When, a few days later, he visited Washington, the Archbishop told me that the outstanding thing he had seen in America was the Great Lakes Training Station. "If I had not seen it," he said, "I could not have believed it possible that such a training camp for seamen could be conducted a thousand miles from the ocean." Like expressions came from members of the various missions and naval officers who came to the United States. That station, situated in the heart of the country, far from the ocean, trained and sent into the navy during the war over one hundred thousand men. It was the vitalizing spirit of the Navy in the Middle West; a center of the patriotic inspiration which swept like a prairie fire and brought young men into the Navy more rapidly than we could house them. Two thousand five hundred enlisted men were under training there when war was declared and in that month 9,027 recruits were received. But Great Lakes never was swamped. No matter what strain was put upon it, the authorities were equal to any emergency. Between April 6, 1917, and March 11, 1919, 125,000 men were received; 96,779 trained and sent to sea duty, and 17,356 graduated at its special schools. The camp grew to 1,200 acres, with 775 buildings. Nine great drill halls were built in which thousands could maneuver in regimental formation. But bigger than the number of men enrolled or the buildings erected or the great schools conducted was the spirit of the place. From the inspiring leadership of Captain Moffett, who was a genius at organization, to the youngest boy fitted out in naval uniform, pride in the station and the naval service was so contagious that it reached back into the homes from which the youths had come and stirred the whole Middle West with enthusiasm for the Navy. In the early days of the war, Captain Moffett, who had come to Washington to discuss plans for enlarging the station, said to me: "Mr. Secretary, I have here a requisition for $40,000 for instruments for the Great Lakes band." It had not been very long since $40,000 was the entire appropriation for the station. The captain's request seemed to me like extravagance. "Do you expect to win the war, as the Israelites did?" I asked, "by surrounding Berlin and expecting the walls to fall as every man in your band blows his trumpet?" I demurred at first, but he pleaded for it with such eloquence that I signed the requisition. This enabled John Philip Sousa, enrolled as a lieutenant in the Reserve Force, to train fifteen hundred musicians, the largest band in the world. Bands were not only sent to ships and stations overseas, but toured the country, giving the greatest impetus to the Liberty Loan campaigns. These bands were an inspiration to the entire service. I found later that a British commission had reported that only three things were more important than music. These were food, clothing and shelter.