I CHAPTER XIX ALL AMERICA MOBILIZED 'T was not in fighting and in the equipment that made for victorious fighting alone that America triumphed. Back of the battle line, in homes and shops, on farms and wherever Americans lived and labored, there came a union of effort for the winning of the war that far transcended everything the world had experienced in national effort. All America mobilized when the summons to battle came. Women and children eagerly sought opportunity to co-operate in the mighty effort for world freedom. In food production and conservation, in Red Cross workrooms, in training hospitals, in the welfare work for soldiers that made the American Army a miracle of contentment at home and overseas, and in countless other endeavors the urge of the American people toward victory was manifested. The taunt of the enemy that America was "a land of dollar worshipers" was proved to be false. Never had there been witnessed such a generous outpouring of resources. Rich and poor were brethren in sacrifice. It was a competition in patriotic service in which each vied with his neighbor and in which the American people released impulses making for regeneration and spiritual development. Foremost in the activities of American civilians were those concerned with the welfare of the nation's fighting forces. Most of this effort was concentrated under the direction of the Commission on Training Camp Activities. Secretary of War Baker thus summarized that work: TRAINING CAMP ACTIVITIES The Commission on Training Camp Activities was created in April, 1917, by the Secretary of War to advise him on all matters relating to the morale of the troops. Cut off from home, family, friends, clubs, churches, the hundred thousands of men who poured into the country's camps required something besides the routine of military training if they were to be kept healthy mentally and spiritually. It became the task of the commission to foster in the camps a new social world. This was done through its own agents and through the agents of the affiliated organizations over which it had supervision. It provided club life, it organized athletics, it furnished recreation through theaters and mass singing, it provided educational facilities, it furnished opportunity for religious services to be held, it went into the communities outside the camps and reorganized their facilities for offering hospitality to the soldiers. While it provided these advantages to the soldier, it also sought to protect him from vicious influences by a systematic campaign of education against venereal disease and by strict enforcement of laws against liquor selling and prostitution. The effort was to furnish for the men an environment not only clean and wholesome, but actually inspiring-to make them fit and eager to fight for democracy. While much of this work was carried on by the commission itself through government appropriations, a great deal of it was made possible by private organizations which worked under the supervision of the commission. These organizations, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the National Catholic War Council (Knights of Columbus), the War Camp Community Service, the American Library Association, the Jewish Welfare Board and the Salvation Army were enormously effective in maintaining the morale of our troops at home and overseas. ATHLETICS One of the first things undertaken by the commission was the stimulation of athletic sports. Forty-four athletic directors and thirty boxing instructors were appointed in the various camps and an organization was built up by which the men in the camps were participating regularly in some form of athletics, both as part of their military training and as spare-time recreation. Mass athletics, boxing, hand-to-hand fighting, and calisthenics proved so valuable in promoting military efficiency that many of the civilian athletic directors were commissioned. At first it was difficult to obtain an adequate quantity of athletic equipment for the soldiers. Funds were lacking and raw material for manufacturing equipment was scarce. In many cases a company box of equipment had to serve a regiment. But later, funds appropriated by the government were available, supplemented by generous subscriptions collected by special committees working under the direction of the commission. FIGHTING DISEASE Much attention, too, was given to the problem of social hygiene. A wide educational campaign along lines of sex hygiene was undertaken in all the camps and civilian population of the country regarding the nature and prevention of venereal disease. Lectures, moving pictures, and exhibits of various kinds were utilized, and extensive literature was devel oped. More than 2,000,000 soldiers were reached by lecturers; fifty-eight camps received stereomotographs, and 116 camps and posts received placard exhibits. In the larger military establishments trained noncommissioned officers were in charge of this work. The Section on Men's Work conducted an extensive campaign of education among civilians. It sought to stimulate the enforcement of existing laws against prostitution and to pass new ones where needed to curb vice and liquor selling. Its chief effort was given to promoting education about venereal disease through industrial establishments, enlisting the support of employers who devoted time and money to furthering the work among their employees. The Section on Women's Work, by circulation of literature and exhibits, enlisted the special interest of women, individually and in groups, in the fight against disease. The Law Enforcement Division was the agency through which the commission acted in making effective the government policy of suppressing prostitution and illicit liquor selling. LIBERTY THEATRES 99 When General Pershing said: "Give me a thousand soldiers occasionally entertained to ten thousand soldiers without entertainment, he voiced the need for entertainment in the camps. The Commission on Training Camp Activities built Liberty theaters in thirty-four camps. The smallest of these theaters seated about one thousand and the largest somewhat over three thousand. Built of wood, but so constructed as to be easily emptied in case of fire, they were modern in every respect and equipped with all necessary paraphernalia for the handling of scenery and lighting effects. The cost of the buildings varied from $5,000 to $50,000, depending upon the size; and the government appropriated $1,250,000 for this work. Each theater was in the charge of a resident manager appointed by the commission. In addition to the regular performances staged in these theaters on a booking circuit, the commission appointed dramatic directors in many of the camps, so that the boys overseas were equipped to stage their own performances and thus were provided with means of self-entertainment. CIVILIAN AGENCIES The great civilian agencies, notably the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army, the American Library Association, the War Camp Community Service and the Jewish Welfare Board served the young manhood of America with a helpfulness which passes all description. They added the touch of home and affectionate interest; they gave comfort and diversion; they helped to create and preserve the spirit of manliness and dignity of behavior and thought which characterized our army, and they led our home communities in the formation of an environment in which alone such an army could have been created. THE RED CROSS Among the civilian organizations which devoted themselves to the relief of human suffering and to care for our men in service, the most important was the American Red Cross. This organization had been in existence for many years, and had done a wonderful work as the protector of peoples and communities that had suffered widespread calamity and were unable to help themselves. On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on the Imperial German Government. On May 10, 1917, President Wilson, who was also president of the Red Cross, on account of the tremendous increase in the volume and scope of Red Cross work after it entered the war, created the Red Cross War Council as a Board of Managing Directors for the war period, and appointed as chairman Mr. Henry P. Davison, of New York, a member of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., and well known for his administrative ability. On March 1, 1919, Mr. Davison retired from this position, and in a statement addressed to the American people he summed up the activities of the Red Cross during the war as follows: "During the past nearly twenty-one months the American people have given in cash and supplies to the American Red Cross more than $400,000,000. No value can be placed upon the contributions of service which have been given without stint and oftentimes at great sacrifice by millions of our people. The effort of the American Red Cross in this war has constituted by far the largest voluntary gifts of money, of hand and heart ever contributed purely for the relief of human suffering. Through the Red Cross the ardent spirit of the whole American people has been mobilized to take care of our own, to relieve the misery incident to war, and also to reveal to the world the supreme ideals of our national life. "Every one who has any part in this war effort of the Red Cross is entitled to congratulate himself. No thanks from anyone can be equal in value to the self-satisfaction everyone should feel for the part taken. Fully eight million American women have exerted themselves in Red Cross service. When we entered the war the American Red Cross had about five hundred thousand members. Today there are upwards of seventeen million full-paid members, outside of the members of the Junior Red Cross, numbering perhaps nine million school children additional. The chief effort of the Red Cross during the war has been to care for our men in service, and to aid our army and navy wherever the Red Cross may have been called on to assist. As to this phase of the work, Surgeon-General Ireland of the United States Army, recently said: "The Red Cross has been an enterprise as vast as the war itself. From the beginning it has done those things which the Army Medical Corps wanted done but could not do itself.' "The Red Cross endeavor in France was upon an exceptionally large scale. Service was rendered not only to the American Army, but to the French Army and French people as well, the latter, particularly, during the trying period when the allied world was waiting for the American Army to arise in force and power. The American Red Cross work in France was initiated by a commission of eighteen men, who landed on French shores June 13, 1917. More than nine thousand persons were upon the rolls in France. Of them seven thousand were actively engaged when the armistice was signed." The work of the Red Cross in France was but a small part of its achievement. One of its most important labors was in its Home Service Department. Features of this work were safeguarding girls, boys and women from bad working conditions, fitting people to the right job, and helping them to success by bringing the right job and person together, seeing that insurance policies did not lapse in case the mother and wife did not understand them thoroughly, moving families to better quarters, protecting the recipient of pay and allowance checks, furnishing the best legal advice for families in the perplexing problems arising from the war, being big brother and big sister to soldiers' children. The Red Cross established a Bureau of Communications, whose object was to serve as a clearing house between the men in the field and the people at home, with a special aim of obtaining accurate information about soldiers who were missing or dead. Some idea of the scope of its work can be obtained by a brief description of the work of its various |