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.In many locales,middle-class women wanted little contact with working-class soldiers, and these direc-tives had the unintended consequence of turning WCCS dances into officers-only affairs.The women s auxiliaries formed by officers wives in many regiments also helpedbridge the gap between the home front and battlefront.An officer s responsibility to carefor his men often extended to his wife as well.These groups often distributed parting giftsof tobacco, knitted garments, and candy, all donated by the community, to troops headedoverseas.In addition, these auxiliaries offered important welfare services to destitutefamilies of departed servicemen by helping them cope if allotment checks were delayed.Women s auxiliaries helped families negotiate governmental red tape and in some caseseven paid the rent, bought coal and food, or settled hospital bills for families in need.Within the training camps, the CTCA promoted the virtues of healthy livingthrough its recreational athletic program.Athletics developed both a pragmatic andideological value during the war.Boxing matches helped men burn off sexual energywhile spectators spent their free time watching tournaments rather than prowling thestreets around training camps.The CTCA also promoted instruction in boxing as a wayto perfect bayonet fighting skills.Through boxing, the military training that troopsreceived during the day melded perfectly into the nightly entertainment provided onmost camps throughout the nation.Besides boxing, baseball proved a popular eveningpastime.Baseball games built unit morale and camaraderie while simultaneouslyteaching troops that athletics was a much safer way to demonstrate masculine prowessthan picking up women.Many camp social welfare reformers were surprised todiscover how many men had only passing familiarity with organized games.Reflectingthe realities of child labor, urban living, and recent immigration, men had to learn ahost of middle-class childhood games like tag and tug-of-war in the army before grad-uating to baseball and football.CTCA reformers also presented singing as a group activity with a distinct militarypurpose. Patriotism is no hollow thing, declared one CTCA worker, It wins battles.And the music, be it instrumental or vocal, that awakens it and feeds it is scarcely lesspotent than high explosives. 49 The lyrics of many songs selected for inclusion in theformal singing program complimented the CTCA s moral uplift campaign, but CTCAworkers also claimed that singing conveyed physical advantages such as strengthenedback and chest muscles and improved mental agility.Singing identical songs helpedmold men into a national army by exposing them to similar patriotic sentiments.Thenationalistic and Christian songs included in the Official Army Song Book included America, the Beautiful, Battle Cry of the Republic, Dixie, Onward, ChristianSoldiers, Roll, Jordon, Roll, The Stars and Stripes Forever, and When JohnnyComes Marching Home. The song book contained Allied nations national anthemsand ditties made popular by British troops like Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old KitBag and There s a Long, Long Trail. These songs were often introduced into theEnglish curriculum of foreign-speaking troops as part of their civic education.By slowly repeating the words and injecting a plea for loyalty as they sang, immigrantsoldiers fully sensed the meaning of true patriotism.making them true Americansthrough song, one CTCA music director concluded.50The signature song of the AEF was Over There by George M.Cohan.Out of theflood of patriotic tunes unleashed by the nation s declaration of war, only Over There caught on with the troops.From the CTCA s perspective, the song perfectly emphasizedthe democratic purpose and resolve of the American soldier, making it an appropriateanthem of the war
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