This past May, the 75th anniversary of an important campus event sadly went unnoticed by the Cornell community. Frank H. Hiscock 1875, former chairman of the Cornell University Board of Trustees, deemed the event one of the three that “will always stand out in the history of Cornell University,” naming it alongside the opening of Cornell in October 1868 and the semi-centennial celebration in June 1919. Unfortunately, the passage of 75 long years has dimmed the collective Cornell memory; but I feel it is our duty not to forget.

On May 23, 1931, the words of President Herbert Hoover were broadcast on radios throughout the nation: “We do not seek to glorify war or to perpetuate hatreds. We are commemorating, not war, but the courage and the devotion and the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for their fellows and for their country.” President Hoover’s words were part of the dedication ceremony of the Cornell University War Memorial complex, located on West Campus. The memorial, consisting of Lyon and McFadden Towers and the colonnade between them, has been home to thousands of students. Each day, hundreds walk through its archways or gaze upon its towers from Libe Slope.

But the significance of the War Memorial’s dedication is not felt now as it was felt then. In 1918, Cornell had become almost entirely militarized. Fraternity houses became soldiers quarters, Telluride House became the Officers’ Club, Cascadilla Hall became a mess hall, and even The Cornell Daily Sun ceased publication, albeit briefly. Such a complete transformation of a college campus seems impossible today. By the end of the World War I, nearly 9,000 Cornellians had served in the various branches of the military, with over 4,500 commissioned as officers. This number was over two percent of all officers in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, a staggering figure. Thousands more participated in the war effort through civilian service.

The brave Cornellians in World War I received an impressive array of military decorations, with recognition from the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Japan, Montenegro, Portugal, Russia and Serbia. The first individuals to carry the American flag into the war were a group of 35 Cornell students in an ambulance unit assembled by Edward I. Tinkham ’16, a Croix de Guerre recipient whose name is among the fallen. Four pilots were declared Aces in the U.S. Flying Corps, and Alan L. Eggers ’19 received the Congressional Medal of Honor. The first three American women to attain army rank were physicians from Cornell’s medical program; they were appointed lieutenants in the French Army and awarded the Croix de Guerre.

Two hundred sixty-four Cornellians perished during World War I, their names immortalized in stone tablets on the walls of the War Memorial. The costs of construction for many of the dorm rooms throughout the two towers were donated by friends, families and student organizations in honor of fallen Cornellians. The Daily Sun itself purchased McFadden 716 to honor two former members of its editorial board. Noted alumnus Paul A. Schoellkopf 1906 dedicated three rooms in Lyon Tower to the five members of Zeta Psi who died in the war. Some rooms commemorate those whose names are not listed amongst the war dead because their deaths occurred after the war. For instance, Lyon 101 is dedicated to Major Maurice Connolly 1897 by his sisters. Connolly, the first Democratic and native-born Congressman from Iowa’s Third District, was a military aviator who died when a hospital plane crashed in May 1921.

Regrettably, one of the War Memorial’s primary features is now invisible to the public. The first floor of Lyon Tower holds a shrine to the 264 war dead. The small room contains a magnificent mural with an inscription to Cornellians who served in the war, as well as a glass case holding a book of record with the names of the fallen. The shrine was originally intended as an open room where the public could pray, meditate, reflect or observe a moment of silence. Unfortunately, the War Memorial complex was the target of antiwar protests in the 1960s, and the shrine was ordered closed. It was reopened by Residence Life in the late 1980s and 1990s, but the incredibly inappropriate use of the shrine for events such as holiday parties led to its closure once again.

However, the shrine will once again be opened to the public for one brief day this fall. In order to honor the memories of the Cornellians who served in World War I and remind current students of the building’s history and importance, Cornell’s chapter of the National Society of Scabbard & Blade, a military honorary, will be hosting an open house from noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 22. This opportunity is a rare one for Cornell students, and it is my hope that many of you will take time to briefly visit the shrine and remember the memorial’s intended purpose.

Perhaps Cornell’s fourth president, Livingston Farrand, phrased it best at the dedication: “It is not to national aims and concepts that we dedicate these halls today. I am one of those who see in this Memorial a monument to that finest of human qualities — devotion to an ideal, whatever its definition, that looks beyond the interests of self and is ready to give all, if need be, to the achievement of the end which claims allegiance. It is altogether appropriate that we should raise on this hillside a permanent memorial to these men who loved Cornell. It is altogether appropriate that we should thereby remind ourselves unceasingly of the terrible tragedy of war and the infinite pathos of the sacrifice which war involves. But no act of ours can compensate the pitiful wrong. If these deaths are not to have been in vain it is to the future that the lesson must be applied. It is because of what the example of these men may be made to mean for their successors on this Campus that the University accepts and dedicates this shrine.”

Corey Earle is a senior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be contacted at cre8@cornell.edu. Walking Backwards appears alternate Wednesdays.