A soldier's mother in France

by Rheta Childe Dorr

Within a week the house was scrubbed from top to bottom and freshly papered and painted. Within a few more weeks it was wired for electric lights, it had shower baths for soldiers and the only bathroom in the entire town. There was a canteen where six hundred men a day could get a sit-down meal of very good food and a counter where many more could buy chocolates and cigarettes. There was a writing- and reading-room, a room where French lessons were furnished, another where boxing and wrestling matches could be held. There was a piano and a phonograph, and a little way down the street there was a large hall for entertainments.

By this time Miss Christy had asked for and was given an assistant, another live wire of a young woman. They soon had three or four French women for cooks and assistants, and they were doing a land office business. When I visited them the entire house was so full of soldiers that the two secretaries were deploring the fact that they had not twice the room, especially for canteen purposes.

Everybody in town uses that headquarters. The mayor goes there to take a bath. Officers from the camps visit it almost as often as the men.

These are two samples only. All the Y. M. C. A. headquarters are doing good work. These two were notable because of the personality of the secretaries, which was above the average. There are many such working for the Y. M. C. A. There were half a dozen at Aix-les-Bains, where our men went for vacation leaves. Some of them had prominent names as well. Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., was on the staff at the Aix casino. Her tireless work, her frank and democratic manners delighted the men. “She works, too,” they said admiringly.

In another Y. M. C. A. canteen I saw young Mrs. Vincent Astor on duty. She walked up and down between the tables anxiously observing whether Private Bill Snyder, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Corporal Joe Morgan, of Weeping Water, Nebraska, got pie where pie was due, or an extra helping of jam where requested. Associated with Mrs. Astor was Ethel Harriman, now the wife of a lieutenant in the army.

The Y. M. C. A. wants more of those women, not because they are rich and “fashionable,” but because they have social experience, good manners, tact, agreeable qualities. There is no room in the world now for what used to be called society women. The place for leisure class women is nursing sick and wounded soldiers and helping to serve and to entertain well ones. The Y. M. C. A. wants at least eight hundred more women. It wants business women, executive women, talented women. It ought to get the eight hundred and a big reserve as well.

Of course, the Y. M. C. A. will get all the money it needs, and that without any controversy. Never mind if it has made mistakes. We can criticize the mistakes after we have given the money. And right here let me say that one of the head men in the Paris executive headquarters told me that the Y. M. C. A. was hard at work rectifying some of the mistakes they made in the beginning, and which were absolutely inevitable in the face of unknown conditions and unforseen problems.

“We know now,” said this man, “that it was a grave mistake to send over men of draft age. We shall not do that in future. We know that we have some useless timber over here, and we are going to weed it out. We know that a religious man, one who can lead in prayer and preach a good sermon, is not necessarily a good executive secretary in a war region. We are finding that out. We know that not all the women we have brought over here have made good. We will replace them. Just give us time.”

I have heard it mentioned as a mistake of the Y. M. C. A. that the leaders do not force prayer meetings on the men, that it has given up some of its religious quality. In my opinion, the Y. M. C. A. is much more religious now than it ever was before in all its history. It lives its religion every hour of the day, and it has learned a beautiful religious tolerance. To Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile alike it gives the same generous and never failing love and charity.

To me it is an evidence of the true religious spirit that in Y. M. C. A. huts you may see displayed a notice that Father Maguire will hear confessions of Catholic soldiers on Saturday in such and such a room. Or that a Sedar service for Jewish soldiers will be held on such a date at the following addresses. It is the only kind of religion that appeals to me. It is the only kind I ever heard that the founder of Christianity preached. It is the strongest possible reason why we should give money, all that is asked for, to the Y. M. C. A.