My first assignment was the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was FDR’s brainchild. We’d done something similar in New York, but the devil was in the details. So while everyone else in the cabinet was still nodding in approval of the idea to send unemployed young men off into the wilderness with axes, I felt unsettled by what felt like a harebrained plan. “Mr. President, what are they going to do when they get to the woods?” “Well, you know,” Roosevelt said, hesitating to scratch his chin. “Do the work that has to be done with trees. We must preserve our forests. We must build dams to keep the
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