Chapter 2
The CCC Is Mobilized
If the new Emergency Conservation Work scheme was to
be successfully organized, speed, above all, was needed. [1] The accomplishment of the President's plan to
have 250,000 men at work in the forests by early summer would require
feats of organization, construction, and mobilization never before
attempted in the United States during peacetime. As the agency would
have to be operating almost immediately, the co-operating departments
had begun their planning in anticipation of the legislation's passage.
By March 24, though the CCC Bill itself was still in committee, the
General Staff had drafted complete regulations governing the Army's role
in the establishment and maintenance of the Corps. The regulations
included the division of the country into nine Corps areas for
administrative purposes and provided cost estimates for such items as
clothing, shelter, supervision, welfare, and transportation. Thus, the
Army was ready to begin its task as soon as the legislation was passed.
[2]
Nor had the Department of Agriculture been idle.
Using its recently completed survey of the American forest situation,
the Forest Service had quickly drawn up a work schedule, and Major
Stuart had also prepared a draft executive order embodying Forest
Service suggestions on the relationship between the cooperating
agencies; this was widely circulated before the passage of the CCC Act.
[3] The secretary of agriculture, too, had
called a conference of state authorities for April 6 to discuss the
extension of the conservation program to state-owned forest lands. [4]
Similarly, the Departments of Labor and the Interior
were ready for immediate action. Officials in the Department of Labor,
charged with the selection of the youths, realized that there was no
time to build a nationwide organization of their own. They decided,
therefore, to use agencies already in existence. Casting her net wide
for a chief of CCC selection, Secretary Perkins remembered W. Frank
Persons, a Red Cross adviser and administrator with whom she had worked
during the war. She contacted him, convinced him that he should take the
job, reconstituted the United States Employment Service with Persons as
head, and turned the whole business of CCC selection over to him. It was
a happy choice. The able, articulate Persons held the position
throughout the Corps' existence and proved a liberal counterweight to
Army opinion during the formation of policy. As far as the immediate
problems of selection were concerned, Persons resolved to rely on local
relief agencies, which were already acquainted with the young men
qualified by need to be CCC enrollees; a state director of selection
would co-ordinate the agencies' activities. [5] Selection was to be made on a state quota
basis in proportion to population. Thus, though Persons was told only on
April 3 to start selecting men, he had a going organization ready to
meet the challenge by April 6.
Even before the legislation was passed, the
Administration began to search for a man to administer the Civilian
Conservation Corps. In this search, their choice was somewhat
circumscribed; organized labor had been most vociferous in its criticism
of the scheme, so it was decided that the director of the new
organization should be someone who could mollify labor's protests. [6]
The man eventually appointed was Robert Fechner, a
widely respected labor leader. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1876
and educated in the public schools of Macon and Griffith, Georgia, he
had quit school at sixteen to sell candy and newspapers on Georgia
trains. After spending a year at this occupation, he became a
machinist's apprentice in the Augusta shops of the old Georgia Central
Railroad. He joined the union then, but after serving his time he "took
to the road" as an itinerant machinist, working principally in Central
and South America. Fechner returned to Georgia in the late 1890's and
settled in Savannah. He threw himself into union activities, and in 1901
helped lead an unsuccessful strike for a nine-hour day. In 1914 he was
elected to the General Executive Board of the International Association
of Machinists and became a vice president of the AF of L, positions he
still held in 1933.
Fechner was no radical. A "down-the-line" Gompers man
in his approach to labor questions, he attained a degree of
respectability sufficient to bring him appointments as lecturer in labor
relations at Harvard, Brown, and Dartmouth. During World War I, Fechner
came to Washington as a special adviser on labor policy, and it was in
this capacity that he first met Franklin D. Roosevelt. As assistant
secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt had many an opportunity to mark the
lean, rawboned machinist's skill and patience as a negotiator. Fechner
was particularly instrumental in settling the 1917 strike of the Boston
and Maine Railroad. The two men subsequently maintained a tenuous
relationship, and Fechner, an active Democrat, worked hard for Roosevelt
in 1932, eventually swinging the Machinists Union to him. When Roosevelt
was looking for a labor leader to head the CCC, therefore, Fechner's
name came readily to mind.
As a New Dealer, Fechner was, as he once wryly
observed, "a potato bug amongst dragonflies." Indeed, he was fond of
proclaiming that his clerks were all better educated than he. A simple,
homely man, who still wore in 1933 the high-topped hooked shoes
fashionable around the turn of the century, his idea of a good time was
to see a movie and his idea of mental stimulation was to shed his boots
and read a magazine, lying on a bed in the modestly priced hotel room he
always occupied while in Washington. He had very little in common with
the bulk of Roosevelt's advisers and departmental heads.
By and large, Fechner ran the CCC camps well. Hard
working, honest, and affable, he was a favorite both with his office
staff and the enrollees. But as the CCC developed, certain limitations
in his ability were to become apparent: he lacked sufficient vision ever
to see the Corps as possibly having wider functions than the simple
provision of relief and performance of useful work, and he was often too
ready to defer to Army advice. Moreover, the particular virtues of a
conciliatorpatience and cautionwere not always the qualities
required in the director of a large and complex organization, a post
which often called for swift decisions and immediate action. Given
organized labor's declared opposition to the Corps, however, his
selection in 1933 was a wise move. [7]
Fechner chose another machinist to be his assistant
director. He was James J. McEntee, a bluff, quick-tempered Irishman from
Jersey City. Born in 1884, McEntee served his apprenticeship at the
Blair Tool Works in New York. He first met Fechner in 1911 when he
became a full-time officer of the International Association of
Machinists. In 1917 McEntee was appointed by President Wilson to the New
York Arbitration Board and was active in adjusting disputes in munitions
plants. In the 1920's he helped to settle several newspaper strikes and
was also associated with railway contract negotiations. Fechner and he
had been close friends for more than twenty years, and it was at the
director's personal request that Roosevelt asked McEntee to come to
Washington. These two men ran the Corps until its abolishment. [8]
Co-ordinating both men and organization in the first
few days of the CCC's life was, of course, the duty of President
Roosevelt. At a White House conference on April 3 which decided finally
the position of the co-operating agencies, he personally drew up a chart
stating in graphic form the roles of each. Lines drawn from the name
Fechner (he misspelled it Fechter) [9] led to
boxes labeled Labor, Army, Agriculture, and Interior. Within each box,
the President outlined the task of that particular department. He also
clarified his own function when he wrote underneath the chart: "I want
personally to check on the location and scope of the camps,
assign work to be done, etc." [10] His
genuine interest in the Corps cannot be doubted; yet, by insisting that
he approve personally every single camp site, the President greatly
limited Fechner's authority and geared the pace of the work to his own
availability. Busy with a host of other projects, his failure to give
prompt attention to camp approvals seriously retarded the CCC's early
progress.
Specific functions were assigned at this April 3
meeting: the Department of Labor was directed to select the men for
enrolment; the War Department was to enrol the men, feed, clothe, house,
and condition them, and transport them to the camps; the Departments of
Agriculture and Interior, through their various bureaus, were to select
work projects, to supervise the work, and to administer the camps. [11] Apart from the almost immediate extension
of the Army's role, these divisions remained relatively stable until the
CCC came to an end in 1942.
Several other questions were also decided on April 3.
An Advisory Council, consisting of one member from each of the
co-operating departments, was authorized to assist the director. [12] Basic policy decisions governing selection
were also made. It was decided to limit initial enrolment in the CCC to
single men aged eighteen to twenty-fiveprimarily, but not
exclusively, to those whose families were on the public relief rolls,
and who were willing to allot $22 to $25 out of their monthly $30 wage
check to their dependents. Thus, assumptions about the breadth of the
CCC's appeal were shown to be correct. It was to be almost solely
concerned with a specific sector of the unemployed, the young. The vast
majority of Americans were placed, by deliberate action, outside its
purview. Other solutions would have to be found for their problems.
These regulations were forwarded to Corps area commanders and selection
agents and announced in the press. Persons was directed to begin
selection on April 6. He did so, and the first enrollees were accepted
by the Army the next day. The first camp was established at Luray,
Virginia, on April 17 and named, appropriately, Camp Roosevelt. [13]
The decisions taken at the important meeting of April
3 were embodied in Executive Order No. 6101, issued by the
President on April 5, 1933. With it, the Civilian Conservation Corps
began its official existence. The order confirmed Fechner's appointment
as director of emergency conservation work, at an annual salary of
$12,000, and provided that "The Secretary of War, the Secretary of
Agriculture, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Labor,
each shall appoint a representative, and said representatives shall
constitute an Advisory Council to the Director of Emergency Conservation
Work." Funds were provided for the proper performance of the work, and
authority was given for the furnishing of supplies and equipment. [14] Just one week after the passage of the act
which gave it statutory existence, the Civilian Conservation Corps was
now a working agency. It remained to be seen if its makeshift
organization was adequate to cope with the mighty tasks of selection and
mobilization which lay ahead.
Scarcely had enrolment begun when it became obvious
that utter confusion would result unless the Army was given a larger
share of responsibility. It had been decided that the strength of each
CCC company would be two hundred men, to be organized and transported to
camp by the Army. [15] Thus, the Departments
of Agriculture and the Interior had to build, equip, staff, and operate
about 1,300 camps by July 1 if the President's plan was to be a success.
The chief forester, Stuart, had been quite confident that the Forest
Service alone could perform this feat. As Colonel Duncan Major, War
Department representative on the Advisory Council, put it: "Major Stuart
was very bombastic about his ability to do this, stating on several
occasions that he did not need the Army. The fact was that he had no
conception of the task involved." [16]
However, once operations were under way, the enormity of the job soon
dawned on Stuart. He quickly realized that neither the Department of
Agriculture nor the Department of the Interior possessed the men,
equipment, or experience to administer the camps. In a letter to Colonel
Louis Howe, President Roosevelt's secretary and close friend, Stuart
urgently insisted that a division of authority between the Army and the
technical agencies was the only practical arrangement by which the camps
could be run. He was now convinced that the Army alone had the resources
to build and operate the camps, and transport, feed, and discipline the
men. The technical agencies would be responsible only for the work
project and for the men during working hours. [17]
The President, at Howe's urging, saw the wisdom of
Stuart's suggestion and therefore made sweeping changes of the original
plan. The Army's former role had ended with the transportation of the
recruits to camp. It was now greatly extended "to assume under the
general supervision of the Director, complete and permanent control of
the CCC project." [18] The authority of the
project superintendent, the technical service representative, was
limited to working hours only. This division of control gave rise,
perhaps inevitably, to interdepartmental disputes and rivalries, but
given the exigencies of the time, it was the best practical solution.
The Army accepted its expanded assignment without great enthusiasm, yet
resigned itself to the fact that it was the only agency capable of
accomplishing the task ahead. [19]
Other important and basic policy decisions which were
made in the first few weeks of the CCC's existence added to the number
of men in the camps. On April 14, 1933, for example, it was decided to
extend the provisions of the Emergency Conservation Work Act to 14,400
American Indians. [20] Few ECW decisions
were more popular. For some years prior to 1933 there had been a most
unusual scarcity of rainfall throughout the Plains region and in the Far
West where the majority of Indians lived, and erosion had ruined much of
their land. The Indians, moreover, as a class had very little capital
other than natural resources, and as these "could not be converted into
subsistence supplies in a period of economic distress, the native
American faced an almost hopeless situation in mid-1933." [21]
The Civilian Conservation Corps program on the
reservations attempted to carry out various types of physical
improvement and to develop natural resources. Because of the special
nature of the Indian work, the rules governing administration were
greatly modified when enrolment began on June 23. Practical action was
carried on outside the bounds of the CCC organization. The Office of
Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior selected the men and
administered the work. The Indians were not subject to the formal
regulations of the CCC; few camps were established, because most of the
enrollees were married and they were allowed to work from their homes.
[22] Furthermore, a unique feature of the
Indian program was the participation of the tribal council in its
administration. Indians received wide latitude in the selection of work
projects and supervisors in an effort to give them experience in the
management of their own affairs. [23] Other
provisions were similar to the CCC organization proper. The cash
allowance of $30 monthly was paid to the Indians, while they also
benefited from the education and health schemes.
Work on the reservations was one of the most
successful aspects of the whole CCC program. It made possible the
building up of resources, it provided opportunities for Indian
advancement, and it changed Indian attitudes. By July, 1942, 88,349 men
participated in the program and were "happy to be able to compete in
this work with the white man." [24]
Vital to the initial success of the whole CCC venture
was the decision of April 22, 1933, to enroll 24,375 local woodsmen to
act as technical assistants to the project supervisors. Usually eight
such "local experienced men" (L.E.M.'s as they were known) were assigned
to each camp. The reason for this decision to expand the enrolment was
twofold. First, the transfer to the nation's forests of 250,000 youths,
most of them quite ignorant of "outback life," could have had disastrous
consequences without the adequate supervision of men experienced in
woodcraft. The Forest Service did not have enough men available for the
job; indeed, they were hard-pressed even to find enough qualified men to
act as camp project supervisors. Consequently, Stuart wrote to Fechner
on April 14, 1933, requesting the hiring of "technicians and other
overhead" at Civil Service rates of pay, "in order to meet the
President's insistence that all work done under the Conservation work
relief program be adequately supervized." [25] He then adumbrated thirty-four types of
technician which he believed were needed. Fechner approved his request
tentatively on April 17, "subject to change to meet future developments
or any existing situation," and subject to Bureau of the Budget
acquiescence on the suggested wage scale. [26] Second, this decision enabled the Corps to
deal immediately with a particularly urgent local problem. Ever since
the passage of the ECW Act on March 31, Stuart had been receiving
periodic reports from regional foresters that trouble could be expected
from local unemployed woodsmen unless they were incorporated into the
scheme of things. [27] These men had lost
their jobs for reasons generally connected with the economic crisis.
Some had formerly been employed by private logging interests and, with
the reduced demand for timber because of the failing construction
industry, they were now unemployable. Others were former state foresters
jobless as a result of the general cutback of state employees. Unless
they too had a part in the CCC program, they meant to oppose the
importation of youths to work in areas the foresters considered their
own.
The arguments for employing such men as technicians
were summarized in a joint letter to the President from the secretaries
of labor, the interior and agriculture, members of the Advisory Council,
and Fechner and McEntee. It was stated succinctly that "It is clearly
impossible to import into forest regions non-residents even from within
the same state, and have peace there unless local unemployed laborers,
accustomed to making their living in the woods in that very place are
given fair consideration as concerns their own means of livelihood." The
signatories believed that if such men were not included in the project
it would inevitably cause "antagonism which may result in incendarism
(with great loss of timber by fire) and even in personal tragedies."
Accordingly, they recommended that the initial enrolment be increased by
24,375 men, so that such woodsmen could be included. Their request was
immediately approved. [28]
There was some objection to the proposed wage scale
for these men by the Bureau of the Budget, where the director, Lewis
Douglas, stood strong against federal spending. Eventually, however, the
representatives of the technical services gained their point: that
adequate supervision required adequate remuneration. Selection of the
L.E.M.'s proceeded under the Department of Labor until 1935, when the
responsibility was delegated to the technical services. [29] This policy avoided the possibility of ugly
incidents as the camps were built, incidents which could have done
irreparable damage both to the nation's resources and to the image of
the CCC. Moreover, experienced supervision on the work project was
assured, even down to the "platoon level."
A third special group, veterans of World War I, was
soon to be inducted into the Corps. With an average age of forty in
1933, often impaired in bodily health and mental stability by their war
experiences, thousands of former soldiers had endured a long period of
privation and hopelessness and were among those hardest hit by the
depression. Many, out of despair, had made their way to Washington in
the summer of 1932 as members of the "bonus Army" seeking early payment
of their wartime service compensation pension, which was not due till
1945. They had been met instead by guns, bayonets, and tear gas. [30] Now, in May 1933, a second "bonus Army"
contingent had descended on Washington, hoping that the new President
would be more receptive to their petitions.
It was in this context of privation and unrest that
General Frank T. Hines, the veterans' administrator, frantically
searching for a solution, first saw the CCC as a way in which many of
these former soldiers could be aided. Accordingly, he wrote to Roosevelt
on May 6, 1933, suggesting that they be selected and put in a special
camp. [31] Corps officials were receptive to
the idea, and Budget Director Douglas gave it his personal blessing. [32] Thus, Executive Order No. 6129,
issued on May 11, 1933, authorized the enrolment of 25,000 war veterans
into the Corps, with no age or marital limitations imposed. [33] President and Mrs. Roosevelt's treatment of
the second "bonus Army" had already won them a favorable reputation
among the veterans and prompted the adage, "Hoover sent the Army,
Roosevelt sent his wife." Now he offered every marcher the chance of
immediate enlistment in the CCC. Though understandably cool to the
suggestion at first, most of the men eventually accepted it, and by May
22 all possibility of a crisis was over. Once again the CCC had been
used to resolve a troublesome situation. [34]
The veterans were selected on a state quota system by
the Veterans Administration and became, in a very real sense, the career
men of the CCC. Re-enrolment provisions were always generous, yet during
the nine-year period of its existence the Corps employed more than
225,000 such men. They were housed in separate camps, and performed
regular conservation work, modified to suit their age and physical
condition. They too benefited from the education and medical programs.
[35] To many veterans, the CCC became a
rehabilitation center, a place where they could regain health and
self-respect. Here they received a second chance, an opportunity to gain
the knowledge, skill, or confidence they needed to earn a decent living.
For others, it was a permanent home. One such veteran expressed in verse
the feeling of hope rekindled, when he wrote in the CCC newspaper:
. . . while we help grow More woods for ages yet to come And
when the bugle and the drum Again calls forth we'll answer, "Here".
. . [36]
The CCC was indeed for this man, and for many like
him, proof that some people yet remembered their sacrifice in
1917-1918.
The inclusion of these special groups within the
Corps framework, while important, was peripheral to the main task of
having 250,000 young men in camp on July 1. By early May it had become
distressingly obvious that at the current rate of progress, there was
very little likelihood of this goal being achieved. On May 10, Only
52,000 men had been enrolled and a mere forty-two camps established.
Confusion and delay in Washington had resulted in a situation which
could well discredit seriously the efficiency of the CCC as a relief
organization. [37] It would take a "minor
miracle" to have even 100,000 men placed in camp by the July 1 deadline.
[38]
The reasons for this major breakdown in mobilization
were in large part implicit in the complex organization of the CCC. More
specifically, they arose out of differences of opinion and
misunderstanding between the co-operating agencies. Most serious were
the disputes between the War Department and the Forest Service. These
two agencies clashed directly over matters of fiscal procedure, over
methods of camp construction, and in general over their particular areas
of responsibility within the CCC organization. [39] An irate Colonel Duncan Major, War
Department Advisory Council representative, protested to Howe that he
was "constantly haggling with Major Stuart, due to his insistence in
letting me know how the Army should perform its mission, even though he
himself was unable to do it." [40] While
their superiors argued in Washington, men in the field remained idle and
camps were unbuilt.
The Forest Service, furthermore, was also embroiled
in a dispute with the Bureau of the Budget over the wage schedule for
technical service supervisors and local enlisted men. Budget Director
Douglas seriously objected both to the number of L.E.M.'s contemplated
and their proposed rate of pay. [41] Not
until a White House conference of May 9 was the dispute resolved in
favor of the technical services, and until then no supervisors could be
appointed. Without them, there could be few camps. [42]
Another major source of delay was the limitation
placed on Fechner's authority, together with his reluctance to use to
the utmost what power he did possess. President Roosevelt virtually
insured administrative confusion by insisting that all camp locations
and important equipment purchases needed his personal approval. His
preoccupation with a myriad of other tasks often meant that important
memoranda seeking authorization for new camps or the purchase of
equipment lay on his desk for days, as confusion in the Corps areas
increased. [43] Moreover, those sites which
did pass scrutiny often showed evidence of hasty judgment. Although
projects were generously approved in the Rocky Mountain and Western
states, few were initially established in the East, where the bulk of
the men were enrolled. By May 1 there were 18,700 men out of an
enrolment of 35,000 for whom there was no work in their own or nearby
states. [44] Obviously, there was need for a
greater concentration of authority in the director's office rather than
the White House.
Fechner himself was in part to blame for the delays.
Unsure in his new job and not yet adjusted to the pace of the
undertaking, he insisted on a close personal scrutiny of all contracts
for the purchase of equipment, refused to allot funds without detailed
estimates and ordered that the provisions of government competitive
bidding be rigidly applied in all purchases. [45] His meticulous supervision of contracts and
his insistence on repeated conferences before authorizing purchases,
admirable in an endeavor of less compelling urgency, threatened to
reduce the whole pace of CCC advancement. Reports from the field
indicated the demoralizing effect of the delays. Persons warned Fechner
that many states, having selected their quotas, had nowhere to send
their enrollees, and that there was a real danger of "deep public
disapproval of the whole conservation program" because of "disappointed
expectations." Letters from camps similarly indicated dissatisfaction
with existing conditions. [46]
On the afternoon of May 10, Stuart, Persons, and
Horace Albright, director of the National Parks Service, as members of
the Advisory Council, met in conference with Fechner. Here they stated
that "Emergency Conservation Work had reached a crisis and that nothing
short of a definite stand setting up an objective to be attained would
be satisfying. .. ." [47[ They informed
Fechner that they had adopted the President's plan to have 250,000 men
in camps by the middle of summer as the basis for their efforts but were
sure that "as the project is now going, there seems little probability
that any such objective will be attained." [48] The need for establishing a definite goal,
one agreeable to all concerned, was seen as crucial, "otherwise," as
Stuart put it, "there will be continued confusion and misdirected
effort."
Fechner reportedly expressed his disappointment at
any such prospect, though he must have long suspected its likelihood,
and reaffirmed the President's objective. He wanted 250,000 youths, plus
24,375 locally enlisted men, in camp by July, and he turned to the one
department capable of resolving the stalemate. On May 10 he contacted
Colonel Major, requesting that the War Department present a plan to the
Advisory Council on May 12 analyzing the steps required if the
President's objective was to be met. [49] At
the May 12 meeting Colonel Major announced a bold scheme to end the
emergency, a plan which presupposed a radical departure from the
existing policy. Specifically, its main provisions called for:
(a) immediate action;
(b) an Executive Order, permitting the waiving
of all peace-time restrictions covering bids, contracts, deliveries and
open-market purchases and authorizing the exercise of the fullest
possible freedom of purchase;
(c) the delegation of wide authority over the
movement of men to the War Department;
(d) the maintenance by the Department of Labor
of a flow of 8,540 men per day, certified for acceptance to the War
Department, completing its selection of the full number by June 7;
(e) wider disciplinary powers over
recruits;
(f) the approval of 290 more work projects by
June 1. [50]
The plan was unanimously adopted by the Advisory
Council. Howe and Douglas secured Roosevelt's approval, and it went into
effect the same day. As Colonel Major, in a self-congratulatory mood,
wrote later: "It was a momentous day. In a few short hours, more had
been accomplished than in the previous month." [51] The task assumed by the War Department was
awesome. It envisaged the establishment of 1,300 camps by July 1, at the
rate of twenty-six daily. Moreover, "the rate demanded of 8,540 men
received, processed, and equipped per day was greater than the average
for the United States during the World War for both Army and Navy
combined." [52] As the War Department plan
was translated into action in the succeeding weeks, the whole temper of
the CCC changed, each agency striving desperately to achieve the July 1
goal. The crucial test was whether the Department of Labor could
maintain the vital flow of 8,540 men per day. This it was able to do.
Indeed, with the full quota of 274,375 selected by June 7, the
President's goal was well in sight. [53]
In addition to the specifics of the plan of May 12,
other policies were modified to suit the Army's needs. On May 22, for
example, in a move which further decentralized authority, Fechner
permitted the movement of camps up to twenty-five miles from the
original site without specific approval from Washington. Aimed at
lessening the delay caused by faulty camp location, this directive
greatly facilitated speedy camp construction and was enthusiastically
received by the War Department. [54] A
leader and assistant leader system, approved June 7, was set up on June
16. The men to fill these capacities were chosen from the enrollees and
were paid a slightly higher wage. Twenty-six were assigned to each
campeight to the Army, and the other eighteen to the work agency.
[55] By June 16 there were 239,444 men
either in camp or on the way there. The July 1 goal had every chance of
being met, due almost entirely to the successful War Department plan.
[56]
Of course, there were still checks and delays in
Washington, though these had been greatly reduced. Important
authorizations were still held up by the White House, and significant
memoranda had a habit of getting buried among the mounting files on the
desks of Roosevelt and Howe. On one such occasion, Stuart was called to
Howe's office to locate certain correspondence which needed urgent
approval but which had somehow gone astray, an occurrence which led him
to be sharply critical of Fechner's filing system because no copies of
the missing documents had been kept. [57]
Then, too, the Forest Service and the War Department had not yet
entirely solved their difference of opinion on fiscal procedure, each
wishing to use its own means of disbursement in purchasing equipment,
while Fechner still insisted on too many conferences to suit Stuart. [58]
Moreover, a new problem appeared, one which was to be
of persistent irritation to the CCC organization. On May 12 Stuart
complained to Fechner that the postmaster general, James A. Farley, had
been hinting that the jobs of the technical service personnel could be
used for patronage purposes. Stuart demanded that Fechner protect them
from "political interference which would prevent the selection of wholly
competent men." [59] The director, after
investigating the charges, expressed his concern over Farley's behavior
and agreed that political influences in appointments "would be harmful
to the project." [60] As shall be shown
later, he was not able to prevent patronage entirely. The political
issue, though rarely predominant as with the WPA, was always present and
on more than one occasion caused Fechner acute embarrassment.
In the panic and confusion of the CCC's early
development, Roosevelt's secretary, Louis Howe, was always a central
figure. Indeed, Albert B. Rollins, in his book Roosevelt and Howe
credits him with the major part in co-ordinating and directing the Corps
during its first two years. [61] Too much
can be made of Howe's role; the President had the final word on
important policy matters, as much of the initial delay indicates. [62] But in the first three months, at least,
Howe's actions as an administrative co-ordinator were crucial. It was
Howe who proposed that the function of the Army be enlarged to include
camp administration, who settled the dispute between the Forest Service
and the Bureau of the Budget, and who helped secure Roosevelt's approval
for the plans of May 12. [63] As well as
being a conciliator, Howe had power of decision in matters of minor
policy. Thus, when Fechner wrote to him on May 24, asking for permission
to enrol a limited number of college graduates into the Corps, Howe was
able to decide against the proposal without referring it to the
President. It was to Howe that Colonel Major sent enrolment details for
analysis and comment, while he also did much of the detailed checking
into proposed work projects. [64]
It is scarcely surprising that Howe's part should
have been a large one. With Roosevelt unable through pressure of
business to devote much of his time to the specifics of CCC
organization, and with Fechner still coming to grips with his new job
and still unsure of himself in Washington and needing guidance, it was
obvious that another co-ordinating authority should be required
temporarily. There is surely nothing unusual in the fact that it was the
President's secretary and friend who under took the task, attending to
much of the minor policy work, helping the director to find himself in
his new position. In Howe's correspondence after June, 1933, there are
significantly fewer documents dealing with CCC matters, [65] and this could well indicate that his
importance diminished after the formative three months. He remained
connected with certain aspects of CCC work, particularly the education
program, yet once the organization was moving smoothly there was much
less for him to do.
Howe was also in part responsible for the first
scandal to rock the CCC organization, one which, given less delicate
handling, could have had grave consequences for the new Administration.
On May 16, 1933, a certain Mr. Bevier appeared at Howe's office, bearing
a letter of introduction from Howe's friend, Basil O'Connor, a New York
attorney. Bevier had heard that the CCC was contracting for the supply
of toilet kits to the enrollees. He offered to save the government money
by furnishing them at $1.40 each. Howe, apparently convinced, referred
the man to Fechner, with a letter authorizing him to purchase the kits
from any source. Fechner, used to receiving Howe's instructions,
promptly stopped negotiations on a proposed contract with the War
Department for the purchase of the kits, and signed with Bevier. [66] There the matter rested until a Republican
senator, Robert Carey of Wyoming, disclosed to a surprised Senate on May
26 that the War Department would have furnished the kits for 32 cents
each. Bevier's price of $1.40 was more than four times as much. It
looked suspiciously like favoritism in contracts, and the Senate
Military Affairs Committee was directed to investigate the transaction.
[67]
Both Fechner and Howe testified before the committee.
Fechner admitted arranging the contract but insisted that Howe had
directed him to do so. Howe flatly denied the charge. All he had done,
he insisted, was to place the affair in Fechner's hands. He had assumed
that the Bureau of the Budget had investigated the contract prior to its
acceptance, and the whole business had caused him great anxiety. The
committee eventually found no evidence of corruption, but it considered
that both Howe and Fechner had been somewhat negligent in accepting
Bevier's credentials so readily. [68] The
chairman, Senator Morris Sheppard, Democrat of Texas, later remarked
that Howe was "fortunate" to receive so favorable a verdict. [69] Though Howe complained that the "Committee
has left me in an entirely false light with the public," [70] he allowed the matter to drop and the
"toilet kit incident" was soon forgotten.
In spite of this brief scent of scandal, the
organization and mobilization of the CCC continued unhindered throughout
June, the President's goal being assured by the success of the War
Department's plan. In a report to Roosevelt on July 1, 1933, Colonel
Major was able to state that the full quota of 274,375 men was now
enrolled and in camp. The President's wishes had been met in full, and
with justifiable pride Major disclosed that in so doing "all American
war and peacetime records" had been shattered. [71] In the short span of three months the CCC
had developed from a statutory authorization to the largest peace time
government labor force the United States had ever known. Colonel Major
more than anyone else deserves praise for the CCC's successful
mobilization. It was his scheme which made the task feasible, and his
close supervision helped to carry it through. Gruff, obdurate,
relentless in argument, Major became devoted to the CCC and sewed the
agency admirably. Unlike some of his fellow officers, he was
wholehearted in his belief that it was "a most beneficial source of
training for those lucky enough to have any part in it." [72]
The mobilization of the CCC had not been without
pain. Certain deficiencies of organization had already appeared, cracks
which needed immediate attention if the success of the experiment was
not to be compromised. Moreover, the director had yet to show that his
ability as an administrator matched his undoubted talent as a
conciliator. Yet, despite this administrative confusion and structural
shortcoming, the success of the War Department's plan cannot be
impugned. The Army had successfully undertaken the largest peacetime
mobilization of men the United States had ever seen, had built more than
1,300 camps, and had installed recruits in all of them. The CCC was off
to a fine start.
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