Entertaining the American Army - 1921 Author:James W. Evans Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE MEN BEHIND THE SCENES "Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he urill unloose, Familiar as his garter." King Henry V. ... more » The cast of characters in this dramatic invasion is so great that if given in the method of the profession it would include, directly or indirectly, every celebrated name on the American stage. It will be necessary, therefore, to select the characters as they appear and watch them in action, that we may judge the work of many from the experiences of a few. It will be well, however, to stop a moment behind the scenes and meet some of those who planned, developed, and kept this continuous campaign of entertainment in operation throughout the War. Here in America we find the forces of the Red Triangle, under the direction of the National War Work Council, as the motive power behind the whole achievement, with Mr. William Sloane, an able and progressive administrator, as its chairman. We meet Thomas S. McLane, as Chairman of the Overseas Entertainment Bureau, in "command" of the recruiting and movement of the entertainment army across the seas to France; we meet James Forbes, the dramatist, with his able lieutenant, John Briscoe, in command of the forces of the Over There Theatre League. Those in France, we find engaged in the constantly expanding headquarters described in the preceding chapter. Here is the "Director General" of all the operations of the A. E. F.-YMCA, Edward C. Carter, who entered the War in India at its outbreak in 1914, followed theBritish-Indian armies into the campaigns in Mesopotamia, came to the seat of operations in London, and, upon America's entrance into the War, went to Paris, extending full cooperation in any and every capacity in which the organization which he represented might be able to...« less