Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman of the Committee on Training Camp Activities, said in writing about the work of the Commission: “It is our task, in the first place, to see that the inside of the sixty-odd army camps furnish real amusement and recreation and social life. In the second place, we are to see to it that the towns and cities near by the camps are organized to provide recreation and social life to the soldiers who flock there when on leave. The Government will give the men while they train every possible opportunity for education, amusement, and social life.” Negro soldiers were a part of the army for whom recreation was an essential. In most places, however, the pool rooms and the ice cream and soft drink parlors very frequently were but meeting-places for the soldiers and girls, and the boarding and rooming houses were especially questionable. Public dance halls were hardly ever adequately supervised. In Charlotte, for instance, where two public halls were conducted, the most popular one was open and crowded every night. A policeman acted as doorkeeper and received all tickets. Little effort was made to control the conduct and none to supervise dancing. The War Camp Community Service came into being to organize the social and recreational facilities of the communities adjacent to the training camps and to furnish the best possible places for the soldiers in their free time. City organizations were impressed with their responsibility for showing genuine hospitality to the men, and invariably they co-operated. In the beginning there was very little effort to provide centers for Negro soldiers. Within the first seven months that Negro soldiers were in the camps in only one city did the War Camp Community Service make provision for their entertainment. In May, 1918, however, eight clubs were opened in different cities, and in all cases these were the best places that provided wholesome amusement, and usually the only available places. While discussion was going on as to whether Negro soldiers would be permanent and whether it was necessary to establish clubs for them, R. B. Patin, executive secretary of the War Camp Community Service at Des Moines, established the first club for Negro soldiers. The Lincoln School, a large three-story building, was secured by the Community Service and the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, and Herbert R. Wright, a lawyer and former consul of the United States in Honduras and Venezuela, was placed in charge of the club, which had a spacious reading-room, well supplied with writing materials, and a music room with piano, victrola, and numerous records. There was also an up-to-date cafeteria, as well as a bootblack parlor and a well conducted pool room. Citizens were invited to the band concerts in the auditorium, as well as to the socials of the various companies in the 366th Infantry.