Fechner, Robert and Williams, Aubrey

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Robert Fechner and Aubrey Williams

robert fechner:
born 1876 chattanooga, tennessee

died december 31, 1939
washington, d.c.

administrator, union leader

aubrey williams: born august 23, 1890
springville, alabama

died march 5, 1965
washington, d.c.

social worker, reformer

"Today, we hear again and again from CCC veterans about how the 3C's turned their lives around. Desperate young men in desperate times were given the chance to be gainfully employed.…"
craig holstine, in the foreword to the 1990 book in the shadow of the mountain: the spirit of the ccc by edwin g. hill

By 1935 five million youths were unemployed. Deeply concerned, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45; see entry) created both the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the National Youth Administration (NYA) to help youths in need during the Great Depression. Roosevelt appointed Robert Fechner as the CCC director. The CCC provided employment to young men between eighteen and twenty-five years of age and primarily accepted men from families on unemployment rolls. CCC enrollees were paid $30 a month, $25 of which had to be sent back home. At its peak in 1935 the CCC employed over five hundred thousand men in over twenty-five hundred camps across the nation. The CCC specialized in outdoor projects, such as controlling soil erosion, stocking fish, building public facilities, erecting markers and monuments, and planting trees. The public facilities that were built included bridges, fishponds, state parks, drinking fountains, lodges and museums, fire lookout towers, and water supply systems. The NYA was created in June 1935 to help students stay in school and to provide part-time jobs for youths no longer in school. The president appointed Aubrey Williams as executive director. The NYA assisted over 4.8 million youths from 1935 to 1943. This program employed more youths than the CCC and included young women and more minorities.

Robert Fechner of the CCC

Robert Fechner was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1876, to a relatively poor family. He attended public schools but never graduated from high school. He left school to sell candy and newspapers on trains in Georgia for a year. He then became a machinist apprentice (person who is learning a trade) for the Georgia Central Railroad in Augusta. He joined the machinist union and, being an adventurous young man, traveled to Central and South America, where he worked as a machinist. Fechner returned to Savannah, Georgia, in the late 1890s and became active in labor union activities. By 1914 he was elected to the general executive board of the International Association of Machinists and then became a vice president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), a position he held until 1933. Through these positions Fechner had become a skilled labor negotiator, a role that required much patience. During World War I (1914–18) Fechner served as a special adviser on labor policy and helped settle a railroad labor dispute in 1917. During the war he met Franklin Roosevelt, who was serving as assistant secretary of the navy. In 1932 Fechner worked hard for Roosevelt's presidential campaign, helping Roosevelt gain labor union votes.

When Roosevelt was first trying to push the CCC concept through Congress, organized labor opposed the idea. They thought CCC workers would compete for private jobs, increasing the pool of available labor and thus lowering wages. Therefore, Roosevelt decided to appoint a respected labor leader as head of the agency. He appointed Fechner on April 5, 1933, the same day the CCC was established. That day Fechner and the CCC received $10 million to fund CCC projects. Fechner selected another officer of the machinists union, James J. McEntee, as his assistant. The president wanted 250,000 men at work by early summer 1933. This required major efforts of organization, construction, and mobilization. By the end of June, 239,000 young males had been enlisted, divided into groups of 200, and assigned to freshly-built camps scattered across the nation.

Fechner's role was rather small since much of the CCC administration activity occurred in other parts of the government. Primarily his job was to coordinate the actions of the War Department, the Department of Labor, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Agriculture, which together established and ran the CCC camps. One of Fechner's most important decisions came on August 17, 1933, when he approved use of CCC units to fight wildfires in Montana. The CCC would become well known for assisting local communities during emergencies such as floods, blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, and fires. As a result, the public held a highly favorable attitude toward the agency.

CCC/NYA Facts

The two agencies created to employ youths during the Great Depression accomplished an astounding amount of work. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) restored 3,980 historical structures, developed 800 state parks, treated over 20 million acres to prevent soil erosion, stocked rivers and lakes with over a billion fish, installed 5,000 miles of water irrigation ditches and canals, improved 3,462 beaches, transplanted 45 million trees and shrubs for landscaping, planted over three billion trees in reforested areas, and erected 405,037 signs, markers, and monuments. The CCC also built 8,045 wells and pump houses, 7,622 small dams, 28,087 miles of foot and horse trails, 8,304 footbridges and horse bridges, 32,149 wildlife shelters, 1,865 drinking fountains, 204 lodges and museums, 3,116 lookout towers, 27,191 miles of fences, and 38,550 vehicle bridges. The National Youth Administration (NYA) provided part-time jobs to 620,000 college students, 1,514,000 high school students, and 2,677,000 out-of-school youths. The NYA paved 1,500 miles of roads, built 6,000 public buildings (including 1,429 schools and libraries), and constructed 2,000 bridges.

With his limited formal education, Fechner, a simple man, strongly contrasted with most New Deal administrators and advisers. However, Fechner was hardworking, honest, and friendly, and he became popular with his staff and CCC enrollees. He enjoyed traveling around the country visiting the CCC units. Through his travels he gained a thorough knowledge of the camps and supplied Roosevelt with detailed reports, much to the president's pleasure. Fechner's critics claimed that he lacked the vision to expand the CCC program to its fullest capabilities, including greater efforts to recruit black Americans to the CCC. Fechner brought to the administration the cautious and patient attitude he had acquired as a labor negotiator, causing much frustration among other, more dynamic New Deal leaders. Fechner kept the goals of the CCC simple throughout: Provide relief to the unemployed and perform useful work. Perhaps owing to Fechner's conservative approach, the CCC received much less criticism than more innovative programs, and it gained a reputation as a well administered agency for its size. However, the atmosphere of goodwill between Fechner and the four cooperating departments eroded through the years as communication declined.

In July 1939 the CCC was placed within the Federal Security Agency, losing its direct connection to the president. Later that year Fechner died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-three. The CCC shut down in 1942. During its nine years of operation the CCC enrolled 2.5 million youths including two hundred thousand black Americans.

Aubrey Williams of the NYA

Born in Springville, Alabama, Aubrey Williams was the third child in a family of five sons and two daughters. His father was a poor provider, and the family moved frequently, finally ending up in Birmingham, a booming industrial town. Williams had to leave school after the first grade to get a job. Only seven years old, he worked as a delivery boy for a laundry wagon, earning a dollar a week. He later got a job in a department store as a change boy, running change from one station to another in the store. By age twelve, Williams had worked his way up in responsibility and was put in charge of the wrappings department. Later he sold suits in the clothing department.

Williams's mother was deeply religious, and church was the center of the family's social life. Having to leave school at a very early age to find work, Williams even learned to read and write through the church. Tagging along with local church leaders, Williams learned a great deal about poverty. He would accompany the church pastor when he made Sunday rounds visiting convicts and mine workers. As a young teen, Williams was committed to serving the under-privileged and pursuing social activism through Christianity. At age sixteen Williams began touring on his own, preaching to the poor and outcast. He taught literary skills to mill workers on Sunday afternoons. At eighteen years of age, Williams organized a boys' club at the Birmingham YMCA and was in charge of thirty ten-year-olds.

By age twenty-one, Williams had become such a successful department store salesman, known for his reliability and hard work, that he was able to save some money to complete school. He entered Maryville College near Knoxville, Tennessee, to complete his high school education. After four years Williams had completed his high school education and one year of college, and he had become an avid reader. While at Maryville, he continued his habit of traveling to remote villages to preach on Sundays.

Running short of money, Williams left Maryville and got a job with the Redpath Chautauqua, a group that traveled to rural areas, giving lectures and concerts. Williams would travel ahead of the speakers and performers, making final arrangements and collecting fees. In the fall of 1916 Williams entered the University of Cincinnati but could only stay for one year because of money concerns. Disheartened, he joined the French foreign legion during World War I and survived bloody battles in Europe. When the United States entered the war in late 1917, Williams joined the American First Division and again took part in heavy fighting.

After the war, Williams returned to Cincinnati to attend school and serve as pastor for a small Lutheran church in nearby Dayton, Kentucky. Completing his degree in 1920, he accepted a position as assistant director of the Cincinnati Community Service Association, an organization providing public recreation opportunities. In December 1920 Williams married and had one child.

In 1922 Williams was hired as executive secretary for the Wisconsin Conference of Social Work. The conference was dedicated to preventing delinquency and crime, fighting poverty, and caring for neglected children. Williams worked hard for ten years on behalf of underprivileged children in
Wisconsin. He was involved in the revision of the juvenile court system there, making it much more sensitive to the needs of juveniles; he considered this work his key accomplishment. The Great Depression led to a substantial decline in private donations to the organization at a time when they were needed most. Williams took up an active fight for a public relief bill in the state.

Under President Herbert Hoover (1874–1964; served 1929–33; see entry), Congress passed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act in July 1932 to provide funds to states for public relief projects. Williams was hired by the American Public Welfare Association to travel in the Midwest and the South persuading governors to apply for the available federal funds.

With the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt as president in March 1933 and passage of the Federal Emergency Relief Act, Williams was offered a position by Harry Hopkins (1890–1946; see entry), director of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) created by the act. By this time the forty-three-year-old Williams had accumulated many years of experience finding ways to aid the less fortunate. As FERA's Southeast field representative he was responsible for determining whether state relief organizations were appropriately set up and free of racial discrimination. As a result of his work, Williams established a close working relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962; see entry), who shared his concern for needy youths. The president created the National Youth Administration (NYA) on June 26, 1935, and appointed Williams as its director. Williams remained in that position until the program ended in 1943. Unlike Robert Fechner of the CCC, Williams became a leading figure in promoting social change during the 1930s. For example, Williams established the Negro Affairs Division in the NYA and hired educator Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955; see entry) to be its head.

In 1960 Williams was named chairman of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee. He served in that position until 1963. After a long battle with cancer, he died in March 1965 in Washington, D.C.