In one of my conversations with the President in March 1933, he brought up the idea that became the Civilian Conservation Corps. Roosevelt loved trees and hated to see them cut and not replaced. It was natural for him to wish to put large numbers of the unemployed to repairing such devastation. His enthusiasm for this project, which was really all his own, led him to some exaggeration of what could be accomplished. He saw it big. He thought any man or boy would rejoice to leave the city and work in the woods.

It was characteristic of him that he conceived the project, boldly rushed it through, and happily left it to others to worry about the details. And there were some difficult details. The attitude of the trade unions had to be considered. They were disturbed about this program, which they feared would put all workers under a "dollar a day" regimentation merely because they were unemployed.

During the late spring the Civilian Conservation Corps got underway with some awkwardness. What had begun as a simple notion that the experienced foresters would take under their care and direction a certain number of idle young men turned out in practice to be not so simple. There were problems of recruiting; who was to be chosen? There were problems of housing; who was to build the camps? It was finally decided that all those sent to camps should come from families on relief. It was also decided, when pacifying the unions had become something of an issue, that the boys would not build their own camps but that union labour would do it.

The Civilian Conservation Corps became the most popular of all the New Deal agencies. Jobless youths working in the outdoors, teenagers building roads in the unpenetrated sections of the Far West - the prospect caught the public imagination. It also impressed business men. They later showed a preference for hiring a man who had been in the CCC, and the reasoning was simple: employers felt 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.

I vividly recall covering the first day of enrollment at army headquarters in downtown New York when the first applicants arrived. Most of them, in thin summer clothes with no overcoats, had lined up before dawn. The first boy accepted was from the lower East Side. He was dancing a jig to celebrate when reporters told him he would probably be sent to the West. He stopped jigging and a newsman asked if anything was wrong. The boy scratched his head and said very seriously, "What the hell are we going to do about those Indians?"

I was at CCC's for six months, I came home for fifteen days, looked around for work, and I couldn't make $30 a month, so I enlisted back in the CCC's and went to Michigan. I spent another six months there planting trees and building forests. And came out. But still no money to be made. So back in the CCC's again. From there I went to Boise, Idaho, and was attached to the forest rangers. Spent four and a half hours fighting forest fires...

I really enjoyed it. I had three wonderful square meals a day. No matter what they put on the table, we ate and were glad to get it. Nobody ever turned down food. They sure made a man out of ya, because you learned that everybody here was equal. There was nobody better than another in the CCC's.