Home Photo Gallery Classroom Documents Letter, Sevier County Department of Public Welfare
Richfield, Utah March 9 1937
Glen D. Reese, For the Dear Mr. Reese: I think perhaps the time has arrived to justify a brief resume of the operations of the C.C.C. Camp enrollees from Sevier County. To do this I feel a very brief history of the enterprise should be stated. The first contingent of C.C.C. boys under my direction was sent out to the camp in March 1934. The program of selection was the first one with which I had to do under C.W.A. I saw a great opportunity in this program. Somewhere I had read that only about one-half the boys of the world are privileged to come under the tuition of man's influence. I was impressed with this statement and I say the need of something extra being done to prepare these boys for the work before them. It became my pleasure to become acquainted with each boy who registered and in this close personal contact to study him, learn something of his family, the back-ground which he had as an inheritance, to ascertain his hopes and ambitions. It has been my practice always to have any group going into the camp united in a pep rally just before they are conveyed in our best automobiles to the camps for the examination. The principal purpose of these meetings was to point out to the boys the purpose for which the camps are established, the benefits they are permitted to gain by conforming to the regulations established in the camps, the value of their time, and creating within the boys an appreciation of the high position they are to occupy in the future work of the world. All this has been a labor filled to the brim with pleasure. This because of the reception of instructions leading to higher standards, broader visions and worthwhile accomplishments through preparation. Before me is a letter signed by Roland E. Platt, an enrollee from Richfield. He says, "During the past winter I have had lots of work to do putting on plays and giving talks, etc., in the Springdale Ward, something that I never did do in school because I was too self-conscious. Camp in this respect has and is still doing me lots of good. I have made approximately two-thousand friends since joining camp, most of them real nice people." Jay Slade, an enrollee of Elsinore, Sevier County, came into the office to register. His mind was full of putrid ideas regarding school, its teachers and people in general. Result, he was not allowed to register for C.C.C. on the grounds that he would be a disgrace to the other fine boys in the camp and he would be a disgrace to the county permitting him to enlist. He was advised to return three months later, provided he had eradicated from his mind the warped ideas incased within his head. Three months later he returned, was accepted, remained in the camp the full period. Soon after he returned to re-register for the camp. He expressed himself as anxious to return that he missed the fine companionships made in camp, including the officers. Inquiry brought out the fact that he was a changed boy and was truly thankful for the lecture he had received on his first visit to the office and for the influence camp life had had upon him. Guy Huntsman, a boy from Aurora, Sevier County, has been classed as a sort of semi-outlaw. Your selecting agent saw he had a good eye and a good hear. He was asked to assume the leadership of sixteen boys who enlisted in the camp with him. It was perhaps the first administrative responsibility ever offered him. He made good with the complete authority which had been granted him and his record in camp is as clean as a hound's tooth. These are just a few of the many cases setting forth the benefits the camp has been to our boys. When the first camps were established the report became current that they were filled with rough, wild, boys placed there because of their being able to do less mischief within the camp than they would perhaps do in their home towns. The program was not understood by the people and received something of a black-eye before the officer in charge had been given an opportunity to demonstrate what they were trying to do. This has all changed. Leaders of the communities heartily endorse the C.C.C. Camps. There have been no benefits from any phase of relief that have brought the satisfaction and happiness as has the salaries of these boys when turned to their mothers to help them provide the necessities of life without worry. The triple C in my judgment is far the most beneficial program yet devised because it is performing the most important work in the world today, that of making boys physically, morally and spiritually strong. "Boys are the hope of the world," and these fellows who go into the camps have never been rocked in cradles around which was spread a canopy of purple. They belong to the common heritage of America and on their education and ideas the future of our civilization depends. Yours very truly,
/s/ R. T. Thurber, Director RTT:nh
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