Hitler the Clown

They thought Hitler was a joke. Then they gave him the country.

When Adolf Hitler first appeared on the scene, few took him seriously. To Germany’s elite, he was a joke. He was a loudmouth with a funny mustache, a failed artist ranting in beer halls. His ideas were extreme, his gestures exaggerated, his speeches were easy to mock. Many dismissed him as a political joke. He was a nobody shouting nonsense in beer halls to angry men with too much time on their hands.

But behind the spectacle was something more dangerous. His message resonated with men who felt forgotten and ignored. He resonated with people who felt like Germany had become a loser.

Germany was hurting. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles had humiliated the country. It had stripped it of land and saddled it with crushing debt. It was forced to accept sole blame for the war.

The economy collapsed. Hyperinflation made money worthless. Unemployment soared. For many Germans, the republic that replaced the monarchy felt weak and chaotic.

And in stepped a man who said he could fix it all.

Hitler didn’t rise through competence. He rose through resentment. He tried and failed to seize power outright in 1923 during the Beer Hall Putsch. It was a botched coup that landed him in prison. Even then, people mocked him. He used the trial as a platform. He used prison to write Mein Kampf – a horrid book. And over the next decade, he used words to rebuild his movement. The bullets would come later.

By the early 1930s, elites in German business and government thought they could use him. He had popular support. Maybe they could harness it. They believed they could control him, contain him, keep him on a leash. He’d serve their ends, and they’d clip his wings if he got too loud.

They were wrong.

Hitler didn’t need to take power by force. He was elected chancellor in 1933. Within months, he turned that office into a dictatorship. He was no longer the punchline. He was the Führer. And the people who had laughed found themselves silenced – or “disappeared.”

Authoritarianism doesn’t always announce itself with a bang. Sometimes it arrives wearing a smirk. Sometimes it looks ridiculous, unserious, unqualified. And that’s part of the danger. We underestimate it. We laugh at it. We assume that the systems will hold. We assume the adults will step in, and the joke will burn itself out.

Until it doesn’t.

Guardrails matter. They’re there for a reason. They shouldn’t be brushed aside with jokes like, “You’re being too dramatic” or “Lighten up.” The tragedy of Hitler’s rise wasn’t just in what he did. It was in how many people saw it coming and laughed.

Arresting the “Criminals”
Once Hitler had power, he needed a target. Authoritarians often do. To unite a country through fear, you must first give it an enemy. And so, Hitler didn’t waste time blaming Germany’s collapse on a long list of “others.” Jews. Socialists. Communists. Homosexuals. The disabled. The “degenerates.” Anyone who didn’t conform to his vision of a pure and obedient German state became a threat to be neutralized. The goal wasn’t just to silence dissent. It was to cleanse the country.

And he probably was a true believer, which almost makes it worse.

The strategy was simple. Criminalize your enemies, then claim to be restoring order by removing them. Hitler’s followers didn’t just tolerate the arrests, beatings, and disappearances. They cheered them. Because these weren’t innocent people to them. They were “traitors,” “parasites,” “criminals.” Or so they were told.

Historians still debate the details, but many believe that Hitler either had the Reichstag – the German Parliament building – set on fire or at least exploited the fire in 1933 to consolidate his power. The blaze gave him the perfect excuse to invoke emergency powers, suspend civil liberties, and sideline Parliament.

With the legislature neutralized, there was no serious check left to oppose him. Predictably, Hitler blamed the fire on the Communists, who were his most powerful political rivals at the time. The move gave him an excuse to arrest thousands, dismantle their party, and eliminate meaningful opposition. It’s a strategy as old as human history.

Enter Brownshirts. They were Hitler’s private militia of street thugs and vigilantes. They weren’t police. They weren’t military. But they were loyal. They broke up opposition rallies, beat journalists, harassed minorities, and intimidated voters. All while the government looked the other way – or applauded.

If someone wanted to take over a country, this is a clever way. You by-pass ordinary groups like the police or the military. You don’t have complete control over them. Instead, you find a way to fund and raise an “army” of highly motivated loyalists who don’t mind breaking the rules. You work around the system with this group that will follow your every command.

Propaganda did the rest. The Nazi press wasn’t just biased. It was fully integrated into the state. Newspapers, films, and radio all carried the same message: Germany is under threat, and only Hitler can save it. “The people” were under siege. And anyone who questioned that version of the story wasn’t just disagreeing. They were dangerous and needed to be eliminated.

The first concentration camps weren’t built for Jews. They were built for political enemies. They were built for those who refused to toe the Nazi line. The goal was clear. Make resistance painful, and make silence feel safe.

This is how authoritarianism works. It doesn’t begin with mass graves. It begins with lists. Labels. Slogans. Enemies. It begins when people are told to fear each other. When the government defines who belongs and who doesn’t.

When a leader tells you who to fear and promises that only they can protect you, keep this in mind. Fear is a tool, not a solution. Ask yourself, “Who is really the threat?”

America First
When fascism rose across Europe in the 1930s, much of the world watched and hesitated. Germany wasn’t the only place drifting toward dictatorship. Italy had already embraced Benito Mussolini, whose iron-fisted rhetoric inspired Hitler himself. Japan, fueled by imperial ambition, was expanding aggressively across Asia, leaving brutality and conquest in its wake.

It wasn’t just Germany. It was a moment in time. It was a movement that was sweeping across continents. Strongmen were rising. Democracies were retreating. And fear was turning into strategy.

Faced with this growing danger, America’s response was clear. Stay out of it. After the trauma of World War I, the U.S. leaned hard into isolation. Many Americans believed Europe’s problems were Europe’s to solve. That impulse took political form in the “America First” movement.

The America First Committee argued that war was a foreign entanglement we couldn’t afford. The real threat to America, they claimed, wasn’t fascism. It was intervention. Among its members were prominent business leaders, celebrities, and even a young Charles Lindbergh – the first person to fly across the Atlantic. “America First” became a rallying cry for those who wanted to shield the country from global conflict. Even if it meant ignoring the rise of tyranny abroad.

But for some, the hesitation wasn’t just about neutrality. It was hiding sympathy. Nazi ideas about race and power found receptive ears in parts of the U.S. In 1939, just months before Germany invaded Poland, a pro-Nazi rally drew 20,000 people to Madison Square Garden in New York City. They raised their hands in salute beneath a giant portrait of George Washington, flanked by swastikas. 

American fascism wasn’t theoretical. It was on full display. We like to look back at World War II and congratulate ourselves for our virtue. But the Germans of the 1930s weren’t uniquely evil. They were human – just like us. Under the right conditions, any society can be deceived, manipulated, and swept into horror. Some will cheer it on. Some will realize it too late to do anything about it.

Even as Germany began its violent march across Europe, many Americans insisted it wasn’t our fight. Even as reports of brutality mounted, even as Jews fled and warnings grew louder, leaders chose political caution over moral clarity. In one of the most heartbreaking episodes, a ship filled with Jewish refugees – including children – arrived in New York Harbor in 1939. We turned it away. Most of those passengers would later die in the camps of the Holocaust.

By the time Pearl Harbor forced America’s hand in 1941, much of the world had already descended into darkness.

Looking in the Mirror
They say war changes a nation. World War II didn’t just shake the world. It fundamentally changed America. The American war effort was nothing short of staggering. Factories roared back to life, turning out tanks instead of toasters, bombers instead of Buicks. Women flooded into the workforce. “Rosie the Riveter” became a national icon. African Americans joined the effort too, despite facing brutal discrimination both in and out of uniform. They worked in segregated units. They were denied basic rights at home. Yet they still showed up to defend a country that didn’t yet fully defend them.

This was the “arsenal of democracy.”

However, while we fought Nazi racism overseas, we quietly practiced our own version at home. In 1942, the U.S. government forcibly relocated more than 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps, two-thirds of which were citizens. They were never charged with crimes. There was no probable cause. They were never given trials or a chance to defend themselves.

Their homes, businesses, and dignity were stripped away, not because of evidence but because of fear. We told ourselves it was for national security. But the truth is, it was easier to scapegoat than to defend the rights of those who looked like the enemy. We sinned against the United States of America and its Constitution.

Meanwhile, American soldiers pushed through the heart of Europe. And when they reached the Nazi concentration camps, they saw what unchecked hatred becomes. They smelled it. They walked through the bones. The Holocaust wasn’t a rumor anymore. It wasn’t enemy propaganda. It was ovens, mass graves, and gas chambers. It was the industrialization of genocide.

The U.S. military didn’t just liberate the camps. In places like Dachau, they forced German citizens to walk through them. These were neighbors, bystanders, patriots. They claimed they didn’t know. But ignorance was no longer an option. You can’t unsee what you’ve seen.

They had believed the lies. They had swallowed the propaganda. They had laughed at the alarmists – until those alarmists quietly disappeared. The truth they denied now lay at their feet, silent and undeniable.

Truth was the first step toward justice.

But justice didn’t just mean winning battles. It meant facing uncomfortable truths. It meant asking how a civilized society could become so complicit in evil. And it meant asking what kinds of injustice we had tolerated in our own country while pretending to be the world’s moral compass. 

Philosopher Hannah Arendt studied the men who led the Nazi movement. What struck her more than anything was how ordinary they were. They were not geniuses. They were not brilliant strategists. They were just people. Pencil-pushers. Bureaucrats doing what they were told. To sum it up, she called it the “banality of evil.”

We fought fascism abroad while excusing it in a corner at home. We liberated camps in Europe while building them in California. You can’t claim to stand for human dignity if that dignity only applies to some.

It is the height of naivety to think that similar atrocities couldn’t happen here. Human nature hasn’t changed. Our capacity to be deceived and manipulated hasn’t changed. If anything, the newness of social media, AI, and the sophistication of propaganda have made us more vulnerable to misinformation than ever before.

Like the townspeople of Dachau, some of us would not believe it unless we saw the rotting bodies with our own eyes. And even then, some would come up with an alternative explanation.

The Weight of Victory
There was certainly a fair share of celebration after World War II ended. But there was much to mourn too.

Seventy million people were dead. Cities were ash. Borders were redrawn. Empires collapsed. Humanity had seen the depths of its own depravity and barely survived it. But amid the rubble, one nation stood tall. The United States hadn’t just won. It had emerged as a superpower: economically dominant, militarily unmatched, culturally influential.

The question was what kind of superpower we would be.

That’s the real test of power. Not how you fight, but how you lead. Not whether you can conquer evil, but whether you can resist becoming it. In the years that followed, America helped rebuild what it had helped destroy. The Marshall Plan invested billions in Europe’s recovery. The United Nations took shape. NATO was born. The idea, however imperfectly executed, was that America would use its power not just for self-interest, but for peace. Not just for dominance, but for dignity.

That tension has never gone away.

Power always tempts us to forget why we fought in the first place. It makes it easy to trade ideals for advantage, to silence critics in the name of security, to put flags over principles. It makes it easy to think that because we won, we’re always right. That we’re always the good guys. That the ends always justify the means.

That’s the danger of victory. It whispers, “You’ve earned this.” And we stop asking whether what we’re doing is still just, or simply convenient. Or maybe selfish.

American History part 3 -- From Roar to Reagan

This is taking longer than I anticipated. I guess 250 years is a long time. 
1. From Revolution to Fracture
2. From Civil War to World War
__________________________

13. World War I had ground the world's optimism to a halt. Like a massive release of repressed energy, America exploded into the Roaring Twenties. We cut loose -- fast and loud. In what was really a very fragile world, we danced on the edge of a fault line.

The 1920s roared. Jazz filled the clubs. Skirts got shorter. Radios crackled in living rooms. Ford’s assembly lines put cars in every driveway. Stock prices soared. Flappers danced. Bootleggers ran liquor under the nose of Prohibition. And Wall Street promised endless returns.

It was a decade of speed and spectacle. Women had won the right to vote. Black culture exploded in the Harlem Renaissance. Technology shrank the world and expanded the future. If the Gilded Age was gold-plated, the Twenties were neon-lit.

But behind the glitter, cracks spread.

The 1920s weren’t just jazz and flappers. They were also lynchings, race riots, and immigration quotas. The Immigration Act of 1924 slammed the door shut on much of the world, especially Asia and Eastern Europe. The KKK came roaring back, larger than ever. Now it was not just anti-Black, but anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic. The fear of the “other” became political fuel.

Prohibition turned ordinary people into criminals and gave rise to organized crime. The stock market had become a casino with no rules. Everyone was gambling, and no one thought the party could end.

Until it did.

14. In October 1929, the market crashed. Fortunes evaporated. Banks failed. Unemployment exploded. The illusion of endless growth was shattered. The Roaring Twenties screeched to a halt, and the Great Depression began.

It had been a decade of wild celebration. But the bill had come due. The party was over.

Tariffs played a part. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, passed in 1930, was meant to protect American jobs by taxing foreign goods. Instead, it triggered a trade war. Other countries retaliated. Global markets froze. The crash became a global depression.

The government’s first response? Do nothing. President Herbert Hoover believed the market would correct itself if the "invisible hand" was just left alone. He refused direct aid to anyone. He called on charities and churches to step up. It wasn't the government's job to help people in need -- that was the church's responsibility. 

But the church neither had the will nor the resources. It wasn’t nearly enough. People began living in tent cities they called “Hoovervilles” to mock the Republican president. The name stuck.

Then came Franklin D. Roosevelt, promising a New Deal. The federal government would now be an active player in the economy. It would help create jobs, protect workers, reform banks, and in general, try to rebuild trust. This marked the rise of a new Democratic Party. For the first time, Americans expected the government to care whether they lived or starved.

Roosevelt didn’t fix the Depression overnight. But he changed the rules. Social Security was born. Unions were able to make industry care about the people who worked for them. The government no longer just watched. It acted. 

Millions of Americans today survive on Social Security -- the same program Roosevelt signed into law over loud cries of “socialism.” Medicare and Medicaid continue to save countless lives. And yet, many who rely on these programs have been convinced to distrust them simply because they come from the government. What irony! Programs are seen as threats by the very people they protect.

But jobs alone didn’t bring recovery. Something bigger happened. Something global. Something you would never dare plan.

15. The storm had been building. Germany was still bitter from the Great War and humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. Into that resentment stepped a man who channeled their anger. To many, he was a clown -- loud, ridiculous. The rich and powerful thought they could control him, use him. But almost inexplicably, his charisma drew in the ordinary German. The German people made him unstoppable. By the time many realized the depth of their mistake and miscalculation, Germany was in ruins. And their Führer was hiding in a bunker saying the German people had failed him.

Hitler had blamed the Jews for German problems. He blamed the socialists. He blamed the "degenerates." He would get rid of homosexuals and eventually anyone who opposed him -- including Jesus followers like Bonhoeffer who didn't go along with Germany's Christian nationalism. Hitler was going to purify Germany and make it great again -- a third Reich. 

He crushed dissent. He unleashed the "Brownshirts." These weren't the military or the police. No, they were his own group of loyal fanatics, eager to intimidate, beat, or disappear anyone Hitler labeled an enemy. They would round up people in the night (or the day) who would just disappear. Soon he was building camps -- first for political enemies, then for anyone he deemed impure. Out of sight, out of mind.

The whole world was tipping toward "strong men" at the time, autocrats. It made people feel better to think that someone was taking charge and getting their worlds under control. Someone was thinking of them for a change and kicking some butt.

Italy had Mussolini, Japan had militarists hungry for empire. The world watched. And waited. Hoping that his flame would burn out on its own.

America tried to stay out of it. “America First,” people said. Some were even sympathetic to Hitler's complaints about Jews and degenerates. American Nazis held a huge rally in Madison Square Garden in 1939.

But neutrality couldn’t stop war. In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. In 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. That was it. America joined the fight. Japan pushed us into taking the right side.

Factories came roaring back. This time they made planes, ships, and bullets. Women filled the assembly lines. So did African Americans, though still in segregated jobs. The U.S. became the arsenal of democracy, sending supplies to allies, turning its economy into a war machine.

And it worked. But not without cost.

120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps in America. No trials. No charges. No actual basis or benefit. Just fear and suspicion. They were an easy target for our anger. And we made the Constitution look the other way.

In Germany, we were reminded that the worst atrocities are only as far away as human beings. Hitler’s regime carried out the Holocaust, murdering six million Jews, along with millions of others. They killed the Roma, gay individuals, disabled people, and of course those who dared to speak out against what they were doing. The world was confronted with industrial genocide.

Germans were forced to see it. They had denied it. Those who believed Hitler was a savior had believed all the propaganda he had spewed as he controlled the media. They're having a good life in those camps. American soldiers forced the residents of Dachau to walk through the camp and admit with their eyes what they had let happen. In other places, we forced them to bury the dead in the camps.

America fought on two fronts: Europe and the Pacific. In Europe, it helped liberate France, marched into Germany, and crushed the Nazi regime. In the Pacific, the war was brutal. Jungle to jungle, island to island. Japan refused to surrender. 

Then, in August 1945, the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs -- one on Hiroshima, one on Nagasaki. We had split the atom -- something many thought God wouldn't allow to happen. Japan finally surrendered.

The war ended. But the world had changed.

70 million dead. Cities flattened. Borders redrawn. Empires dissolved. And two superpowers emerged: the United States and the Soviet Union.

America was now a global leader. Economically. Militarily. Culturally. But also morally. That was the big question: Would we use our power for peace -- or domination? Would we remember what we fought for or just what we won?

16. The war was over. But peace wasn't simple.

Soldiers returned to parades and promises. They had fought for democracy, for freedom, for justice. But back home, Black veterans still weren't able to get a loan and were still forced to use the back door. Women who had run factories were expected to return quietly to the kitchen (yeah, that was going to happen). Japanese Americans were released from camps into neighborhoods that still didn’t want them.

America had changed. But not enough. It still fell short of those big words we wrote in 1776.

For some, the 1950s were a golden age -- suburbs, appliances, white picket fences. But it wasn’t golden for everyone. Many still lived in the shadows of that dream.

A movement began to grow. It wasn’t loud at first. It was a woman who sat down on a bus. A preacher who marched without weapons. A crowd of college students at a lunch counter, waiting to be served like human beings.

The Civil Rights Movement wasn’t just about laws. It was about dignity. Did the Declaration of Independence mean what it said? "All men (and women) are created equal."

Some people didn’t like the question. They called the marchers "communists." Called the students "agitators." Called the preachers dangerous. Maybe one day, but let's move slowly -- meaning let's just ignore the injustices. (It's often said, if you want to know what you would have done then, you're doing it now.)

The marches grew. "Those troublemakers." "Lawless." "Criminals." The dogs and fire hoses came out. The violence was televised. And the world saw what America still was.

But things began to change. Brown v. Board of Education (1954): Segregated schools were deemed unconstitutional. Was desegregation a perfect solution? No. But it finally began to move the needle in the right direction. Racists responded, "They're legislating from the bench!" There was a sudden surge in the founding of private Christian schools in the South for some reason.

Civil Rights Act (1964): No more legal segregation. Voting Rights Act (1965): No more literacy tests or poll taxes. For a moment, it looked like the country might turn a corner. It was moving toward 1776 again!

But progress always wakes up resistance. As civil rights expanded, coded backlash crept in. "Law and order" (meaning don't protest injustice). "States’ rights" (meaning the government can't make me treat black people as equals). "Family values" (meaning keep women from being equals). Make America look like it used to (nudge nudge, wink wink).

17. And then came Vietnam.

We said we were stopping communism. We had been fighting communism a long time. In 1917, we watched the Bloody Revolution in Russia, and it scared us to death. In the Soviet Union, Stalin turned out to be as brutal as Hitler -- he just did it quietly and no one ever stopped him. When the Soviets got the bomb, we saw the possibility that the world could end at our own hands.

Senator McCarthy and others exploited Cold War fear to accuse innocent Americans of being traitors. Careers were ruined, lives upended. It was a national witch hunt. Eventually he was shut down, but he was a reminder that America was not immune to hysteria. Thus far we have always managed to fix it eventually. History doesn't promise we always will.

In the 60s, the fear of communism led us to send 58,000 Americans to die in a jungle. Millions more were maimed, broken, or drafted into a war they didn’t understand. Why were we there again?

And the country cracked open.

Protests filled the streets. Soldiers came home and were blamed for decisions made far above their pay grade. A president resigned. Another pardoned him. Trust in government collapsed. The golden age faded. What was left was a country that no longer believed its leaders. Our sense that we were a morally exceptional nation was gone -- at least for a while.

The 1960s ended in fire and fatigue.

King was assassinated. So was Bobby Kennedy. The streets were full of tear gas and protest signs. The dream of the Great Society was cracking under the weight of war, inflation, and fear. The liberal consensus had overreached -- or at least, that’s what some said. Too much change too fast. It's a formula for backlash.

A new message started taking root. "We’ve gone too far. Time to reel it back in."

Enter Richard Nixon. He didn’t shout. He didn’t rage. He whispered. He spoke to the “silent majority” He soothed the people tired of chaos, change, and being told their morals were deplorable. 

He didn’t say he opposed civil rights. He just said we needed “law and order.” He didn’t say Black communities were the problem. He just cracked down on “urban crime.” Use nice words to hide good old racism.

It worked. He won.

And then he wiretapped his enemies. Paid hush money. Lied to the public. Used government power to protect himself. Watergate wasn’t just a scandal. It was a revelation of who we really were. Even a president might break the law if he thought it served him. If we hadn't had the tapes, his followers would have never believed those who questioned him. Some still didn't believe he was wrong even with the tapes.

Democracy needs good laws. But it works best with people of good character -- if you can find any. The workings of the government need to be done out in the open. There need to be mechanisms of accountability. Watchdogs. "Trust but verify." But our rules are only as good as our will to enforce them.

Nixon resigned before he could be removed. He at least had some honor. He had the character to apologize to the American people. His successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him “for the good of the country.” That phrase became code for: He broke the rules, but let’s move on.

18. But the real shift came with Ronald Reagan...

6. Houghton and World War II

Luckey Memorial Building

1. When Paine became president, there were 406 college students and 52 high school students. There were 31 faculty members. Five buildings were on campus--the Old Admin (Fancher), Gaoyadeo (women's dorm), the Bedford gym, the science building (Woolsey), and the new music building.

Having a charter with New York state had already doubled enrollment under Luckey from 1923-28. When Paine retired, there would be 16 buildings on campus, some 1200 students, and almost 100 faculty.

Houghton train station
behind Three Bums

So Houghton would grow to its largest size under Paine. But it would also face its greatest threat during the World War II years, when it was not entirely certain it would survive. In a portent of the days to come, the last train left the Houghton station in 1937.

2.  In the last year of Luckey, an "Arcade" had been built to connect Old Admin (Fancher) and Old Science (Woolsey). This is where the library, the print shop, and some new classrooms would go.

Then in 1941, ground was broken to begin construction on the Luckey building, which as then continues to this day to house the President, Academic Dean, and CFO. [This is where my office and advancement are currently also.] Not every student was excited about the new building. It was, after all, taking away a baseball diamond facing Bedford gym. (There were also tennis courts at that time about where the Chamberlain parking lot is now.)

The night of the groundbreaking, some students took an outhouse and put it over the hole that had been dug by Bob Luckey. They put the sign "Luckey Memorial Building" on the latrine. Let's just say the Dean of Men (Stanley Wright) was not particularly happy about it. Luckey would be the first building on what is now the "Quad," which had also served at one time as a track of sorts. 

Old Admin chapel
(now MarCom in Fancher)

I might note that there were plenty of pranks in those days, mostly by the male students. There's something about a nineteen-year-old male brain that usually isn't quite fully cooked yet. For example, more than one prank was done in the late 30s with Stanley Wright's cow. They once somehow got it up to the second floor of Old Admin (Fancher) where the chapels were held (current MarCom). They were ministry students, of course. [1]

At another point, some boys set a crate of chickens loose in the girls' dorm, terrifying one of the single faculty members when the lights came on. [2] A particularly recidivist pranker named "Red" Ellis turned the power off in Gaoyadeo one night and then turned all the radios on highest volume that he could find in the dorm. He put cigars purchased in Fillmore into three pop-up toasters and pushed the lever down, then turned the power back on while exiting the building. Let's just say everyone soon woke up abruptly once the vacuum tubes in the radios warmed up and the whole dorm began to smell of cigars.

Chester York

3. Pearl Harbor would happen eight months after ground-breaking on the Luckey building. The construction manager from 1932-47, Chester York, had the brilliant idea of using creek stone for the outer facing of the building, a practice that became the signature feature of Houghton buildings around the Quad thereafter. A young man by the name of Paul Mills, son of the grounds-keeper, helped collect that stone from the nearby creek bed.

When it was all done, a building that was projected to cost $75,000 only cost $39,000, largely due to the ingenuity of Chester York and the grace of God.

4. Enrollment did not immediately decline after Pearl Harbor. Most male students finished out the 1941-42 year (482 students). The next year declined to 432 students. Then from 1942-43 it was 392 students. The lowest year was from 1943-44, when there were only 292 students.

The students and faculty that remained on campus did their part. Some faculty taught courses without pay. Ten Houghton alumni were killed in the war. Many more served (371 in fact), including Warren Woolsey. Students rolled bandages, gave blood, wrote letters. Instead of corsages, those men still around might give a "warsage" made up of war stamps.

As far as male prospects for the women, later history professor Kay Lindley (Michael Jordan's grandmother) remarked that it was mainly ministerial students and 4F men that were around. [3] :-) On Sadie Hawkins Day, it was three women to every one man.

By God's grace, however, Houghton would survive. And like a comet swinging around the sun, the war would soon accelerate the college almost beyond its capacity in the other direction.

5. A final thing that should be mentioned during the war years was a second revival on campus in 1942. The first had been in 1926. A boy had drowned after falling through the ice of the Genesee River. At that time, the Houghton church was already in the middle of two weeks of special services. It was during that revival that Warren Woolsey, then a junior, became a Christian.

[1] It is apparently quite difficult to get a cow to go down stairs. Willard Smith, whom we will soon meet, apparently assisted in the cleaning of evidence left behind.

[2] Alice Pool, French, Spanish, and English teacher.

[3] 1996 chapel address. Read President Mullen's 2018 eulogy of Lindley's service to the college here. In February (2021) we will be dedicating the Katherine W. Lindley Center for Law and Constitutional Studies.

Previous posts in this series on the story of Houghton:

• Williard J. Houghton and the Founding 
• Seminary adds four-year college
• Luckey achieves accreditation
• A growing campus and faculty
• Stephen Paine becomes president

Remembering Pearl Harbor

I'm reminded today of what a scary situation the world was in on December 7th, 1941. Germany had already pushed all the way to the Atlantic Ocean through France. It had taken Austria and Poland. It had allies in Spain and Italy. Hitler had only (stupidly) broken with Russia a few months before.

Meanwhile, Japan threatened to take all of Asia, as it actually would do for a time. So we were looking at a world united against us on both sides, a situation that would no doubt eventually have led to all out world war against us. War is always a course of last resort, but this was surely a time to defend ourselves if there ever was one.

Many Germans at the time were captives within their own country. Many of them had not supported Hitler at all in his rise to power. They were taken captive by a subgroup they initially had not taken seriously and that had slowly taken over everything by stealth and violence.

Pearl Harbor is a reminder to us of the great freedoms we have that have been paid for more than once at a high price. We have the freedom to worship who we want. We have the freedom to publish and say what we want. We have the freedom to defend ourselves against aggressors. We even have the freedom to burn flags, although it seems a stupid thing to do.

Let us never let fear of some loser blowing him or herself up convince us to give up these freedoms. We're stronger than that. Let us not ever let some charismatic leader who shares our values talk us into taking away the rights of others who disagree with us. Let us never let fear or crisis lead us to give away our freedoms.

We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.