Jessalyn Pinneo
Special Projects Reporter

Courtesy University Archives GW¹s Office of Scientific Research and Development operated the Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory in Cumberland, Md. The laboratory conducted missile testing and chemical warfare research.

³We must decide between a poison or a purge. Either this growing concept abroad will spread like a poison ... making us doubtful of the ability of democracy to function with equal strength as totalitarianism, or it will act as a purge so challenging that it will wipe out all softness and leave only courage and greatness behind.²

So read the closing paragraph of an editorial in The Hatchet in fall 1940, setting the tone of life at GW for the next several years.

Students at GW during World War II weren¹t old enough to have lived through the first world war, but they were still very much aware of the conflict and its consequences because most of their parents had been involved in some way. When it became evident in the early 1940s that the new war in Europe had the potential to become even more violent and deadly than the first, and that America would once again become involved, GW students took notice.

By this time, The Hatchet had moved beyond the world of Foggy Bottom and was reporting on national issues. There was a flurry of articles about the war and the issues it raised that affected the student body as a whole, including the draft and how the war influenced American lifestyles.

One of the first articles on the war, appearing in the Sept. 24, 1940, Hatchet, set the theme for its duration. ³The Defeat of Germany Inevitable ­ Ragatz² was based on an interview with Dr. Lowell J. Ragatz, a European history professor at GW. The story detailed his predictions and advice concerning the war, which, at that time, was just a European conflict.

Ragatz made several predictions that proved true, including that the Nazis could never win the war and that Europe would be ³prostrate for at least a generation² after the conflict, regardless of the victor.

Throughout the war, Ragatz contributed to a number of articles on such topics as how the aid provided by the United States to Europe was actually helping the Nazis, and how and when the Allies would win the war. His cooperation with The Hatchet¹s reporters helped GW students realize just how close to home the war really was.

Other professors also contributed to The Hatchet in a column that ran for several years called ³Professorial Opinion.² Professors wrote about international law and economics and commented on the current state of world affairs.

Another topic with which the GW student population was justifiably concerned was youth involvement in the war, and it was a subject about which they were not afraid to speak their mind. ³1940 Class President Testifies to Senate Military Committee,² declared a Hatchet headline in 1940, preceding an article that quoted Phi Beta Kappa member Eugene Lerner in his denunciation of the proposed draft system on the basis that it was undemocratic and would result in ³demagogism, Š discontent and anarchy.²

Student opinion on whether or not women should be involved in military aid programs was probed in the Oct. 15, 1940, Hatchet with a staff editorial titled ³Should Colleges Institute Women¹s Military Program?² The student body, for the most part, supported programs providing training to women in nursing and first aid, although some students disagreed with the proposed compulsory nature of the courses.

The Hatchet went through phases in how it handled the war, as did the country itself. In 1940 and during the early part of U.S. involvement in the conflict, Hatchet reporters and editors seemed eager to get information from every angle, including predictions, front line information and opinions on the draft. Then, for a year or two in the middle of the war, a depression about the topic settled over the staff, and The Hatchet seemed to retreat by focusing primarily on the GW community and nothing beyond it. The paper ran an occasional article on the status of GW alumni in the war, but it otherwise avoided the topic.

In 1943-44, however, The Hatchet returned to reporting on the war, now almost in overdrive to get as much information as possible. Every issue had at least one war-related article, whether it was quoting First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt when she spoke at GW, making light of it in its April Fools¹ Day ³Tomahawk Edition² or discussing the University¹s latest preparations for a possible home-front attack. The Hatchet was back in top form.

On May 8, 1945, The Hatchet had the honor of being the first campus source to officially announce the end of WWII. Above the paper¹s front-page heading ran a bold headline: ³V-E ASSEMBLY TONIGHT.² ³Official unconditional surrender of Germany will be commemorated at 6:10 p.m. in Lisner auditorium at a special convocation,² the article began. The war was over; the purge had triumphed.