By no stretch of imagination
could these wet trenches be thought greatly to concern the "frat," the
Lumen, or the university. Really important matters were the doings of
the "Track Team," now training in the "Gym" and on the 'Varsity Field,
and, more vital still, the prospects of the Nine. But in May there came
a shock which changed things for a time.
The _Lusitania_ brought to every American a revelation of what had lain
so deep in his own heart that often he had not realized it was there.
When the Germans hid in the sea and sent down the great merchant ship,
with American babies and their mothers, and gallantly dying American
gentlemen, there came a change even to girls and boys and professors,
until then so preoccupied with their own little aloof world thousands of
miles from the murder.
Fred Mitchell, ever volatile and generous, was one of those who went
quite wild. No orator, he nevertheless made a frantic speech at the
week's "frat meetings," cursing the Germans in the simple old English
words that their performance had demonstrated to be applicable, and
going on to demand that the fraternity prepare for its own share in the
action of the country.
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