There were many valid reasons why Congress chose not to establish the Corps as a permanent agency. However, disenchantment and failure to recognize the success of the organization was never a topic of debate. To the contrary, in a vote of confidence, Congress extended its life as an independently funded agency for an additional two years.
Speculation suggests, Congress still regarded the CCC as a temporary relief organization with an uncertain future, rather than as a bold, progressive solution to the continuing problem of our vanishing national resources. However, would bring about a major challenge at the time when he was struggling with internal problems brought about by changing conditions both in the United States and Europe.
The European military controversy and its pending negative affect on England and France had already begun to impact the U. In the effort to provide them with supplies to combat invasion, jobs were created and applications for the CCC declined. Again, it was a sudden change in administration policy that generated the most heat for Fechner and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
One of Roosevelt's long range plans was the reorganization of the administrative functions of some federal agencies. Congress had been reluctant to approve such a move until early in They finally authorized a modified proposal after much debate. The CCC lost its status as an independent organization and was brought into the new organization. Fechner was furious when he learned the Director of FSA would have authority over him.
Appeals to the President were futile as FDR believed the consolidation was important. In an angry protest, Fechner submitted his resignation, but later withdrew it. Some felt that withdrawing his resignation was a mistake for it was common knowledge that Fechner was in poor health.
Fechner was the CCC. His honest, day by day attention to all facets of the program sustained high levels of accomplishment and shaped an impressive public image of the CCC. He was a common man, neither impressed nor intimidated by his contemporaries in Washington. Fechner was considered deficient and lacking vision in some areas but his dedication was second to none. His lengthy and detailed progress reports to FDR were valuable information.
He was a good and faithful servant who was spared from witnessing the end of the CCC program. In the Civilian Conservation Corps began a year of change. The death of Fechner was a severe blow and the emerging war in Europe was the greatest concern to Roosevelt and Congress. John J. McEntee was appointed by the Congress to be Director. He was as knowledgeable as Fechner as he had been the assistant since the beginning. McEntee was an entirely different personality without the appeasing talents of his predecessor, and none of his patience.
Harold Ickes, another short-tempered individual, strongly opposed his appointment. He served in a different, uncertain atmosphere and received little praise for his efforts. The Corps itself continued to be popular. Another election year attempt by the President to reduce its strength precipitated a reaction reminiscent of the congressional revolt of Also, the Corps remained at the current strength of about , enrollees, Congress would never again be as generous.
Other problems were developing within the Congress related to the defense of the country. Inevitably, the priority and prestige of the CCC suffered with each crisis. By late summer, , 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 , men in about camps. There were also disturbing signs that public opinion was 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. The bombing of Pearl Harbor had shaken the country to its very core. It soon became obvious that, in a nation dedicated to war, any federal project not directly associated with the war effort was not a priority.
The joint committee of Congress authorized by the appropriations bill was investigating all federal agencies to determine which ones, if any, were essential to the war effort. The CCC was no exception and came under review late in It was not a surprise that the committee recommended the Civilian Conservation Corps be abolished by July 1, The CCC lived on for a few more months, but the end was inevitable.
Technically, the Corps was never abolished. In June by a narrow vote of to , the House of Representatives curtailed funding. The Senate reached a tie vote twice. The full Senate confirmed the action by voice vote and the Civilian Conservation Corps moved into the pages of history. Back to Top. Roots of the conservation corps concept.
In , the Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle wrote that unemployed men should be organized into regiments to drain bogs and work in wilderness areas for the betterment of society.
In , conservationist George H. Maxwell proposed that young men be enrolled into a national conservation corps. Their duties would include forest and plains conservation work, to fight forest fires, flood control, and the reclamation of swamp and desert lands.
In , Franklin Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York and in the New York legislature passed a law to purchase abandoned or sub-marginal farmlands for reforestation. In , the state government set up a temporary emergency relief administration. The unemployed were hired to work in reforestation projects, clearing underbrush, fighting fires, controlling insects, constructing roads and trails, and developing recreation facilities.
At the same time New York State was developing their conservation and reforestation program, other states including California, Washington, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Indiana, were hiring or planning for the unemployed to do conservation work.
The states of California and Washington, in cooperation with the U. Forest Service developed work camps for the unemployed. By , California had established 25 camps of men each. By , an estimated million people were out of work. Farms were being abandoned, more than , businesses went bankrupt and more than 2, banks had shut their doors. From an environmental perspective, only million acres of an original million acres of virgin forests were left and 6 billion tons of top soil were lost to wind and erosion each year.
The Post War Years. In the years following the end of World War II and the Korean Conflict, several attempts were made by conservation groups to re-establish the program. The concept of engaging young people as park volunteers was suggested by Elizabeth Cushman in her senior thesis, "A Proposed Student Conservation Corps".
This bill passed the Senate by a vote of , but due to opposition by the Eisenhower Administration, the House refused to consider it. Several attempts to establish a youth conservation corps during the Kennedy Administration failed. Rebirth of conservation corps programs. It was in that a youth conservation corps program would finally develop. Forest Service.
These conservation centers would be just one of several types of Job Corps Centers that also included male or female urban centers. At first, the Job Corps specifically designed the conservation centers for enrollees with less than a 5th grade reading level. Enrollees stayed at conservation centers until their reading level improved and then were transferred to urban centers for vocational training.
As a result of this criticism, the policy of separating youth by educational level was which gave the conservation centers equal status with other types of Job Corps centers. Conservation centers still differed from other centers in size with only students versus up to 2, students in the larger urban centers. Also, training at the conservation centers had a tendency to parallel the types of conservation work needed near the centers.
While the primary focus of Job Corps is to provide young adults with vocational training, many of the training projects conducted by the Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers help meet the conservation and community service objectives of nearby local and federal agencies.
The U. Forest Service operates 28 Civilian Conservation Centers nation-wide. In , Lloyd Meeds, a candidate for Congress, from the state of Washington used the creation of a Federal Youth Conservation Corps as a campaign issue.
It was the effort of these two legislators that began the process that would result in the passage of a Youth Conservation Corps YCC bill. Legislative aides working with staff from the U. Senator Jackson introduced W. In addition, they would develop good work habits and attitudes which would persist for the remainder of their lives.
Despite opposition from the Nixon Administration, the Youth Conservation Corps began as a small pilot program in the summer of After three summers of operation as a pilot program, and with strong Congressional support, the YCC became a permanent institution in Program participation jumped from 3, in , to 9, youth in , and continued to grow until it peaked at 46, enrollees in This, perhaps, was the tragedy of the CCC.
Despite its successes, its potential was never fully tapped. A significant aspect of the CCC's existence, one which distinguished it from other relief agencies and which probably had some bearing on the lack of planning for the future, was the question of the CCC's conservatism.
The CCC was not led by liberal intellectuals such as Aubrey Williams or Harry Hopkins, but by a conservative former trade-union official who boasted that his clerks had more formal education than he did. Moreover, responsibility for camp management was vested in the least radical body in the country, the Army.
This, as has been mentioned, was undoubtedly a factor in explaining the CCC's relative popularity with even right-wing congressmen and commentators, who were further entranced with its possibilities as a political pork barrel. Add to this the fact that many saw in the CCC's activities some sort of return to an older and better America, an America of young men working close to the soil, and the sources of the Corps' popularity are explained. However, this also helps us to understand the lack of interest in charting a wider course for the agency's future.
Congressmen never provided a framework for long-term development, while the Army did not consider its role to be a permanent one. It is too easy, however, to accuse the CCC unfairly. Even if wider aims had been developed and the Corps placed on a permanent footing, it would have provided no immediate answer to the basic problems facing American youth. These could not be solved by moving boys from their homes to the woods, no matter how enlightened those responsible for the shift might be.
Though the CCC could certainly have done more, it should not be treated as a scapegoat, a whipping boy for other more fundamental failures. Moreover, to talk of the CCC as conservative is to overlook the fact that the spirit which flowed through the whole New Deal program had clearly not passed it by. Certainly, this was true of the CCC. It was frankly experimental, it had no real precedent to follow and no long-term goals to be reached.
Its organization was essentially a makeshift response to the immediate problem of unemployed youth. Further, in its profound concern for the well-being of its enrollees, the CCC shared in the broadly humanitarian trends of the era, and this underlying principle was with it until the end. In spite of the vicissitudes of its final years and the larger question of the lack of an overview as to its permanent function in the American social fabric, the Civilian Conservation Corps stood firmly upon its record.
Immediately, to a country engaged in bloody war, it had provided the sinews of a military force. It had given young officers valuable training in command techniques, and the nearly three million young men who had passed through the camps had received experience of military life upon which the Army was well able to build. Moreover, there is little need to dwell upon the vital contribution made by the CCC to the conservation of natural resources.
The billions of trees planted or protected, the millions of acres saved from the ravages of soil erosion or the depredations of flooded rivers, the hundreds of parks and recreation areas which were developed, are a permanent testimony to the success of Corps work.
They constitute a legitimate contribution to the heritage of every American. Finally, the CCC had a lasting effect on its enrollees. Life in the camps brought tangible benefits to the health, educational level, and employment expectancies of almost three million young Americans, and it also gave immediate financial aid to their families.
Young men from around Ohio who enrolled in the CCC came to these camps to work together in the common cause of conservation, regardless of skill, education or social background. However, the two Ohioans were destined for very different fates. Roy Clay was born in Smyrna, Ohio, in As a commissioned officer in the Army, Clay joined the camp administration as a technical service staff member.
When Clay writes about his experiences while employed by the CCC, his perspective of the camps comes from that of a staff member, so he dedicates much of the chapter on the CCC to the bureaucracy of running a camp. For example, in this excerpt from his autobiography, Clay provides a snapshot of life at Camp Jackson:. Our work at Jackson consisted of soil erosion control small wood dams to control runoff , tree planting, wood-lot improvement and fire-fighting…My work crew consisted of 25 CCC enrollees with one leader and one assistant leader.
We traveled by stake and platform truck, with canvas top, wooden benches for seats, and a large tool box…My crew worked in the eastern portion of Jackson County. It seems that during the spring of the year we had a forest fire about midnight every Saturday night. During that time, he rose in title from junior foreman to commanding officer.
When he became the commanding officer at Vandalia in Vandalia was a segregated camp with African American enrollees , Clay was a 1 st Lieutenant and serving on active military duty. Stephen Niznok, born in , was the son of immigrants and raised in Cleveland, in a working-class neighborhood near Lincoln Park. We first learned about him from a collection the Ohio History Connection received in , the Marie Niznok McElroy collection, donated by her estate.
As Marie was the younger sister of Stephen, the collection contains items related to him. Of particular note is a photograph-filled scrapbook that he compiled documenting his CCC service at Bear Creek, Camp Preble and other sites in the s. The photographs are remarkable in their depictions of daily camp life, from work sites, construction scenes and camp buildings to recreational activities, mealtimes and high jinks among the corps members. In many ways, they bring to life and add color to the descriptions of camp structure, duty and life that Roy Clay describes in his manuscript.
Clay would serve with distinction in the European Theater as an officer with the th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, seeing action in the Battle of the Bulge and campaigns including Ardennes-Alsace, Northern France and the Rhineland.
0コメント