To fully understand what was going on during this time, I decided to look back at other wars and see if these same types of attacks had happened to people before. In almost every major war conflict in our history someone or some group of people were persecuted for what they thought. It was interesting that this even went back to the civil war with some newspapers taking the heat for publishing criticisms of Lincoln. The book, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime by Geoffrey R. Stone, was a great book for my research.

I have always wondered why we seem to hate those people who talk freely when we as a nation believe in free speech. Throughout my research of the trial here at UNL this has been the issue that always seems to creep back up. Professor Luckey was a great teacher but as soon as he was heard saying one negative thing about WWI he was immediately prosecuted.

Students were also feeling the pressures of wartime. Many young men left school to join the service, this allowed young women to join the University, which was a great thing. At the same time with so many people leaving the University I feel like it put more pressure on the teachers and especially Chancellor Samuel Avery. With him being in Washington for much of the UNL loyalty trial, it was hard for him to know what exactly was going on and by the time he got back he had no choice but to let Luckey and Persinger go. As stated before they were not fired for being disloyal they were fired for putting the University under scrutiny.