The colored women who served overseas had a tremendous strain placed upon their Christian ideals—but the officials whom we have mentioned, one and all, as did now and then a regional secretary like Miss Susanne Ridgeway at St. Nazaire, Miss Harris at Aix-les-Bains or the Misses Watson and Shaw at Brest, helped them to keep their faith in the democracy of real Christian service.
A whole volume of interest centers about those two weeks in Paris. The conferences from which we gathered facts and details that would find practical expression on the field; the meeting of old friends and the making of new; the full realization of the restrictions of the army and its penalties for disobedience; the fortitude and fineness of the French—all this and more crowded upon us in those days and wonderfully strengthened us for our task. And then, one day, one of us faced toward Brest and the other toward St. Nazaire to love and serve our men at those ports.
All honor is due the faithful men and women of both races at home, who by a great expenditure of time, money and energy, made possible the operation of the great plan of bringing comfort and relief to the soldiers through the Welfare Organizations overseas. And while there was disappointment in the hopes of many an honest heart, in that there were prejudices and discriminations often shown to the colored race, and sometimes injustices to the soldiers of both races, still, the army would have been a barren place had these institutions not existed. The great good that was done gives much hope for the possibilities of organized welfare effort in the future.
The Y. M. C. A. and Other Welfare Organizations
IT was our privilege to go overseas as welfare worker under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A., and from the time we entered active duty until we finished our work at Camp Pontanezen, we can conscientiously say that we had the greatest opportunity for service that we have ever known; service that was constructive, and prolific with wonderful and satisfying results.
The contact with a hundred thousand men, many of whom it was our privilege to help in a hundred different ways; men who were groping and discouraged; others who were crying loudly for help, that they might acquire just the rudiments of an education, and so establish connection with the anxious hearts whom they had left behind; and still others who had a depth of understanding and a breadth of vision that was at once a help and an inspiration.
It was a wonderful spirit that prompted the Y. M. C. A. to offer its vast facilities to this service; to cheer and encourage; to administer to the spiritual and physical needs; and to establish a connecting link between the soldier and the home; that home which ever kept for him a beckoning candle in the window, and a fire that was ever aglow.