Chapter 8
A Day in the CCC
For the typical CCC enrollee, actual arrival at camp
was the culmination of a fairly lengthy selection process. Some months
earlier he had taken the initial step toward entrance by applying to his
local selection agency for consideration as an enrollee. [1] He then waited patiently for a period of up
to two months until his application had been processed. If accepted, he
was sent to a conditioning camp, usually at an Army post, where he was
physically examined, vaccinated, clothed, and studied in his reactions
to Army discipline and hard labor. If the youth measured up to the
somewhat rigorous standards demanded there, he was formally enrolled,
took an oath of obedience, and was sent to an ordinary work camp. [2]
CCC publications used to claim that the average
enrollee was twenty years old when he entered camp, and came from a
family of six children. His father was unemployed, and he himself had
not worked for at least nine months. He had completed the eighth grade.
He weighed 147 pounds and was 5 feet 8-1/4 inches tall; thus, he was
underweight and below average in height. [3]
This is a rather rigid picture and obviously could not have fitted
exactly the description of the vast majority of enrollees, yet it is
probable that many of them shared at least some of these
characteristics.
The spectacle which greeted the new enrollee, the
type of camp which was to be his home for at least six months, varied
both from region to region and according to when the enrollee entered
the CCC. The first camps were often simply tents which, though lined in
neat rows, had all the disadvantages attendant to life under canvas. [4] In the early days of the CCC, existence could
indeed be most uncomfortable, particularly in the mountains when the
spring thaw started. Such conditions, however, were neither widespread
nor permanent. From the very start many enrollees lived in wooden
barracks, and these quickly became general. Each camp consisted of four
or five barrack buildings, one hundred feet long by twenty feet wide,
together with a mess hall, a recreation hall, administration buildings,
officers' quarters, a hospital, a garage, and often a schoolhouse. The
buildings usually lay in a rough "U" shape around an open space which
was either planted to grass or cleared for sports purposes. Sometimes
the structures were painted brown or green, but more often than not they
were simply creosoted or covered with tar paper. Though usually wired
for electric light, they were frequently inadequately illuminated. [5]
The buildings were solidly constructed, usually of
cedar, and could not easily be dismantled once the camp had finished its
work project. Sometimes they were turned over to a nearby community for
its own particular purposes, but more often than not they were left
boarded up and desolate, a waste of time, effort, and money. In 1936,
therefore, Fechner took a radical step in camp planning, deciding that
all future CCC camps were to be of a pre-cut portable variety, of
standard design, easily dismantled at the end of a work project, ready
to be transported wherever a new camp was authorized, and there set up,
waiting for new occupants. [6] This was a
far-reaching change, and one which was generally welcomed by Corps
officials. Camps were now standardized, each having four barracks
buildings, one mess hall, one schoolhouse, bath houses, one latrine
block, and twelve officers' and service buildings. [7]
Though the camp buildings henceforth conformed to a
standard plan, the way they were situated depended on the type of
country in which the camp was located. There were about fifty ways that
the basic functional plan could be altered, depending on the particular
contours of the terrain. Thus, the camps did not all seem to be dreary
replicas of the same model. Some, it is true, were constructed and
appointed with a startling lack of originality, but others were designed
and finished with pride and imagination. The enrollees labored long
hours to lay gravel paths between the barracks. They built rustic gates
and railings, planted trees, and added swimming pools, outdoor
amphitheaters, fishponds, or flower gardens. Within the buildings, they
built fireplaces of brick and stone, painted or polished the walls to
bring out the natural wood grain, adding charm in many different ways to
the basic camp plan. [8] At its best, the CCC
camp was a construction of real beauty. Frank Hill has described a
number of startlingly attractive camps he had visited throughout the
land; a camp on the Yosemite Valley floor in winter, surrounded by
snow-laden pines, another perched high on a crag above Los Angeles, one
in New York situated beside twin lakes, a soil erosion camp in Texas
standing uncompromisingly strong"the gaunt wastes of plain around
it." [9] Such camps as these, he said, either
contrasted starkly with the barrenness of their surroundings or enhanced
the natural beauty of the sites. Not all camps maintained the same high
standards, but there were few which did not try to capture something of
the unique, almost pioneer, flavor of the whole CCC enterprise.
Whether the camp was in Alaska or Oklahoma, Florida
or Puerto Rico, the daily routine was carried out according to the same
broad program. Reveille was at 6 A.M., and enrollees could not afford to
dally in bed because they had to be washed and dressed in their work
clothes by 6:30 A.M., ready for physical training. [10] Upon arrival at camp, enrollees were
usually given two sets of clothing, a blue denim work or fatigue suit
and a renovated Army olive drab uniform for dress purposes. In 1938,
however, Roosevelt ordered that a special, spruce-green dress uniform be
issued to all enrollees. The President, while visiting a camp at Warm
Springs, had been disagreeably surprised by the poor quality of the
dress uniforms. Shoddy clothing, he believed, weakened morale, and he
immediately asked the Department of the Navy to design him a special CCC
uniform. [11] These were in widespread use
by 1939.
After physical training, the enrollees trooped off to
breakfast, a noisy but satisfying meal eaten at long tables, at each of
which six to twelve men could be seated. CCC food was plain, nourishing,
and served in large quantities. A typical breakfast could consist of
stewed prunes, cereal, ham and eggs, coffee, and milk. [12] Fechner once described camp food as
"wholesome, palatable and of the variety that sticks to the ribs," and
the monthly camp food order would seem to bear this out. Typical
commodities purchased included bacon, beans, beef, butter, cheese,
chicken, eggs, flour, lard, milk, onions, pork, potatoes, rice, sugar,
syrup, apples, baking powder, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, flavoring
extract, corn, macaroni, peaches, peas, pepper, pickles, pineapple,
prunes, rolled oats, salt, tea, tomatoes, and vinegar. [13] CCC food was not perhaps prepared according
to the best French cuisine, but it was usually well-balanced and
nourishing.
After breakfast, the enrollees usually policed the
grounds, tidied their huts, and then, in one of the few concessions made
to military practice, formed up in rough platoons for roll call and
inspection before departing for work about 7:45 A.M. [14] Enrollees walked or rode to work, depending
on how far the work project was from the camp. The jobs on which the
enrollees were engaged were as various as the types of camps authorized.
Enrollees in a forestry camp might find themselves working in small
groups under an enrollee leader, clearing dead wood, planting trees,
digging out rocks, or building trails. [15]
Some might be clearing strips for firebreaks, others building lookout
towers, telephone lines, small dams, or bridges. [16] Those working on erosion control projects
might be planting kudzu grass as cover, building small check dams on the
edge of a hillside, or marking a terrace prior to turning it into
contour patterns. [17] Bureau of Reclamation
camps were usually engaged in the construction of small storage dams,
frequently made of earth, while those under National Parks Service
control were engaged in a whole host of functions, ranging from the
planting and thinning of trees to the building of simple picnic spots
complete with rustic furniture. [18]
Work continued till about noon and then ceased for
lunch, which was usually brought to the work project. Again it was
substantial fare, sometimes a full-scale hot meal, but more often
sandwiches, pie, and coffee. [19] Lunch
break lasted for an hour and then work was resumed, continuing until
4:00 P.M. when enrollees returned to camp.
The evening meal was usually not held before 5:30
P.M., and the time between the return to camp and dinner belonged to the
enrollees. They used it in various ways. Most camps had sports fields
adjacent to them, and many youths enjoyed taking part in football,
baseball, or basketball, depending on the season. Sometimes the sports
were quite highly competitive, with representative teams being chosen
for contests against nearby camps or neighborhood community teams. [20] Indeed, some CCC athletes won football
scholarships to major colleges, and a score of baseball players were
signed by major league scouts traveling the CCC circuit. [21] More often than not, though, sports
activities were loosely organized, with the emphasis on participation
rather than excellence. For those less energetically inclined, there
were pool and table tennis facilities, as well as the camp library.
Libraries were arranged on a mobile basis. In a given area, the books
available were divided into nine groups, and each group was rotated
among nine camps. The type of book available in a typical library was
roughly as follows: adventure and mystery, seventeen volumes;
miscellaneous fiction, twenty-nine; westerns, twelve; travel, twenty;
history and biography, twelve; science fiction, twenty-nine; athletics,
five; and religion, three. Popular authors were Rex Beach, Sax Rohmer,
Rafael Sabatini, and Edgar Wallace. [22]
Each library also contained forty-five periodicals, usually including
Life, Time, Newsweek, The Saturday Evening Post, Radio News, and
the Sears-Roebuck catalogue. The New Republic and Nation
were banned, because in the eyes of many CCC officers they bordered on
the subversive. [23] No doubt the camp
libraries provided enjoyable reading for many enrollees, and instruction
for a few, but they were often subject to criticism. Sometimes the books
were locked away, the enrollee could not "browse around," but had to ask
for a specific book, scarcely encouraging for those wanting to read but
whose knowledge of books and authors was severely limited. More
substantial was criticism of the types of books available. It was
asserted that CCC officials had catered too much to popular literary
tastes, had been unimaginative in their selection of books, and had made
little attempt to insure that enrollees came in contact either with
literary masterpieces or radical points of view on major issues. [24] These judgments were just. Certainly the
youths could not be forced to read, and most did so only cursorily and
purely for recreation. Nevertheless, a library which seeks only to amuse
and not to challenge or to inform is failing in its duty. CCC
librarians, without stacking their shelves solely with cheap copies of
classics or with political tracts, could surely have provided better
fare for the enrollees than the pap which they were satisfied to
dispense.
After the recreation period, dinner was served,
enrollees wearing their dress uniforms to this meal. Again the food was
substantial, with plenty of meat and fresh vegetables, invariably
followed by fruit and dessert. [25] After
the meal, most of the youths attended classes as part of the camp
education program, but study was not the only evening activity planned.
Table tennis and pool tables were very popular, and for those enrollees
with time on their hands there was always the chance of a ride to the
nearest town, there to see a movie, meet a girl, spend their allowance,
or just stroll around. Often, if no transportation was available and if
it was not too far away, enrollees seeking entertainment would walk to
the nearest community. [26] There was
usually no restriction on their leaving camp after work, provided that
they came back by lights out. If they were tardy in this respect, they
were likely to lose their privileges. [27]
At 9:45 P.M. camp lights were flashed off and on, the
signal to prepare for bed. Lights went out at 10 P.M. and taps was blown
fifteen minutes later. If the boys had done a full day's work, many
would have retired long before the official time, and quieting them at
night was usually no problem at all. At 11 P.M. the camp commander made
a brief bed check to see that no one was absent. Then the camp slept.
[28]
It must not be thought that enrollees, after entering
camp, did not see their families or home again until discharge day.
Leave provisions were relatively generous, and enrollees were usually
able to visit their families once a month if they so desired, though
this, of course, was conditioned somewhat by the distance between the
camp and the enrollee's home. It was the Corps' original intention to
locate all youths about two hundred miles from their home districts, too
far for weekly visits, yet close enough for monthly trips, but this
provision was frequently neglected. [29]
Obviously a New York boy in camp in Oregon was unable to get home
regularly, but even he could get some leave should he decide to re-enrol
at the end of his initial six-month stint. All re-enlisting enrollees
were given a six-day leave of absence on full pay between tours of
dutytime enough for most to get home, if only for a day or so. [30]
Besides normal leave provisions, there were other
days when no work was done. The standard holidays, January 1, February
12, May 30, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas were all
observed, as were denominational religious holidays, be they Jewish,
Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant. [31] Moreover, all enrollees of voting age were
given three days with pay to register and vote in primaries and local,
state, and national elections. [32] Perhaps
not surprisingly, the CCC vote tended to be solidly Democratic. Local
Republicans, therefore, often challenged fruitlessly the right of
enrollees to vote in other districts. [33]
Indeed, some tried more direct methods. Testifying before a New York
state commission investigating election irregularities, CCC enrollees in
camp at Tuckahoe, New York, disclosed how they had been bribed by local
Republicans to vote the GOP ticket in 1936. Having accepted the money,
the enrollees proceeded to vote for F. D. R.! [34]
Enrollees were also free on weekends, unless, of
course, the weather during the week had been so bad that there was work
to be made up. [35] If not, Saturday was
often devoted to sports and to group activities such as drama and choral
work. CCC boys were avid play producers, sometimes reaching quite high
standards. A few CCC authors and actors, in fact, were able to get work
with the Federal Theatre Project after leaving camp. [36] There were also camp dances. Most camps
held about four dances annually, inviting girls from the local
communities. [37] These were popular affairs
with both the enrollees and their partners, the music more often than
not being furnished by the camp swing band. On Sundays religious
services were held in all camps. In June, 1941, for example, there were
154 full-time CCC chaplains on duty, as well as 189 part-time contract
clergymen paid by Fechner's office, and five hundred volunteer, unpaid
clergymen from neighboring towns. The chaplains preached to the
enrollees, counselled them, visited the sick, buried the dead, and
performed the few marriages contracted between enrollees and local
girls. [38] These clergymen, unfortunately,
were often of limited ability and made little attempt to adjust the
level of their services to the enrollees. They put more stress on
preaching than on personal contact, and for this reason their work in
the camps was not as effective as it could have been. [39]
A constant weekend activity among some youths was
journalism, and most camps contributed regular activity reports to the
national CCC newspaper, Happy Days. [40] In addition, many camps published their own
newspapers. In August, 1935, there were 1,122 such journals, some
bearing such esoteric titles as the Flickertail Crier, the
Gully Growler, and the Grapevine Send-off. Most of the
work was done by the enrollees themselves during journalism courses on
weeknights and on the weekends. [41] For
many enrollees, the weekend was emphatically not a time of
relaxation.
Enrollees transferred the traditional camp practice
of "hazing" to the CCC context. New enrollees were fair game, and many
an unfortunate youth, sleeping deeply after his first day on the job,
awoke to find himself in the center of the parade ground, having been
carried there, bed and all, by his seasoned barracks companions.
Dressing hurriedly in the morning, he might also have found his shoes
nailed securely to the floor. This type of hazing was innocuous enough.
More harmful was the bullying which took place in a few camps and which
often worried new enrollees. [42] Hazing
received official sanction in some camps, and "kangaroo courts" were
established. In these, enrollees who had committed minor offences, or
who had offensive personal habits, were tried and summarily, usually
corporally, punished. The vehemence with which those delegated to do so
carried out the sentences led to complaints, however, and the courts
were soon abandoned in all but a very few camps. Discipline, even for
minor offences, was again the prerogative of the camp commander. [43]
An interesting aspect of CCC life was that the
enrollees evolved their own language, a peculiar mode of speaking which
was incomprehensible to the outside ear. Only a CCC enrollee, for
example, could tell that "Hey, greaseball, got a stiffy? Well, sawdust
and blankets will do," was simply a request for a cigarette, followed by
an assertion that tobacco and paper would suffice. Enrollees referred to
soft drink as "slough-water," a clergyman was a "sin-buster," and
"submarine turkey" was a fish. CCC slang bore little resemblance to Army
slang or to the language of the assembly line and the city street. It
was something indigenous to the camps themselves and to the collective
existence in the woods. [44]
There were critics of the tone of CCC camp life. Some
directed their shafts at specific aspects of the camp existence. The
Women's Christian Temperance Union, for example, while supporting the
Corps in general, campaigned vociferously to have beer banned from camp
canteens. [45] Townsfolk living near camps
occasionally complained that the enrollees were making too free with
their daughters. [46] Others were more
generally critical, claiming, with some justification, that despite the
education program, the camps did not do enough for the boys
intellectuallythat they did not give them any real interest in
government, in public problems, or in American democracy itself. Nor
were the boys sufficiently prepared for life outside the CCC existence.
[47] There is truth in this complaint, yet
in the long view the conclusion seems inescapable that the CCC was a
vitalizing, not a stultifying force for most of the young men who passed
through its forest portals. Work in the wilderness, as we have seen,
gave to so many new health, new courage, and new faith in their country
and its future.
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