ROOSEVELT'S TREE ARMY

A Brief History of the Civilian Conservation Corps
by National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni

The 1932 Presidential election was more a cry for help from a desperate people near panic as it was an election. In a "landslide" vote, the nation turn to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party searching for an end to the rampant unemployment and economic chaos that gripped the country. They weren't disappointed. Accepting the Presidential nomination on July 1, 1932, New York Governor Roosevelt planned a fight against soil erosion and declining timber resources, utilizing the unemployed of large urban areas.

Professional foresters and interested laymen raised these aims. In what would later be called "The Hundred Days," President Roosevelt revitalized the faith of nation with several measure, one of which was the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) Act, more commonly known as the Civilian Conservation Corps. With this action, he brought together two wasted resources, the young men and the land, in an effort to save both.

The President wasted no time: He the called the 73rd Congress into Emergency Session on March 9, 1933, to hear and authorize his program. He proposed to recruit thousands of unemployed young men, enroll to in a peacetime Army, and send them into battle against destruction and erosion of our natural resources. Before it was over, over 3 million young men engaged in a massive salvage operation, the most popular experiment of the New Deal.

Roosevelt promised that, granted emergency powers, he would have 250,000 men in camps by the end of July, 1933. The speed with which the plan moved through proposal, authorization, implementation and operation was a miracle of cooperation among all branches and agencies of the federal government. It was a mobilization of men, material and transportation on a scale never before known in time of peace. From FDR's inauguration on March 4, 1933, to the induction of the first enrollee on April 7, only 37 days had passed.

Logistics was an immediate problem. The bulk of the young unemployed youth was concentrated in the East while most of the work projects were in the western parts of the country. The Army was the only agency with the slightest capability of merging the two and was in the program from the beginning. Although not totally unprepared, the Army nevertheless devised new plans and methods to meet the challenge. Mobilizing the nation's transportation system, it moves thousands of enrollees from induction centers to working camps. It used its own regular and reserve officers, together with regulars of the Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy to temporarily command camps and companies.

The Army was not the only organization to evoke extraordinary efforts to meet the demands of this emergency. Agriculture and Interior were responsible for planning and organizing work to be performed in every state of the union. The Department of Labor, through its state and local relief offices, was responsible for the selection and enrollment of applicants. All four agencies performed their minor miracles in coordination with a National Director of ECW, Robert Fechner, a union vice-president, personally picked by FDR and appointed in accordance with Executive Order 6101, dated April 5, 1933.

The program had great public support. Young men flocked to enroll. A poll of Republicans supported it by 67 percent, and another 95 percent of Californians were for it. Col. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, and an implacable hater of Roosevelt, gave the CCC his support. The Soviet Union praised the program...perhaps it saw a touch of socialism. A Chicago judge thought the CCC was largely responsible for a 55 percent reduction in crime by the young men of that day.

By April, 1934, the Corps, now on a firm foundation, faced the beginning of its second year with near universal approval and praise of the country. This young, inexperienced $30-a-month labor battalion had met and exceeded all expectations. The impact of mandatory, monthly $25 allotment checks to families was felt in the economy of cities and towns all across the nation. More than $72,000,000 in allotments were making life a little easier for the people at home. In communities close to the camps, local purchases averaging about $5,000 monthly staved off failure of many small businesses. The man on the radio could, for a change, say, "There's good news tonight."

News from the camps was welcome and good. The enrollees were working hard, eating hearty and gaining weight, while they improved millions of acres of federal and state land, and parks. New roads were built, telephone line strung and the first ofmillions of trees that would be planted had gone into the soil. Glowing reports of the accomplishments of the Corps were printed in major newspapers, even in some that bitterly opposed other phases of the New Deal. President Roosevelt, well pleased with his "baby," announced his intention to extend the Corps for a least another year.

The Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, began the best years of its life. Behind it, for the most part, were early days of drafty tents, ill-fitting uniforms and haphazard work operations. Individual congressmen and senators were quick to realize the importance of camps to their constituencies and political futures. Soon, letters, telegrams and messages flooded the Director's office most of them demanding the building of new camps in their states. Eventually there would be camps in all states and in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. By the end of 1935, there were over 2,650 camps in operation in all states. California had more than 150. Delaware had three. CCC enrollees were performing more than 100 kinds of work.

The Emergency Conservation Work Act made no mention of either education or training. They were not officially introduced until 1937 by the Act that formerly created the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Ultimately, the success -- or failure -- of the educational programs was determined by the initiative and qualifications of the Educational Adviser stationed in each camp. The attitude and cooperation of the camp commander was also important. These programs varied considerably from camp to camp, both in efficiency and results. However, throughout the Corps, more than 40,000 illiterates were taught to read and write. Since most of this training was on the enrollee's own time, undoubtedly each gained that for which he worked the hardest, be it high school diploma, learning to type, or wood carving.

Although relief of on employed youth had been the original objective of the ECW, two important modifications became necessary early in 1933. The first extended enlistment coverage to about 14,000 American Indians whose economic straits were deplorable and had been largely ignored. Before the CCC was terminated, more than 80,000 Native Americans were paid to help reclaim a land that had once been their exclusive domain.

The second modification authorized the enrollment of about 25,000 older local man (called LEMs) Hu, because of their experience or special skills, were vital to train and protect the unskilled enrollee in his transition from city greenhorn to expert handler of axe and shovel. Demands of nearby communities that their own unemployed be eligible for hire were also satisfied. Some complaints of "political patronage" emerged in this endeavor, but no serious scandals ever developed.

Some of the specific accomplishments of the Corps during its existence included 3,470 fire towers erected, 97,000 miles of fire roads built, 4,235,000 man-days devoted to fighting fires, and more than three billion trees planted. Five hundred camps were also under the control of the Soil Conservation Service, performing erosion control. Erosion was ultimately arrested on more than twenty million acres. The CCC made outstanding contributions in the development of recreational facilities in national, state, county and metropolitan parks.

There were 7,153,000 enrollee man-days expended on other related conservation activities. These included protection of range for the Grazing Service, protecting the natural habitats of wildlife, stream improvement, restocking of fish and building small dams for water conservation. Eighty-three camps in 15 Western states were assigned 45 projects of this nature.

Drainage was another important phase of land conservation and management. There were 84,400,000 acres of good agricultural land dependent on man-made drainage systems, an area equal to the combined states of Ohio, Indiana and Iowa. Forty-six camps were assigned to this work under the direction of the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture Engineering. Indian enrollees did much of this work.

Residents of southern Indiana will never forget the emergency work of the CCC during the flooding of the Ohio River in 1937. The combined strength of camps in the area saved countless lives and much property in danger of being swept away. They contributed 1,240,000 man-days of emergency work in floods of the Ohio in Mississippi valleys. Other disasters in which the CCC participated were the floods of Vermont in New York 1937 and the New England hurricane of 1938. During the blizzard of 1936-37 in Utah, 1,000,000 sheep were stranded and in danger of starvation. CCC enrollees braved the drifts and saved the flocks.

Few records were kept of the sociological impact of the 1930s on the nation's young men. Many had never been beyond the borders of their state, and others had not even left home. Yet, many would never return. They would choose to remain in towns and villages near their camps. They married, reared families and put down new roots, much as had other young men in the migratory movements of past years. Those who did return, many with brides, came back successful products of an experiment in living that had renewed and restored their confidence in themselves and in their country.

The Civilian Conservation Corps approached maturity in 1937. Hundreds of enrollees had passed through the system and returned home to boast of their experiences, while hundreds more demonstrated their satisfaction by extending their enlistment. Life in the camps had settled down to almost a routine, with work the order of the day, every day, except Sunday. But, after the evening meal the camps came to life as well over a hundred men relaxed and had fun. One building in every camp was a combined dayroom, recreation center and canteen, or PX. In this building, amid the din of ping-pong, poker, innumerable bottles a "coke," and occasional beers, were fostered friendships that exist to this day.

By late summer, 1941, it was obvious the Corps was in serious trouble. Lack of applicants, desertion and the number of enrollees leaving for jobs had reduced the Corps to fewer than 200,000 men in about 900 camps. There were also disturbing signs that public opinion had been slowly changing. Major newspapers that had long defended and supported the Corps, were now questioning the necessity of retaining the CCC when unemployment had practically disappeared. Most agreed there was still work to be done, but they insisted defense came first.

Pearl Harbor had shaken the country to its very core, and it soon became that, in a nation dedicated to war, any federal project not directly associated with the war effort was in trouble. The joint committee of Congress authorized by the 1941-42 appropriations bill was in session investigating all federal agencies to determine which ones, if any, were essential to the war effort. The CCC, no exception, came under review late in 1941. The findings of the committee was a surprise to no one. The major report recommended the Civilian Conservation Corps be abolished by July 1, 1942.

The CCC lived on for a few months more but the end was inevitable. Technically the Corps was never abolished. It was far simpler for Congress just to refuse it any additional money. This the House did in June, 1942, by a narrow vote of 158 to 151. The Senate voted twice and then Vice-President Henry Wallace, to break a tie, voted to fund the CCC. It was a valiant effort, but it didn't work. The Senate-House conference committee compromise finished it by concurring in the House action in return for $8 million to liquidate the agency. The full Senate confirmed the action by a voice vote in the Civilian Conservation Corps moved into the pages of history.