Social Changes
From the Great Migration to women’s suffrage, the Great War had indirectly led to many social changes in the United States, and the school attempted to raise the students’ awareness of these ongoing changes.
Prohibition and Women’s Suffrage
On January 20th, 1918, Mr. Carter talked to the Episcopal students on current events, placing emphasis on the two Constitutional Amendments that had recently been passed by the Congress. Refraining from expressing his own opinion on the given issue, Carter elaborated on the proposals behind the Eighteenth Amendment, pertaining to the prohibition of alcoholic products and Nineteenth Amendment, pertaining to the women’s suffrage. He further explained that the prohibition, that it would not affect distilleries that had already been shut down.
It would take, however, another two years for the Nineteenth Amendment, to get ratified by the state legislatures and thereby to be finally added to the Constitution. As the Woman Suffrage Movement intensified, it became harder for the student body to simply ignore. A cartoon in the Whisper of 1920-1921, the school year after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, included a cartoon portraying the suffragist in the “Lectures and Entertainment” section, further reflecting the students’ awareness of the social change.
Segregation
When addressing the students, Mr. Carter also described a recent Supreme Court case on race and segregation. While the Chronicle did not refer to the name of the case, it was most likely Buchanan v. Warley, which was decided in November, 1917. Citing the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Supreme Court, in an unanimous decision, invalidated the residential segregation ordinance in Louisville, Kentucky, that forbade African Americans from living in white-majority quarters. While it failed to end the de jure segregation and racially restrictive covenants continued to segregate housing in the U.S., Buchanan v. Warley still represented an important civil right victory. Carter commented on the case that “doubtless it would be quite a while before [the effect of the case] can be felt, since custom, poverty and ignorance stood in the way.”
Labor Movements
During the war, labor movements around the world became radicalized. Led by the Bolsheviks, the October Revolution in Russia created the first Communist nation in the history. In the United States, the moderate wing of labor unions, such as the American Federation of Labor, chose to collaborate with the U.S. government for post-war benefits, while the more radical ones, such as the Industrial Workers of the World or the Socialist Party, actively challenged the government’s policies. Thus, the Episcopal administration also tried to educate its students on the intensifying labor conflict. On March 3rd, 1918, Professor Echols of the University of Virginia visited the school to discuss the current events. Echols stressed that “there was a sufficient number of men already available for military purposes” and the Episcopal students should fulfill their duty by attending colleges and preparing to solve “post-war problems” instead of enlisting. He predicted acutely that “a desperate struggle between capital and labor was inevitable and perhaps imminent,” and the struggle would be of “even graver character than the one in which we [were] now engaged.” The fear of class struggle was echoed in a prize winning student essay too, titled “the Collapse of Russia.” The author accused the Bolshevik regime of “demoralizing” Russia and “[selling] their country for thirty pieces of silver” for the revolution. This, again, was an example of Episcopal students’ awareness of the social changes during the Great War.