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Show ' COMPANY 469, CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS, MILFORD, TO CELEBRATE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF CCC ON APRIL 5 a- : Civilian Conservation Corps Idea Dates Back to July, 1932 In Chicago, on July 2, 1932. when accepting the Democratic nomination for President, Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt revealed a plan, then taking shape in his : mii-nl, tu help relieve the distress of unemployment through a great public works project of forest and land restoration. On March 21, 1!)33, just 17 days after his inaugural inaug-ural ion, the President sent a message mes-sage to Congress urging legislation legisla-tion to carry out this idea. Tt.n days laiter Congiessi passed the Emergency Conservation Act, giving giv-ing the President authority r.o establish es-tablish a nation-wide chain of for-1 est camps where unemployed young men could engage in differ- ent forms of forest and land improvement im-provement work. On March 31 the bill was signed. After ai taching his signature, the President turned to those who had piloted the legislation through Congress and said, "I want work to begin wi:hin two weeks." Immediately Im-mediately government wheels began be-gan to move swiftly. On a blank sheet of paper the President sketched in pencil a chart thai: was to form the basis of the Civilian Civil-ian Conservation Corps arganiza- tion and in the weeks thaj: follow ed he directed personally many details de-tails of its formation. It was the President's desire i:hat the project minister to needy boys and young men of working age whose lives were being undermined and shattered shat-tered by enforced idleness, privation priva-tion and hunger, and whose parents par-ents or dependents were likewise in need. The Ccrps therefore took form as a forest: army of young men ranging in ages from 18 to 25 years. On April 5, Robert Fech-ner Fech-ner was appointed Director of Emergency Conservatibn Work with an advisory council of representatives repre-sentatives from the four departments depart-ments which the President selected to be responsible for carrying out the Civilian Conservation Corps project. The members of this advisory ad-visory CGurcil Were: W. Frank Persons of the Department of Labor, La-bor, charged with passing on applicants ap-plicants and selecting quotas; Col. Duncan K. Major of the War Department, De-partment, charged with enrolling, cluthing and transporting (-he men, supervising camp construction construc-tion and caring for the men in the camps; Robert Y. Stuart of the Department of Agriculture; and Arno B. Cammerer of the Department De-partment of the Interior. The two last named Departments were charged with selecting camp sites, formulating work projects and supervising the work on lands coming under their respective jurisdictions. Upon the death of Mr. Stuart, on Oci ober 23, his place was taken by Mr. F. A. Sil- OOX. In the beginning, the forest army was thrown open to 250,000 unmarried and unemployed young men. Later, the President au.hor-ized au.hor-ized the enrollment cf 25,000 World War Veterans and 15,000 Indians as separate and self-contained units of the project. Enroll-nierj: Enroll-nierj: was voluntary and carried no military obligations or implications. implica-tions. Rates of pay were set at $30 a month f i r each man, with slightly higher rates for those se-lecr.ed se-lecr.ed as leaders. Enrollments, with few exceptions, were approved ap-proved subjeci' to each man sending send-ing home monthly to dependents $25 of his pay. On April 17, 1933, the first camp was established in r.he Gtorge Washington National Forest near Luray, Virginia. As Camp No. 1, it was given the name, "Camp Roosevelt". During the weeks that followed ihe country witnessed the most rapid mobilization of men in the Nation's history, exceeding even that during the World War. Two hundred and fifty thousand needy young men from all corners of (the United States moved in an eager restless tide to designated concentration points where they were given two weeks of conditioning condi-tioning by the Army, properly clothed, and then, in companies of 200, were transported to the forest regions of the country. if?.: i 'CtT - .': v.. . AN EVENING IN THE LIBRARY CCC and Future of America Discussed by Superintendent (By Camp Superintendent Leslie C. Koch)' Is the cost of the Civilian Con servation Corps excessive? Will America ever receive returns fr. m the millions invested in this organ-nation organ-nation adequate returns to justify justi-fy this huge investment? A few tacts, I think, will clear these questions in the minds oi the readers cf this article. The Civilian Conservation Corp--was primarily organized as an emergency measure, chiefly for the purpose of taking thousands of youth from the streets anu turning their work into conservation conserva-tion of America's natural resources, re-sources, the greater portion o! their earnings being sent to needy families. We may put it simply into tv.io stattn.ents: ITir.-t, for the rehabilitation of America's youth; and, second, for the reha-: reha-: bilitation of America's natural j resources. These are two of the ; greater features in any nation two features that will determine, mere than any others, the future j success or failure of a nation. The yearly cost of crime in our country runs into the billions ot dollars. Our greatest authorities on crime tell us that the roots oi I crime and the organization of the criminal and gangster lie in the idleness of our youth. Officials : of our prisons tell us a great ma-; ma-; jority of the inmates cf the insti-j insti-j tutions under their direction are ( boys, their age ranging from 17 to 1 24, the age cf the Civilian Conservation Con-servation Corps enlistment. Should j we, through this organization, eli-j eli-j minate only 10 per cent of the i crime in our country, the benefits derived will pay the entire cost ci operation cf the corps. The regular habits required ot ; the CCC enrollees tend to build ' up strong bodies while the instructions, instruc-tions, both scholastic and practical, practi-cal, administered by the combined i efforts of an experienced educa-i educa-i tional adviser, army officers ana ' technical supervisory personnel, : will prepare them to play a more useful part in the future upbuild-1 upbuild-1 ing of our nation. In other words, the source from which the criminal j and gangster arises is transform-; transform-; ed into an agency playing an important im-portant part in the upbuilding of i American citizenship, i We shall now consider the part played by the Civilian Conservation Conserva-tion Corps in the rehabilitation oi our nation's natural resources. Locally, we are more familiar with the operations of the camps under the direction of the Department of ! the Interior, Division of Grazing, the agency to which our local .mp beloivos. There is in the western part of the United States approximately 176,000,000 acres of land termed public domain. This great area is unfit for ordinary production of crops and hence has been uncontrolled. uncon-trolled. As the population of the west increased the livestock industry indus-try grew. The public domain became be-came the natural range for the st.ek, hence its use made this ;n-dustry ;n-dustry one of the major- industries of the west. The range lands have played an important rele in the agricultural development of the west. With virgin range to draw on, the livestock live-stock industry has contributed materially ma-terially to the building of towns, roads and many community enterprises. enter-prises. The combination of range and farm land has formed an economic partnership strong enough to weather the most severe storms that cur modern economic world could produce. A gradual disintegration of the better range, however, due to overgrazing and a continued drouth, have undermined under-mined many of the economic strongholds of the past. I might state that in the year 1929 the range livestock business in the state of Utah amounted to nearly $25,000,000 or 39 per cent of the total agricultural income of the state. The purpose of our local CCC camp is not only to bring back to normal carrying capacity of livestock live-stock the range which has been destroyed, but to develop areas' which have not been utilized by the stockmen in the past. Whether or not our local Camp DG-35 has been worth the investment invest-ment can be determined from the following facts:: Twenty-nine reservoirs reser-voirs have either been completed o:' are under construction, each ranging from 1,500 to 16,000 cubic yards structure. They have storage stor-age capacities of from two to 16 hundred acre feet of water each, and are distributed over an area of 2,000,000 acres of range land. One hundred twenty-four miles ai ' road have been completed, requiring requir-ing the removal of approximately 125,000 cubic yards cf earth and rock. Seventeen miles, of fence have been constructed and in addition ad-dition many other minor projects have been completed. Approximately two years of future work has been laid out. The value of the work accomplished will far exceed the entire cost ol the operation of this camp figured from every angle. ,-. - V v i v, ......... .. -rgk. - bau i?-f t .x THE CAMP RECREATION HALL |