ceremony, with the state supreme court present, he gave a provocative speech criticizing his school. The faculty withheld his degree, but granted it after two days of intense debate. Willkie joined his parents' law firm, but volunteered for the United States Army on April 2, 1917, the day President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. An army clerk transposed his first two names; with Willkie unwilling to invest the time to have the bureaucracy correct it, he kept his name as Wendell Lewis Willkie. Commissioned as a first lieutenant, Willkie was sent for artillery training. He arrived in France as the war was ending and did not see combat. In January 1918 he married Edith Wilk, a librarian from Rushville, Indiana; the couple had one son, Philip. In France, Willkie was assigned to defending soldiers who had slipped away for time in Paris against orders. He was recommended for promotion to captain, but was discharged in early 1919 before the paperwork went through. Lawyer and executive (1919–39) Akron attorney and activist Discharged from the army, Willkie returned to Elwood. He considered a run for Congress as a Democrat, but was advised that the district was so Republican he would be unlikely to keep the seat even if he could win it, and his chances might be better in a more urban area. Herman Willkie wanted Wendell and Robert to rejoin the family law firm, but Henrietta was opposed, feeling that opportunities in Elwood were too limited for her sons. She got her way, and in May 1919 Wendell Willkie successfully applied for a job with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio as head of the legal office that advised workers on wills and other personal matters. He was soon bored there, and on the advice of his wife, left for a law firm despite an offer from Harvey Firestone to double his salary. Firestone told the departing lawyer that he would never amount to anything because he was a Democrat. Willkie became active in the Akron Democratic Party, becoming prominent enough while still with Firestone to introduce the Democratic presidential nominee, Ohio Governor James M. Cox, when he came to town during the 1920 campaign. He was a delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, and supported New York Governor Al Smith through the record 103 ballots, when the nomination fell to