Over 65,000 women enrolled in the seven hundred American Red Cross canteens. This service consisted of canteen kitchens, medical supplies, and small transfer hospitals. It was organized to stimulate the morale of the soldiers and to make them feel that the people of the country appreciated the loyal manner in which they had responded to the country’s call. In some of the chapters there were organized Negro canteen auxiliaries, and these did very effective work in such centers as Hamlet, N. C., Greenville, S. C., Montgomery, Ala., and New Orleans. At first there was some objection to the wearing of the uniform by Negro women, but in the centers mentioned they wore it and did regular work for the soldiers passing through on the trains. At Montgomery there was a canteen room at the station for colored soldiers, and in New Orleans there was a well equipped auxiliary with headquarters on the ground floor of the Pythian Temple owned by Negroes. In the beginning it was said in some places that the canteen workers failed to serve Negro soldiers, and to some extent this was true, but it was by no means the rule. The policy was to render service to all officers and enlisted men without distinction. On one occasion six hundred Negro soldiers stopped at a town in Arkansas. They had come direct from the farms in Louisiana, and were timid and uncertain when they arrived, but they felt very different when they left. As the local paper said, “The interest shown in them here made new and fighting men out of them. It will be a long time before the American Red Cross will perform a better service, or one that gives the good women, both white and colored, more pleasure.” Another time, as a train stopped at the station in Charlotte, N. C., a canteen worker came to a car window and asked the Negro soldier in the car to have a cup of coffee and a sandwich. He refused at first, but she insisted, passing the refreshments to him, and as the train pulled out she uttered a hearty “Good luck!” and “God bless you!” Not only in America but in France also the Red Cross served these men. At Thiaucourt the canteen was in charge of a young woman who gave away large quantities of supplies, such as towels, summer underwear, shaving sticks, razor blades, gum and chocolate. In this instance the Negro soldiers shared almost entirely in the generosity, but this was only one of many, many cases of whole-hearted and highly appreciated service. WAR CAMP COMMUNITY SERVICE