District Trivia Question and Answer:
Q: The now defunct Liberty Loan Campaign was comprised of Bloomington citizens who insisted on 100 percent Americanism from every individual and every institution. What action did this group once successfully persuade the District 87 Board of Education to immediately adopt?

A:
a) the placement of an American flag in every classroom throughout the district along with mandatory daily recitings of the Pledge of Allegiance
b) a complete ban on the further hiring of school teachers with German or Italian ancestry until the War's end.
c) allow school children conduct door-to-door tin can salvage drives one-hour per week during the school year
d) rid the BHS curriculum of German language classes

"Out with everything German!" was the cry of the Liberty Loan Campaign.

On April 10, 1918 the Pantagraph reported that, "the group held a demonstration in which the following proposal received thorough support as the people of Bloomington are aroused as never before and from this time forward they will insist upon 100 percent Americanism, including…that the teaching of the German language shall no longer be permitted in the public schools of Bloomington." The article further stated, "they will have their way regardless of whatever arguments may be brought forward in opposition. There will be some whose Americanism cannot be questioned who will deplore the elimination of German in the high school. In normal times these arguments and opinions would have weight. At the present time, with the United States engaged in a death struggle with Germanism, they will be swept aside."

The Pantagraph article further articulated…

"Germany and everything German has had its opportunity in the United States - an opportunity that has been grossly abused - and this country will receive great benefits from a sweeping and thoro[sic] house cleaning. Teaching of the German language in our public schools comes far from being all-important. Whatever advantages accrue from such instruction will be more than offset by the gain in pure Americanism that is certain to come with the elimination of everything German from our midst. Far too much emphasis has been placed in the past upon everything German. This has come about largely thru the insidious circulation of German propaganda. The Huns have used our schools, our universities, every American institution and individual they could influence, to laud Germany and everything German to the skies and it has taken almost four years of war for the American people to discover what Germanism really means. Now they know to their sorrow and they will spare no effort to repair the damage that has come thru their own indifference and the unscrupulous machinations of a nation that has forfeited all claim to consideration from the decent elements of the world. "Out with everything German!" may be a drastic policy but we are living in a period when drastic policies are required to overcome the greatest peril that the United States and the civilized world have ever known."

- Source: Daily Pantagraph, "Out With Everything German!" April 11, 1918

The District 87 Board of Education met at their regular scheduled meeting the day after the demonstration (and the same day the above article was published) and voted unanimously –with shouts of approval– that the "ending of such teaching be done at once and in taking this action, arrangements have been made by which the pupils affected will not suffer in their scholarship ambition."

BHS students enrolled in German at the time were given credit for a full semester of class, even though the course ended two months prior to the end of the school year.

It was also noted in the Pantagraph that, "Miss Mengelberg, the teacher of German in the high school, also teaches French classes, and to these she will devote her time from now to the end of this term. It is understood that she does not intend to return to this school next year."

Source: Daily Pantagraph, "To Abolish German at the High School Now: Board takes Action on Question." April 12, 1918