Rogers was in Europe on his fellowship at the start of the First World War . Reading French , German and Italian newspapers imbued Rogers with a certain neutrality . The sinking of the Lusitania changed that . On 12 May 1915 he wrote to his mother that prior to the Lusitania , " ... hearing the Germans so unjustly run down in French Switzerland , I got in the habit of putting in a word for them now and then . " After the Lusitania , he wrote , " I think I have spoken my last word in their favor . " He also got his first taste of the mob . Witnessing demonstrations in Rome " has knocked the last spark of Socialism out of my soul and with it most of my respect for the labor unions . " Upon returning to the United States and completing his dissertation , Rogers sought to continue in his family 's martial tradition . He sought to enlist as a Quartermaster in the Officers ' Reserve Corps , but was rejected . He served with the Yale battalion along the Texas-Mexico border . He helped to enroll students in the American Ambulance Service thinking he would ship out to France with them but was again rejected . In the fall of 1917 he accepted a position as a statistician with the Priorities Committee of the Council of National Defense . Rogers was shocked and dismayed to learn the state of U.S. unpreparedness , administrative disorganization , the paucity of information on the economy and the unwillingness of business to cooperate . Rogers opposed direct government control of the economy and sought instead the creation of a system of priorities . With the routinization of management , he left the Council and was commissioned a First Lieutenant in the Ordnance Reserve Corps in January 1918 and sent to Europe
sinking of the Lusitania
Sinking of the RMS Lusitania
James Harvey Rogers