End of CCC

The House guillotined a Roosevelt pet: the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Conceived in the President's First Inaugural Address, and born in April 1933, CCC had one of the best records of all New Deal hopefuls. From city and farm the Corps rescued thousands of jobless youths. During its busiest month in 1935, it housed as many as 505,782 boys in more than 2,000 camps throughout the nation. Up & down the land, CCCers built roads, carved trails, cleared parks, reforested, learned crafts, fought fires. The most rabid opponents of New Deal spending admitted that CCC was worthwhile.

War gave youth something more toughly tangled than woodsy trails to worry about. CCC camps recently dropped to 400, enrollment to 80,000 boys. But even that was 400 camps too many for some Congressmen. CCC boys, they pointed out, now came mainly from rural districts where they were badly needed.

Out of a supply bill last week, economy-minded committeemen slashed $75,818,000 which would have kept CCC going another year. For good measure they gouged some $100,000,000 out of an appropriation for the National Youth Administration, left NYA only some $50,000,000 to carry on its defense-worker training. NYA is somebody else's pet: Mrs. Roosevelt's.

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