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1932 › Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic) › Reforestation and land policy
Employ a million men reforesting marginal and abandoned land
pledge_forwardspecific_pledgecandidate_directevidence A Environment & ConservationInfrastructure & Public WorksRelief, Welfare & Social Insurance⚡ The Great Depression similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Convert many millions of acres of marginal, abandoned and cut-over land into timberland through reforestation, giving employment to a million men, financed by bonds secured on the future timber crop; a national land policy on the European model. Modeled on the New York program.
Rationale
Reforestation is public work that is genuinely self-sustaining; without a land policy the country faces "soil erosion and timber famine"; "economic foresight and immediate employment march hand in hand."
Statements (3)
In so doing, employment can be given to a million men. That is the kind of public work that is self-sustaining, and therefore capable of being financed by the issuance of bonds which are made secure by the fact that the growth of tremendous crops will provide adequate security for the investment.
Yes, I have a very definite program for providing employment by that means. I have done it, and I am doing it today in the State of New York. I know that the Democratic Party can do it successfully in the Nation.
You and I know that in the national forests, on flood prevention, and on the development of waterway projects that have already been authorized and planned but not yet executed, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of our unemployed citizens can be given at least temporary employment.
Follow-through
partial
The Civilian Conservation Corps (March 31, 1933) enrolled 250,000 young men by July 1933 and peaked near 500,000 in 1935; about three million served by 1942. The purpose — forestry, erosion, flood control — matched the pledge, but the scale never reached a million at once and the bond-financed, self-liquidating timber enterprise was replaced by a relief program funded from appropriations.
Mechanisms
| Date | Type | Name | Effect | Consistent? | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1933-03-21 | message | Message proposing the Civilian Conservation Corps | I propose to create a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. | yes | Message to Congress on Unemployment Relief. |
| 1933-03-31 | statute | Emergency Conservation Work Act charted on: Unemployment rate (NBER series, 1929–1942) | I estimate that 250,000 men can be given temporary employment by early summer if you give me authority to proceed within the next two weeks. | partly | Message to Congress on Unemployment Relief. |
Assessments
The CCC put 300,000 to work in 1933 — substantial, but not the million pledged.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put 300,000 young men to work in 1,200 camps planting trees, building bridges, and cleaning beaches.
Reception (1)
The reforestation pledge — a billion trees, a million men — would yield less than three days' work.
The Democratic candidate adds to this program the proposal to plant a billion trees and thereby immediately employ a million men, but the Secretary of Agriculture has shown that the trees available to plant will give them a total of less than 3 days' work.
1932-fdr-reforestation-million-men · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed