14 Main Lines of Thought and Action 



Relatively little was subsequently released for homesteading, which, 

 except for Alaska, may be regarded as an era that has passed. 



By no means the least important part of the Roosevelt program 

 was the famous Civilian Conservation Corps. It was a conservation 

 of manhood, as well as of soils and forests. The sight or demonstra- 

 tion of hundreds of thousands of our young men engaged in conser- 

 vation practices was itself an educator and dramatizer of conservation 

 values and objectives on an unprecedented scale. The Civilian Con- 

 servation Corps has passed into history, but if this nation ever again 

 sustains a prolonged depression, we may be certain that something of 

 this kind will again be formed. Its limitations and shortcomings were 

 many, but its achievements were many also — and not the least of 

 these was in bringing to the land and forest those who never had 

 known surroundings other than the streets and alleys of our great 

 cities. 



But the great note of the second Roosevelt era was the concept of 

 planning. The year 1933 brought the Tennessee Valley Authority, 

 which established the river basin in our national consciousness as a 

 natural unit for comprehensive multiple-purpose development. The 

 nation has never been united on questions of public power; but that 

 a river valley has an essential unity, that its waters must serve many 

 balanced purposes the planning of which requires foresight, that its 

 watersheds must be preserved, its soils used wisely — these matters 

 are no longer in dispute. They have entered into our national policy 

 — and power, irrigation, flood control, recreation, navigation, avoid- 

 ance of pollution, industrial use, watershed management have be- 

 come accepted as necessary interrelated ingredients in any scientifi- 

 cally developed river basin. For this the TVA must take a large share 

 of the credit. The special interests and clienteles and their bureaus 

 may operate — or desire to operate — much as before, but their sym- 

 bols must be those just mentioned. This, if it does nothing else, fur- 

 nishes a platform for criticism of projects. 



In 1934 the National Resources Board was established^ — a vast, 

 over-aU concept which was a bit too far ahead of its day and age to 



^ 1935, National Resources Committee; 1939, National Resources Planning 

 Board. 



