Chapter 6
The Popular CCC
Despite the problems of Negro enrolment and the
occasional administrative mistake, the Civilian Conservation Corps in
the words of Rexford Tugwell, "quickly became too popular for
criticism." [1] He was indeed stating a
truism. One of the significant features of the CCC, in contrast to other
New Deal agencies, was its enthusiastic acceptance by most segments of
the community. The Literary Digest did not exaggerate when it
claimed that "attacks on the New Deal, no matter how sweeping, rarely or
never extend to the CCC." [2] What were the
roots of its popularity, among politicians, the press, and the
public?
For congressmen, the CCC could be a positive aid to
political advancement and a ready means of increasing their prestige
among constitutents. The securing of one or more camps for his
particular district or state usually redounded to the legislator's
political benefit. Consequently, congressmen spent much time flooding
CCC mailboxes with requests for camps. Most wrote to Fechner, though
Ickes and Wallace also had to deal with such correspondence, and some
congressmen even sought favors directly from the President. Roosevelt
often acted positively on such demands, much to Fechner's annoyance. [3]
Appeals from congressmen took several forms, the most
common being a straight request, usually accompanied by a petition from
local residents stressing their desire for a camp and their economic
need for one. Thus, when Senator Robert R. Reynolds sought the
establishment of a camp in Avery County, North Carolina, he inclosed a
letter from J. P. Grindstaff of that county, which discussed in detail
the unhappy plight of the area's unemployed and explained how beneficial
a camp would be. [4] Often the congressmen
would preface his request by referring to previous camps in the area,
noting their popularity and fine work record. He would then press his
claim for one or two more. [5] Some Democrats
would hint at possible re-election trouble if more camps were not
established. For example, in 1935 Senator Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania,
one of the very first examples of a new political phenomenonthe
liberal "political boss"claimed that Republicans were making
political capital out of the fact that the state had comparatively few
camps and "if carried through, serious affects [sic] will be felt
in the election." [6]
The quest for camps was by no means a Democratic
party prerogative, however, and Republicans took full advantage of the
chance to benefit their home districts and states. Representative R. F.
Rich of Pennsylvania carried out a constant, and eventually successful,
campaign for more camps within his own district. [7] Senators Arthur Capper of Kansas and Gerald
P. Nye of North Dakota were a Republican duo whose deep interest in the
benefits of CCC work to their states often led them to request more
camps. Nye even took the issue to the President, stressing the "dire
need of steps in this direction being taken." [8] This should scarcely be surprising. The CCC's
appeal was far wider than the Democratic party alone. Much of its best
work was, in fact, done in the Midwest or in New England, in rural areas
where local Republicanism was strong. In 1936, not only did the
Republican presidential candidate warmly support CCC work, but an
estimated 67 per cent of all registered Republicans favored its
continuation, [9] and in pressing for camps
Republican congressmen were merely reflecting grass-roots opinion. As
one such Republican, Charles L. Gifford of Massachusetts, said, "It has
been a good thing . . . Republicans and Democrats favor it." [10]
Fechner received complaints as well as praise about
the CCC, however, and the agency could hurt as well as help congressmen.
The location of Negro camps was always a dominant local issue, and
pressure from the constituency often forced harrassed congressmen to
demand their withdrawal. [11] Usually,
however, congressmen abhorred the removal of a camp from their
districts. The resulting loss of local income caused real antagonism,
and the local representative often became a scapegoat for an official
act originating in Washington. Representative Lyndon B. Johnson,
Democrat of Texas, wrote plaintively to Ickes in 1937 that, in the
period following his oath of office, four CCC projects had been closed
in his district and as a result he was coming in for some serious
criticism. [12] Representative Wesley E.
Disney, Democrat of Oklahoma, said the removal of a camp in the environs
of Tulsa had hurt the Democratic party there. The successful
congressional revolt of 1936 against the President's plan to curtail
camps was a dramatic manifestation of the importance of this issue
locally. [13] Congressmen had received more
than enough telegrams and letters from their home communities, from
businessmen, storekeepers, contractors, and farmers to convince them
that to close more camps could be political suicide.
Democratic congressmen were quick to exploit another
source of political gain. A substantial section of the array of jobs
created by the establishment of the CCC was available as political
largesse. The CCC was never riddled with politics, but the original
intention to remove it entirely from such a plane was soon subverted.
Congressional Democrats were irate over the possibility that no spoils
would be forthcoming; to placate them, an order was issued in July,
1933, requiring that certain supervisory positions not demanding any
special skill "shall be filled from lists submitted by Congressmen." [14] Politics thus entered the Corps
organization, yet its effect was mild. In fact, many Democrats
complained that they did not have enough influence and that too many CCC
jobs were held by Republicans. [15] CCC
officials usually held firm against the demands by Postmaster General
James A. Farley and others that Republican project supervisors be
dismissed, [16] even though the President
occasionally overruled them in order "to preserve the interests of the
Party." [17] Both Republican and Democratic
congressmen were also able to use the Corps as a placement bureau for
protégés, [18] yet an
investigation in 1936 of charges that it was corrupted by politics
revealed that out of 18,000 employees who could conceivably owe their
jobs to political pressures, only about 3,600 had actually been chosen
from congressmen's lists. [19] Moreover,
many of these were eminently well qualified for the positions they held.
Given the importance of patronage in the American political system, the
Corps' record is an unusual one in this respect.
To professional foresters, however, any political
influence was to be deplored. Proclaiming that "efficiency in
conservation work demands absolute freedom from political dictation,"
they agitated constantly for the extension of Civil Service provisions
to cover all categories of CCC jobs. [20] In
this campaign they had the firm support of Fechner, whose concern for an
honest and efficient Corps was always emphatic. Fechner often broached
the questions of Civil Service extension to the President, [21] who realized the worth of the proposal but
was also cognizant of its political implications. In 1935 he decided
against its implementation because "it would mean throwing out a lot of
patronage." [22] Instead, he added a few
more jobs to those already available for patronage purposes, much to the
satisfaction of the legislators, though not to Corps officials. [23]
The fact that the CCC had become a source of
electoral gain for politicians explains in part the overwhelming support
for it in Congress. To emphasize this too much, however, obscures the
larger issue. Most congressmen were solid in their support of the
agency, not solely for what they could get out of it personally, but
mainly because its real benefits were increasingly clear. Since it was a
service of positive gain to both community and country which was easily
perceivable, strongly bipartisan trends of support were only to be
expected.
From its inception, the CCC received an
overwhelmingly sympathetic press. Newspapers supporting the
Administration quickly pronounced it a success, and less partisan papers
soon followed suit. [24] The San Francisco
Chronicle asserted that the "CCC has won golden opinion. There
has been in it not more than one-tenth of 1% of politics, which is
neutralized by the Army and Forest Service." The Chronicle was by
no means undiscriminating in its support of New Deal ventures. The same
editorial contrasted the CCC with the Civil Works Administration, an
other public relief scheme, which it brusquely dismissed as a "scandal."
[25] The Detroit News considered by
September, 1934, that "no activity of the entire alphabetical array of
New Deal projects has met with an approval so universal as has been
accorded the aptly named Civilian Conservation Corps." [26]
The extent of popular approval is reflected in the
attitude of the avowedly Republican papers to the Corps. No newspaper
was more bitter in its hatred of Roosevelt and New Dealism than the
Chicago Tribune, as even a cursory glance at its editorial pages
will show. Administration measures were colorfully described by such
epithets as "false and poisonous fare, dictatorship in essence," or
"gangsterism." [27] The one great exception
was the Civilian Conservation Corps. To be sure, the Tribune did
not lavish praise on the agency; in fact, it rarely mentioned it
editorially. Even those omissions are significant. During the election
campaign of 1936, the Chicago Tribune did not comment on the
charge of "politics in the CCC," even though it descended with unholy
glee on even the whisper of jobbery in other New Deal agencies, notably
the WPA. Indeed, on rare occasions the Tribune specifically
singled out the Corps for favorable comment. "The CCC is one of the best
projects of the Administration," a leading article in 1935 admitted,
"and the great majority of its recruits, we believe, appreciate its
opportunities and are being benefited." [28]
Whether the Tribune genuinely supported the CCC or merely
realized the futility of criticism is immaterial. What is important is
that there can be few more graphic examples of the CCC's popularity than
that newspaper's muted tones when discussing it.
Other Republican newspapers were more positive in
their praise. The Boston Evening Transcript commented: "in the
main, from the start, this army of conservation has shown itself to be
well disciplined and efficient in its work, and it has apparently
maintained a commendable standard of conduct in its leisure hours." [29] The Transcript often voiced what
became a common argument in favor of the CCC as expressed by groups
normally hostile to the New Deal. To such individuals and organizations,
the benefits of the CCC, unlike most New Deal measures, were tangible,
immediate, and obvious. Furthermore, it was not a dole to keep city-bred
youths from starving. The boys had to work, and work hard. In toiling
with their hands in the wilderness, they recaptured for many people the
spirit of a unique age now past whose memory was still all-pervasive. As
the McKeesport News put it in a moment of semi-nostalgia, "theirs
is the American way." [30]
The expression of such sentiments clearly illustrates
one of the sources of the CCC's strengththe romance of its appeal
to what Richard Hofstadter has called "the agrarian myth." The pervasive
belief that life "lived in close communion with beneficent nature" had
by very definition "a wholesomeness and integrity impossible for the
depraved populations of cities" had long been part of American folklore,
and the CCC "captured the popular imagination" partly because of its
"immediate and obvious appeal" to it. To many, the CCC undoubtedly
recalled visions of the frontier, of a pristine, open land quite
different from the dirt and teeming life of contemporary urban society.
[31]
Not all newspapers were unqualified in their praise
of the Corps. The Republican New York Herald Tribune supported
CCC work "because of the excellent effects of the camps on the morale of
thousands of youngsters who have attended them," [32] but at the same time it raised an important
point which other papers often overlooked: that the camps were "one of
the most costly forms of relief." Though "excellent schools of
character" whose abolishment was out of the question, they would, in
time, have to be "tapered down." [33] The
Herald Tribune was also concerned about undue political influence
in the Corps. It wanted all political interference stopped, lest the
public "feel about the CCC as it does about other agencies," even though
the Corps had been of far more value than any other New Deal creation.
[34] No major newspaper had seriously
proposed abolition of the Corps at this time. Most, in fact, demanded
its extension.
After the election campaign of 1936, when the issue
of a permanent Corps was becoming more prominent, newspaper comment
throughout the country increased. The Director's Office kept a close
check on editorials as a gauge to public feeling, periodically reporting
its findings to the President. The press was obviously strong on the
side of permanency. A survey of sixty editorials, taken in equal
proportion from Democratic, Republican, and independent newspapers in
twenty-six states, revealed that forty-three supported permanency, ten
wanted the CCC continued temporarily until business stability resumed,
and five wanted it reduced in size, then continued until employment
improved. Only two papers opposed continuation: a left-leaning Brooklyn
weekly objected to the Corps' similarity to "Fascist work camps," and a
daily in Jacksonville, Florida, could see no earthly value in
conservation work. But the great majority of the editorials were
"eloquent in their praise of the benefits to the young men and their
families." [35] A similar survey, carried
out in April, 1937, showed that out of 145 editorials, 122 favored a
permanent CCC immediately, and twenty-three, while favorable to
continuance, urged a further wait before permanence. Not one of the
papers supported abolition. [36] As the
Houston Post, itself a conservative paper, remarked: "Of all the
New Deal agencies, the CCC probably has attracted the most unanimous
public approval. Democrats and Republicans, Socialists and
Share-the-Wealthers, have joined in praising its objectives and
accomplishments." [37] The breadth of press
favor for the CCC was indeed one of the outstanding features of its
first four years.
The heart of support for the Corps was found at the
local level, in the communities where camps were established and in the
big cities or small towns from which the enrollees came. That camps were
popular with the local citizenry is indicated by the hundreds of
testimonials sent to Fechner attesting to their worth, and by the
anguished petitions of protest whenever a camp was withdrawn. The
president of the Chamber of Commerce in Attwood, Kansas, spoke for
thousands of rural towns when he wrote Fechner in 1935 to commend
the officers, men and attached technical personnel of
CCC company 731, who have been stationed in Attwood since May 1934. Not
only has this organization benefited the community in a material way by
its progress on the work project, but all mentioned have shown by their
good conduct and personality that they merit the highest praise as men
and public-minded citizens.
We know that there is a place in this community for
the organization as long as the Government will permit it to remain. [38]
Counties without camps pressed for them. It was usual
for Fechner and his staff to receive petitions such as the one from
Bamberg County, South Carolina, signed by 102 residents, including local
merchants, a judge, a newspaper editor, a druggist, a Presbyterian
minister, a schoolmaster, and a dentist. [39] Even more common, and certainly more
difficult for the director to deal with, was the flood of telegrams and
other messages whenever a camp was due to be removed. The signatures on
these telegrams, letters, and petitions, whether of protest,
commendation, or supplication, indicated the basic reasons for the CCC's
popularity. Businessmen were responsible for much of the heavy response.
The decision to close a camp at Iron River, Michigan, prompted the
sending of twenty-nine separate telegrams of protest from businessmen
alone, as well as a joint resolution from the farming community. [40] On May 10, 1935, Ickes received twenty-six
telegrams from businessmen of Greeley, Colorado, protesting the removal
of a National Parks camp there, even though the work project was
finished. [41] Conversely, it was most often
the president of the local Chamber of Commerce who sent the memorial
praising the work of the camp in his particular area and recounting its
benefit to all sections of the community.
For such local communities, leaving aside all
consideration of the work project's success, the very presence of a CCC
camp was an economic stimulant to local business. Food purchases alone
for the 300,000 men in camp throughout the nation amounted to more than
$3 million monthly, and about half of this amount was expended in local
areas. It was estimated that nearly $5,000 was spent monthly by each
camp in the local market, and, in addition, camp construction provided
work for local labor. [42] Sometimes, as in
Plaine, Montana, this contribution was enough to remove the city
entirely from depression standards. [43] In
all cases, it was of the greatest assistance in moving toward that goal.
As the Baltimore Sun aptly stated in explaining the congressional
revolt in 1936: "these local businessmen find it profitable to expand in
one way or another to cater for the relief trade. Thus, something in the
nature of a vested interest develops . . . curtailment endangers vested
interests." [44] The CCC was a most
significant experiment in community co-operation.
The economic benefit of CCC work reached far wider
than the camp locality. For the fiscal year 1935-1936 alone, almost $123
million was formally allotted by enrollees to their families. Fechner's
correspondence files adequately testified to its effect on family
income. One mother spoke of the vital difference the extra money had
made to her whole family. She thanked God for both the CCC and the
President, and pledged: "from now there will be nobody to tell me how to
vote. I'll know. And there will be two more votes in this family by that
time." [45] The Indiana and Ohio state
relief offices indicated that the $25 check had been vital in
maintaining relief loads and that most committees were decidedly in
favor of the camps. A spokesman for the larger cities concluded that
"they have helped to get rid of the gang on the corner" and that
employers had indicated preferences for young men with CCC experience.
[46]
Equal testimony to the success of the CCC as a relief
measure were the letters pleading either for a chance to join the Corps
or trying to prevent an impending discharge. One mother told Mrs.
Roosevelt that "we are so dependent on the money John sends home that I
don't know what we are going to do without it." [47] An unemployed twenty year old's plaintive
plea to the President graphically revealed the anguish of many of his
generation. He wrote: "I have been out of hight school for years and
have not been able to get any kind of work. I could not get in the CCC
and I need work. If I do not get work I will be turn out when I am 21
which will be in June. Please help me." [48]
Ineligible youths and their families had seen the difference camp life
had made to friends and wanted a chance to share in its benefits, to
provide, as one underage youth put it, "something to live on" for his
family. [49]
The economic aid was by no means the only benefit
recognized. A woman told Fechner that what she liked about the CCC was
that: "the boys are safe there. They are young and inexperienced and
need someone reliable to teach them and I think the discipline and
strictness are what they need now in their teen age." [50] Judge M. Broude of Chicago estimated that
the CCC was largely responsible for the 50 per cent reduction in crime
in that city, because it took boys off the streets and inculcated in
them a sense of values. The New York commissioner of correction
attributed a similar decrease in juvenile crime to the beneficent effect
of the Corps. [51] Groups as divergent
politically as the Virginia Federation of Labor and the United States
Junior Chamber of Commerce were united in recognizing the Corps' social
effect. The Junior Chamber members actually acted as godfathers to the
boys while they were in camp. [52] Even the
Soviet Embassy in Washington commended the CCC and requested detailed
information on its operation. [53]
An extensive survey of the depth of public esteem for
the Corps took place in California in 1936. Four thousand people,
including businessmen, educators, farmers, bankers, clergymen, editors,
doctors, clerks, and laborers, were asked to give their opinion on its
record so far and their feelings on its permanent establishment. Of
those who replied, nearly 95 per cent approved of both the record of the
Corps and its becoming a permanent agency of the federal government.
Less than 1 per cent thought the work a complete waste of time. The
remainder considered that though it had accomplished much, the time was
not yet ripe for a permanent organization. [54] The survey probably underestimated the
strength of the opposition to the CCC, but it indisputably indicated the
strength of its appeal. Its place in popular esteem was secure.
However, not everyone loved the CCC, and some were
quite vocal in their objections to it. A few lovers of nature protested
that the Corps was ruining the national forests and reserves with
"bungling" conservation practices and was also creating fire risks. [55] A clergyman or two, perhaps misguidedly,
protested against its contribution to the increase in the moral
delinquency of young people. [56] More
significantly, some farmers opposed it because of the poor quality of
work done on their land, or because a camp was abandoned without
completing its assignment. In Pawnee County, Nebraska, for example,
three different soil erosion control companies had been sent there, only
to move on after a few weeks of inefficient endeavor. The farmers,
"disgusted with having their farms torn up," wanted nothing more to do
with the CCC, [57] but such reactions,
usually due to some purely local circumstance, were rare. Some
right-wing political groups opposed the Corps. The American Liberty
League, for example, considered it a scheme to mold youth "into the raw
manpower for a colored shirt Fascist army of Roosevelt the Dictator."
Yet even the league's criticism was relatively muted. Violent attacks
would have been a political blunder in view of the Corps' tremendous
popularity. [58]
Despite their general commitment to the philosophies
and methods of the New Deal, and while applauding the basic human
motives which had prompted the CCC's creation, some liberals were
sincerely troubled by particular aspects of its structure. They
distrusted the intentions of the Army, and even conceding that the boys
had worked wonders with the land, they were less convinced that the
experience had any permanent value for the youths themselves. These
liberals were dissatisfied with the educational program and correctly
claimed that there was little use in rehabilitating a boy permanently,
even giving him new skills, if all that could be done in the end was to
return him to the environment from which he came. Here was where the
problems of these youths had to be solved, in the squalid urban slums,
in the dying Southern towns, not in forests or parks perhaps half a
continent away. These were valid shafts, not so much aimed at the Corps
itself, but at what they considered to be an administrative mindlessness
which tended to see in this essentially temporary, specialized creation
a permanent solution to all the problems plaguing young America. "Let us
not deny the real benefits of CCC life," such critics pleaded, "but let
us not forget that it functions within clearly defined limits." [59]
By far the most virulent criticism of the CCC came
from the leftist political parties and pressure groups. Norman Thomas
described it as a system of forced labor, and the Socialist party
platform in 1936 proposed its abolition. [60] Carl Minkley, state secretary of the
Wisconsin Socialist party, warned that it was "a breeding spot for
militarism or Fascism." [61] In the first
years of the New Deal, until American Communists adopted a policy of
ostensibly supporting Administration measures, Communist Front
organizations were bitter in their criticism of the CCC. [62] Most vociferous was the American League
Against War and Fascism, under the leadership of veteran Communists J.
B. Matthews and Earl Browder. The league sent delegations to Fechner
protesting against Fascism and "military management," attacked the Corps
by resolution, and denigrated it in debate. [63]
The CCC was always remarkably free from radical or
Communist influence. Fechner made no attempt to prevent Communists from
visiting camps and allowed them to distribute their literature. [64] On only one occasion did he specifically
bar a left-wing publication from camp libraries, when in April, 1937, he
stopped the distribution of a radical periodical, Champion of
Youth, because it had advocated the organization of enrollees into
cells on the Soviet model. Fechner's action drew protests from several
Front organizations, including the American League Against War and
Fascism and the American Student Union. [65]
Probably because of Fechner's liberal policies, carried out in the face
of nervous Army protests, Communist infiltration of camps was quite
insignificant. Their propaganda had little appeal for young men who were
now on the way back from their nadir of despair, and to whom the camps,
and the men responsible for them, signified a new hope for the future.
For many, the CCC was a place for sloughing off radical ideas, not
assimilating them. [66]
Another Front critic of the Corps was the Illinois
Workers Alliance, whose branches in March, 1935, sent nearly twenty
identical resolutions to Fechner objecting to the trend of CCC
organization. The form and content of this resolution was typical of the
type of communication expected and received from such groups. The
preamble spoke of the "convulsions" within the economic system and of
the "unification of the working class taking place as a desperate means
for the right to live as human beings." The alliance asserted: "With our
economic problems growing worse, the workers are faced with a new
problem because of the semi-military training of hundreds of thousands
of youngsters in the CCC. If this act is to be continued we can see
nothing but a clear trend toward a peculiar American brand of Fascism."
The resolution went on to accuse American capitalists of fomenting want
and starvation, and described the CCC as a conscious instrument in the
policy. The alliance demanded the discontinuance of this "semi-military
agency." [67]
Communists and radicals continually played on the
theme of militarism in the CCC. They, of course, genuinely feared
Fascism, but, more important, by using this issue they were able to make
common cause with thousands of non-Communists, people who supported the
idea of the CCC but yet distrusted its military connection. This uniting
of such diverse groups was one reason why the controversial question of
possible military training for enrollees was always of cardinal
importance.
The intensity of opposition to the Army's role in the
CCC organization, manifested during the legislative hearings of March,
1933, indicated strongly that the success of the Corps depended in large
measure on public reassurance concerning Army control. [68] Army authorities, Fechner, and the
President explicitly disavowed any intention of training enrollees for
combat duty, yet throughout 1933 intermittent protests from individuals,
peace groups, and radical organizations showed that some suspicion still
existed. Fechner answered such communications by giving an assurance
that no military training whatsoever was intended in the camps and that
"the only thing expected of the men is that they will behave
themselves." [69]
In January, 1934, the assistant secretary of war,
Harry H. Woodring, provoked the first sustained public opposition to the
prospect of military instruction in the CCC. In an article for
Liberty Magazine, Woodring hailed the camps as "the forerunners
of the great civilian labor armies of the future" and strongly suggested
that they be put under full Army control. He called the CCC boys
"economic storm troops." As Arthur Schlesinger has pointed out, this was
"a singularly unfortunate phrase for a nation which was just beginning
to dislike Hitler" and which was hypersensitive in its desire to prevent
similar developments at home. [70]
Public reaction was immediate and violent to
Woodring's implication that the CCC camps were militaristic. Many
demanded his resignation and the prompt removal of the CCC camps from
the clutches of the War Department. [71] The
White House, dismayed at both the article and the outcry, issued a
statement which repudiated the offending views most emphatically; and,
at Roosevelt's insistence, Woodring himself made a public apology. His
argument had been misconstrued, he alleged. He had used the offensive
phrase purely as a figure of speech, and he was in fact "fully in accord
with the views of the President that there should be no militarizing of
the CCC." [72] Nevertheless, pacifist
apprehensions had been thoroughly aroused, and groups continued to press
charges that the enrollees had had rifles and other equipment issued to
them. Though, as Fechner angrily said, there was "not one scintilla of
truth" in such rumors, [73] the depth of
public feeling insured that the Administration and Army officials would
rigidly suppress any development which could possibly be construed as
lending them substance. Shooting, for instance, was banned as a camp
sport for fear of the passions it might inflame. [74]
A few people, on the other hand, were becoming
increasingly interested in the possibilities of the CCC as a reservoir
of military strength. In February, 1935, General MacArthur proposed to
the House Appropriations Committee that enrollees be given the chance to
enlist for military training after completing their period of service in
the work camps. Ultimately they would be mobilized as an enlisted
reserve force. [75] The suggestion found
support among veterans associations and in Congress. [76] Excited by it, Representative J. J.
McSwain, Democrat of South Carolina and chairman of the House Military
Affairs Committee, introduced H.R. 5592, which sought to add two months
to CCC enrolment for the military training of the young men, and their
enlistment in an auxiliary reserve. [77] The
depth of public reaction against such proposals, however, was
impressive. A Committee on Militarism in Education, set up at Yale
University and including such august personages as John Dewey, Shailer
Matthews, Reinhold Niebuhr, Charles A. Ellwood, and William Allen White,
angrily denounced the proposal, demanding the "termination of all War
Department participation in the CCC." [78]
The Union of Private School Teachers asked that unemployed teachers
replace Army officers in controlling the camps. [79] The Anti-War Committee of Union Theological
Seminary opposed "Army proposals for the militarization of the CCC." [80] The American League Against War and Fascism
climbed noisily on the bandwagon, and hundreds of ordinary citizens
added their private protests in letters to representatives, to senators,
to Fechner, and to the President himself. [81]
The director and his staff bitterly opposed the
measure. Fechner told the Committee on Militarism in Education that
there was "no connection" between his office and McSwain's bill. [82] Persons considered that public opinion was
so violently antagonistic to military training in the CCC that the
passage of the bill would seriously affect selection. [83] McSwain doubted this statement, but because
of public reaction and Administration hostility, he decided against
further action and the bill died in committee. [84]
The proponents of military training in the CCC were
not to be silenced, however, and continued to express their views in the
press and on the public platform. An Army officer, writing in Happy
Days, advocated two hours drill per day, believing that "you could
not find one boy in 50 who would not be delighted with such an
arrangement." He was contemptuous of "morbid pacifists" who argued
otherwise. The American Legion strongly favored the suggestion, and the
governor of Massachusetts, James M. Curley, a candidate for the United
States Senate in 1936, said that one of his first acts, if elected,
would be to introduce a bill making training for one hour a day
mandatory in all CCC camps. Major General George Van Horn Moseley,
commander of the Fourth Corps Area, advocated military training for all
enrollees as a means of strengthening the Army. [85]
All of these suggestions were met with distrust and
hostility. A Kansas editor described Moseley's idea as "conscription," a
cross "between Hitler's compulsory labor camps and the universal draft
features of European military service laws." [86] The Communists screamed "Fascism" and
warned of Army plots to gain complete control of the CCC. The American
Youth Congress proclaimed that "youth opposes any such program."
Nevertheless, the idea of at least a modicum of military training for
enrollees slowly gained support. It had friends in Congress, where
Representative Jack Nichols, Democrat of Oklahoma, led a group of
veterans who strongly favored the scheme, and the correspondence columns
of the newspapers indicated its growing popularity. [87] It is probable that public opinion in 1936
still stood opposed to military training in the camps, and for the
moment the issue became submerged in the larger one of the move for
permanency. However, it was to be revived with a greater sense of
urgency than before as world tensions increased and Europe moved
inexorably toward war.
|