Soon after the devastating Japanese bombing raid on ships docked at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which killed 2,403 Americans — “Remember Pearl Harbor!” became the U.S. battlecry. But Tiger Rag editor Louise Lamar on the one-year anniversary of the attack had harsh words for some of her fellow students.
“Everyone remembered Pearl Harbor except the students at Memphis State,” she wrote in an editorial. “Thousands upon thousands of American soldiers have died or been captured or maimed for life since December 7, 1941, and their blood is upon the hands of those subversive termites who have done nothing since Pearl Harbor except whine about sugar and gas rationing and say, ‘I’d like to do something, of course, but I don’t know what to do, and anyway I am so frightfully busy with teas and things that I just never have time for anything else.’”
Editor Lamar — who strongly criticized college administrators for not setting up a Red Cross room for rolling bandages and knitting socks for soldiers and starting other volunteer programs — saved her most stinging rebuke for her fellow students.
“Every day that students delay contributing to the war effort means prolongation of the war and the loss of many more lives,” the editorial said.
But, of course, in fairness, there were many dedicated students who were going to classes and then working 40-60 hours a week at aircraft and ordnance factories and other war industries; coeds who acted as hostesses at USO dances; and students buying war bonds and war stamps to help defray the cost of the war.
For those not buying bonds and stamps, the Tiger Rag editor had scolding words.
“By putting his money into war stamps instead of candy bars and soft drinks, the student will not only benefit his complexion, he will be laying a firm foundation for future security for himself and his family,” Lamar wrote.
During the first year of U.S. involvement in World War II, the Tiger Rag was able to continue publishing traditional print newspapers, and the staff was the usual mixture of men and women. But by the second year, the news reporters and editors were all female students with the only male reporter being the sports writer. A paper shortage caused by the war effort might have put the student newspaper out of business, but resourceful student journalists kept the college informed by writing their stories on typewriters and posting the news on the Tiger Rag Bulletin Board on campus.
Besides the usual students attending classes, there were many more male students than before when an aviation training program was started by the federal government on the Memphis campus. In response to the larger male demographic, the female students were moved out of Mynders Hall to make room for the aviators. The female students were then housed on the upper floor of the Administration Building.
Though the Tiger Rag, like all college newspapers of that time, had plenty of stories on dances and wiener roasts, it was also the main source of news about Memphis State students captured or killed in war battles.
One story told proudly of football player and captain of the tennis team Arthur Allen — who had also been sports editor of the Tiger Rag and elected student body president before shipping out to Europe — being promoted to captain and winning one more medal for his courageous piloting of a bomber over occupied France.
The next Tiger Rag reported the news that Capt. Allen had died of grave wounds he incurred while bringing his badly shot up bomber and crew safely back into an RAF base in England.
