1918
Early in January, President Wilson addressed Congress on War Aims and Peace Terms, listing
his famous "Fourteen Points." Mare Island Marines defeated Camp Lewis Army in the fourth
Rose Bowl, 19-7. At the end of March, Daylight Savings Time was inaugurated. In May, air
mail service began. The "Red Baron," Baron Manfred von Richtofen, was shot down in his
Fokker triplane and killed. The Education of Henry Adams won the Pulitzer Prize. Leon
Forrest displayed a new method for producing motion pictures in color. The war ended with
signing the Armistice which took effect at 11:11 a.m. on November 11.
• Elizabeth Clarkson Died • SATC Established
• Commencement • Clarkson Men in Service
Elizabeth Clarkson Died.
The most active of the three sisters in founding the school as a
memorial to their brother, Miss Elizabeth Clarkson, died in New York City on January 7. A
memorial tablet to her honor was placed in the entry of Old Main building. (See p. 100)
Commencement.
The Commencement ceremony of 1918 was changed considerably to meet
the wartime conditions existing in Potsdam and elsewhere. All the exercises, baccalaureate
sermon, conferring of degrees, and the announcement of the Clarkson Scholarship were held on
Sunday, June 2.
Rev. Dr. W.W. Bellinger, Vicar of St. Agnes Church in New York, preached the
baccalaureate sermon to the class on Sunday morning at Trinity Church, He chose as his text
Isiah 34:5, "For my sword shall be bathed in Heaven." As the text implied, it was a war sermon.
Among other things, he called attention to the reports that while two million men had been
called into service by the draft, there had been no disorders and no attempts to hinder its
workings to any extent. "Too much depends on this struggle. Our all is at stake."
Sunday afternoon at five o'clock, the class, faculty, and Board of Trustees, in full
academic regalia, proceeded from Grant House, the house of President Brooks
[Note. Where Lewis House now stands.], to the entrance of the College, and there unveiled a
bronze tablet to Miss Elizabeth Clarkson, whose death occurred in New York City in January.
The tablet reads:
IN LOVING MEMORY OF ELIZABETH CLARKSON ONE OF THE FOUNDERS
IN 1895 OF THE
THOMAS S. CLARKSON
MEMORIAL SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY
AND TRUSTEE UNTIL HER DEATH
JANUARY 7, 1918
"SHE HATH DONE WHAT SHE COULD."
The group then mounted the stairs to the chapel and continued with the Commencement
ceremonies. Rev. Dr. Bellinger addressed the class a second time, and exhorted them:
