World War I was known then as “The Great War.” It ended officially on June 28, 1919 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, though the fighting had ceased some seven months earlier. As older students were taught, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 1918, an armistice agreement was signed between Germany and the Allies. For many years, the November 11 was called Armistice Day.
Armistice Day was first observed in 1919. It was made a federal holiday in 1938. On June 1, 1954, the United States Congress amended the statutes to replace “Armistice” with “Veterans” to honor veterans from all wars. The bill to formalize the change was signed by President Eisenhower on May 26, 1954.
Below is an excerpt from an editorial by Dr. Chas. C. Selecman in The Semi-Weekly Campus, a publication of of Southern Methodist University, in its issue of Wednesday, November 9, 1927.
The time will come in human affairs when it will no longer be necessary for men to shoot each other down and poison each other by gas in an effort to settle international disputes. That time may not come to bless us or our children. For some time the world has been looking for the coming of this era of peace. Prophets have been picturing it, poets have been singing about it, and saints have been praying for it. One day the nations will learn war no more. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. They will study production rather than destruction. the popular hero will then be not a man of blood, but a Luther Burbank, a Thomas Edison, a Michael Pupin. The builder, rather than the destroyer, will be the popular idol.
