Chapter 5:
The Civilian Conservation Corps
A couple of little instances in the summer and fall
of 1933 helped to take some of the dreariness out of the workday and put
a little spice and pleasure in its place. It was early in August, I
believe, when a message came down to me via the secretary's office and
John Coffman that President Roosevelt wanted to see me, but it gave no
indication of what he wanted to see me about. Naturally I was somewhat
apprehensive. I went to the White House at the appointed time and was
ushered into the president's office. I was relieved to see him relaxed
and smiling.
He asked about the CCC program in general, and then
said, "By the way, I have a complaint from a congressman about a CCC
work program in a state park in which you turned down the building of a
road."
I said, "Yes, Mr. President, we turned it down, and
did so in other state parks also." And I added, "At one of our meetings
over here we were told that you would be quite insistent about not
taking on big construction jobs like roads in the state park areas and
even in the national parks and that the work of the CCC was supposed to
be done with the least amount of equipment."
He smiled and said, "Well, that perhaps is so, but
you can build fire trails, can't you?"
I replied, "Yes, sir, that's on the approved list of
work."
He then looked at me and still smiling said, "I
didn't say you couldn't build two fire lanes right next to one another
did I?" And I said, "No, sir." We changed the subject and the road was
builtas it should have been, because it was on the approved plan
and really was needed. Our discussion opened the gate for more such
projects, and from then on we did a complete job of park
development.
In November, 1934, I made a swing through Georgia and
Alabama with Fred Morrell of the Forest Service on an inspection trip
with Director Fechner. We had received an invitation to the dedication
of a state park in Georgia that was said to include an old Spanish fort.
The park was being developed by a CCC camp, and the plantation owner who
donated the land invited us to stay at his home. We accepted his offer
and arrived there the day before the dedication. That evening our host
asked whether anyone wanted to go deer hunting. He had thousands of
acres that he kept as a game preserve used for hunting. Among the guests
was Governor Eugene Talmadge, of Georgia, who said he would like to go.
Since nobody else responded I spoke up saying I would like to join the
governor. A guide took the governor, myself and the governor's military
aide in a car to a point a mile or so from the house where we started
walking through the woods.
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Director Fechner and his advisory
council after lunching with the camp commander at a CCC camp.
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It wasn't long before we spotted a deer. Out of
courtesy to the governor I held my gun in readiness but did not fire.
The military aide handed the governor his gun; he fired and missed, and
the deer ran off. We continued walking, and it wasn't long before we
spotted a second deer. Again the gun was given to the governor; he fired
and missed. We started off again, and before long we spotted a third
deer. It occurred to me that perhaps I had extended all the courtesy
required. The shot didn't look too hard, and so I raised my gun and
fired. I hit the deer in a vital spot, and it dropped dead instantly. We
carried it back to the car and took it to the house. This being my first
deer hunt, Bob Fechner insisted on dashing a bit of the blood on both of
my cheeks, which I was told was customary in Georgia. My shot was not
all luck, for I had earned a good rating on the rifle range at Saint
John's Military Academy.
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Piece of Governor Talmadge's shirttail.
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When he heard that the governor had missed two shots,
Bob insisted that the governor cut off part of his shirttail and
autograph it for me. Governor Talmadge said he would do that and send it
to me, and he did. It arrived on the day I was going to a dinner of the
American Planning and Civic Association, at which Frederic A. Delano,
the uncle of President Roosevelt, was presiding as chairman of the
board. Knowing that the president and Governor Talmadge had had a
disagreement, I pulled the shirttail out of my pocket and showed it to
"Uncle Freddy." I asked him how much he thought the president would pay
to have the governor's autographed shirttail, and I told him the story.
He laughed and asked to borrow it to show to the president.
The dedication of the old Spanish fort took place the
morning after the hunt. There were a lot of nice people there, including
one lady, a bit beyond middle age, who came up to me and said, "Mr.
Wirth, there's a rumor going around here that you went hunting and shot
a deer yesterday. I can't believe it! Please tell me it's not true." I
realized I was in for a lecture, but I told the lady yes, I had gone
hunting for the first time in my life and had shot a deer. With that,
she said, "Mr. Wirth, I just can hardly believe that. If it didn't come
from you, I would certainly not believe it. How could you, with your
park background and love for wildlife and nature, shoot that poor deer
with those lovely brown eyes!" If I managed to say anything I don't
remember what it was, but she surely made me feel a little uneasy.
The dedication went off fine, but several months
later our historian was doing some research in connection with this
"Spanish fort" and called on me in Washington to tell me that the
building we had solemnly dedicated was not an old Spanish fort but an
old sugar mill. We said nothing publicly about the downgrading, but we
informed the state. Anyway, the CCC did develop a very nice state park
there, and it has served the people well.
The growth and diversification of the national park
system between 1933 and 1936 caused the director considerable concern
about just how to manage the system. This expansion was summarized very
well in Ronald F. Lee's publication of 1972, Family Tree of the
National Park System, put out by the Eastern National Park and
Monument Association. As this account shows, the Park Service had grown
right out of its nest of about fifty areas mostly in the West. It was
rapidly reaching maturity and had to be prepared to carry its full
responsibilities. Referring to President Roosevelt's reorganization of
1933, Lee wrote:
The reorganization had three highly significant
consequences: (1) it made the National Park Service the sole
Federal agency responsible for all Federally owned public monuments and
memorials; (2) it enlarged the National Park System idea to
include at least four types of areas not clearly included in the System
concept before 1933National Memorials, like the Washington
Monument and the Statue of Liberty; National Military Parks, like
Gettysburg and Antietam with their adjoining National Cemeteries;
National Capital Parks, a great urban park system as old as the nation
itself and the first recreation areaGeorge Washington Memorial
Parkway; (3) the reorganization substantially increased and diversified
the holdings in the System by adding 12 natural areas located in 9
western states and Alaska and 57 historical areas located in 17
predominantly eastern states and the District of Columbia. The number
of historic areas in the System thus quadrupled. The System became far
more truly national than ever before.
In 1916, when the Park Service was established, there
were 37 areas in the national park system. Before the reorganization by
President Roosevelt in 1933, the system had grown to 67 areas. By
transferring a large number of eastern historic areas from the War
Department and some additional natural and historic areas from the
Forest Service, the executive order more than doubled the total.
According to Lee's book, the national park system then consisted of 58
natural areas, 77 historic areas, 1 recreation area, and the park system
of the nation's capital, which consisted of many recreation areas scattered
among residential neighborhoods, the Mall, the White House
grounds, and all federally owned public buildings in Washington (by 1936
these buildings were transferred to the Public Buildings
Administration). As a result of investigation of proposed areas to be
included in the national park system, by 1936 there were 4 additional
natural areas, 9 nationally important historic areas, and 4 national
recreation areas either established or in the process of being
established as part of the national park system. So it can be said that
the park system in 1936 consisted of 154 areas scattered throughout the
United States, each with a superintendent reporting directly to the
Washington office. Further, there were favorable reports in the office
on 17 additional proposed areas and the national seashore studies were
going full force.
Another development that had to be considered was the
enactment of the 1935 Historic Sites Act, the basic legislation in
support of the preservation of our historic heritage, which set forth
duties and responsibilities for the National Park Service in the field
of historic preservation. This act started a whole field of study and
classification of historic sites, buildings, and objects. The act also
created the Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings,
and Monuments. At this point the service felt that cooperation with the
states needed a much stronger basic authority than that for emergency
work. Such authority was provided in the 1936 Park, Parkway and
Recreational-Area Study Act, the main purpose of which was to help the
states plan their park systems. Under that act we used funds from CCC
allotments to assist forty-five of the forty-eight states in drafting
comprehensive plans for their state park systems. The National Park
Service was a cooperating agency only, and we reviewed and supervised
the planning.
In 1935, Director Cammerer began to consider the
feasibility of regionalizing the entire National Park Service. Coffman
was getting more and more concerned about his forestry responsibilities,
and he felt besides that the administration of two CCC programs by a
single bureauone for national parks and one for state
parkswas not economical. It had not been the intent of Director
Albright, when he assigned me the responsibility of the state parks CCC
program, that it should be separated from the national park CCC program.
But the whole thing had grown tremendously, and, although there was
close coordination through Coffman as the man in charge, for all intents
and purposes the two programs were separate.
By 1936, Coffman was devoting his entire time to
forestry work in the national parks, the director had designated me as
his acting alternate, and Coffman's national park CCC staff was turned
over to me. Unless I made some changes I would in effect be running two
CCC programs. I had to consolidate the national and state park programs,
which was not going to be easy. As we started consolidating the CCC
program, the regional inspectors started dropping by the national parks
to carry out the same duties that they performed for the state
parksassisting in getting things that were needed, handling
contacts in the corps areas, and the like. The superintendents didn't
like it. A park superintendent is an important person in the National
Park Service, a key man. He and his rangers are the troops out front,
and he has a lot of responsibility and authority. The regional
inspectors were doing no more than Coffman's men had been doing coming
out of the Washington office, but they were not old-line Park Service
men, and the whole idea went against the superintendents' grain a little
bit. Finally, Director Cammerer called many of the key people from the
field to Washington to discuss the problem of complete regionalization
of the service.
Director Cammerer scheduled a conference of field
people in the fall of 1936 to present a regionalization plan. The
director was very busy and could not be with us constantly. At one
meeting, on a Tuesday, he opened up the session and then departed.
Because I had organized the CCC, on a regional basis he left me there to
talk to the superintendents on the touchy subject. In the annals of the
National Park Service that day became known as "bloody Tuesday." The
superintendents did not want regionalization; they were adamant. I think
they were prejudiced primarily because they were afraid it would
interfere with the authority of the park superintendent; also they
didn't want anybody between them and the director, least of all a lot of
temporary people brought in for the CCC program. During the discussion,
however, it was made clear to them that if the National Park Service
became regionalized it would be only logical and natural for the
director to appoint new regional directors from the permanent personnel
who would be thoroughly informed on the principles and policies of the
National Park System as a whole. I emphasized that the regional office
setup would be oriented and adjusted to the basic requirements of the
National Park System. I also pointed out that the superintendents would
be in a much better position in justifying their financial requirements
when dealing through somebody more familiar with the Washington office
than when 150 superintendents were trying to get the special attention
of one man, the director. Regionalization eventually became a fact.
A few weeks after the director's reorganization
meeting, I went on another field trip with CCC Director Fechner and Fred
Morrell of the Forest Service. I was glad to get out of Washington for
a while, and I don't think that Bob Fechner ever forgot the visit we
made to Big Bend State Park, in Texas. I know Morrell and I never did.
On this occasion we also visited Hot Springs National Park, in Arkansas,
where we had two camps. We intended to spend the afternoon there, fly on
to Dallas, Texas, for the night, the next day fly to El Paso, and from
there drive to Big Bend State Park south of Alpine. The state park later
became a part of the present Big Bend National Park.
There was a commercial plane leaving Hot Springs for
Dallas about six o'clock in the evening. When we arrived at Hot Springs
in the morning we found that the national park superintendent had made
arrangements with the chamber of commerce for a banquet that night, at
which Fechner was to speak. This was not on our schedule, and the flight
we intended to take to Dallas was the last one that day. Fechner didn't
seem to be disturbed, and he asked us to arrange some way to get to
Dallas after the talk so as not to disrupt his trip. We chartered a
plane that would take off when we got through with the banquet that
night and get us to Dallas, where we could pick up our scheduled flight
in the morning. But when it came time to board the plane, thick fog had
set in. The airport at Hot Springs was not at that time fully lighted,
and the pilot said takeoff would be dangerous, but he'd try to make it
if we wanted to. We decided not to fly. We then arranged for two
government cars with four good ranger drivers, two to a car, that would
drive us to Dallas. Herb Maier, the Park Service regional director for
the southwestern region, was with us. We got to Dallas the next morning
just in time to catch the plane on which we had reservations to El
Paso.
It just happened that Herb Maier and I had a very
important question to ask Fechner, and we were trying to find the right
time to do it. Although we felt he would not turn us down, we needed his
specific approval. About a half hour after taking off Fechner was dozing
and nodding. I told him we had plans for constructing a building in
Santa Fe as the regional office for the Park Service. The CCC boys would
make the adobe bricks and would do a good part of the construction, but
we had some Public Works Administration funds for materials and skilled
labor. We told him that a museum in Santa Fe would give us the property
on condition that the building would be for the National Park Service
regional office. He said, "That sounds reasonable." I continued, "Bob, I
think we need your approval of itit's a fairly good-sized project,
and I have the plans here." You could tell that Bob Fechner was not too
anxious to get into much of a discussion; he was more in the mood for a
nap. He said, "Well, if it meets the legal requirements and you think
it's all right, Connie, go ahead. It will be all right with me." Herb
Maier must have called Santa Fe as soon as we reached El Paso and told
them to go ahead, or perhaps he had even started before we had Fechner's
approval, because when we arrived in Santa Fe about five days later the
foundations were being dug.
By the way, Herb Maier was I believe the only person
in the Park Service group who could boast of being officially
investigated by the Department of the Interior. Somebody had made some
kind of charge against Herb. It never was clear to me what these charges
were, but the department sent a man out from Washington to tail him.
Herb found out about it and told me that he felt somebody was following
him everywhere he went. One day when I was eating lunch in the
Executive Dining room in the Interior Building I found my self sitting
across from one of the secretarial investigators. I finally told him
that I had heard there was somebody investigating one of our CCC
employees and that if he ever got orders to investigate me, I'd
appreciate it if he'd let me know. I informed him that I would tell him
things he could never find out otherwise. Then, about six months later
this man sent me a report on Herb Maier with a note asking for my
recommendations. The report was an inch thick. I turned to the "Summary
and Recommendations" in the back of the book and found that the only
charge against Herb was that he was probably an inactive Republican. I
sent the report back to the investigator and recommended that it be put
in "file 13." That was the last either Herb or I ever heard of the
investigation.
We had one interesting experience before we got to
Santa Fe. About halfway to the top of the Chisos Mountains there was a
state park of about 640 acres in a small valley in what was called "the
window." There was a camp there, and most of the men were of Hispanic
descent. It was early in December, and they wanted to put on a
Christmas party before we left. They arranged a very hospitable
gathering. Having heard that eggnog was appropriate at Christmastime,
they had to have eggnog for their party. We drank some of it, but it
wasn't too easy to do! We finally found out that it was made from goat
milk, the only milk they could scare up on short notice, and tequila.
The spirit was right, but I've tasted better eggnog. The cocktail hour
was in the officers' and supervisory personnel quarters, after which we
joined the boys for an extra fine Christmas dinner.
The high-water mark in the growth of the CCC was
reached with a total of 2,916 camps on June 30, 1935. It became evident
early in the period, however, that there would not be enough enrollees
to keep that number of camps up to reasonable strength. The average
strength per camp shortly after the beginning of the 1936 fiscal year,
that is, around August, 1935, was 210 men, and by the last day of the
fiscal year, June 30, 1936, it was 134 men. The chart on page 149 gives
a summary of the camps by the odd periods. Each period lasted six
months, April 1 to September 31 and October 1 to March 31. The years
shown on the chart are fiscal years, which then ended on June 30, or in
the middle of the CCC six-month period. It should be pointed out that at
that time the fiscal year for the federal government began on July 1 and
ended on June 30 of the following calendar year. All reports to the
president and to Congress on such programs as the CCC were made at the
end of the fiscal year, June 30. Consequently the reports referred to
money spent for a twelve-month fiscal year that included one-half of two
CCC periods and all of another period. The charts simply show all
information as of a given day, June 30. The basic records, however, show
the location of every camp, the date it was established, and the date it
was deactivated.
By January, 1936, it had become obvious that some
reduction in the number of camps would be necessary at the beginning of
the next period, starting April 1. These shifts did not come easy;
people and their families were involved. A quick buildup is not
devastating, but a quick reduction is. The total number of camps was
reduced to 2,405 by June 30, 1936. The shortage of enrollees was caused
by better paying jobs cutting into the availability of recruits. By
September, 1937, the average number of men per camp had climbed back to
186, but by June, 1938, it had dropped to 142. The size of the CCC
program was reduced by 1939 to its original total of 1,500 camps. It was
maintained at this level for the next three years with an average camp
enrollment of 190. By 1941 the war was coming on, and drastic steps were
taken to cut down the CCC and eventually eliminate it.
The emergency legislation enacted during the first
hundred days of the New Deal provided the National Park Service with the
opportunity to launch several worthwhile programs that were of
tremendous importance to the National Park System and especially to
state and county park systems. Furthermore, the conservation trend
introduced many federal agencies that had large land holdings to the
desirability of making their lands available for public recreation. It
certainly established the Park Service as the federal agency primarily
responsible for nationwide park, historic, and recreation programs. Of
greatest importance, of course, was the liberal funding of emergency
conservation work assigned to the service. Although expansion during the
thirties was financed primarily with emergency funds, the base for our
regular appropriations remained about the same. Consequently, as the war
came on and the emergency funds were cut off, the base for the National
Park Service was extremely low compared with the service's enlarged
responsibilities.
Number of CCC Camps by Fiscal Years
Compiled from the CCC Director's Final Annual Report to the President
in 1942
|
Fiscal Year |
National Parks |
State Parks |
Other Interior Bureaus |
Total Interior |
National Forests |
State and Private Forests |
Other Agriculture Bureaus |
Total Agriculture |
Other Agencies |
Total CCC |
|
1933 |
70 | 102 | 73 | 245 |
597 | 315 | 299 | 1,211 |
21 | 1,477 |
1934 |
102 | 263 | 75 | 440 |
431 | 296 | 266 | 993 |
35 | 1,468 |
1935 |
115 | 475 | 104 | 694 |
747 | 409 | 911 | 2,067 |
155 | 2,916 |
1936 |
92 | 393 | 94 | 579 |
577 | 336 | 816 | 1,729 |
97 | 2,405 |
1937 |
83 | 337 | 85 | 505 |
479 | 282 | 729 | 1,490 |
74 | 2,069 |
1938 |
77 | 245 | 82 | 404 |
370 | 196 | 605 | 1,171 |
48 | 1,623 |
1939 |
83 | 227 | 131 | 441 |
329 | 178 | 551 | 1,058 |
1 | 1,500 |
1940 |
109 | 201 | 175 | 485 |
323 | 177 | 515 | 1,015 |
-- | 1,500 |
1941 |
91 | 194 | 207 | 492 |
329 | 175 | 512 | 1,016 |
-- | 1,508 |
1942 |
19 | 70* | 29 | 118 |
104 | -- | 265 | 369 |
-- | 487 |
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Total Camp Years |
841 | 2,507 | 1,055 | 4,403 |
4,286 | 2,364 | 5,469 | 12,119 |
431 | 16,953 |
*Fifty of these camps were operated by the National Park service on
military reservations doing defense work.
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