We Can Take It: The Story of the Civilian Conservation Corps

By Ray Hoyt and Marshall Davis

“We Can Take It”, first published in 1935, is an early history of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC, considered one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most successful New Deal programs, operated from 1933 to 1942 and provided natural resource-related work for young men, ages 18-25, during the Great Depression. In the program’s nine years, 3 million young men participated in the CCC. In return for their work, the men received training in a variety of skills, living quarters, clothing, and food, and a small wage of $30 a month ($25 of which had to be sent home to their families). The accomplishments of the CCC remain evident today in the nation’s national forests, parks, roads and trails. Included are 10 pages of pen and ink illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Burtyrki Books
• Release date: Jan 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839742033

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© Burtyrki Books 2020, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

WE CAN TAKE IT

The Story of the Civilian Conservation Corps

RAY HOYT

With Illustrations by MARSHALL DAVIS

"We Can Take It was first published in 1935 as We Can Take It": A Short Story of the C.C.C by American Book Company.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

PREFACE 5

1 — A NEW DEAL FOR YOUTH 7

2 — A FOUR-TEAM HITCH 13

3 — PEACETIME WAR 19

4 — TIMBER AND BEAUTY 26

5 — THE GREAT ADVENTURE 33

6 — ON FIRE LINE AND TRAIL 42

7 — LIFE BEGINS AT 4:30 P.M. 49

8 — THE SCHOOL OF THE WOODS 55

9 — GREENER HORIZONS 61

10 — NATIONAL RESOURCES 67

WORK DONE IN THE FIRST 18 MONTHS OF EMERGENCY CONSERVATION WORK 72

Illustrations 77

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 87

PREFACE

IT IS not difficult to write of such physical things as fire breaks, barracks, Army officers, millions of dollars, or hundreds of thousands of men. It is easy to tell, page by page, about miles of roads built, acres of land cleared, and dams erected against soil erosion. It is but a simple task of reporting to repeat what others have said about them. But when one deals with matters not so tangible, one attempts a far more difficult and more important work than that of a mere recorder. The real nature of the Civilian Conservation Corps, or rather the spirit which pervades its ranks, is such an incorporeal thing.

The trails which the men of the C.C.C. have built through the forests of the nation during the past two years, the timber lands they have cleared of snags and underbrush and insect pests, are monuments to a new type of forest worker. Earlier trails had been built and other lands had been cleared of fire hazards by men to whom the labor was nothing but toil, at so much per hour. But there has been something personal in the work of the C.C.C. men; something of themselves has been laid down with each mile of new road and each acre of timber saved from fire or blight.

There has grown up among the men of this new forest army from the towns and cities a spirit that is new. It is a new kind of patriotism: not one drummed up through emotions, but one that springs from the soil. It is a patriotism that involves trees and hillsides and streams, and is fused with one’s interest in one’s family and one’s own future, and, too, one’s feeling of gratitude toward a government that has given rather than taken away.

To these C.C.C. men, benefits from government are not merely such obscure advantages as the protection of property or the saving of the individual from exploitation or death by acts of those who are stronger or who have heavier weapons. To these C.C.C. men the incorporeal benefit is something quite as real as a job of physical work at a time when there are few jobs to be had. They recognize the reality of this, and it makes them thankful to their government and ties them closer to it. A patriotism that grows from an understanding of the powers of nature and the interest of the government in one’s own future is a potent force. It is in such patriotism that the Spirit of the C.C.C. is rooted.

The writer has had the opportunity of being with the men in camp, of eating at their mess tables, of reading thousands of letters describing their work and their play and their reactions to camp life, to their officers, and to the forests and parks, and their thoughts about their families at home and about their government. It is easy to write of the forests and the men, but difficult to picture such intangibles as this Spirit of the C.C.C. It is hoped, however, that this short story of the C.C.C. and Emergency Conservation Work at least will call general attention to a nation’s great attempt to conserve the national resources of the country; to the thousands of young men who are participating in this gigantic experiment in natural and human conservation and rehabilitation; and to the new patriotism that has sprung from their contact with nature, government, and the need of a job.

R. H.

1 — A NEW DEAL FOR YOUTH

(Young men given a chance in the Recovery Program)

ON MARCH 4, 1933, a new President was inaugurated On March 9 a new Congress met, and on the same day a group of seven men, including the President, held an important meeting in the White House.

The new President had been elected in November. Things had not been going well with the country, and, in the preceding campaign, he had said much about the existing widespread unemployment and about the forgotten man. He had proposed a new deal. He had mentioned conservation of natural resources as a part of it. And the voters had decided that some sort of new deal might help things.

It was at the White House, March 9, between four o’clock in the afternoon and ten o’clock at night, that the Civilian Conservation Corps was given its swaddling clothes and began its toddling steps,—the infant that has grown so soon into the ruddy-faced, hard-muscled giant of today. Seated around the President’s desk, the other six men, who had come hurriedly at his request, listened as he talked about trees and men. He was a lover of trees. He talked of their importance to a country. He also talked of the importance of young men to the life and future of a nation. He had a plan for the saving of growing trees and of young men. That was the beginning of the C.C.C.

The Secretary of War was there; so were the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior. The others present were the Director of the Budget, the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, and the Judge Advocate General of the Army. For two hours this group listened as the President talked about forests struggling to survive the ravages of carelessness and greed. That struggle was a losing battle for the forests. The President knew much about reforestation. It had been close to his heart for many years. He knew about watersheds that had been denuded of growth and had become breeding grounds for destructive floods. He believed in the necessity of protecting the wooded regions of the country against fire hazards. He envisaged a reclamation and conservation program that would cover the entire country.

The President talked also about the young men of the country who needed a break. There were 5,000,000 or more of them between the ages of 18 and 25 years who had come into man’s estate, ready to go to work, but who could find no work to do. Some had had jobs, but had been forced out by the economic* depression. Others had left school for the same reason. Most of them never had had a job. All were of the age when lack of something around which to wrap their minds and hands might prove disastrous for them, and for the country of which they formed so large a part. Conservation of these human resources was much more important even than the saving of natural resources.

The plan which the President outlined involved both forests and young men. It would place as many young men as possible at work in the forests and along the streams. The men would be picked from cities, towns, and farms, and transported into the woods. There they would live and work, planting trees, reducing hazards of forest fires, clearing streams, and checking destruction caused by soil erosion.

This meeting was not a conference. The new President asked few questions of the men he had called before him. He talked. He laid his plan before them. He wanted half a million young men placed at work; or, if enough funds were not available for so many, then as large a number as possible. But he wanted it done immediately. That was the reason for the meeting. The Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior are charged with the control of national forests and national parks. The Department of War was the only government agency so organized that it could, on short notice, enroll, clothe, and feed several hundred thousand men and supervise them in work camps. The project would cost money. That was why the Director of the Budget was there. There were legal aspects to consider, and a bill to be drafted for presentation to Congress. That accounted for the presence of the Judge Advocate General of the Army and the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior.

Was the idea a good one? the President asked. All six men agreed that it was. Could the plan be set in motion immediately? The Secretary of War said it could. Was there work in the forests and parks of the country that these men might do? The Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior were certain of it. Could the idea be put at once into the necessary legal form for presentation to Congress? The Judge Advocate General assured the President that it could be done.

Can it all be ready by nine o’clock tonight? the President asked.

There was a moment’s pause, then a unanimous: Yes, Mr. President. And the group departed.

It was not a difficult task to put down on paper what the President wanted. He had pictured the plight of trees and of young men in terms understandable and convincing. By nine o’clock the first draft of the bill which was to create the C.C.C. was ready, and the six men again sat with the President. The bill was read and discussed. Some changes were made. It was retyped and made ready to present to a group of Congressional leaders. They had been called for a ten o’clock meeting with the President. The idea of a Civilian Conservation Corps met with the approval of this group, who agreed to steer it through the two houses of Congress. When the six government officials left the President, the planning for the organization and operation of the C.C.C. already had begun. Thus was Emergency Conservation Work given first