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Thursday, March 27, 2014

Civilian Conservation Corps Address to First Class Completing Its Six Months of Service, 1934

When the Civilian Conservation Corps was begun in 1933 by Congress, North Carolina was allowed to place 6,500 unemployed young men, who would be trained at Fort Bragg. The requirement were that the men be fit, unmarried, unemployed and between the ages of 18 and 25. They had to be citizens and have dependents to whom they would allot a substantial portion of their $20 per month cash allowance. In the 1930s, dependents did not mean wife and children. It meant mothers, fathers, and brothers and sisters still living at home. The state selected the men.

“The young unmarried men are being selected partly because of the type of work and camp life involved, and partly because young unmarried men have had the great difficulty in recent years in securing either work or relief. Some of them never have had a chance to hold down a job since they left school. The work is reserved for those men who have dependents and want to help them, rather than for unattached, homeless transients because the money can be used more productively if it benefits whole families rather than individuals.

“Married men are not being selected unless resident in the vicinity of the forest camp, because it is believe it would be less fitting to separate married men from their families for a six-month period on the basis of a cash allowance of $30 per month, which is all that can, at present be paid for the work. Expansion of other public works, however, is a prospect reserved for such married men.

“There is no discrimination being made in the selecting of the young men for the work except that no person ‘under conviction for crime or serving a sentence shall be employed.’”

Here is Robert Fechner’s address to the first class of young men leaving after 6 months of service with the Civilian Conservation Corps, March 24, 1934. Fechner was director of Emergency Conservation Work. North Carolina had 6,500 men in the C.C.C. Some chose to leave after their six-month enlistment was up, and others chose to re-enlist for a second six months.

This week will be the last time which many thousands of you men now in the Civilian Conservation Corps will spend in Emergency Conservation Work. For the past six months or longer you have been a part of one of the most important projects ever attempted by any government. I congratulate you for having had the opportunity of such an experience. I congratulate you for the manner in which you performed your task.

Many of you came onto the job knowing little about work, less about natural conservation, and not very much about human relations. During the months which you have lived in the C.C.C. camps you have been brought into contact with many things new to you. You have come to learn much about trees and forests and the enormous part they play in the economic life of all of us.

Some of you have labored at the job of fighting diseases which kill trees. Others of you have worked in the fields checking soil erosion, a condition brought about by the absence of trees. Nearly all of you have fought your share of forest fires or you have done that precautionary work to check or reduce the hazards of such fires.
But, in addition to your work, you have lived healthy, out-of-doors lives in camp. You have lived closely with other men. You have been, many of you for the first time, on your own, so to speak. You have been brought under the influence of a measure of discipline.

Few of you have gone through this great experience without learning many things. You have learned what it is to work—to do hard labor with your hands—building trails and fire lanes, cutting and planting trees, building dams and almost countless other forms of conservation work. You have learned much about nature; its beauty and its economy. You have gained an understanding of the necessity for conserving our forest lands and reclaiming thousands of acres which each year is ruined through soil erosion.

In your life in camp you have learned the benefits of a healthy body. Through your associations in camp you have learned something about how to “get along” with other men—that it’s a give-and-take proposition. By your contact with Army officers and forestry officials you have learned to stand up under discipline—a valuable thing to learn early in life.

And as you leave the C.C.C. and go back to your life in the cities and towns, to other jobs and other interests, I should be happy if you would take these things with you. You will find them of untold value, to yourself in your personal life, to the work in which you devote the rest of your years and to the nation of which you form a part quite as much as you did of the Civilian Conservation Corps. You will look back upon the time you spent in the C.C.C. as a great adventure—a great teacher. It has been just that. That is why I congratulate you.

And it is because of this very thing—to give as many young men as possible an opportunity to gain the advantages of Emergency Conservation Work, that the President has directed that service in the C.C.C. be limited to one year. He saw the possibilities for both the forests and the young men of the country in this gigantic emergency work. It was one of the first steps toward economic recovery he took after entering office. I know that he is pleased with the success which h so far has attended this endeavor and that he is proud of you men who have made it possible. It is through the spirit manifest by such men as you that a national survives and progresses.


I know you will go back to your homes sounder in body and happier in mind. May you continue so always—and good luck to you.

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