REPRODUCED FROM A PAINTING BY ORLANDO ROULAND

COLONEL JAMES A. MOSS, COMMANDING 367TH INFANTRY, U. S. A.

"Look back there now. Do you see many? Well, it's just like that all the time-just as many white fellows as colored." "Looks like you fellows would want this all to yourselves." "Well," said the Buffalo, "it's like this. Lots of white folks helped us out on this building; and then I've got a lot of white friends in camp, and wherever I go they can go; and, further, we won't draw the line here as long as you fellows don't draw it. Now next week we've got two white fellows on the bill, and we pay 'em just like we pay everybody else-and, boy, listen to that band." And the lights went out and the show was on.

The Buffalo auditorium is the great democratizing institution of Camp Upton. White soldiers and white officers attend as regularly as colored soldiers and officers. The building is not a colored auditorium, but an auditorium for soldiers built by the 367th Regiment with the assistance of their friends. Eventually it will become the property of the Government. It was designed primarily for drill during severe and inclement weather. All of the preliminary bayonet instruction for the regiment, as well as some of the white regiments, has been given in this building, Classes in boxing by Bennie Leonard, regimental lectures and lectures of special classes, chorus singing, and many other activities and instructions that cannot be held outdoors with any degree of satisfaction and success have been held in the auditorium. In the evenings, and afternoons and evenings of Saturdays, and Sundays and holidays, the auditorium is devoted to religious services, motion pictures, vaudeville, and other forms of recreation.

The officers and men of the regiment subscribed over fourteen thousand dollars toward the building and spent more than five hundred dollars additional in expenses incurred incident to the campaign for the remaining twenty-six thousand dollars. As the founders of the auditorium intended that a small sum should be charged for the entertainments and shows, bonds were issued

to cover cost of erection in denominations of ten, fifty, one hundred, and five hundred dollars, which were to be redeemed as soon as possible, and in the event that the regiment was ordered abroad before full redemption such funds as had been accumulated were to be prorated among the bondholders, the unredeemed portion being considered a contribution. When Colonel James A. Moss, in command of the regiment, first proposed to build the auditorium and issue bonds, he received a very lukewarm reception from the men; but when the cold winds of Long Island searched every crack and crevice, every tear and rip, the men viewed the project with increasing favor, and finally voted to back it to the limit.

"The Colonel must think we're going to be here for a thousand years," I overheard a Buffalo say one day between breathing spells from picking. "Well, I'd just as leave be here as out there drilling, for out there I just can't seem to git my feet to move till everybody else is gone. It mus' be 'cause I git so cold. Man, I never seen snow befo' in ma life! Down there in Texas there ain't no snow, and if the Colonel says that the auditorium kin be used for drills and such things, I'm wid 'im."

If the auditorium served no other purpose than as an ideal place for indoor instruction in winter and recreation during the evenings, thereby increasing the efficiency of the men and adding to their chances for whipping the Hun and returning home alive, it would be well worth the time and money spent in its erection; but its greatest purpose and value lie in the wonderful esprit de corps it tends to develop in the regiment.

Napoleon said, according to General Jomini, "Battles cannot be won by troops possessing no esprit de corps.' ." Colonel Moss, the commander of the regiment, who has perhaps written more books than any other American army officer living, in writing of esprit de corps in his manual for officers, says: "Esprit de corps is that feeling of LOYALTY, PRIDE, AND ENTHUSIASM OF THE OFFICER AND SOLDIER, first and especially, FOR HIS OWN PARTICULAR REGIMENT OR CORPS; second and generally, for the army to which he belongsfounded in each case on the glorious traditions of the past, on the patriotism and efficiency of the present, and on the determined resolve in future war and peace to uphold the prestige, the honor, the tradition of the army, the regiment, or corpsnay, go further, AND INCREASE THE PRESTIGE, THE HONOR, THE TRADITION, BY ADDING SOMETHING THERETO BY INDIVIDUAL ACTS OF HIS OWN.' "Whatever means tend to create, uphold, and increase prestige and honor MUST of necessity preserve and strengthen esprit de corps, for these are the living spring that give it its life, and it has need of all of them."

The traditions of the new Negro may be traced in the history of the great Chaka in the Valley of the Nile, thousands of years ago; Hannibal, "greatest of tacticians," in the war between Carthage and Rome; L'Ouverture in the Haitian rebellion against the mighty Napoleon; Attucks, as the first casualty in America's first battle against the tyranny of George III on Boston Common; black sailors with Perry on Lake Erie; Black Samson at Brandywine; Peter Salem at Bunker Hill; Carney at Fort Wagner; the 24th and 25th Regiments of Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry at El Caney and San Juan in Cuba and during the insurrection in the Philippines; and the feat of the 10th Cavalry at Carrizal while with the Punitive Expedition in Mexico. The place of honor held by the Negro in the profession of arms is predicated upon the enviable and cherished facts that he has never had a traitor within his ranks and has never had the blot of cowardice upon his spotless escutcheon. His prestige is based upon the high regard as a fighting man in which he is held by all fighters whom he has opposed, whether they be white men, black men, or brown men.

It may be rather far-fetched to the uninitiated to connect the building of an auditorium on bleak Long Island in the year of our Lord 1918 with a recital of the Negro's prowess as a fighter, and with a compendium of his traditions, honor, and prestige; but beyond and above every other consideration the object of building the costliest, largest, and finest building in any cantonment in the country was to create anew, revive, stimulate, foster, and perpetuate these very things. Without these things the Negro would be as helpless against the wily Hun as if the Government had sent him into battle unarmed.

He needs these things worse than most white soldiers do.

An epitome of the reasons why America entered the war has been tersely set forth in the slogan "To make the world safe for Democracy." In his mind he confuses principles of democratic government with the Democratic party, and his bellicose enthusiasm suffers in consequence of his confusion. He knows but one thing, and that is blind, unswerving, and undivided loyalty to the flag for which his fathers have bled and died. That is not enough. He must either accept the democratic principles for which his country wages war or a cause must be created for him. He must have something to fight for, something that he understands and is in accord with. What has the auditorium to do with principles, causes, dreams, and morale? It has inestimable value as a creator of morale. There is a breaking-point in the collective nerves of any command when, after the fearful scenes of battle, the will of the organization is no longer able to drive its legs forward. By training the moral qualities we seek to raise this breaking-point. Study of the moral factors that animate men is therefore of the greatest importance. From association with them you must learn how best to appeal to their higher qualities. You must know what are the principles, rights, or possessions, intimately, personally, and unmistakably theirs, which the enemy jeopardizes and for which they will fight till they conquer or themselves are hopelessly defeated.

To-day there is not time for commanding officers to study men in detail and elaboration. Colonel Moss, our commanding officer, knew this full well. Our allies are fighting defensively, waiting for a force which, aroused by the brutality and ruthlessness of the Hun, is the incarnate spirit of the offensive. If we would win, we must go now. We cannot delay. But we cannot go if our men are not trained, if they have not become imbued with the enthusiasm necessary for success in war. To obtain this spirit the morale of troops must be very high indeed. To create this morale their officers must understand their psychology and must know them intimately through contact. To obtain this contact they must have a common meeting-ground where they can become mutually acquainted without detriment to discipline. The officers must divine just what expression brings forth the greatest sincere response. In the 367th Regiment the commanding officer accomplishes this by frequent talks on widely varied subjects to the entire regiment in the auditorium. He weighs the response given to each subject. It can be stated with confidence that to-day he knows just how to appeal to them and what appeal arouses the fighting spirit of the Buffaloes; and he himself has stated on numerous occasions that he knows that when they go over the top Wilhelmstrasse will know it.

This vitally important knowledge could never have been acquired in the short time allotted excepting for this common meeting-place.

Has this morale been created in the regiment? This is my answer: General Bell, former Chief of Staff and second ranking Major-General in the Army, and twenty-eight years a soldier, said, among other things, in an address delivered to the Buffaloes: "This is the best-disciplined, the best-drilled, and the

best-spirited regiment that has been under my command at this cantonment. I predicted last fall that Colonel Moss would have the best regiment at Camp Upton, and you men have made my prediction come true. I would lead you in battle against any army in the world with every confidence in the outcome. I know that you would acquit yourselves with the same bravery and loyalty that has attracted the attention of the world to the Negro regiments in the Regular Army.

I say again, I would lead Negro troops in battle against the greatest fighters of the world with confidence in my success. I have served a good many years with colored soldiers, and I know them. Properly led, they haven't a superior in the world."

It should be remembered that this high degree of proficiency

REPRODUCED FROM A PAINTING BY ORLANDO ROULAND
LIEUTENANT OSCEOLA McKAINE

and efficiency was obtained under the instruction of colored officers.

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There are two colored units at Camp Upton and Brigade Headquarters the 367th Regiment of Infantry, or " the Buffaloes," as they are better known, and the 351st Machine Gun Battalion. All of the captains, excepting one commanding the Headquarters Company (white) and one attached, are former non-commissioned officers of the Regular Army. Among them are two who have certificates of merit for gallantry in action under fire. All of them have been in two or more campaigns, and most of them were with Pershing in Mexico. All of them have had service in the Philippine Islands. The commanding officer of the Machine Gun Battalion is white, all others are

colored. All of the officers of the Buffaloes are colored excepting the field and staff officers and commanding officer of the Headquarters Company and Supply Company. The battalion adjutants are colored. The regiment has 113 officers and 8 attached. The Machine Gun Battalion has 22 officers. The regiment has had a higher average on the target range than any other regiment ever stationed at Camp Upton. Incidentally, the 367th Regiment is the only regiment in the National Army with a name, regimental stationery, regimental swagger-stick, and is one of the very few that have a regimental song, regimental pennant, regimental basket-ball team; and it acknowledges no superior among the armies of the world in the matter of regimental esprit de corps.

D

32me d'Artillerie Armée Française, January 2, 1918.

Sooner or later over here one begins to wonder about immortality.

For Christmas the Rev. K. B.'s wife sent me a volume called "The Assurance of Immortality," by H. E. Fosdick. I read it with serious interest because I found it contained no allusions to the war and no inferences drawn therefrom.

There is something a little hysterical and untrustworthy about our war literature. The author either pictures the fighting man as a miserable, super-ordinary hero, or else, like Jacques de Faraudy in his poem "To the Mutilater," sees through a golden haze, in "features some deem hideous, Christ's countenance and Don Quixote's soul." The writer can make almost any point he wants by his choice of examples, and the examples are as infinitely varied as human personality. There may be many honest books on the war, but there are no true ones, except perhaps some collections of letters never meant to be published-like Marcel Étèvé's.

I am not cultivating cynicism, but I have read Münsterberg on Testimony," and have been able to compare some events with their written recital. I know that the deeds and thought and spirit of the millions of men on the battle-front are no more condensable into a single mind or volume than the Milky Way is pourable into a half-pint tumbler.

That is why I say I took Fosdick's book seriously when I found it contained no mention of the great war.

In common with most university graduates, I have hitherto regarded immortality as a rather interesting speculative problem; but I shall be sent down to the front in a short time, and it has suddenly become a live question about which I have sought a conviction one way or another.

In this I do not believe I am at all typical of the French soldier. Those whom I have heard speak the freest are fatalists. Those who occasionally wonder what is to become of them if they die are satisfied to die bravely and leave the rest to luck, with a sort of instinct that if they live well and die well eternity will be comfortably arranged for them. Those of the latter faith are the best soldiers in France-the ruddy-faced young veterans that grow strong on hardship and sing through misery and make five kilometers through the Boche lines when the civil population is downhearted and needs a cheering communiqué. Unfortunately, the man of to-day who has been brought up in the Missourian school of American materialism is short on faith and needs proof, and, so far as I have heard, there is no one, aside from the Spiritualists, who hopes to give proof of immortality.

I do not believe that my sudden interest in a future life was due to a fear of death. Life, and therefore death, is a question of relative values. If a certain cause, coldly considered, is worth risking life for, then the fear of death is necessarily eliminated,

even though life be no less dear. No. The reason why I should like to have faith in the permanence of life is that there are people I love back home that I must see again.

The great virtue of Fosdick's book lies in its convincing attack upon the obstacles to a belief in immortality. Of these there were three which had seemed insurmountable to me.

The first was the fact that the external evidence is all against it. Everything that we know of perishes, from the gnat that lives twenty-four hours to the planet that grows cold with infinite leisure. Why should the laws of the universe be reversed for personality? Fosdick replies that the external evidence is against practically every scientific truth. We were a long time in being convinced that the earth revolved and not the heavens, for example.

Secondly, there was the obstacle of Darwin's theory. If we evolved from lower animals, at just what time and from where did we pick up our souls? Fosdick remarks that this is no more mysterious than that in the embryo evolving from the cell, and the child from the embryo, and the man from the child, there should at some point in the process be an acquisition of personality or soul.

Then there was the old Socratic problem. Does the brain create the mind (soul), or is the mind an independent entity which plays upon the brain, as the harpist upon an instrument? Fosdick gives a much simpler answer than Socrates when he says that it is much less of a mental gymnastic to imagine the soul as an independent entity employing the gray matter than to imagine a few cells and fibers conspiring among themselves to produce the character of Lincoln or the music of Beethoven, for example.

But there remains unanswered the question of memory. Bergson in his "L'Evolution Créatrice" describes memory as an involuntary function. The events and experiences through which we pass register themselves in certain physical cells, whether we will or no, and, uninvited, contribute to or detract from our ever-changing character. To recall a certain experience may or may not be an act of will.

There is nothing disturbing in that, but surgical science, on the other hand, has demonstrated that by removing certain portions of these cells the memory of former associations and friends may be completely obliterated, or that by exerting pressure on a certain part of a cranium its owner can be turned into a scoundrel. In other words, a tiny piece of steel in a skillful hand could so alter my personality that I should be a menace to society. A week later the same hand might reverse the operation and call back my former self to take possession of its repaired house. In the meantime where would my soul have been? It would have no memories of its vacation when it came back.

How am I to reason, then, that my personality, which at death must be disassociated from these all-important memory

cells, is to retain the recognition and love of my family and friends? It is all my will to go floating off into eternity assured of everlasting life, quite conscious of being one's serene self; but if that self is oblivious to all past human relationshipsthanks, I prefer to be snuffed out like the Buddhist's candle. Perhaps this is an obstacle you have already encountered among your parishioners, and found the means of disposing of. If so, I should like to hear of it.

So much for the obstacles. Now to consider some of the constructive thought.

Science has demonstrated that physical evolution has ceased -that man is the ultimate animal-so is now proceeding along mental and personal lines. It has also demonstrated that every law of nature is reasonable. In other words, that if you have faith in the rationality and equilibrium of nature she always justifies it. Laverière could account for certain derangements in the orbits of heavenly bodies only by the presence of a planet of a certain size at a certain point. Years afterward Neptune was discovered within one degree of this point, and was of the size that he had calculated. The universe is reliable and understandable and rational.

We are sure, moreover, that the earth and all physical life which exists upon it must one day vanish. Now is it rational to suppose that the earth's supreme result-personality-is going

to vanish too?

Is it rational to suppose that all the travail of the world, that all the human suffering and struggle, success and failure, ecstasy and grief, will have had no purpose other than their own existence?

Are the millions of young soldiers who have died in agony for causes they believed just forever uncompensated?

Is the slow progress of civilization which resulted froin the teachings and martyrdom of Socrates, Christ, Paul, Luther, Lincoln, to be swirled off into oblivion in a little puff of dust, together with what immortality has been theirs in the memories of after generations?

I have been trying to consider the duration of the world in its true relation to infinity, to realize that its millions of years are as the single ticking of a clock. Can I believe that it is rational that those great souls were created to endure a minute fraction of that second? Or that all the agony of a great war had the slightest justification-even granting that it benefited the race-if that race was to be annihilated at the end of the pendulum's brief swing?

In the light of a true conception of the momentary existence of our physical world, such saws as Virtue is its own reward," "Immortality is the deathlessness of influence," or "The perpetuation of our characters and deeds in the lives of our children," fall laughably flat. Why influence or people a world that is to be snuffed out an instant later?

Can any rational mind picture a rational God or a rational universe which would amuse itself for a watch-tick by creating a dirt ball, peopling it with strange beings culminating in man, inflicting upon man an infinity of miseries, diseases, and uncompensated woes, developing certain of these men to magnificent spiritual proportions, and then carelessly putting its heel on the tiny affair, lighting a cigarette, and walking away?

If immortality is not a fact, then above, in a nutshell, is the story of the world. Nero getting drunk to the light of human torches was intelligent and just by comparison to the creator of a world without immortality.

Now, by the demonstration of all the great sciences, I am compelled to believe that the force behind the universe is rational, that its laws are well balanced, that all actions upon physical matter are compensated. I am not able to believe that these rational laws are suspended uniquely for human personality. I am therefore compelled to believe in immortality. Nothing else balances, compensates, or explains.

It is rather curious that I have come to believe in immortality without believing in God, but I will write you about that later.

Is a belief in immortality essential or even important? Personally I know it has stabilized my state of mind, after readjusting my whole set of values; but I remember last summer spending an evening with the Rev. K. B. in his charming old Connecticut rectory and indulging in a long argument in

which he held the contrary view. It started by references to Sir Oliver Lodge's book "Raymond." I took the position that Sir Oliver was engaged on a work that might influence the world more than any human effort since Christ, namely, the production of proof of immortality that could be accepted unhesitatingly by the coldest barrister. The Rev. K. B. disagreed with me.

"It is of greater value to human character," said he, "to be compelled to take immortality on faith. The man who believes in God and an eternal life by faith is much stronger than the man who might believe because he was confronted by irrefutable proof."

To this I replied: "I don't see why that follows. Are you any the weaker because you have irrefutable evidence that, barring accidents, you will live to be seventy? In other words, that you have a future life of forty years in this world? In the face of this reasonable certainty you take certain precautions with regard to your health, you make certain financial arrangements and many sacrifices to-day-all with a view to increasing your happiness and security in your future life in this world. Weaker men have the same evidence but disregard the future. Certainty of immortality would just be an indefinite prolongation of these forty years. The wise would make provision for it and the fools would not. There would be the same need of strength and faith that there is to-day.'

But you strip faith of beauty and make it a question of reward," replied the Rev. K. B.; "you commercialize ethics." "Let's make a mathematical proportion," I suggested. "Tonight is to the forty years I expect to live, as those forty years are to an eternal life. If eternal life is 0, the forty years are worth nothing and to-night is worth nothing. I might much better be spending it raising hell somewhere. Most people who figure that eternal life equals 0 are doing just that thing. But if eternal life equals infinity, the value of forty years is not quite 0, although it approaches it. There is something tangible to live for, and it is worth while finding a code of ethics to live by.'

The Rev. K. B. didn't want to figure out ethics by arithmetic. "The production of legal proof of immortality," said he, "is so incredible to me that I cannot even imagine its results. It is a charlatan's work, and nothing else. It would put upright conduct on a commercial basis. Having proof of immortality in his hand, the future preacher would say: 'Here now, my man, you make the Lord certain concessions in your pleasures today, and he will give you a nice comfortable position in the world to come.' It would be like promising a bookkeeper the job of head clerk if he did a certain amount of work well. No, no, it is unthinkable. The proof of immortality is one of the least duties of the Church. I preach just one sermon a year on it, and that is at Easter. The message that I am hammering on is the kingdom of God on earth. We have got away from Jonathan Edwards and fire and brimstone and gates of pearl. In L I am trying to bring the kingdom of God on earth by uniting the strength of the church and what intelligence I have with practical community problems-community gardens, farming machinery, canneries, and educational work.'

Knowing something of the extraordinary success he had had in this line, I found nothing to say.

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And, finally," he concluded, we can never have absolute proof of immortality, because to have it we must talk with the dead, and to talk with the dead the dead must come back to earth, and this possibility is denied by Christ in Luke."

Of course on the whole I have to agree with the Rev. K. B., and yet I think the time has come for him to preach more than one sermon a year on immortality.

To-day there is a new and more urgent need for faith in another life. Countless parents and wives in England, France, and Germany know what that need is. America is soon going to learn. You yourself know, and if you preach any sermons on it I hope you will send me copies. W.

Dear Domine:

32me d'Artillerie Armée Française, January 29, 1918.

When in my last letter I tried briefly to tell you how I arrived at a belief in immortality, I had anticipated that you would think it strange that I could have gained this conviction