Fosdick of New
York City, one of the original group with whom the plan originated, was
chosen chairman of both. Each commission's work was divided among
departments or subcommissions.
In the Navy Commission, one group, the Library Department, supplied the
enlisted men of the navy stations, as far as possible, with books,
another with lectures, another with music, vocal and instrumental,
another with theatrical entertainments, including moving-pictures, and
another subcommission directed the recreational sport.
Mr. Walter Camp, for thirty years the moving spirit, organizer, adviser,
and athletic strategist of Yale, was chosen chairman of the Athletic
Department, with the title General Commissioner of Athletics for the
United States Navy.
Taking up his task in midsummer, 1917, three months after declaration of
war by the United States, Mr. Camp at once brought his ability,
experience, and versatility into play in organizing recreational sport
in the navy stations. By this time every naval district was fast filling
with its quota of enlisted men, and the plan of the Navy Department to
place an even hundred thousand men in the stations before the close of
the year was well along toward completion.
Swept from college, counting-room, professional office, and factory,
often from homes of luxury and elegance, to the naval stations, where,
in many cases arrangements to house them were far from complete, the
young men of the navy found themselves surrounded by conditions to which
they pluckily and patiently reconciled themselves, but which could not
do otherwise than provoke restlessness and discomfort.
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