At the end of World War I, Baron Pierre de Coubertin sent a “Letter to the Members of the International Olympic Committee,” briefly summarizing the historic achievements of their committee.  “We are all aware of the increasing excellence the first five Olympiads of the modern era,” he wrote, before turning to a new set of goals: “Our attention must be focused on the future.”  For the Baron, that meant pushing sport toward all those who had not yet enjoyed its benefits, particularly the children of the working class and the poor. He argued that the Olympic Movement’s mission had to be extended now, in the aftermath of war, to all members of society. 

“Our Committee has fought more than anyone to make (sport) a habitual pleasure of the youth of the lower middle class. Now it must be made fully accessible to proletarian adolescents. All sports for all people, that is the new goal to which we must devote our energies, a goal that is not in the least impracticable.”