The+Civilian+Conservation+Corps

  The CCC The Fireside Chat Good Morning my fellow Americans, this is your President Franklin D. Roosevelt and I am here to introduce a new program, which will create new jobs for Americans and help us out of our current economical state. The Emergency Conservation Work Act (ECW), better known as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), will bring together the nation's young men and the land in an effort to save them both. I propose to recruit thousands of unemployed young men, enlist them in a peacetime army, and send them to battle the erosion and destruction of the nation's natural resources. (More than any other New Deal agency, the CCC is considered to be an extension of Roosevelts personal philosophy). The only requirment by Congress is U.S. citizenship. Other standards set by the ECW include, Sound physical fitness, which is mandatory because of the hard physical labor required. Men also have to be unemployed, unmarried, and between the ages of 18 and 26. So all you unemployed and unmarried men between 18 and 26 come down and sign up for The CCC! Thank you for your time.

The speed with which the plan moved through proposal, authorization, implementation, and operation was certainly a miracle of cooperation among all the agencies and branches of the federal government. From FDR's inauguration on March 4, 1933, to the induction of the first CCC enrollee, only 37 days had elapsed.The CCC, also known as Roosevelt's Tree Army, was credited with renewing the nation's decimated forests by planting an estimated three billion trees from 1933 to 1942. This was crucial, especially in states affected by the Dust Bowl, where reforestation was necessary to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil in place. So far reaching was the CCC's reforestation program that it was responsible for more than half the reforestation, public and private, accomplish in the nation's history.

__The Lasting Effect:__ After the Great Depression ended the CCC came to an end in 1942, however 30 years later it was reopened to help younger citizens get involved in community service, job training, and a few education related activites. Today the CCC is in 41 states and has well over 20,000 members. The effects of service in the CCC were felt for years, even decades, afterwards. Following the depression, when the job market picked up, businessmen indicated a preference for hiring a man who had been in the CCC, and the reason was simple. Employers believed that anyone who had been in the CCC would know what a full day's work meant, and how to carry out orders in a disciplined way. The billions of trees planted or protected, the millions of acres saved from the ravages of soil erosion or the depredations of flooded rivers, the hundreds of parks and recreation areas which were developed, are a permanent testimony to the success of Corps work. They constitute a legitimate contribution to the heritage of every American. Finally, the CCC had a lasting effect on its enrollees. Life in the camps brought tangible benefits to the health, educational level, and employment expectancies of almost three million young Americans, and it also gave immediate financial aid to their families. Lastly by its successes as well as its shortcomings, the CCC has surely provided, in this instance, a concrete example for others to follow. Though the CCC is dead, it has not been forgotten.

As Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., wrote, it has "left its monuments in the preservation and purification of the land, the water, the forests, and the young men of America."