Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman of the Committee on Training Camp Activities, said in writing about the work of the Commission: “It is our task, in the first place, to see that the inside of the sixty-odd army camps furnish real amusement and recreation and social life. In the second place, we are to see to it that the towns and cities near by the camps are organized to provide recreation and social life to the soldiers who flock there when on leave. The Government will give the men while they train every possible opportunity for education, amusement, and social life.”

Negro soldiers were a part of the army for whom recreation was an essential. In most places, however, the pool rooms and the ice cream and soft drink parlors very frequently were but meeting-places for the soldiers and girls, and the boarding and rooming houses were especially questionable. Public dance halls were hardly ever adequately supervised. In Charlotte, for instance, where two public halls were conducted, the most popular one was open and crowded every night. A policeman acted as doorkeeper and received all tickets. Little effort was made to control the conduct and none to supervise dancing.

The War Camp Community Service came into being to organize the social and recreational facilities of the communities adjacent to the training camps and to furnish the best possible places for the soldiers in their free time. City organizations were impressed with their responsibility for showing genuine hospitality to the men, and invariably they co-operated. In the beginning there was very little effort to provide centers for Negro soldiers. Within the first seven months that Negro soldiers were in the camps in only one city did the War Camp Community Service make provision for their entertainment. In May, 1918, however, eight clubs were opened in different cities, and in all cases these were the best places that provided wholesome amusement, and usually the only available places.

While discussion was going on as to whether Negro soldiers would be permanent and whether it was necessary to establish clubs for them, R. B. Patin, executive secretary of the War Camp Community Service at Des Moines, established the first club for Negro soldiers. The Lincoln School, a large three-story building, was secured by the Community Service and the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, and Herbert R. Wright, a lawyer and former consul of the United States in Honduras and Venezuela, was placed in charge of the club, which had a spacious reading-room, well supplied with writing materials, and a music room with piano, victrola, and numerous records. There was also an up-to-date cafeteria, as well as a bootblack parlor and a well conducted pool room. Citizens were invited to the band concerts in the auditorium, as well as to the socials of the various companies in the 366th Infantry.

Two of the largest community centers for Negro soldiers were located at Washington, D. C., and Baltimore, Md. During the summer of 1918 a well equipped “Soldiers’ Club” was established in Washington; it was conducted by J. B. Ramsey and the co-operation of the community was more effective than in any other center visited by the writer. Some form of entertainment was given practically every evening by club or church organizations; on Sundays many wounded soldiers at the Walter Reed Hospital were taken to church and then to dinner; and on Christmas Day, 1918, and New Year’s Day, 1919, there was very special hospitality and entertainment. The center in Baltimore was opened July 20, 1918, and was in charge of Dr. W. H. Weaver, a Presbyterian minister. The club was visited by soldiers from Camp Meade, Camp Holabird, Curtis Bay, the Canton warehouses, and Edgewood, and its chief feature was its sleeping-quarters accommodating two hundred men. For these the fee was 25 cents a night and they were the most attractive found in any center for Negro soldiers. The men at Camp Upton had access to the recreational facilities of New York, and while a club was established for them in Harlem, they did not depend upon the community center as in most other places. At Camp Devens in Massachusetts the soldiers’ clubs were open to all men in uniform irrespective of race.

So much has been said about racial goodwill in Virginia that it was surprising that there should be in this state in the beginning an indifference that was very close to opposition to the establishing of clubs for Negro soldiers. After the first eight months of war, however, the need became so urgent that clubs were established at Petersburg and Richmond for the soldiers at Camp Lee, at Alexandria for those at Camp Humphrey, and at Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News, and Hampton for the sailors and soldiers in the various camps and training stations on the Lower Peninsula. At Petersburg, on account of the opposition of the local ministers, dancing was not included as a part of the club entertainment. At Alexandria an Odd Fellows Hall, owned by Negroes, was donated to the Community Service without rent. The first club erected at Newport News proving altogether inadequate, eighteen city lots were purchased and a new building costing $25,000 erected. A staff of six secretaries was employed. To furnish the building at Hampton, Negro citizens raised $1,000, an effective program being carried out under the direction of Miss Elizabeth Martin. The success of the work in Newport News and Hampton was largely due to the sincere effort of J. L. Einstein, director of community work on the Lower Peninsula.

In Columbia, S. C., community work was influenced by local sentiment and it was more than a year before a club was provided for Negro soldiers. At Spartanburg and Greenville there were small clubs which were principally bureaus of information, and at Greenville the colored committee especially opposed dancing. At Charlotte, where a hotel was renovated and made into an attractive club, the Negro ministers gave their moral support, and clubs of colored women aided greatly. In Atlanta it was said that the Negro soldiers were not “stationary enough” for a club, though thousands of them were constantly at Camp Gordon during the first year of the war. It was necessary at length for the War Department to intervene on behalf of the men and a club was finally established November 15, 1918, after fifteen months of waiting. When it was established the colored committee objected to dancing, pool and card playing, thus eliminating the forms of recreation that the soldiers especially enjoyed. In Augusta, near Camp Hancock, more than $3,000 was spent in renovating a two-story hall, and the club was in charge of a liberal Baptist minister, Rev. R. J. McCain. At Macon, near Camp Wheeler, club rooms were secured in the Pythian Temple. At Anniston, near Camp McClellan, the man employed as janitor was expected to do the executive work and very little was done by way of carrying out a constructive program. At Hattiesburg, Miss., a committee of Negro men raised $100, rented and furnished a small rest room for the Negro soldiers when they were first sent to Camp Shelby; later the War Camp Community Service renovated the Masonic Hall with two floors and attractively furnished it as a club. At Alexandria, La., near Camp Beauregard, a club was opened in the Masonic Hall and repaired by the Community Service at a cost of $1,000. At Little Rock the club was in the Taborian Hall, a modern, well located building. The Negro citizens paid the rent of $10 a month, while the Community Service equipped the room. A soldier from Camp Pike was in charge. Effective work was not done at this center because of lack of co-operation with the citizens. The state of Texas was generally behind others in the work. At Camp Logan, Houston, Camp MacArthur, Waco, and Camp Bowie, Fort Worth, there were no centers. $5,000 was placed in the budget at Fort Worth for a club, but it was cut out entirely, and the Negro people felt keenly the attitude toward Negro soldiers after they had contributed generously toward the various “drives” for the war. At Camp Travis in San Antonio, after eight months had passed, the Negro citizens purchased a site and gave it to the War Department for as long a time as it might be needed. The War Camp Community Service appropriated $10,000, and a building was opened at Christmas, 1918. When this was no longer needed for war work, it was turned over to the colored people and used as a public library.

All told this work gave to many Negro people a new conception of well organized and supervised recreation for the young people. Scores of men and women were employed as secretaries and tens of thousands of dollars spent in promoting the work. Realizing that the development of recreation centers for Negro girls was a part of the bigger problem from the standpoint of the soldiers, the War Camp Community Service did not confine its activities to maintaining clubs for soldiers but also established centers where there were persons who gave their entire time to girls. In the cantonment cities the young women were organized into patriotic leagues and clubs, and these co-operated with the soldiers in giving entertainments and socials, and in those cities where the work for girls was most active there it was that Community Service as a whole was most successful. When the first soldiers’ club was equipped at Des Moines, one of the chief factors contributing to its success was the organization also of four girls’ clubs with a total membership of one hundred and thirty. There was a chaperone for each club; gymnasium classes met twice a week, and at the close a demonstration in folk games was given. At Chillicothe the club room was located under an Episcopal mission and was beautifully furnished. In Baltimore the whole effort was handled with unusual success, and no young woman was admitted to the parties without a card from the hostesses. The work in these three places was typical. Sometimes employment departments and classes in cooking and sewing were conducted. All such effort gave the young women better protection and at the same time afforded them social contact in a wholesome environment. It also gave to the different communities a deeper sense of responsibility for the welfare of the Negro girl.

THE NEGRO CHURCH

In the cantonment cities, especially in the South, there were numerous representative Negro churches. A few of these had adequate facilities for the entertainment of soldiers, but many were too poorly located or equipped to conduct social centers. The ministers’ unions or alliances always endorsed the war work for the soldiers, but rarely was there organized effort on the part of the churches. On one occasion in Columbia, S. C., the ministers’ alliance assumed responsibility for the money contributed by the citizens for a flag presented to the 371st Infantry. Some important factors contributed to the general situation. In many cases at the beginning the welfare agencies in the cantonment cities showed a tendency to ignore the Negro citizens. Another difficulty was found in the uncertainty as to the soldiers’ presence. Numerous cases occurred where elaborate arrangements were made for the men and they did not arrive at all. In such a case of course either the church or the camp authorities had failed to do what was necessary for the most complete co-operation. Sometimes when rest rooms were provided by the churches, the soldiers were not enthusiastic about them because of the limitations placed upon them. Excellent concerts and well ordered socials were sometimes given by the churches, however, and soldiers were frequently invited to dinner at the homes of members of congregations after the Sunday services.