office as yours held by a man of the race is indispensable to the welfare of the colored soldier.

Very respectfully,

(Signed) LOUIS L. WATSON, JR.,

Formerly Capt. Inf. U. S. A.

Help for Colored Draftees

The National Medical Association, under the active leadership of Dr. George E. Cannon, of Jersey City; Dr. A. M. Curtis, of Washington, D. C.; Dr. A. M. Brown, of Birmingham, Alabama; Dr. E. T. Belsaw, of Mobile, Alabama; Dr. M. O. Dumas, of Washington, D. C., and Dr. W. G. Alexander, of Orange, New Jersey, exerted a helpful interest in the welfare of the medical men drawn in the draft. The Special Assistant took up the cases of many colored doctors who had been drafted and assigned to service battalions or as mere privates in the infantry organizations, with a view of having them transferred to the Medical Corps, where they might render a more effective service to their country along the line of their professional equipment.

Another investigation, which may properly find a place in this chapter on the treatment of colored soldiers in the camps, is that which resulted in the admission of colored draftees, regardless of the time of their call, into the training schools for officers. The number permitted to enter at the outset was unusually small, and these were restricted to draftees who had been conscripted prior to January 5, 1918. The number recommended by their camp commanders was not at all commensurate with the abilities of the men who desired to take advantage of the Government's plan of developing officer material, and was reported to be so niggardly as to amount almost to an ignoring of the explicit order of the Secretary of War that no form of injustice or discrimination be practiced against any soldier because of race or color. There were also persistent rumors that an attempt was being made to promote white non-commissioned officers in Negro units to commissioned officers, which could have no other result than to fill all of the line-officer places with white men and make it impossible for a Negro noncommissioned officer, no matter how efficient or how intelligent he might be, to rise above that rank. Another flood of protests came into the War Department from colored men in the army and from colored people everywhere. Those in authority were apprised of

Above A detachment of American Negro Infantrymen Operating in the Front Line Trenches. Below Here is a photograph right from the front, an unusual picture showing how the trenches

really looked. These are American and French Colonial colored soldiers in a French trench.

Above

One of the Docks at Bordeaux Where Negro Stevedore Regiments Played a Vital Part in the War in Unloading Supplies for Our Troops. Transportation of supplies is just as important a part of war as firing guns at the enemy. All the armies in the world could not have defeated Germany if it had not been for the Service of Supply, getting the guns, ammunition, equipment and food to them.

Below-To give an idea of the enormous quantities of supplies handled by Negro stevedore regiments, here is a photo of a few cook stoves that came in one shipment.

Above On the Docks at Brest, another French port where colored stevedore regiments were the chief reliance in getting supplies through to the boys at the front. Below It took tens of thousands of motor trucks to get supplies from docks to the front in France. These had to be shipped from America and here are a few in Assembling Yard at St. Nazaire, France, with cases and barrels of gasoline and oil in the foreground. If it had not been for Negro stevedore regiments, these trucks could not have been taken off the ships.

The Return of the 15th. Seen on troopship as the 369th Infantry came into New York Harbor bringing back the unique record of never having had a man captured, never losing a foot of ground or a trench, and of being nearest to the Rhine of any allied unit when the armistice was signed, and the first detachment of allied troops to reach the Rhine after the armistice.