Is Poverty a Career Choice?

                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! …