Nick Hudson at The Tribune asked some
interesting questions that deserve discussion. “Did President Roosevelt create something in
1933 that we can learn from or even possibly reinstitute in today’s America, or
is hard work too much to ask of our perpetual poor? Would they be insulted if we dare suggest
they perform some type of labor in order to receive their entitlements? Are we allowed to ask what exactly are these
people doing all day? Is it time to ask
if poverty has become a career choice in today’s America?”
Hudson explained how President
Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) helped the poor during the Great Depression through
a program known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Congress
passed legislation that created the CCC, a federally funded program that was
part of FDR’s New Deal, and FDR signed the bill into law on April
10, 1933. In spite of the fact that the
work was hard physical labor, more than 3 million unemployed and unmarried men,
ages 18-26 jumped at the chance to earn their board plus $30 per month, most of
which they sent home to their families. Most of the enrollees were malnourished
and poorly clothed. The program lasted
from 1933 until 1942 and was probably the most popular of all the New Deal programs but never became a
permanent agency.
“Each CCC camp was located in
the area of particular conservation work to be performed, and organized around
a complement of up to 200 civilian enrollees in a designated numbered `company’
unit. The CCC camp was a temporary
community in itself, structured to have barracks (initially Army tents) for 50
enrollees, officer/technical staff quarters, medical dispensary, mess hall,
recreation hall, educational building, lavatory and showers, technical/administrative
offices, tool room/blacksmith shop and motor pool garages. The company organization of each camp had a
dual-authority supervisory staff:
firstly, Department of War personnel or Reserve officers (until 1 July
1939), a `company commander’ and junior officer, who were responsible for
overall camp operation, logistics, education and training; and secondly, ten to
fourteen technical service civilians, including a camp `superintendent’ and
`foreman,’ employed by either the Departments of Interior or Agriculture,
responsible for the particular field work.
Also included in camp operation were several non-technical supervisor
LEMs, who provided knowledge of the work at hand, `lay of the land’ and paternal
guidance for inexperienced enrollees.
Enrollees were organized into work detail units called `sections’ of 25
men each, according to the barracks they resided in. Each section had an enrollee `senior leader’
and `assistant leader’ who were accountable for the men at work and in the
barracks.
“The CCC performed 300 possible
types of work projects within ten approved general classifications: 1) Structural improvements: bridges, fire lookout towers, service
buildings; 2) Transportation: truck
trails, minor roads, foot trails and airport landing fields; 3) Erosion
control: check dams, terracing and
vegetable covering; 4) Flood control:
irrigation, drainage, dams, ditching, channel work, riprapping; 5)
Forest culture: planting trees and
shrubs, timber stand improvement, seed collection, nursery work; 6) Forest
protection: fire prevention, fire
pre-suppression, firefighting, insect and disease control; 7) Landscape and
recreation: public camp and picnic
ground development, lake and pond site clearing and development; 8) Range: stock driveways, elimination of predatory
animals; 9) Wildlife: stream
improvement, fish stocking, food and cover planting, and 10)
Miscellaneous: emergency work, surveys,
mosquito control.”
There were separate camps for
minorities but enrollees received equal pay and housing. There were 200,000 African-American
enrollees, segregated until 1935, and their leaders lobbied for leadership
roles and supervisory positions. There
was a separate Indian Division to provide major relief for 85,000 Native
Americans belonging to federally recognized tribes. They worked on roads, bridges, clinics,
shelters, and other public works near their reservations. There were no women enrolled in the CCC camps. Many of the African-Americans and Native
Americans employed in the CCC camps joined the military during World War II.
Some well-known people worked in
the CCC camps and included Hubert D. Humphreys (politician), Raymond Burr
(actor), Robert Mitchum (actor), Chuck Yeager (test pilot who was the first to
break the sound barrier), Stan Musial (baseball player), and Walter Matthau
(actor).
I remember seeing old CCC camps
in the mountains when I was a youth. I
understood at the time that the men who lived and worked in those camps did so
during the Great Depression. Since I became
an adult and have traveled throughout the United States, I have seen the
results of some of their work. Many of
the picnic areas, campgrounds, trails, roads, etc. located in our national
parks were built by people in CCC camps during the Great Depression. I am grateful for the way they made
improvements in our nation.
Hudson may have suggested a way
to “end welfare as we know it” (Bill Clinton):
“Can you imagine the outrage from today’s poverty industry if we were to
suggest or, better yet, demand that the people receiving government benefits
show up and actually do some work? It
really doesn’t matter what type of work, dig a ditch to nowhere and when you’re
done fill it back in and start over again same time tomorrow morning – just be
there from 9-5 Monday through Friday to dig that ditch. My guess is that the welfare rolls would be
cut in half after one month of implementing the new and improved `ditch digging
to nowhere program.’ It would be nice if
the work had societal benefits such as President Roosevelt’s CCC, but until
then just dig the dang ditch. If nothing
else, it would teach them how to get up in the morning and head out to
work. I am a firm believer in helping
the poor, as I would think most Americans are.
But we must ask ourselves, are these programs truly helping the
needy? Are they keeping them needy? Or, the scariest question of all, are these
programs actually creating the needy?”
Our nation has been fighting the
War on Poverty since the 1960s but has not made much difference in the number
of people living in poverty. What we
have been doing has not worked. If we
want different results, we did to do things differently. Maybe we need to do something like FDR
did. The government provided a way for
the men in the CCC to earn money, but it also gave them a way to do productive
work and gain self-respect. I believe
that we need to make poverty uncomfortable enough that people are eager to escape
from it, not depend on it – just as Benjamin Franklin said. We can give people a hand up without giving
them a continuing hand out.
Hudson ended his article with
this paragraph: “What exactly did Franklin Roosevelt accomplish when he created
the CCC on April 10, 1933? For one
thing, he taught those young Americans a work ethic. He demanded labor in exchange for those tax
dollars and in the process he accomplished many wonderful things with that
labor. Many of those young men went on
to become park rangers, engineers and business owners. The seedlings they planted are now mighty
oaks! Perhaps what FDR taught us is that
handing out free money with no expectations of labor does nothing except keep
poor people trapped exactly where they are, in abject poverty. … Maybe Franklin D. Roosevelt taught us that if
society simply pays people to be poor, they will always be poor and they will
always stay poor. But if society demands
work, those people just might become workers! …
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