Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MERRICK. Have you any guess at all as to how much dollar-perdollar work return you got from the old CCC compared to your normal employment arrangements?

Mr. THOMAS. No, sir; I have no information on that. The reports available in the Bureau were not located in time to furnish that information. We will search them out and make them available if we can locate them, sir.

Mr. MERRICK. That will be very helpful.

Perhaps you can answer me another question. To what extent does your work lend itself to the type of unskilled, relatively unskilled work which you would get from a new CCC group of people?

Mr. THOMAS. The only two of the five major functions that I mentioned to which it could be adaptable would be within the areas of range and forestry and particularly within our range rehabilitation area. The forestry areas are limited to those areas excluded from the national forests and it would be minor in comparison point from the program previously submitted by the Forest Service.

Mr. MERRICK. How many employees do you now have on your payroll? Either full time, or perhaps I ought to put it this way: How many man-days per year are you now utilizing of this relatively unskilled type of help?

Mr. THOMAS. I would have to furnish that to get it exact but in round figures it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 per year. Mr. MERRICK. Per year?

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MERRICK. And you would have uses simply on the stepped-up basis for additional people such as might be furnished by a CCC

program.

Mr. THOMAS. That is correct, provided, of course, such arrangements were made with the users themselves on this cooperative type of work that we have under the Taylor Grazing Act. And on that basis that could implement the work that the users themselves are now doing. As a matter of practice, the labor is usually performed by the farmers or the users themselves with the Government supplying materials for fencing catch basins and so forth. That is a general rule of thumb. There would be specific other ways. It would require a modification of the type of arrangement with the users which would require other modifications to implement such a program.

Senator RANDOLPH. If you have any information that you feel that you want to file with us, we will be very glad to have it. We realize that from time to time witnesses do think of those matters which should be brought to the attention of the subcommittee in considering a proposal of this type. We are grateful, Mr. Thomas, for your testimony.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you very kindly. I appreciate it very much. Senator RANDOLPH. We will resume the hearings at 2 p.m.

(Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at 2 p.m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Present: Senator Randolph (presiding).

Senator RANDOLPH. The subcommittee will be in order.

Mr. Floyd B. Damron, please come to the witness stand.

STATEMENT OF FLOYD B. DAMRON

Senator RANDOLPH. You live in Washington, D.C.?

Mr. DAMRON. Yes, sir.

Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Damron, you were in the CCC program; is that correct?

Mr. DAMRON. Two years.

Senator RANDOLPH. In West Virginia?

Mr. DAMRON. That is right, in the Monongahela National Forest. Senator RANDOLPH. You have heard that forest mentioned today in testimony?

Mr. DAMRON. That is right.

Senator RANDOLPH. How old were you when you went in the Civilian Conservation Corps?

Mr. DAMRON. I was supposed to be 17, but I had to slip my age up a couple of months.

Senator RANDOLPH. You were approaching 17?

Mr. DAMRON. That is right.

Senator RANDOLPH. Off the record.

Would you give the subcommittee the feeling that you have about the Civilian Conservation Corps program in which you were an enrollee, and the value you feel that it was to you?

Mr. DAMRON. Well, I would like to give the human and personal relations angle of it.

I came from Mingo County, which as you know is a relatively backward area, sometimes relatively violent, sometimes called bloody Mingo County. And there was not much for a high school graduate or anyone else to do.

I had looked forward to joining the CCC, having seen my uncle and some older boys who had gone, and it had done so much for them, put weight on them, gave them a job, and kept them out of trouble and gave them a grip on life and I had been looking forward to that for several years, so as soon as I graduated-I lived with my grandfather

Senator RANDOLPH. Graduated from high school?

Mr. DAMRON. Yes, sir.

Senator RANDOLPH. In Williamson?

Mr. DAMRON. Lenore, small high school.

Senator RANDOLPH. Yes?

Mr. DAMRON. I got in touch with the investigator of the welfare department and he got me into a camp in October 1939, and I was assigned to Camp Anthony in Greenbrier County in West Virginia, right outside of White Sulphur Springs.

During my 2 years I was in that camp and Camp Black Mountain in Pocahontas County, outside of the city of Marlinton

Senator RANDOLPH. You were in several camps in West Virginia, is that true?

Mr. DAMRON. Two camps.

Senator RANDOLPH. In Greenbrier and in Pocahontas Counties.
Mr. DAMRON. That is right.

Senator RANDOLPH. You were a native of Mingo?

Mr. DAMRON. That is right.

Senator RANDOLPH. You speak about the unemployment in the depression days or even the later days when the depression was not felt

quite as deeply, from 1939. Was there unemployment in Mingo County?

Mr. DAMRON. That is right.

Senator RANDOLPH. That has been accentuated. We have approximately 25 percent of our potential labor force in Mingo County unemployed today, and it is due in large degree to the mechanization of the coal mines. A real problem exists in counties like Mingo and McDowell and Logan and Raleigh and Fayette and other sections in southern and southwest West Virginia.

You feel that the program was of benefit to you personally?

Mr. DAMRON. Unquestionably. I think it was the greatest program that President Roosevelt initiated. I don't know what I would have done without it.

Being brutally frank, my end of the county was the end noted for a lot of moonshine making and a lot of boys got involved in that, there was no other way to make money and I suppose it is possible I might have too, if I had not had a place to go where I could earn money, work, a place to eat and sleep, put me in mental and physical condition to serve in the Armed Forces for 4 years after that.

So I think it benefited me and my country, too.

Senator RANDOLPH. Are you living in Washington now, Floyd? Mr. DAMRON. Yes, sir. I am trying to write a book on the CCC called, "I Was a Peavie."

Peavie is a nickname of the CCC boys, and I hope to have the book finished this year some time.

Senator RANDOLPH. Perhaps you will complete it in time for the Members of the Congress to read it prior to voting on this legislation, or what we hope will be a vote on it. If you are going to have it published perhaps in the fall we will hope to have taken action, affirmatively, prior to that time.

You are going to write this book in what vein? Is it just a story of what happened to you personally or are you going to try to evaluate the CCC in its broadest terms?

Mr. DAMRON. It is a first person story-"I Was a Peavie." I am taking myself through 2 years as a CCC, starting as a youngster, how I became aware of it, what I left behind, first week in camp, on the job training, exploring the town, maybe a chapter on the national forests, a chapter on the national parks.

I am trying to keep it from being a textbook. There have been several books written. Of course, they never really caught fire and if I can do what the others haven't done I hope I will do my part in creating interest in the corps again.

Senator RANDOLPH. I call attention to a book in my library, "The Administration of the Civilian Conservation Corps," by Charles Price Harper. That was written in 1935. Have you read this book? Mr. DAMRON. From cover to cover.

Senator RANDOLPH. What is your evaluation of its contents? Mr. DAMRON. I thought it was very good. He was very objective. I thought it was a very fine book. There are a couple of other books that have a lot of insight to me into the CCC.

Senator RANDOLPH. What are those books?

Mr. DAMRON. "Youth in the CCC," by Holland-Kenneth Holland, and Frank Ernest Hill. They were very accomplished writers and

Holland was a former corps area educational adviser.
I believe.

The first area,

Senator RANDOLPH. Did you know him, or either one of them? Mr. DAMRON. No. I have studied the book very thoroughly. He was connected with the American Youth Commission of the American Council of Education and I think the people that framed this bill and the people that administer the program will benefit if they studied the very objective survey they made of the CCC. I think it lasted for 5 years.

Mr. MERRICK. When was that published, do you know?

Mr. DAMRON. 1942.

Mr. MERRICK. Do you know the publisher?

Mr. DAMRON. I think I have it here; the American Council of Education published the book. They are here in Washington. I think you can get a copy. There is one copy in the central library and there is a copy in Archives and a copy in the Congressional Library.

Mr. MERRICK. What is your occupation?

Mr. DAMRON. I am a disabled veteran of World War II is where my income comes from and I have done some writing on a novel which I laid aside to do work on this almost 3 years ago. I am trying to become a writer.

Mr. MERRICK. It just happens that because of your experience with the CCC and the desire to become a writer that you put the two together and end up this way. Have you had any academic training in this area, the CCC type of thing? Have you done any work in forestry or had any academic training in this area?

Mr. DAMRON. All the work in forestry I did was while I was actually in a CCC camp.

Mr. MERRICK. How many years did you find most of the people that you knew in the CCC went? They had 6-month periods of enrollment. Did most of the fellows that you knew stay in there for a whole 2 years, which was the maximum permitted, or did they tend to drop out?

Mr. DAMRON. The average CCC enrollee stayed from 9 months to a year.

Mr. MERRICK. That is the figure. Do you know why only 9 months to a year? Do you remember from your experience what was your impression of why they left sooner than the 2 years which they could have run?

Mr. DAMRON. As you know, the war was approaching, the picture was changing somewhat. Some of them were able to get jobs. That accounted for some of it. Some of it was due to the loss of morale because the best officers were being trained off for the military and it had an effect on the boys. I think they would have stayed much longer if conditions had been otherwise. Then, the method of selecting fellows for camp wasn't the best.

Mr. MERRICK. You mean the officers who were in charge of the camps?

Mr. DAMRON. Yes; they were being constantly changed and newer officers and inexperienced men being in charge.

Mr. MERRICK. Of course, this bill here that we are thinking about would not include the War Department to be in charge of the camp

programs. We have not really thought it out, quite what we want to do, but it would not include the War Department. Conceivably, we were saying this morning, perhaps you were here, that the department, for instance, like the Park Service or Forest Service, on whose property the job was being performed, would be in charge of the camp as well as the work and this would eliminate the problem that you are talking about, about rapidly changing personnel, different from the supervision over the actual work.

Mr. DAMRON. Well I noted that when the testimony came up and I am wondering if it is entirely wise to lose control of these boys, give them over entirely to one agency like that. I am wondering if the director should not retain a certain amount of authority or control over them.

Mr. MERRICK. Our thought was the director would issue regulations governing standards of habitation, food, educational opportunity, and so on. Why do you find this wrong? What do you find wrong with it? You are talking as though you thought it unfortunate. What do you find wrong with it, what would be the matter with it?

Mr. DAMRON. I think the corps should-the chief purpose to be serve is to train the youngsters in a work-centered program. I have studied the American Youth Commission's recommendations and I think their studies were very objective and they were very fair and they were very factual and that is the attitude they take. They set up 10 control camps in the V Corps area.

Mr. MERRICK. Which is where?

Mr. DAMRON. The V Corps area. With headquarters at Columbus, Ohio, includes four States, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia. The American Youth Commission studied the participation of the Army and technical services, weak points, strong points, what boys benefited most from camp training, what boys didn't. I think if we use these studies they made we would set up a much more effective training program.

Mr. MERRICK. The study is in print?

Mr. DAMRON. Yes, in the book I just mentioned.

Mr. MERRICK. In the book by Holland and Hill?

Mr. DAMRON. Yes. There is also another good book, "The School in the Camps," by Hill himself. That is available in the central library and Archives.

Mr. MERRICK. Why do you think a camp supervisor or director, with a camp assistant under him, could not just as well run such a camp as the kind of thing it used to be?

Mr. DAMRON. I don't believe that he would give the varied training and expose them to the different types of learning that it would if you had a director of education on the advisory council of the directors of the corps.

Mr. MERRICK. Let me fill out the gaps here, suppose in addition we will say a Forest Service director of the camp with an assistant who is in charge of the camp area, in charge of the cooking, in charge of the food procurement, in charge of cleanliness, he might also be in charge with help from the directors of the overall program, the YCC, he could also supply some sort of educational material; there has been a lot done in this area, you know by way of movies, and you could utilize local school areas, vocational teaching in evening hours or on Saturdays, why would not all this work?