"THE ADMIRATION OF THE ENTIRE COUNTRY" Excerpts from a message from the President of the United States to members of the CCC read over NBC network at 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 17, 1936:

To THE million and a half young men and war veterans who have been, or are today, enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps Camps, I extend greeting on this third anniversary of the establishment of the first CCC Camp. Idle through no fault of your own, you were enrolled from city and rural homes and offered an opportunity to engage in healthful, outdoor work on forest, park and soil conservation projects of definite practical value to all the people of the nation. The promptness with which you seized the opportunity to engage in honest work, the willingness with which you have performed your daily tasks and the fine spirit you have shown in winning the respect of the communities in which your camps have been located, merits the admiration of the entire country. You, and the men who have guided and supervised your efforts, have cause to be proud of the record the CCC has made in the development of sturdy manhood and in the initiation and prosecution of a conservation program of unprecedented proportions.

Since the Corps began some 1,150,000 of you have been graduated, improved in health, self-disciplined, alert and eager for the opportunity to make good in any kind of honest employment. Our records show that the results achieved in the protection and improvement of our timbered domain, in the arrest of soil wastage, in the development of needed recreational areas, in wild life conservation and in flood control have been as impressive as the results achieved in the rehabilitation of youth. Through your spirit and industry it has been demonstrated that young men can be put to work in our forests, parks, and fields on projects which benefit both the nation's youth and conservation generally. ---- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Information resource:

James F. Justin CCC Museum