Chapter C: B. Humphrey, (3)

Here, as elsewhere, the French people had been informed as to the shortcomings of the colored Americans, and among other things had been told that they were incapable of becoming officers, and leading their own people. In October, 1918, thirty-three colored Lieutenants of Artillery landed at this port. Upon meeting them on the street, the writer informed them of this false impression, and requested them to show themselves in the business and residence sections of the city. In one shop the proprietor immediately turned to a white officer, and remarked that these men wore the identical insignia that he had seen on many other officers, and that he would thank some one for an explanation. When these same men entered the French Artillery School, near Vannes, they were forbidden to attend entertainments where it was thought they would in all probability meet the French people.

Literature was gotten out through the French Military Mission and sent to French villages explaining how Americans desired the colored officers to be treated; that they desired them to receive no more attention than was required in the performance of their military duties; that to show them social courtesies not only would be dangerous, but that it would be an insult to the American people. The literature was finally collected and ordered destroyed by the French Ministry.[4]

In one city, the soldiers informed us, colored Americans were confined to certain streets in order that their contact with the French people might have all possible limitations.

Following is a copy of an order gotten out, and a duplicate preserved:

HEADQUARTERS SECOND BATTALION,
804TH PIONEER INFANTRY,
A. E. F., FRANCE.

WARCQ, FRANCE, March 20, 1919.

Enlisted men of this organization will not talk to or be in company
with any white women, regardless of whether the women solicit their
company or not.

By Order of CAPTAIN BYRNE.

A True Copy,
S/L/D/

This propaganda was spread from the streets of the large cities to the topmost peaks of the Alps Mountains, away up among the little shepherd girls, who knew nothing except what others came up to tell them. “Soldat noir-vilain,” they remarked to the writer one day, while she sat down to gather strength to finish her trip to the little chapel whose ruins stood on the highest pinnacle; even their minds had been poisoned with the thought that “black soldiers were villains.”

These little shepherd girls dwelt in a portion of France that was used for a Leave Area. In the beginning both white and colored soldiers found rest and pleasure in visiting the historic and picturesque region about Challes-les-Eaux and Chambery, but later it was set aside by the Y. M. C. A. for colored soldiers only. Naturally the inhabitants were much amazed to find that they were not being molested in any way, and toward the close of the work the different impressions that were being gathered by the French people became almost a constant topic of conversation. The teachers and proprietors of the hotels came often to converse, and some of them helped gratuitously in the performance of our duties. Many of the children came to play upon the lawn of the Y. M. C. A. at Challes-les-Eaux, where the writer had charge of the woman’s work for a period, and the mayor came as the official representative of the town, to assure us of all good wishes and sympathetic greetings; while the mayor at Chambery gave out a public invitation for the colored people to return to France and become a part of their civilization.

Often the staff of secretaries at Challes-les-Eaux would be invited to dinner, especially at the hotel Chateaubriand, where the hostess and her daughter, dressed and smiling, amidst a bower of flowers, opened their hearts again and again concerning their entire satisfaction with the conduct of our soldiers, and how different they were from their original representation. They had received instructions before their coming as to just the manner in which they should be treated, but they not only found no cause for such instructions, but found many characteristics in the colored men which were a pleasure and a delight.

During the victory parade in Paris, no colored Americans were permitted to participate, notwithstanding the fact that numerous individuals as well as organizations had been cited or decorated for bravery. This the French people were not able to understand, but in due time they learned that it was all due to the American policy of discrimination. They gradually discovered that the colored American was not the wild, vicious character that he had been represented to be, but that he was kind-hearted, genteel and polite. One could frequently hear the expression, “soldat noir, tres gentil, tres poli” (black soldier very genteel, very polite); this characteristic appealed greatly to these people who have always been noted for their innate politeness.

The French women were especially kind and hospitable to their dark-skinned allies. The writers had the pleasure of living in one French home for nearly nine months. Here they were treated with all courtesy, respect, and almost reverence. One of them became ill, and was sick unto death for nearly five weeks, during which time the hostess called in her own family physician, administered the medicine, and nursed her as if she had been her own child.

1. Group of Colored Officers visiting French family. 2. Mayor, hotel
proprietors and teachers at Challes les Eaux fraternizing with
Colored Soldiers and Y. M. C. A. Secretaries. 3. Group of French
Students taken with Colored Soldiers resting while on a hike.]

When the French women learned that the Americans were trying to control the social intercourse of their homes, they deeply resented it. At one time the 92nd Division had issued the following orders:

HEADQUARTERS, 92ND DIVISION,
A. E. F.

LE MANS AREA, MIENNE, FRANCE.

December 26, 1918.

The special duties with which military police are charged are:—

(A) To insure order and proper behavior by enlisted men at all
times....

(E) To prevent enlisted men from addressing or holding conversation
with the women inhabitants of the town.

(F) To prevent enlisted men from entering any building other than
their respective billets with the exception of stores, places of
amusement and cafés.

By Command of BRIGADIER GENERAL ERWIN.

G. K. WILSON,
_Chief of Staff_.

Official:
(Signed) EDW. J. TURGEON,
_Major, Infantry, U. S. A._
_Adjutant_.

When this matter came to the attention of the women of the city, the leaders among them formed a committee and waited on the French Mission with the statement that they were mistresses of their own homes and morals, and knew with whom they wished to associate, and did not desire American officers to interfere with their social affairs.

Following is an extract from a letter written by a French girl to a young man who was located in the camp where the writer gave her longest period of service:

LE GUERANDAIS

ALLEE DES BOULEAUX, LA BAULE.

October 21, 1918.

Dear Mister:—

Your kind letter was welcome. I understand them very easily without
my dictionary, and I thank you very much for the kind feelings you
express me. Be not anxious about my health, I have recovered now.

I was very touched by all the sympathy you have showed me on this
occasion, and I was surprised of it, very agreeably. Thank you for
your friendship, I am happy to give mine in exchange, because I know
now what is your hard condition. I have spoken to white men, and
always I have seen the same flash (lightning) in their angry eyes,
when I have spoken them of colored men. But I do not fear them for
myself; I am afraid of them for you, because they have said me the
horrible punishment of colored men in America. As I am a French girl
I have answered, “It is not Christian.” I am full of pity for your
unhappy condition, more still when I think you are very intelligent,
and you have quality of the heart more than many white men....

When a colored man goes in the house of a white girl, the policeman
wait for him and kill him when he goes away! I have thought this way
to do is savage, and it is why I was pitiful for the colored man.
But I see you are not unhappy as I believed, and I am glad of it for
you....

I should like to express you how much I am revolted of that I have
learned of your condition, and how amused I am to have heard many
injurious opinions of white men upon ourselves, French women! I write
you in English and I cannot express my feelings as well as in French.

Naturally these “injurious opinions” about the French women were resented, not only by the women themselves, but the Frenchmen as well.

The result of this, and other difficulties, was that two or three months before the American soldiers were out of France, it became generally known that the French people were tired of them and wanted them out of their country. The spirit of dislike became so great that sometimes French people were overheard saying that if the American soldiers had on German uniforms, they could not be told from the Huns! And that if they were to judge from their actions it would seem that they had a desire to treat them in the same manner as they treated the colored Americans.

After the signing of the Armistice there were frequent riotings between the American white soldiers and the French people. On the first Sunday in April, 1919, the city of St. Nazaire was changed from a quiet port city into a tumult of discord, during which a number of people were killed and wounded. It grew out of the fact that a white French woman and a colored Frenchman entered a restaurant frequented by American officers, in order that they might enjoy their lunch together. An insinuating remark concerning the woman was overheard by her brother, who understood English, and immediately resented it. The restaurant was demolished in a free-for-all fight, which grew in proportions until the French people mounted a machine gun in the middle of the public square, to restore order.

In the city of Nantes a colored French soldier was shot by an American Military Policeman, under the guise that he thought that the Frenchman was a colored American deserter disguised in French uniform.

During the writer’s period of service at Brest there were ever-recurring conflicts, and Camp Pontanezen was frequently closed and the soldiers not permitted to enter the city. Some of these were said to have occurred because of insults offered to colored Frenchmen. Rumor had it that these riots always resulted in a number of killed and wounded.

In order to substantiate our statement concerning these conflicts, we wish to quote from Sergeant Alexander Woolcott’s article in the October, 1919, issue of the _North American Review_:*

“Whatever turn is taken by international politics during the next two
years, whatever the official post bellum relation between Washington
and the government in France, the degree of understanding and the
nature of the sentiment existing between our people and the French
is going to be of incalculable importance in shaping the twentieth
century. It is going to give the true validity to whatever doctrine
our ministers may from time to time endorse.

“That is why it is worth while to look back over the A. E. F., and
by so doing, to measure and search for the causes of mutual rancor
which developed between the French people and our troops—the rancor
which broke out here and there in riots, as at Brest; which made the
irritated army of occupation lean over backwards in their affability
towards the Rhinelanders; which moved Le Rire to some caustic
cartoons at the expense of the A. E. F.; and which poured into our
astonished ports a stream of returning doughboys all muttering under
their breaths a disparagement of the ‘French Frogs.’[5]

“Perhaps it would be well first to consider two rather fixed
delusions on the subject. For one thing, stay-at-home Americans have,
quite pardonably, come to the easy conclusion that all the rancor
could be explained by overcharging.... As a matter of fact, the
amount of overcharging was slight, astonishingly slight, when one
considers that there were more than two million spendthrift Americans
in France, far from home, overpaid, irresponsible, and loose in an
impoverished country. It is against the nature of the French peasant
or shopkeeper to go in all at once for resourceful profiteering,
just as it is against his nature to part lightly with a sou on which
he has once laid his thrifty hands. Furthermore, both the French
government and the American Army were vigilant in the matter, so that
the doughboy was not despoiled with half the unscrupulousness that
would have been practised among his own people—certainly no more than
is the average lot of the expeditionary soldier, anywhere under the
sun....

“Then, too, there was the delusion from which the French government
suffered—the notion that the whole source of bad feeling was the
friction between the French and American staffs. There was such
friction, and during the first few weeks of the Armistice the staff
officers of the Third Army were on edge with irritation at the
neighboring French command....

“I think that if the dislike developed on one side before the other,
the first appearance can be traced to a certain disdain for the
French which the outspoken Americans were only too wont to display.
To the resulting friction a hundred and one things contributed, of
which high prices constituted the least—little things, like the
French truck driver’s enraging habit of driving dreamily in the
middle of the road; _big things, like the French street walker’s
unprejudiced habits of accepting the Negro’s attentions as affably as
a white man’s_.”

——
* By permission of _North American Review_.

It is interesting to note the comment of an English paper upon the mutual rancor which so unfortunately developed, and which must have some bearing upon the future relationship between the French and the American people. The following significant excerpt is from the London _Saturday Review_ of June 28, 1919:*

“No one at this or any other time should write, or even say things
likely to create international ill-feeling, but facts will not be
ignored. There are indeed certain truths, which, like mushrooms,
grow best in the dark. It is not only absurd, it is also in the long
run contrary to international good will, to ignore the fact that
Americans are not as popular in Paris to-day as they were twelve
months ago. There can be surely no harm in discussing publicly what
everyone privately knows....

“At the present moment the Americans are regarded by the ordinary
Parisian as a barbarian nation, and the prospects of beholding them
rejoice on July 4th, possibly on a large scale, already fills him
with apprehension and disgust. The nation which a year ago was the
most popular nation in Europe, has become in Paris a burden almost
too grievous to be borne. The other evening we heard a lady whose
profession brings her into rather close contact with the American
soldiers and minor diplomatists in Paris, proclaim amid general
assent, that the Americans are at the best children and that at the
worst they are brutes. We are not subscribing to this opinion, we are
merely recording that it was passed. The Americans could not avoid
being unpopular in Paris. The mere fact that they came late into the
war, and that the importance of their share in the peace negotiations
is out of all proportion to their sacrifices, is in any event a
difficult matter to discount or obscure....

“Socially the Americans in Paris are in the position of a man staying
in the house of a friend, and forced to behave much as though the
house were his own. It is even worse than that. We have to consider
that the man who thus stays in the house of his friend, and behaves
just as though it were his own, has in effect, a mortgage on the
house. We are most of us the debtors of America, and France not least
of all. The American army in Paris may almost be described as the man
in possession, and there is no possibility of avoiding him. It was
an unlucky decision to make Paris an American military headquarters.
The wild west sprawls in the restaurants, and patrols the grand
boulevards. The American army could no more be popular in Paris than
the Canadians could be popular in Epsom. When on top of the military
invasion of Paris there came an American delegation 1,400 strong,
filling the air with principles and viewpoints, and amusing itself
loudly and continuously, not the most civilized president in the
world could quite cover with his professional mantle the nakedness of
his countrymen.

“All of this would be of merely passing interest were it not for
the peculiar position which America will occupy for the next thirty
years. What is happening in Paris will happen on a large scale in
Europe as soon as peace is signed. During the war America has become
the creditor of the civilized world. Her chief problem will be how
to spend the money she has made. She is so rich that she has begun
to be alarmed for her foreign trade, for it is impossible for Dives
to trade with Lazarus unless Lazarus can be induced to borrow the
necessary capital to set himself up in business. Whatever ultimate
arrangements are made it is fairly clear that America will have more
money than she knows what to do with, and that Europe will be, to an
extent unknown before, an American playground and Europe will hate it
to-morrow as Paris hates it to-day.”

——
* By permission of _The World’s Work_.

For a period of time many of the colored fighting troops were brigaded with the French troops, which brought them into very close contact with the French life. As has been noted in another chapter, four regiments, those that were to have composed the 93rd Division, became a part of French Divisions of Infantry. It is interesting to note that by far the greatest majority of colored soldiers or organizations that were cited or decorated for bravery were these troops, and that the decorations were with few exceptions French and not American. It is also interesting to note that the regiment from Illinois, under command of colored officers, was awarded 30 Croix de Guerre decorations for officers, and 38 for non-commissioned officers and privates, while only 3 officers received the American Distinguished Service Cross, and 19 non-commissioned officers and privates. These colored officers have many happy recollections of the overflowing appreciation of the French people.

Certificates of good behavior secured by these troops show that the towns and villages through which they passed or in which they were billeted found no cause for complaint; that they came in an orderly manner and left in the same way. The same can be said of the thousands of labor troops and engineers who built the roads, unloaded the ships, laid telephone wires, built warehouses, and handled supplies.

Finally, we can happily say that it was a pleasure to note that the relationship between the colored American and the Frenchman grew in cordiality and friendliness until a strong, and we hope, lasting bond was established between them. They were made welcome guests in the homes of the wealthy and cultured, as well as in the most humble. The understanding ear of the colored man seemed attuned to the French language, and he learned more quickly than others, it seemed, how to converse with this romantic people. The French people are affectionate and demonstrative, which corresponds to the deep emotional spirit which seems the heritage of the colored American. The colored soldiers were naturally musical, and many of them sang with a wonderful penetrating pathos, or with notes that brought forth joy that was unconfined; others were talented and accomplished pianists. These things appealed deeply to the artistic soul of our French comrades.

The variety of color among them interested the Frenchman much as the light and shade in a picture, or the coloring in the drapery in his store windows, or in the birds that flitted about in his mountain fastnesses. He admired the way they fought, and the way they performed without murmuring their tasks at the dock, on the railroads, or in the warehouses. He loved them because they did all these things with a song of joy, though perhaps with a crucifixion of spirit; and with all earnestness and genuine desire he invited them to come again, that the relationship thus begun might grow in strength and beauty and mutual helpfulness.

——————————————————

Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go: keep
her; for she is thy life.—_Proverbs_ 4:13.

——————————————————

Education
————

The chief educational work to be done among the colored troops overseas was that of teaching them to read and write, as large numbers were unable to sign the payroll. These men were drafted into the army often without regard to age or physical fitness. One man from Texas, upon delivering a company of men to a lieutenant whom he thought to be white, remarked that he had brought him a good bunch of Negroes, and had plenty more down there if he wanted them. At first, he said, they took all the men who had just purchased little farms, so that the property would soon return to the original owners, and then they just went out through the country and gathered them up everywhere, so that they could get their full quota without sending their white boys. Of course, he said, the Negroes didn’t know any better and just thought they had to come.

This shows the dense ignorance that existed in no small degree among them, and many of them knew only one name, didn’t know when nor where they were born, and couldn’t tell the time of day. This ignorance was not all confined to the colored men, however. One white captain remarked publicly that he had white men in his battalion who were equally ignorant, and that upon asking one man where he was born, his reply was “Toons County,” which was the limit of his knowledge concerning the matter.

In Camp Lusitania, St. Nazaire, France, there were 9,000 colored stevedores, and out of this number 1,100 could not write their names, and a large per cent. of the remainder had only mediocre training. On the other hand, some were college graduates and undergraduates, and were of great value to those who undertook the task of teaching the large number of illiterates. They readily volunteered their assistance, and took great pains with their unfortunate comrades, helping them in school and out to get the amount of training that the limited facilities offered.

The writer, during her nine months’ period of service at Camp Lusitania, gave most of her time to this kind of work, and while it was difficult, the gratitude of the men fully compensated her for all the trouble. Upon first entering the camp, there was no provision made to assist in reaching these men, or ascertaining who they were. The Y. M. C. A. had furnished a large number of books, which were piled away in the hut unused. These books were taken and a request made at the cinema for all who desired training in English to manifest it by remaining in their seats at the close of the show. In this way we were able to reach a large number, and through them others could be reached, so that in time the work grew until the writer’s entire time was consumed in teaching and directing the work.

One man told how his parents had died when he was quite young, and that he was afterwards bound out to a white family to herd cattle for fifty cents a week. He wanted to go to school so badly that he slipped off and went two days, when the man for whom he worked found it out and beat him so that he never went back any more. He said he had a wife from whom he had not heard since he had been in France, but that he couldn’t read her letters anyway, and he was not expecting her to write. He worked very hard, however, and in time was able to write well and read third grade reading matter. One day he came in joyfully and said he had written his wife a letter and had gotten a reply. This, no doubt, was a wonderful day in his life, when he had acquired sufficient knowledge to make himself understood in a written communication. At times their gratitude was most pathetic, and one man had tears in his eyes as he told the writer how he had been so anxious to learn, but had been ashamed to let her know that he couldn’t write his name, and had hesitated a long time before he finally decided to come.

To learn to write one’s name seems an easy matter, but some of these men would try patiently for an hour or so and the letters would have no form, nor resemble in any way the characters they were trying to make. Then the instructor would take each great rough hand in her own and help the soldier to trace the form of the letter so that he would get an idea of how to go about making the first curve of his initial. When he would finally master the first initial of his name he would be so delighted that he would go to his barracks and make all the boys whom he knew give him assistance, so that in a day or two one could realize that he was making splendid progress.

This kind of work went on without much difficulty until the Armistice was signed; at this time every soldier became doubly sure that he was going home “toute de suite” (at once); and to add impetus to an already bad situation, their colonel got up in the auditorium and told them that they would all eat Christmas dinner at home. This completely demoralized the work until after the holidays. By this time they had all concluded that they were going to remain in France a while anyway, and some began to say that they would be glad if they were able to eat dinner at home the next Christmas.

By the beginning of the new year the army decided to take a hand in the educational work, and through its chaplains force all illiterates to attend school. This brought the entire 1,100 at Camp Lusitania to the Y. M. C. A. hut to receive instruction. All of them could not be reached at one time, but two or three hundred could be crowded into the class rooms twice a day, so that every two days the entire number would be reached. The writer would teach them en masse, first from the blackboard, having them follow her in sounding the letters, pronouncing the words, and giving the diacritical markings; then from a small booklet called “English Reading Lessons,” provided by the Educational Commission of the Army and Navy Y. M. C. A. These booklets, containing twenty lessons drawn from the soldiers’ experience in routine camp life and drilling, would be furnished by the hundreds, free, so that every man could have a book. After they had all read the lesson in concert, the volunteer teachers, about twenty-five all told, would each address himself to a group of the men, and hear them read individually. In this way each man could get a small amount of individual attention.

One day, by some means, Mr. Ferguson, the hut secretary, found a French mimeograph machine at the Y. M. C. A. warehouse. It was the only one, it seemed, in the entire section. The writer, after many trials and failures, learned to use it, and with the assistance of Private Stokes and one or two others, was able to make a large number of copies of written sentences. These would be taken by Chaplains Hodges, Jefferson, and their assistants, including Reverend McCoomer, whom the army had appointed to do educational and religious work. They would be distributed among the men in the class room, pencils given them free, and every man would labor earnestly to learn to write; then the men would be permitted to take the copies to their barracks, where they would practice during their leisure moments.

The mimeograph was also used to furnish problems in numbers to the men who were learning to make figures, add and subtract. After having a lesson from the blackboard, they would take the papers to their barracks, solve their problems, and bring them in the next day for correction. Mr. Julius Rosenwald visited Camp Lusitania during the year, and left two hundred dollars to be used for the benefit of the soldiers there. An automobile school was finally established and a number of the soldiers took advantage of the training. In the white camps much industrial training was introduced, and no small amount of attention given to higher education as well.

The Y. M. C. A. made ample provision for the purpose of giving the soldiers the opportunity to learn French. French professors were employed to visit each hut at stipulated hours, where the men would be taught en masse, the rudiments of conversational French. Small books published for the express purpose were put without cost into the hands of each man who had a desire to learn, and very few of them could be found after a few lessons and a little contact with the French people, who could not readily make themselves understood with regard to small matters that concerned their everyday life.

1. Captain D. K. Cherry. 2. Secretary William N. Nelson. 3. Secretary
William H. Crutcher. 4. Secretary Benjamin F. Hubert and group of
students in attendance at Universities in Paris. 5. Secretary Joseph
L. Whiting. 6. Secretary George W. Jackson. 7. Secretary John C.
Wright.]

About the first of April, 1919, the Army decided to take over the entire educational work of the Y. M. C. A., and invited the educational secretaries, the writer included, to leave the organization and come over to the army. It promised to carry out the original contract made by the Y. M. C. A., and give them the rank and uniform of an officer. Eight colored men accepted this offer and went into the army. They were Mr. J. C. Wright, formerly of Tuskegee Institute, Mr. F. O. Nichols, of Philadelphia, Mr. Benjamin F. Hubert, State College, Orangeburg, S. C., Mr. William Nelson, A. & T. College, Greensboro, N. C., Mr. Joseph L. Whiting, Tuskegee Institute, Mr. Thomas Clayton, Piqua, Ohio, Mr. W. H. Crutcher, A. & M. College, Tallahassee, and Mr. George W. Jackson, Louisville, Ky. Of this number Mr. J. C. Wright was appointed Supervisor of Instruction for colored troops and Lecturer in Civics; Mr. F. O. Nichols, Lecturer in Civics, and Mr. Benjamin F. Hubert, Supervisor of Agricultural Instruction among the colored troops.

These men were attached to the staff of the University of Beaune. As Supervisor of Instruction, Mr. Wright was well qualified, being a graduate of Oberlin College, Dean of Tallahassee Normal School, and having done splendid work as a Y. M. C. A. secretary at Camp One, Hut 5, St. Nazaire. Here he found a large number of men from the 301st Stevedore Regiment, one of the largest military organizations in France, and among them the first colored American soldiers to land on French soil. About 30 per cent. of these men were illiterate. On the contrary, a number of them were college trained men, having been engaged in professional and business pursuits.

Mr. Wright undertook the task of preparing these men to go back to civilian life with at least the rudiments of an English education. His first method was to get men who could not read and write to voluntarily attend classes scheduled at the Y. M. C. A. hut; but this was quite a difficult matter, for after ten or twelve hours’ work on the dock, the men were usually too tired to do anything that was not compulsory. Then he succeeded in getting it made a military duty for all men who could not sign the payroll to attend class three nights in a week for a certain period. This plan was successful only to a limited degree, as compulsion was left largely with company commanders, who were not entirely in sympathy with the idea. They contended that the army was no place for a man to make up for his lost school advantages, and some said it was too much to require such a duty of tired, hard-working troops; but too anxious and determined to be discouraged, the effort was continued, and after much advertising and several large public meetings held in the interest of the work, there were over five hundred men who enrolled for class work. Of this number 328 were actually taught by volunteer teacher-soldiers. One sergeant compelled the thirty illiterates of his company to attend school every night there were classes being taught; and after eight weeks all but nine could sign the payroll, and many of them, men still in the morning of their manhood, received such an inspiration as to give them a desire to enter school after their return to the States, and it is known to be true that some of them are at this moment enrolled in different schools and receiving instruction.

Mr. Wright, together with his colleagues, Mr. Nichols and Mr. Hubert, as members of the staff of the University of Beaune, were sent out singly and as a team to lecture and hold institutes in the different sections of France where colored troops were located. It is estimated by them that they reached as many as twenty thousand men, and impressed them with the importance of community co-operation and collective effort in bettering the conditions in the neighborhoods where their civic lots would be cast; also with the importance of buying land and taking advantage of the industrial opportunities which the war had brought about.

The other five members of the colored army educational corps did local work. Mr. J. L. Whiting, who had formerly been educational secretary at Camp Montoir, near St. Nazaire, and who had already done splendid work, went back to his original field of labor. Here in September, 1918, he began with an enrollment of forty, in classes in reading, writing, arithmetic, and civics. By April, 1919, the enrollment, with the assistance of the new compulsory rule of the army, had increased to 868, with 19 soldiers detailed to assist in the work. He found that there were more than 1,000 troops below the fourth grade, who would be glad of an opportunity to attend school, and that there were in every company of colored troops as many as 30 men who were unable to sign the payroll. Mr. Whiting accomplished wonderful results in spite of the handicap of no books, no suitable accommodations, and for a considerable time no regularly detailed teachers.

He set writing copies for all of these men with his own hand, taking their work home each day and reviewing and criticising it. He held classes in the mess halls, many times cold and damp and with no lights except that which could be gotten by the use of candles; and by the close of the work he had not only done much towards wiping out the X (his mark) sign from the payroll, but had given them sufficient foundation for the acquiring of a fair education.

Mr. George W. Jackson had been assigned by the Y. M. C. A. to be Educational Director at Is-sur-Tille. Here he found about 15,000 colored soldiers hailing from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. They were S. O. S. troops, working just back of the combat area. Mr. Jackson was returned here by the army to complete the work started by the Y. M. C. A. During his period of service here he learned that about 2,500 of the colored soldiers had very limited education or none at all. With the assistance of detailed tutors he was able to eliminate 90 per cent. of this illiteracy in about three months. Most of them learned to sign the payroll after about three weeks’ instruction, and by the time they were demobilized fully one-third had written letters to their relatives at home. Classes in secondary and college subjects were also held, in addition to instruction in French, bookkeeping, current topics, and the Bible.

Mr. Thomas A. Clayton was secretary in charge of the educational work at Camp Ancona, near Bordeaux, where on January 10 an Army Post School was organized. Of 6,987 men in camp at this time, 1,378 could not sign the payroll; 1,457 had had four years’ schooling or less; 584 had attended high school, and 137 had attended college. By the close of the work 367 illiterates had learned to write their names. Classes in French and the study of the history and literature of the French people were also organized, and became very popular among the soldiers.

Special attention was given at this school to the teaching of agriculture. A Farmers’ Institute was held, which had a total attendance of 18,000 in three days. The meetings were held under the auspices of Dr. H. Paul Douglass, of Syracuse, N. Y., and farmers’ clubs were organized and a special instructor given them. In all classes, including primary and elementary subjects, there were 503 students enrolled.

Mr. W. H. Nelson had been doing educational work at Brest under many handicaps. For a long time they were unable to get a Y. M. C. A. hut completed. In December, 1918, the writers of this volume went up from St. Nazaire to visit them. They found the staff of two secretaries and a chaplain struggling along as best they could, with no floor in a large part of their building and no lights except what could be produced by the use of numerous candles. They were very happy to see some colored women, and brought us a bountiful supper from one of the company kitchens. This we ate from a small, bare table, by the light of one or two flickering candles. Then the writers were placed upon a box to elevate them a little, while they talked for the encouragement of the soldiers who gathered in a small room, which afterwards became the school room. The little force of secretaries was badly discouraged because they were unable to secure the facilities that had been given to other huts, but by dogged determination they finally succeeded in finishing a beautiful building which was kept immaculately clean in spite of the fact that they were never able to secure any women secretaries. To this place Mr. Nelson was returned after he became a member of the army educational corps, and continued his work of teaching. He had about 1,000 illiterates in the camp whom he attempted to reach. Of this number a total of 372 actually received valuable training.

In addition to the army’s taking over the entire educational work of the Y. M. C. A., it provided means by which a limited number of graduate students would have an opportunity to attend the great universities of France and England; at the same time it established the American University for undergraduates at Beaune, Cote d’Or. This school provided facilities for training in all college courses as well as vocational and technical subjects, and brought over from the States a corps of the very best instructors that could be secured. It also utilized much of the splendid ability already in the army. The French Minister of Education loaned the school a corps of experienced French teachers, who were supplemented through the courtesy of the French Minister of War.

1. J. Douglass Sheppard. 2. James L. Moran. 3. E. M. Brewington.
4. Ulysses S. Young. 5. Henry L. Marriott. 6. Walter A. Powers. 7.
Milton F. Fields. 8. Ulysses S. Donaldson. 9. Leonard Barnett.]

Post and Division Schools were established in connection with the university, the purpose of the Division School being to accommodate all who were not qualified to enter the university proper. Here were taught vocational courses and academic and commercial subjects of high school grades. The Post School was composed of those who needed elementary training in English, arithmetic, and citizenship and of men who were unable to read and write the English language. Special provision was made for a Post School for colored soldiers with colored instructors, but it never materialized. To attend the university came 120 colored soldiers who matriculated in the College of Arts and Letters, Agriculture, Science, Journalism, and Music.

Colored American soldiers from all parts of France made application for admission to the Foreign Universities. In some places they were told that colored soldiers were not allowed to attend, and every effort was made to get the young officers of the 92nd Division out of France before they could make application for the coveted privilege and thereby embarrass the army.[6] We have learned of only one whose application was not refused, that of Capt. D. K. Cherry of A. & T. College, Greensboro, N. C., who attended the University of Bordeaux. Several non-commissioned officers were admitted, however, and in the University of London nine matriculated—Corporal James D. Sheppard, Peoria, Ill., Engineering; 1st Sergt. Leonard Barnett, Fleming, Ohio, Psychology, English, and Methods in Education; Ulysses S. Donaldson, Terre Haute, Ind., English Literature; 1st Sergt. W. A. Powers, Xenia, Ohio, Music and Philosophy; 1st Sergt. E. H. Brewington, Salisbury, Md., History and Literature; Sergt. U. S. Young, Madison, N. J., Philosophy and Psychology; Sergt. Milton F. Fields, Des Moines, Iowa; James L. Moran, Lancaster, Mass., Astronomy, and Henry O. Mariott, of Boley, Okla.

Four entered the University at Bordeaux, one the University of Toulouse, one the University of Marseilles, and seven the different universities in Paris—Charles S. Wilkerson, Phar.D., Pittsburgh, Pa.; Charles A. Johnson, Phar.D., Columbia, S. C.; Oscar S. Johnson, B. S., Louisville, Ky.; Thomas Williams, Phar.D., Patterson, La.; George Washington Mitchell, A.B., Marshall, Tex.; Clarence Glead, Phar.D., Lawrence, Kan., and Mr. McKenzie, a lawyer from Richmond, Va.

Mention should be made also of the Army Candidate School at Langres, France. The school was located at Fort Dela Bonnelle, and 62 non-commissioned officers representing all the colored combat regiments in France were enrolled there. Of this number, one sergeant died, two became ill at examination time, and 56 received commissions. This was the best record for the proportion receiving commissions of all the 17 platoons represented there. Of this number all whose initials ranged from A to D were sent to the 370th Infantry; the others were distributed throughout the 92nd Division. The 325th Signal Corps Battalion attended school at Gondrecourt, and made one of the best records of any battalion from the standpoint of hardworking students and improved efficiency, while the five colored company officers of the 167th F. A. attended school at La Cortrine, and the colonel in charge of the school reported that they made the best record for studiousness and work accomplished in a period of two weeks of any American units in a given length of time.

There were other schools where some colored soldiers secured training in wireless telegraphy and other technical subjects, and 33 2nd lieutenants received instruction at the French Artillery School at Vannes. While visiting that city during their period of training there, the writers were told by a French general with whom they conversed while waiting for a train, that these men all showed superior mental capacity, and were much loved by all the French citizens because of their splendid behavior and gentility of manners.

Another phase of educational work among the troops was the developing of libraries. In this work the American Library Association was the moving spirit. Thousands of volumes of books were contributed to this Association by the American people, and the Y. M. C. A. acted as a medium by which they were placed within reach of the soldiers. This offered a special opportunity for colored welfare workers to give another kind of training to soldiers that thousands were unable to get in their home cities. In very few cities in the South are any library facilities provided for the colored people. They are not permitted to go into the public libraries, and only a few cities have colored Branch Carnegie Libraries, such as Louisville or Houston, or a colored library established through other channels such as the one in Guthrie, Oklahoma. As a result, thousands of men coming from the South had no training in the use of libraries, and special attention had to be given everywhere to instituting and teaching booklending systems; otherwise all books would have disappeared in a day or two, not to be read always, but to be utilized in various and sundry ways such as a hiding place for letters, or a pad upon which to write. In time they all learned, however, to borrow and return books in a given time, and the library soon became the most popular place about the hut. It was always kept warm and attractive and it was the only place about the hut where one could make himself comfortable in an arm or steamer chair. Through the generosity of the American public, magazines and periodicals became plentiful after the Armistice was signed, and the soldiers would tarry late, often until taps, before they would tear themselves away from the news item which brought such interesting information from home.

Large and valuable libraries were established for the colored soldiers at Camp Lusitania, and the Embarkation Camps at St. Nazaire, in the Leave Area at Challes-les-Eaux, at Camp Romagne, at Camp President Lincoln, Brest, and at the two colored huts at Camp Pontanezen, and were of invaluable service in educational and cultural work among the soldiers. Through these channels and the opportunities offered through the different Y. M. C. A. and Army Schools, the colored men received a new impetus and a new vision, and with the assistance of the training that comes from travel and contact, have returned to their homes better equipped for citizenship and future service to their race than they possibly could have been otherwise through all the years of a lifetime.

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“They said they were too slow, too dull, too this and that to do it,
They couldn’t match the method of the Hun,
And then to arm a million—why, the land would surely rue it
If a million blacks were taught to use a gun.
But right won out, and they went in at all detractors smiling;
They learned as quick as any how to shoot,
They took the prize at loading ships, and riveting and piling,
And trained a thousand officers to boot.
And when they went they took a boon no others had been bringing,
For whether with a pick or with a gun,
They lightened every labor with a wondrous sort of singing,
And turned the pall of battle into fun.
O, the Frenchman was a marvel, and the Yankee was a wonder,
And the British line was like a granite wall,
But for singing as they leaped away to draw the Kaiser’s thunder,
The swarthy sons of Dixie beat them all.”

LESLIE PINCKNEY HILL.

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The Salvation of Music Overseas
————

Those who know the native love and ability of our race for music will not marvel at the statement that colored soldiers sang, whistled and played their way through the late war. There were days of hunger and thirst; days full of deathly fatigue; days filled with the dense smoke and deafening uproar of battle; days when terrible discriminations and prejudices ate into the soul deeper than the oppressors knew. But through it all there was salvation—the salvation of the music that welled so naturally in the souls of the colored soldiers. In the midst of the French the artistic temperament of our soldiers found a warm welcome and a favorable atmosphere in which to unfold and find full expression; and, although it manifested itself in many ways, it found no other realm half so alluring as that of music. Individually and in groups, colored soldiers gave themselves to the enjoyment or serious study of music.

In the hut the average life of a piano was but of short duration. Every moment from early dawn to late night, this instrument was in constant use. One became so accustomed to its continuous sounds as to be unconscious of them. We returned to America hoping that for the remainder of our lives we might be spared hearing any form of “Blues,” for whatever else he might play, a fellow would finally finish with a touching rendition of some one of the many “Blues.”

There were melodies of joy and melodies of sorrow. We heard our soldiers on the coast of France chanting in unfailing rhythm as they unloaded the great cargoes from America. We heard them in Southern France singing in joyous abandon as they sailed Lake Bourget, ascended Mount Revard or hiked up to Hannibal’s Pass in the Alps. We heard them in the night watches at Romagne as they tenderly reburied their comrades who had fallen on the fields of battle. We heard them at the port again, as they looked longingly towards America and sang, “It’s a long, long trail.” Ever in our ears will we hear the harmony of those thousands of voices as they were blended in song for religious service, for the speed of work or for mere pleasure. Always this music breathed a wistful poignancy, but always it breathed, too, the matchless will and spirit of the race who sang. Nothing strengthened more the bond of loving sympathy that existed between the French and colored American than this musical temperament. Our bands played their way into the very souls of the French.

And these bands that always filled us with martial pride and dispelled all fear and dread! We think, of one night in our camp. The 807th Pioneer Infantry would entrain on tomorrow for the front. Under its enthusiastic and highly progressive bandmaster, Lieutenant Vodrey, this regimental band was giving its last show. Hundreds of black and white men filled every inch of the spacious hut from floor to rafter. In the front rows sat the regimental officers, camp officers and French friends. All eyes centered upon the stage where either the orchestra of fifty men was playing or Opal Cooper was singing in the sweetest and most expressive tones, or the men were demonstrating by act or stunt their wit and humor. The hut rang with applause or laughter all that wonderful evening. Fun and merriment ran high during the rather ambitious hut reception given the band after that evening’s entertainment, for they were trying to eat salad and sherbet without the use of forks and spoons which they had been told to bring but had quite promptly forgotten. It was rather difficult to realize that tomorrow those men would be facing toward the thundering guns at the front. We heard of the 807th band again and again as it won honors in France, playing before the crowned heads of the Allies; of their band leader making an enviable record at a French band school, and finally we met them again at Brest. There, with a pardonable pride, we bade them _bon voyage_ as they returned home triumphantly bearing their laurels.