Georgia's Civilian Conservation Corps
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Georgia's Civilian Conservation Corps - Connie M. Huddleston
story.
INTRODUCTION
The year was 1933; one in four young men between the ages of 15 and 24 found himself unemployed as a result of the Great Depression. Then the United States swore in a new and vital president—Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)—who promised a New Deal
for every American.
The Great Depression began in 1929 on Black Tuesday, October 29, with the great stock market crash. Its devastating effects broadsided industrialized countries and those importing raw materials. International trade plummeted; construction halted. As crop prices fell by 40 to 60 percent, farming and rural areas suffered. Mining and logging industries collapsed. Incredible numbers of men and women could not find work—some 12 to 15 million. In cities, bread and soup lines formed.
In the United States, almost two million men and women took to the road, traveling in rail cars or on foot from city to city and town to town looking for food, for work, and for security. A quarter-million of these lost souls were the teenage tramps of America. These young people wandered, looking for a future. Their rescue became critical to the survival and success of the United States.
In addition to this crisis of unemployment, the American landscape stood scarred from three generations of poor farming and logging practices. Virgin timber was reduced to a mere 100 million acres, down from 800 million. Soil erosion devastated once profitable farmland as three billion tons of rich topsoil washed away each year. Wind accounted for almost as much lost soil, especially in the Great Plains, where deserts of dust formed where rich grasslands once existed.
Hatched during the early days of his administration, President Roosevelt’s idea to employ America’s young unmarried men, ages 18 to 25, in conservation programs across the United States became one of the most successful government programs ever created. On March 9, 1933, only five days after his inauguration, FDR outlined the program to members of his cabinet. Speaking to the secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture, the Interior, and War; the director of the budget; the army’s judge advocate general; and the solicitor of the Department of the Interior, he sketched out his plan. Seeking immediate action, FDR asked Col. Kyle Rucker, the army’s judge advocate general, and Edward Finney, the Department of the Interior solicitor, to prepare a draft bill by that evening. The men presented their plan to the president at 9:00 p.m.
The original draft proposed recruiting 500,000 young men a year to be employed in conservation and public work projects. The army would recruit the enrollees and organize the camps, while the Departments of Agriculture and Interior would create and run the work programs. FDR wanted 250,000 young men employed by early summer in the new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
On March 15, 1933, in his third press conference, FDR discussed at length this need for work in America’s forests, the number of men that could be employed, and the proposed wage of $1 per day. There was a strong reaction from organized labor, who had an aversion to the role the army would play in the program. Additionally, labor leaders argued that the creation of such a force would place Government’s endorsement upon poverty at a bare subsistence level.
Forestry officials and unions worried about the effects of placing $1-a-day men to work beside $3-a-day men. Francis Perkins, secretary of labor, emphasized that the administration saw this new program as a relief measure directed at one segment of the society—young, unmarried men who would be provided with food, shelter, and work clothing, along with medical and dental care. These young men would be volunteers, not drafted.
Roosevelt’s message to Congress on March 21 read:
I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects. More importantly, however, than the material gains, will be the moral and spiritual value of such work. The overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans, who are now walking the streets and receiving private or public relief would infinitely prefer to work. We can take a vast army of these unemployed out into healthful surroundings. We can eliminate to some extent at least the threat that enforced idleness brings to spiritual and moral stability. It is not a panacea for all the unemployment, but it is an essential step in this emergency.... I estimate that 250,000 men can be given temporary employment by early summer if you will give me the authority to proceed within the next two weeks.
After substantial debate in committee, the bill finally came before Congress. It simply authorized the president to create the CCC under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, and by utilizing such existing departments or agencies as he may designate.
Given these wide powers, FDR began forming the CCC into a working operation.
Even before the legislation passed, FDR began searching for a man to lead