Arizona Stories: Civilian Conservation Corps

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The contributions of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona.

>>Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," the passing of Pope John Paul II. We'll remember his visit to the valley nearly 20 years ago. Transforming American health care, a national symposium on how to solve the nation's health care program, And the contributions of the Civilian Conservation Corps in our state. Tonight, on Arizona Stories.

>> Announcer:
"Horizon" is made possible by the Friends of Channel 8. Members who provide financial support to this Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to "Horizon." Governor Janet Napolitano says the death of Pope John Paul II is a great loss to Catholics in Arizona and the world over. She has ordered flags at state buildings to fly at half-staff. At the Vatican, mourners have begun streaming into St. Peter's Basilica to view the late pontiff. 12 pallbearers carried the body on a crimson platform. The pontiff's funeral is set for this Friday. Authorities expect about 2 million people to come through the Vatican in the next few days. The late pontiff visited the valley in September of 1987. He presided at mass in Sun Devil Stadium. Earlier that day, the Pope had visited St. Joseph's Hospital and medical center where he shook hands before entering the cure center. He was only in the valley a total of 24 hours but he made a remarkable impression. Earlier this evening I spoke with Father Jack Spaulding, Pastor at St. Gabriel's Parish. Father Spaulding attended the mass at Sun Devil Stadium in 1987. Father Spaulding, Thanks for being here.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
You're very welcome. It's my pleasure.

>>Michael Grant:
You were at the mass that September day back in 1987.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
Yes. September the 14th.

>>Michael Grant:
Tell us about it.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
It was wonderful. I had the pleasure of doing some of the media work with one of the local TV stations. We were in a little perch out of the heat. It was a phenomenal thing to see, 87,000 of Pope John Paul's closest friends packing the stadium. It was such a great grace for all of us. But that was a continuing grace apparently for him. Because when I was able to visit with him in '94 when I was in Rome for three months for sabbatical, me and the priest I was with had an audience with the Holy Father. When I introduced myself and said I was from the diocese of Phoenix in Arizona, he said, Ah, Phoenix, Phoenix.

>> Michael Grant:
This was seven years later.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
He always remembered the celebration of holy mass at ASU stadium.

>>Michael Grant:
Father, you will recall, we struggled with Sun Devil stadium. I don't think we officially renamed it, my recall is I think we covered up sparky.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
I think sparky was covered. There was some talk about renaming it for that day, sun angel stadium. I think we left it the way it was.

>> Michael Grant:
He was here for 24 hours. But it was greatly anticipated not only in Phoenix and Arizona but in a wider area of the southwest.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
Most certainly. He was here the 14th and then he traveled to Los Angeles on the 15th. And I think that was his last stop then in the United States. Then he went back.

>> Michael Grant:
In a larger context, what did his visit here in 1987 mean for Catholics in Arizona?

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
One of the things I think that it meant to us, especially people who could never in their wildest imagination get to Rome to see him, it was great that the Holy Father came to our house, as it were. Although very few of us were able to shake his hand or meet him one-on-one, it certainly seemed to all of us that he came to tell us that the Lord loved us and that he loves us.

>>Michael Grant:
And he took that message, those messages and a lot of other messages just broadly across the world, hands down, you were telling me that he was by far the most widely traveled Pope.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
Amazingly so. He was the first Pope to pray in a synagogue, He was the first Pope to pray in a mosque. He was the first Pope to go to Israel and stand at the Western Wall and put that little paper in the wall, an apology for anti-Jewish sentiment of Christians. Amazing.

>> Michael Grant:
I'm not a student of papal history but I have, I certainly have been alive for a few of them. It seems to me he was a remarkable combination of both a great spiritual leader and also a great political leader. There certainly are political overtones and political assignments for the Vatican.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
Very much so. I think taking both names, John and Paul, After John the twenty-third and Paul the sixth, he combined the best of those pontificates and then went on from there. I think he was the epitome of charisma and reaching out to everyone across the board, he didn't look at your baptism certificate before he talks to you. And yet he was most likely also one of the most learned Popes that we have had and certainly one of the most well-written. It was just amazing.

>> Michael Grant:
Given what he had gone through in his early life and middle years, I think that also meant a lot to a lot of people, this is not a person that was speaking from observation, this a person that was talking about suffering from personal experience.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
He was able to go to people and really be compassionate to them. He suffered with them. He knew what they were going through.

>>Michael Grant:
I was somewhat surprised that he was the third longest serving Pope.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
Amazing.

>> Michael Grant:
In history. He was 58.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
He was 58 when he was elected in 1978. One of the youngest people to be elected to the papacy in over 100 years. He was of course the first non-Italian in over 450 years.

>> Michael Grant:
Tell the story about the reporter.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
Apparently when Cardinal and John Paul, II came on the balcony, one of the reporters was so excited about this man from Krakow being elected, he said this is the first non-Catholic Pope in 450 years. Oh, I mean, non-Italian Pope. It was so funny.

>> Michael Grant:
Bishop Olmstead was a personal secretary.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
He was one of the English-speaking secretaries for the Holy Father for about nine years.

>> Michael Grant:
and unfortunately, I guess, he is not attending the funeral

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
I don't think he will be able to attend the funeral.

>>Michael Grant:
He appointed 114 of the 117 Cardinals who sit to determine his successor. Father Spaulding, thank you for joining us.

>>Father Jack Spaulding:
My pleasure, thank you.

>>Michael Grant:
Beginning tomorrow night through Wednesday, Arizona Sstate University providing a national platform for the discussion of America's health care system. Both Former senator John Edwards and former congressman Newt Gingrich will talk at the symposium, which will gather healthcare experts from around the country to talk about the problem facing American Healthcare. Here now to talk about the Symposium is the Director of the school of health management and policy, Jeffery Wilson, and the Dean of the WP Carey School of Business, Bob Mittelstaedt. Gentleman thanks for coming.

>> Bob Mittelstaedt:
Thank you.

>>Michael Grant:
Give us a bigger look at who will be showing up at the conference. Speaking, participating.

>> Jeffrey Wilson:
the conference starts tomorrow with a dinner and the keynote speaker will be former senator John Edwards. He will speak about government as a pathway to change. The entire conference is about transforming health care in the next decade. The next morning we'll have two sessions before lunch. The first session will be market as a pathway of change and that will feature our 2004 prize winner Edward Prescott, 1993 we will have the prize winner, Robert Fogel, from the university of Chicago and Dan Criptin a one time former U.S. Congress budget director. At the lunch period, we will have Newt Gingrich, and he will speak about health information as a pathway to change. Just before that, the session we'll have George Poste, the director of the biodesign institute and he will talk about biotechnology. And he will speak about Biotechnology as a pathway to change.

>>Michael Grant:
I wonder if speaker Newt Gingrich will reminisce about the failed Clinton healthcare proposal, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
Jeff, you mentioned that the recent Nobel recipient Edward Prescott is going to be talking. What's his focus?

>>Bob Mittelstaedt:
Professor Prescott obviously believes in free markets and economic forces working, as they will. Yet the health care system is one where economic forces have been hidden from view except the numbers keep getting bigger. The point Ed will make, like consumption of any other service by us as consumers, if we have no interest in worrying about the price quality relationship and trying to manage that ourselves, then the system won't manage it for us. What we have is a system where all the incentives are in the wrong direction and Ed will talk about the fact that ultimately to solve this problem of continuously growing health care cost we are going to have to move to a system where individual consumers have greater economic incentive.

>> Michael Grant:
You know interestingly enough, There is a strong sentiment I think amongst a lot of people that one of the problems with the health care system is that it's gotten too far away from health care and gone too far to being a business. That a subset at all running around in this national symposium?

>> Bob Mittelstaedt:
I suspect you won't hear too much of that, because the truth is that the technologies and the complexity of the services that we deliver and the extraordinary improvements in outcomes are such that you have to have big businesses to deliver that. When talking about getting laboratory tests where two big lab companies do tests at night, you have to have big business to make that work well. That or the development of technologies, like CT and MRI, you have to have big business to deliver those. The problem is, you need that to deliver it, but the problem is that the individuals don't have any incentive to buy those services efficiently as they would in any other business situation.

>> Michael Grant:
Not a lot of accurate price signals bouncing around there. Jeffrey, main topics?

>> Jeffrey Wilson:
In the afternoon, we have knowledge management and knowledge creation. What we have done is brought discussion are the six different components. Tomorrow night, government as a pathway of change. In the morning, we have markets of a pathway of change, followed by biotechnology, then the health information, health knowledge creation and knowledge management. We at the school of health believe that we have to facilitate this discussion because this is a very complex situation.

>>Michael Grant:
The ultimate goal, intentions of the symposium in relation to these six subjects and I'm sure others that are going to spring full-blown.

>> Jeffrey Wilson:
Provide a platform to find some real solutions, because this is a topic that affects all in America.

>>Michael Grant:
Bob, This is a quote I read from you, asking you to defend yourself. Health care systems can
behave like other sectors of the economy and benefit from improved quality -- here's the important part: Without increasing cost. How do you think that happens?

>>Bob Mittelstaedt:
I guess the point is, and I am not sure where you took that, if it's something I wrote in relationship to the conference.

>>Michael Grant:
It was.

>> Bob Mittelstaedt
That's the goal to design a system where we have the technology, increasing amounts that can benefit everyone in society. The question is, how to do that, produce better results for people without continuing to escalate the cost, and the cost is a serious problem. It's not that people don't value it, it's the old thing whether we're talking about your health care or my health care. We have to find a way to make a system that works economically. . If we can make it work well economically, then ultimately we will solve some of the disparity in the system today. But you can't continue to operate a society by letting the cost escalate forever. I remember many years ago, when I first got involved in health care in the seventies, we used to laugh the British because they were spending 7- 8% of their Gross Domestic Product on health care, that's a socialized system. At that time we were spending 5-6%. Today the British still spend 7-8% of their GDP on Healthcare, and we spend 15 to 16% today.

>> Michael Grant:
You were saying there are some that are higher.

>> Jeffrey Wilson:
We have some.

>>Michael Grant:
All of this is taking place at the Biltmore.

>> Jeffrey Wilson:
Yes.

>>Michael Grant:
Jeffrey Wilson, thank you for joining us.

>> Jeffrey Wilson:

You're welcome.

>> Michael Grant:
Bob Mittelstaedt , thank you, as well.
During the great depression, President Franklin Roosevelt created the civilian conservation Corps. By the time the U.S entered the Second World War, over 3 million young men had helped salvage the nation's natural resources. Evidence remains all over the state of the triple C's contribution. In Walnut Canyon south of Flagstaff, the familiar stone structures remain sturdy. Producer Larry Lemmons and Videographer Scott Olson show us more on the story

>> Larry Lemmons:
Winter in walnut Canyon. Alfredo Flores studies the foundation of the Walnut Canyon Visitors center, the limestone and concrete structures remain strong despite being built more than 60 years ago by Flores and his fellow workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

>> Alfredo Flores:
The construction used, hand shaped, no power tools. All this concrete holding this rock together were mixed by hand. No mixing machines. No cement mixers. And also, the columns that you see there are natural trees. They're all in this, surrounding area of the parks service. We didn't have to ship them in from anyplace else and they were all cut and fit by the CCC boys back in 1941.

>> Larry Lemmons:
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill that authorized the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1933 during the depression, the Corps gave young unemployed men an opportunity to make money
and save the country's natural resources.

>> Alfredo Flores
It was so depressed, nobody could find jobs. Standing on a corner with gloves in a pocket and a sandwich in the other pocket, waiting for somebody to offer a day's work for a dollar. We got away from all that. Physically, mentally, it made a better person of us.

>> Larry Lemmons:
These days Flores meets one a month with fellow CCC alumni and chapter 44 president Michael Smith to organize functions and swap CCC stories.

>> Owen Carolin:
they joined the CCC then hey put all of those boys on Girlie Street. She said that wasn't right…

>>Larry lemmons:
The three C's did work all over Arizona, including South Mountain.

>> Michael Smith:
There was a control project on Kiwanis trail. The building behind me never really functioned as a museum building until recently. The first exhibit that went in there was an exhibit commemorating the work of the CCC. They didn't intend it to be that way but 70 years later, there have you it.

>>Larry Lemmons:
The camps were run in the military fashion which prepared for later military service during World War II.

>> Arley Ross :
I was in camp, I had been trained by CCC and basic training, we got up, we had regular hours.

>>Larry Lemmons:
the boys received $30 a month, 5 of which they kept. They sent $25 home to their family.

>>Archie Fraijo:
They sent home $25 a month. Being able to pay rent, pay electric bill. It helped my family quite a bit.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Despite the success of the program, a few felt ashamed for accepting what they believed to be welfare.

>> Markie Clark:
I heard somebody talk that way and I said hey, you've got nothing to be ashamed of. No doubt did you a lot of good. Don't apologize to anybody.

>>Larry Lemmons:
At South Mountain, little remains of the camp that housed the young men who worked to create the park. A lone star suggests an origin.

>> Michael Smith:
We are standing on what would have been the dividing line of the two camps. Over my shoulder, the office and doctor. Down this path new recruits would visit the camp commander to be reprimanded or rewarded for doing a good day's work. Further east, there was a mess hall on either side of the dividing line, a barracks, a recreation hall on either side of the barracks building. Finally, an additional barracks building on each camp. I have been told that you didn't typically stroll into the other camp if you didn't have business there.

>> Larry Lemmons:
At Walnut Canyon, the sturdy stone structure houses the families of the park rangers. Alfredo Flores remembers his days as a young enrollee.

>> Alfredo Flores:
We mixed pleasure with fun. As long as the work got done, we had very, very good supervisors, personnel, the staff was good. Everybody was in for the same thing. And we enjoyed it tremendously. At least I did. If anybody told me I would be here 62 years later, I would say no way.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining us to tell us more about the contributions of the CCC is president of CCC Chapter 44 Michael Smith. Michael, You were telling me they were going to preserve a Triple C feature as the trolley moves down Central Avenue.

>> Michael Smith:
That the plan. When they announced the palm trees were to be moved, I realized there was a CCC irrigation structure. It was in the preservation plan.

>> Michael Grant:
This particular case that was some of the conservation Corps covering up the Salt River project

>> Michael Smith:
Central and Encanto it was an open ditch in 1938.

>>Michael Grant:
You got in this because of your grandfather?

>> Michael Smith:
He got 9 years of good work by the CCC. He was hired by the forest service, he was out of work, had five kids. They were hiring forest rangers and supervisors in Colorado. For 9 years he worked with CCC.

>>Michael Grant:
Triple C work is scattered all over the state. Give us some examples.

>>Michael Smith:
Even close to home here, South Mountain Park. I think it's probably putting too fine a point on it to say that our state parks and forests wouldn't
exist without the C's but South Mountain Park is a good example. Papago Park, Grand Canyon had at any one time six camps operating in the canyon and up on the rims. Petrified Forest, Walnut Canyon as we saw in the piece. All over the state.

>>Michael Grant:
And one of the things I've run into from time to time in rural Arizona, a lot of erosion control feature, reclamation and resource protection.

>> Michael Smith:
Predominantly forest but you have to remember this was the dust bowl. You had fellows coming in from Texas and Oklahoma. The work was played out and the camps at south mountain park in fact were originally housed by Texas by way of Colorado.

>> Michael Grant:
Give me a profile of people involved in the CCC.

>> Michael Grant:
Generally 17-28 years old. That upper end is fairly uncommon. Normally they were in the realm of late teens. They typically had to be on the relief rolls for their community. They would be enrolled. One good example, one was processed through the camp at south mountain, put on a train and within a day or so he was working at the camp in Prescott. 30 Bucks went home. The magic of that thing was these kids didn't need the 30 bucks in the middle of the forest, their families
needed the money. In addition to creating work and some good training, we got the money back to the families where it was going to do some good.

>>Michael Grant:
Ultimately, 3 million passing through the civilian conservation Corps?

>> Michael Smith:
the figures are hard to pin down. So many guys would go in one state and might reenroll in another state. I have heard stories of fellows that would reenlist under an assumed name, go in as thin brother or change their -- as their brother or change their first name. Once they learned they could learn a trade and get an education at night in the camp, they realized what a chance it was for them.

>>Michael Grant:
Then a lot of them were absorbed into the Army after Pearl Harbor.

>> Michael Smith:
Yes. Many times I have heard fellows say when they got to the induction center, the sergeant would ask if anybody had been in the CCCs. Anybody that had been would be made a squad leader, they realized they had been in a military atmosphere, knew how to make their bed in the morning.

>>Michael Grant:
Michael Smith, thank you for joining me.

>> Michael Smith:
Thank you very much.

>>Michael Grant:
Every Monday on "Horizon" we are featuring a new Arizona Story next Monday, we travel to Wickenburg to visit the Desert Caballeros Museum.

>> Paul Adkinson:
School choice could get a major boost by a couple bills, one would create tuition vouchers. Another would allow businesses to get a tax credit for giving to a tuition scholarship organization. School choice, Tuesday at 7 on "Horizon".

>>Michael Grant:
Wednesday, as the April 15 tax deadline looms, we'll fill you in on some last minute tax tips. Thursday, our monthly discussion with Governor Janet Napolitano. Friday, join us for the Journalists Roundtable. Thanks very much for being here on a Monday evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.



Father Jack Spaulding:Pastor, St. Gabriel's Parish;Jeffrey Wilson:Director, School of Health Management and Policy, Arizona State University;Bob Mittelstaedt:Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University;

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