e lines in the rest billets and concentration camps,
provisions were less generous than at the front until the Knights of
Columbus took up the task of seeing that the men who were temporarily
away from the active fighting had these facilities for bathing. It was
but one of the many activities of the Knights of Columbus, but one of
the most appreciated.

One of the first requisitions made by Rev. John B. De Valles, one of the
first chaplains sent over by the Knights of Columbus, was for a shower
bath and he set it up in connection with his headquarters in a little
French town and it was overworked from the first. From this spread the
movement for establishing shower baths in club houses being opened
behind the lines and in villages.

There was no preaching in a Knights of Columbus hall or club room, but
there was clean moral environment and healthy recreation and amusement,
for this was proven the thing to keep up the morale of fighting men.

The Y. M. C. A. built 1,500 huts in Europe costing from $2,000 to
$20,000 each, equipped with canteen, reading and writing and
recreational facilities to soldiers. It operated twenty-eight different
leave areas with hotels that had a total of 35,000 beds. In addition, in
Paris, port towns, and several big centers in the war zone there were
"Y" hotels for transient soldiers where one could get a clean bed and a
good meal at about half the price charged by French hotels. Over 3,000
movie and theatrical shows a week were provided free, and 300 "Y"
athletic directors had charge of the sports in the American army,
operating 836 athletic fields. Enormous quantities of cookies and
chocolate and cigarettes were supplied.

A hundred of the best known educators from America directed educational
work. The staff consisted of Professor Erskine of Columbia University,
Professor Daly of Harvard, Professor Coleman of Chicago University,
Professor Appleton of the University of Kansas and Frank Spaulding,
superintendent of the Cleveland public schools.

Seconding the work of the Y. M. C. A., its sister organization, the Y.
W. C. A., extended its activities from the training camps of America to
the battle-fields of Europe.

At the close of its first year of America's participation in the war,
the Y. W. C. A. had six established lines of work in France:

Hostess Houses, clubs for French working women and business girls, clubs
for nurses with the American army, clubs for women of the signal corps