorted by passion. Many professors here look back with shame to the time when the war fever lay so heavily upon them that they denied the commonest civilities to their former German friends on the campus. A monument to remind us of the changed light in which we saw the German people a decade after the war might help to prevent a repetition of such bitterness. Whenever the war fever threatens again, the name of Hans Wagner standing proudly on our War Memorial may make us think twice before hating and fighting. . . .

We do not agree with the declaration of the Yale News that a war memorial limited like the Harvard chapel to the Allied dead would be "built to encourage not virtue, but prejudice; not friendships, but hatreds; not peace, but conflict." If the Cornell War Memorial is dedicated with only 264 American names upon it, it will still remain a beautiful expression of honor to those who gave their lives for this country. But cornell cannot be satisfied with a conventional gesture when it might pay a richer tribute in terms of a new internationalism.

During the Harvard controversy letters were sent in by relatives of those who fell in the American service expressing the conviction that their kin would rejoice to find the German heroes honored with them. We too believe that the men who fought in France learned the human side of the enemy. learned that their foes were impressed into the struggle by the same patriotism that actuated them.

It would be silly to bring into the question of honoring Hans Wagner the argument about who caused the war. However the conflict began. It must be recognized as a terrible mistake, lest we seem unappreciative of the enormous human sacrifice it required. War as an institution on one want to commemorate; memorials are raised in honor to the courage and devotion to duty that characterized our war heroes. No single army had a monopoly of these Virtues. Cornell Daily Sun.

(Ed. note: Cornell authorities refused to make any change to include the name of Hans Wager on the War Memorial cloister.)