“We tried to treat the Negroes with exactly the same consideration shown the whites.  We had the same speakers to address them.  The Rotary Club presented them with small silk flags, as they did the whites.  The band turned out to escort them to the train; and the Negroes went to camp with as cheerful a spirit as did the whites.  One of them when asked if he were going to France, replied:  ’No, sir; I’m not going “to France”.  I am going “through France".’”

“In dealing with the Negroes,” the Arkansas board report says, “the southern boards gained a richness of experience that is without parallel.  No other class of citizens was more loyal to the government or more ready to answer the country’s call.  The only blot upon their military record was the great number of delinquents among the more ignorant; but in the majority of cases this was traced to an ignorance of the regulations, or to the withholding of mail by the landlord, often himself an aristocratic slacker, in order to retain the man’s labor.”

Many influences were brought to bear upon the Negro to cause him to evade his duty to the government.  Some effort in certain sections of the country was made to induce them not to register.  That the attempt to spread German propaganda among them was a miserable failure may be seen from the statement of the Chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, made to the United States Senate committee: 

     “The Negroes didn’t take to these stories, however, as they were
     too loyal.  Money spent in the south for propaganda was thrown
     away.”

Then too, these evil influences were more than offset by the various publicity and “promotion of morale” measures carried on through the office of the special assistant to the Secretary of War, the Hon. Emmet J. Scott, and his assistants.  Correspondence was kept up with influential Negroes all over the country.  Letters, circulars and news items for the purpose of effecting and encouraging continued loyalty of Negro citizens, were regularly issued to the various papers comprising both the white and Negro press.  A special committee of 100 colored speakers was appointed to deliver public patriotic addresses all over the country, under the auspices of the Committee on Public Information, stating the war aims of the government and seeking to keep unbroken the spirit of loyalty of Negro American citizens.  A special conference of Negro editors was summoned to Washington in June, 1918 by the same committee in order to gather and disseminate the thought and public opinion of the various leaders of the Negro race.  Such was only a part of the work of the department of the special assistant to the Secretary of War in marshalling the man power of the nation.

[Illustration:  Negro troops of U.S.  Army receiving Holy baptism while in training for overseas duty at Norcross rifle range.  Camp Cordon, Ga.]