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3. The CCC's Roots and Relationships
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3 The CCC’s Roots and Relationships In his first inaugural address, President Roosevelt declared that the “nation asks for action, and action now. Our greatest primary task is to put people to work.”1 Within a month and a day, the promise of action yielded the Emergency Conservation Work program, better known as the Civilian Conservation Corps. Three months later nearly 275,000 men were working in the nation’s forests.2 That government might work with such speed, and on this scale, is extraordinary; that it occurred through the cooperation of four federal government departments—Labor, War, Agriculture, and Interior—all coordinated by an independent agency nearly devoid of staff is a near-miracle. What was this program that inspired such feats, and where did it come from? The CCC’s Roots The premise of the CCC was simple: take unemployed young men and older veterans from families on or in need of relief—what we call welfare—and have them do “simple work . . . forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control , and similar projects.”3 Enrollees lived in forest camps and, in exchange for their labor, received room, board, and $30 a month—nearly $500 a month in 2010 dollars—most of which they sent home to their families. The Department of Labor selected the enrollees, Interior and Agriculture planned and supervised the work, and the Army was in charge of the camps.4 Identifying the inspiration for the program is harder. Despite the fact that several European countries had work programs, national service scholars 37 03-2380-6 ch3.indd 37 12/24/12 10:43 AM 38 the civilian conservation corps Kenneth Holland and Frank Hill argue that they had negligible influence on the creation of the CCC; domestic influences, including practical smallscale programs and a broadly amenable culture, were determinative.5 Before 1933 a number of U.S. cities and states had developed camps and forest work programs. As governor of New York, Roosevelt gave 10,000 men temporary employment planting trees as part of the state’s reforestation program.6 California had a program that foreshadowed the CCC even more closely: in 1932 it was running thirty camps for indigent men, who worked in state forests and on highways.7 These efforts hinted at what might be done, but still, no one had experience running a program that would recruit younger participants, assist their families, transport many of them across the country, and operate on a scale that from its start was almost one hundred times larger than California ’s program ever was. What the CCC could draw on for inspiration was America’s experience as a settler nation and its cultural proclivity to mythologize work, particularly in the outdoors. As the previous chapter explained, work in America has strong civic dimensions. In arguing for work programs over cash relief, Roosevelt said that “the overwhelming majority of unemployed Americans . . . would infinitely prefer to work.”8 For him and others, the statement was nearly tautological : Americans want to work because working makes them American. Further, beyond valorizing work, Americans valorized work in the country. As Holland and Hill explain, “Living in and working from temporary shelters and pioneer battling with the wilderness were . . . in the American blood.”9 Drawing on this legacy, the CCC offered something of the pioneer experience to its modern, twentieth-century youth, an experience widely believed to be physically, morally, and civically fortifying. In Hill’s assessment, “the whole earth-and-work association was a constructive thing” and conducive to building public support.10 Beyond shaping popular culture, these beliefs influenced America’s philosophers : William James certainly drew on them when advocating a universal conscription of young men into an “army enlisted against nature.”11 If James’s idea had any bearing on the CCC’s founding, however, it would have been through Franklin Roosevelt—the individual most responsible for its genesis. And although Roosevelt had known James in college, his inspiration for the CCC was personal, not academic: as CCC historian John A. Salmond characterized it, “Roosevelt’s love of the land was both passionate and total.”12 As a state senator, vice presidential candidate, and governor, Roosevelt consistently pressed for conservation measures, becoming a national environmental leader. It is no surprise that his first effort at work relief as president was the CCC and 03-2380-6 ch3.indd 38 12/24/12 10:43 AM [54.152.43.79] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:54 GMT...