Students at Kansas Military School ask to be Killed.

Progress, Volume XV, Issue 2, 1 October 1919, Page 622

Students at Kansas Military School ask to be Killed.

People don’t read petitions, they merely sign them, and a bright young '"upper-classman in St. John’s Military School, at Salina,Kansas, can prove it. He circulated a piece of paper requesting the decapitation of those Avho signed, representing that it was a petition for a holiday, and found plenty of his felioAv students ready to put their signatures to a document providing not only that they should be “noisily, decapitated,” but that their parents ~ need not be notified “as it Avill not be Avorth while,” and that their personal belongings, “such as old shoes, pants, marbles, .... and chewing-gum,” ■should be bestoAved on the school “thereby to preserve the memory of other worthless lives.” From either the psychological or*jocular standpoint, the bright young man’s experiment was a large sue cess. Also, according to the account of the hoax ■ published in the school paper, the “Skirmisher,” he chose a way of making public the contents of his “petition” that enabled him to get a little additional “snap” into it. As the “.Skirmisher” tells the story:

Acting on the theory that people will sign practically any sort of a petition without reading it carefully, if the introduction of the petition sounds all right, A. (I. Oliver, senior captain of the cadet corps at St. John’s Military School, recently circulated a petition calling for the decapitation of those signing. He obtained fifty signatures. He would have got more signatures if there had been time. In the petition the words “Holiday*’ and “Tuesday, February 4,” were typewritten in capitals and stood out from the rest of the petition. These were words that did the work. A dance was given at the school that night. During an intermission the names of the signers were called out and the cadets were told to form a line in the centre of the dancing floor. After they had done this, the petition was read to the amusement of the guests and the consternation of the cadets. The signers then, for the first time, discovered what they had signed. Cadet G. K. Harris stood in line without having signed the petition. When the names were being called out, thinking he was going to miss a holiday, he stood anxiously near by. Sergeant Stanley Skilling noticed his agitation, and whispered, “Slip in line, they’ll not notice that your name wasn’t called.” Harris obeyed cheerfully and stood in line at attention with the rest. The petition follows: “St. John’s Military School, Salina, Kansas, February 3, 1919. “To the Faculty of St. John’s Military School: “We, the undersigned, do hereby respectfully submit the following petition: “That in view of the fact that the cadet corps has beeen unusually conscientious in the performance of its duties and obligations and that the school spirit heretofore displayed has been a great credit to the institution, and since the officers have been very punctilious in the performance of their duties to the great assistance and relief of the faculty, “He it hereby respectfully petitioned that if A Holiday be considered on Tuesday, February 4, the faculty postpone the same indefinitely as an unworthy reward for the' above-mentioned excellencies and virtues. “As a more fitting recognition of our achievements, Ave beg that something be granted Avhich will , not soon be forgotten. On the date aforementioned, we request that we, the undersigned, be conducted to the rear of the gymnasium and be there noisily decapitated. “The formality of notifying our parents can be done away Avith, as it Avill not be worth Avhile. All our belongings, such as text-books, old shoes, pants, jerseys, kite-strings, photographs, marbles, shinny clubs, pennants, paper airplanes, and chewing-gum avc dedicate to the school, hoping thereby to preserve the memory of otherwise useless lives, “All of Avhich avc humbly petition.” The signatures, fifty of them, folloAv and are printed in full by the tl Skirmisher for the edification of the signers’ felloAv strides.”