BE OUR GUEST: CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS CONCEPT COULD HELP IN DEALING WITH DRUG OFFENDERS

Arthur T. King, 80, of Cairo, vividly recalls the days of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Although King did not serve in the corps, he had many friends who did. King retired in 1970 as a master pilot on the Mississippi River, where he worked for 47 years.

The drug problem is a huge national headache. It is mean and evil, and like a cancerous, eating sore, it grows larger with each passing day. It is the number one menace to our society.

For many years we have experimented with rehabilitation programs and have spent millions of dollars trying to find a cure for this terrible sickening situation. But it has been to no avail; the problem grows worse and our jails and prisons are overflowing.

Is there a cure for this horrible and vicious predicament that is destroying our youth and invading our welfare programs?

Lets go back in the history of our great nation~ to the era of the Great Depression.

October 1929 the stock market crashed. ~~Many factories and industries closed their doors and went out of business. It was estimated that one out of every four workers lost his or her job. People made a run on the banks to draw out money, but the banks did not have enough money to meet their demands and had to close their doors. America was knocked down on her knees. Many people lost their jobs, their homes and their fortunes. Very many people could not accept going from rich to poor. They committed suicide.

In desperation, the states and government established soup lines across the country to feed the multitude of homeless and hungry people. The people formed long lines to get in for a bowl of soup and a crust of bread.

Drugs were little known in that era, but we had prohibition and all alcoholic beverages were illegal . Many people made their o~~wn home brew (beer), whiskey (hooch) and wine. Some people drank denatured and wood alcohol and sterno. it made them sick and many died. Gangs of mobsters an~d hoodlums were always at war trying to control the booze market, and stories of murder~s and robberies and gun battles filled the newspapers every day.

With no jobs a~nd time on their hands our young ~people became restless and went wild and rampant. They roamed the back streets and alleys and booze houses. The jails and prisons were filling up. People traveled from town to to~wn looking for work or a place to eat and sleep. Many were arrested and put in jails or transient camps, and some were sentenced to perform labor on pea farms and labor chain gangs.

From 1929 to 1933 our nation was in utter ch~~~aos. In 1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president. One of the first things he did was establish and put into law the Civilian Conservation Corps, called the CCC, using barracks and military camps that were abandoned after World War I. He made these p~laces into training camps. Youths from 17 to 25 years of age were enrolled, and many young men 17 to 45 joined voluntarily just to get a place to eat and sleep.

The Army was in charge of all the camps; The enrollees were given Army clothes, fed Army rations and were disciplined by Army officers. They awakened every morning to the bugle, stood at attention for rollcall, and observed the raising and lowering of the flag. They also had bedchecks and the lights went out at 10 p.m.

Special instructors gave them lessons in every phase of conservation. They learned to plant trees~, build roads and trails~, learned to control the erosion of banks of the rivers~, lakes and streams by rip-rapping as tons of top soil was being lost to flooding. They built ranger stations~, towers~, parks~, campgrounds~, warehouses~, lodges~, reservoirs and many recreation projects for the public to enjoy. They fought forest fires, learned flood control and served in disaster areas. They made America beautiful. They also learned many occupations in the labor industry, and became carpenters~ electricians, bricklayers, cement workers and other tradesmen.

World War ~II came and the majority of these men were inducted into the Army Corps of Engineers or the newly established Naval Construction Battalion, the CBs. These men were all trained and ready to go. The Japanese and Germans could not comprehend how one nation practically overnight could muster a 3 million-man military force. These men served their country with honor and valor in the Atlantic Theatre, on the war-torn battlefields of Europe and Africa, and in the Pacific Theatre on the islands from Alaska to Australia. They constructed airfields~, roads~ landings, renovated blown-up bridges, and threw pontoon bridges across many rivers so our troops could cross and go on to victory.

In 19~42 this program was discontinued. In many of the off-the-record speeches that President Roosevelt was famous for~, he said this about the CCC program: "I am not going to abolish this program.~ I am just going to retire it, whereas it has done a remarkable and wonderful job for the restoration of our young people and our country. It has given many of our youth a second chance in life, and it is my sincere hope that it could be used again in the future."

Now is the time to use it again. President Clinton should take this program out of mothballs and reactivate it~ just like President Reagan took the laid-up battleships out of mothballs and put them back in service. We are in dire need of a program to save our youth and preserve our beloved country.

This program is not a guarantee for a cure to all the ills of the drug problem. People with more than two or three convictions of drug abuse are considered hardened, habitual criminals, and these people should be judged and prosecuted accordingly.

The CCC program would be instrumental in saving the novices, or first offenders. These people are inducted into this dirty drug business by intimidation of threats, ~physical violence, or a promise of making a lot of money.

I firmly believe this program will help and aid our high school dropouts. Some of these youths are brilliant and want to further their education,~ but due to lack of funds they are unable to do so. Like President Roosevelt said, this program would get them off the back streets and alleys and give them a second chance to become good and useful citizens.

For more information on the Civilian Conservation Corps~ contact your state conservation department. Or inquire about a book authored by Perry H~ Merril called "Roosevelt's Forest Army History of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933 to 1942."