Evening star., 1936-07-14

partially necessary, the requirements
have been sufficiently rigorous to more
than meet most civil service demands.
An inspector. for instance. must be
college graduate and possess real
technical equipment. The Army did
an admirable job Of selection amongst
the officers. 1t was a voluntary serv-
ice, which meant that the self-se-
lected men had q genuine interest
in the task, understood its require
ments, and did not undertake the
work with the resentment or hauteur
which they might have felt had the
work simply been assigned them.
Working hand in hand with the For
estry Service, which has q fine repu-
tation and enjoys much good will.
and with the park boards. most of
the c. c. c. activities have been
confined to work which had local
support, and which really needed to
be done. With unframed youths and
veterans, many of whom had never in
their lives done any work of similar
nature, some of whom had never
handled an axe, 1t was inevitable that
much of the work should be badly
done, but there is nothing in the
form of the organization itself which
makes bad and sloppy work almost
certain. The c. C. C. boys do fair
days work. They are not. as in w.
P. A.. permitted to earn a subsistence
and then prorated per hour at trade
union wages, with the result that
they work sometimes for only two
or three hours day or three or four
days a week. Work under such con-
ditions must of necessity be demor-
alizing.
Chiselers Not Allowed.
In the third place conditions i'm
posed have been such that the c. c. c.
camps have not attracted many chs
elers. The young man who goes into
one of the camps must submit to GER
tain social disciplines. They are by
no means rigorous; they are not, for
instance, more rigorous than those
that many expensive schools impose
upon the children of the well-to-do
But they must keep regular hours,
they must maintain a certain decency
of behavior; all the circumstances
contribute to produce an esprit de
corps and all of them initiate against
the anti-social character.
In the fourth place, and this is the
most important Of all, the human re-
suits are vastly more heartening than
from any other form of relief. In al
most every case the c. c. c. boy leaves
his six months service in better
health. better trained. better adjusted,
and better able to get and keep job
than when he went in. He has lived
for six months in clean quarters. He
has slept In clean and well-made beds.
He has kept his bunk and his belong
ings in shipshape order. He has been
unusually we'll fed-in most cases
better than ever before in his life.
He weighs more. He has added to his
skills, particularly if he is q city boy,
and he may have added to his learn
ing. In this respect-in educational
facilities-the camps need vast i'm
provement But at least some move
ment. some gesture, has been made in
this direction.
Political Trend Resented.
And, finally, until about eight
months ago, the C. C. c. camps were
pretty genuinely outside of political
influences. Early last Winter and for
the first time. inspectors were informed
from Washington that all men who
held even the most menial administra-
tive positions-anything above and
including the rank of foreman-must
obtain the Endorsement of their Con-
gresham. 1t happened that I was
visiting a c. C. c. camp when such an
order came, and I can testify to the
dismay and resentment which it
caused. know of one inspector who
had given months of devoted service
who resigned for this reason alone.
His own appointments had been made
out of the rank and file for merit and
merit alone, and that the jobs of these
men should depend upon the sigma
lures of politicians whom they had
never seen, filled him with holy rage.
which was not in the least mitigated
when it developed that the indorse-
ment could be obtained by paying a
Congressman $50 for his good will.
This, by the way. is not conjecture.
1t happened Given enough Of this,
and the public will begin to feel about
the C. C. c. what they already feel
about many of the other agencies.
But the moral is plain. The public
does not resent relief. The public is
not hard-hearted The public is not
stingy. But the public does demand
a service which is politically disinter-