The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-05-29

w'E3AsNsNksNS~lA thing should be
 RAson done to it.
 esidert Roosevelt has indicated the outfit might be integrated c little more closely with the defense effort, but what he has in mind not even tho COG heads themselves profess to know.
 Secretary of Treasury Morgen- thau has indicated this is ono Of the agencies where cuts might be made to help save that billion, Rabid mllitarists yell that the boys should be carrying guns and ardent pacifsts scream that the camps are too military already, since these boys are mostly i7-2i, under draft age.
 Some Of the economy-talking congressman say eco could bo wiped out altogether as 1t competes with private industry.
 Congressrfen from the farm states, with conservation and soil erosion problems to think about, counter that eco work in these fields must not be allowed to dimin- iSh.
 eco LOOKS FOR BOYS
 But for all this hue and cry, eco goes about It's business as usual, has sized up It's situation quite well and found 1t can do some cutting of It's own, For this year, eco has had s280 millions permitting 1t to oper- ate i40l camps for 6 peak of 300,- 900 enrollecs, For next year, 1t is asking only $270 million, permitting it to operate 1865 camps for a peak of ie4,000, Congress, Of course, may revise the figures up or down and you can't tell about Congress.
 What is happening is that eco like everything else is feeling the impact of enlistmentS for the armed services and increased employment in tho defense industries. At It's all- time high, in August, 1895, eco had B00,000 men in 2b00 camps. Today men are dropping out of the camps or being hired away from them by private industry at such Q rate that from now til the end Of May eco Is taking in 10000 more boys, tho present strength being only 260,000. Back in iD3b there were from three to Ave boys waiting for every va caney, Today they may not find tho 10000. In April, there was room for b8,o00, but only 10000 applied.
 The camps that eco recruits 60 Into now have a more military at- Y1osphero than they did in the early years, for tho program has been al. tered slightly to meet the defense effort requirements. There aren't any guns and there isn't any drill, but there arc physical training ex- ercises md there is heavy emphasis on schools. There are l76 full.tlme schools with an enrolment Of over 5000 learning to Dc cooks and bak- OTIS, motor repalrmen, radio men, clerks and SubalternS who can di- rect camps themselves. There Is no shortage of reserve officers to eoih- lnand camps as yet, but as these officers are called to active service, they will Do replaced by CCCs tratido leaders.
 ABOUT THOSE BENEFITS
 Most of the carping against eco has come from corners with an i'm. perfect Knowledge of what the camps were doing or have done. A Boston organization, for instance, complained that eco didn't do any thing for business and perhaps got tho shock Of It's life when !t received a tabulation showing that Si,46e,- 600,000, well over e half of CCCs total expenses, had gone Into the streams of business In these cate- gories;
 For lumber and building trades So3 3,b00,000; for shoes, $30,i80,000; for clothing and uniforms, $i73,. 487,000; for food, $33i ,64i ,000 for truck. tractors, power tools, $i72,. Bi4000 for picks, shovels and small tools, 920,000,o00; wage deductions sent to families, $647,i 30ooo.
 As the other billion and 6 third dollars, that went for wages to the men in camps, what the country got In return Is perhaps beyond value James J. McEntee, the pres ent director of tho corps, stresses the intangible benefits of increased health to the men themselves, training them to get along with other men, keeping them of the street where they would have been If allowed to run ct large as unem- ployed hoodlums. Communism nev. CT got to them. In addition to which, most of them learned Q trade, even If 1t was only to swing an ax in e lumber camp or drive a truck. And s7,000 of them learned to read and write while in eco camps, which is e rather sad com- mentary on the great American educational system.
 Getting beyond the intangibles, the list and numbers of parks set up, trails blazed, forest fires fought, bridges built, steams purified, ero- sions stopped, dams constructed, floods controlled, weeds cleared, pipes laid, wildcats eliminated, soils conserved, stones quarried, tele- phone lines strung, waterholes open ed, mosquitoes destroyed, etc, etc., aud ato ia foasv txfy1auvrikkpn f1arae