  |
 |
 |
NRCS Home
About Us
News
Programs
Technical Resources
Partnerships
Features
Contact Us
|
|
|
|
 Hugh Hammond Bennett. 114G-90020 National Archives-College Park |
The 1905 survey of Louisa County, Virginia, in particular, profoundly
affected Bennett. He had been directed to the county to investigate declining
crop yields. As he compared virgin, timbered sites to eroded fields, he became
convinced that soil erosion was a problem not just for the individual farmer but
also for rural economies. While this experience aroused his curiosity, Bennett
recalled that Thomas C. Chamberlain’s paper on Soil Wastage presented in 1908 at
the Governors’ Conference in the White House that “fixed my determination to
pursue that subject to some possible point of counteraction.”(2)
Bennett wrote increasingly about soil erosion in the 1920s for an array of
popular and scientific journals such as North American Review, Country
Gentleman, Scientific Monthly, and the Journal of Agricultural Research. He was
establishing himself as the USDA expert on soil erosion and was recognized as
such. His campaign received quite a boost, when Henry G. Knight, Chief of the
Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, placed Bennett in charge of a special study of
the extent of soil erosion and methods of control, effective January 1928.
Bennett’s travels around the country and studies provided grist for his articles
and talks. He succeeded in arousing national attention where others had failed.
Among his writings of the 1920s, none was more influential than a 1928 USDA
bulletin coauthored with William Ridgely Chapline titled Soil Erosion: A
National Menace. Bennett expressed the motivation for his later actions: “The
writer, after 24 years spent in studying the soils of the United States, is of
the opinion that soil erosion is the biggest problem confronting the farmers of
the Nation over a tremendous part of its agricultural lands.” The bulletin was
not a manual on the methods of preventing soil erosion; rather it was intended
to draw attention “to the evils of this process of land wastage and to the need
for increased practical information and research work relating to the problem.”(3)
Bennett followed up momentum gained from the bulletin and well-placed magazine
articles with a campaign for a national soil erosion program. He knew the few
soil erosion researchers at the state agricultural experiment stations.
Important as their investigations were, the experiments covered only a few spots
on the vast agricultural landscape. In Bennett’s mind a national program of soil
erosion was needed. Bennett’s ally in cause, A. B. Connor of the Texas
Agricultural Experiment Station, enlisted the aid of Representative James
Buchanan, who inserted a clause in the USDA appropriations bill for fiscal year
1929-1930 that authorized the soil experiment stations. (Eventually the stations
would be renamed soil conservation experiment stations.)
Bennett was disappointed that some of the funds were allotted to the Forest
Service and the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering (BAE). Despite this
disappointment he sought out locations and cooperating states who usually
contributed the use of land for the stations. He designed much of the research
program and supervised the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils researchers at the
experiment station. Bennett’s new position was “in charge [of], soil erosion and
moisture conservation investigations,” when the New Deal administration of
Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) arrived in Washington, D.C.(4)
A PUBLIC WORKS PROGRAM TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY
FDR and the architects of the New Deal acted early in the
administration to provide work for the unemployed through federally funded
projects. Coincidental to providing employment, these wages would prime the
local economic pump; and, it was hoped, bring the country out of the economic
depression. The public works legislation identified soil conservation as one of
its purposes. Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933 and on March 21st he
proposed to Congress that they create "a civilian conservation corps to be used
in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to
forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects.”(5)
 President Franklin Roosevelt visited with CCC enrollees near Camp Roosevelt on August 12, 1933 at Big Meadows, Skyline Drive, Virginia. Seated from the left are Maj. Gen. Paul B. Malone, Louis M. Howe, Harold L. Ickes, Robert Fechner, FDR, Henry A. Wallace, and Rexford Tugwell. 35-GE-3A-5 National Archives-College Park. |
Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work legislation on March 31,
1933. As the Federal agencies sorted out their responsibilities the Forest
Service in the USDA assumed general supervision of a small number of Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC) camps that worked on soil conservation. Prior to the
creation of the Soil Conservation Service in 1935, the CCC worked predominantly
on public forest and park lands.
The CCC addressed only a segment of the unemployed, young men aged 18 to 25;
consequently there remained the need for a broader public works program. The
Federal Emergency Relief Act (May 12, 1933) provided direct relief to states.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet and “Brain Trust” – FDR’s personal advisors – continued
crafting a Federal public works bill. Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the
Interior, had suggested to FDR that conservation of natural resources be among
the objectives of the bill. He confided the following in his diary on May 16:
I made two suggestions as to this bill which met with
the approval of the President. The first was that there be a definite revision
made to include conservation of natural resources among the objects of the bill;
and the other was instead of appointing an independent Public Works
Administrator, the new official be assigned to some department.(6)
 Henry Agard Wallace. LC-USZ62-49956. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress. |
Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture, discussed potential public works projects with some of his staff. On May 30th, he advised Samuel H. McCrory, Chief of the BAE, that he had talked to the President “about the matter of getting some of the public works money for erosion control. The president seems to be very much interested in the general problem of erosion but time did not permit getting any detailed views from him as to action under the public works bill.”(7)
Title II of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), enacted on June 16, created the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. All powers of the new administration were to be exercised by the Federal Emergency Administrator of Public Works, who could establish new agencies, utilize Federal and state employees, and appoint employees without regard to civil service laws. In keeping with the Ickes suggestion, FDR appointed the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (USDI), to the dual post of Federal Emergency Administrator of Public Works on July 8th.(8) Among the eligible purposes enumerated in the act were the “conservation and development of natural resources, including control, utilization, and purification of waters, prevention of soil or coastal erosion, development of water power…”(9)
It seems likely that FDR needed little persuasion to include soil
conservation as a purpose of the Act given his interest in forestry, erosion,
and conservation. He had carried out reforestation and soil conservation work on
his estate at Hyde Park, New York, and on his small farm near Warm Springs,
Georgia. As governor of New York, FDR had hired some of the state’s youth to
reforest abandoned farm land purchased by the State. His personal life and
public career indicate that not only would he be receptive to the idea, but also
that he would have arrived at that thought independently.
Within the USDA, some bureaus were already thinking about public works projects
that could be funded under the bill then being drafted and making its way
through Congress. Before the bill was signed, the BAE had formulated a plan for
a national terracing program for erosion control. The BAE proposed that it
supply the technical direction, while the State administrators in the new public
works agency would administer the program and employ a supervising engineer for
each State. The Federal government would supply the terracing equipment while
the farmer signed an agreement to provide the labor, power, and future
maintenance. The state extension services could help farmers form cooperating
organizations to facilitate the agreement process. Rexford G. Tugwell, acting
for Secretary Wallace, forwarded the plan to the Administrator, Federal
Emergency Administration of Public Works on June 9. Secretary Wallace had penned
a note on the outgoing letter. “I have had this matter of expenditure of Public
Works money for erosion control [brought] up with the President and he is very
much interested."(10)
JOHN COLLIER AND CULTURAL PLURALISM ON THE
RESERVATIONS
Simultaneously, another USDA branch was cooperating with the Department of the
Interior on soil conservation. The Bureau of Chemistry and Soils and their soil
conservation expert, Hugh Hammond Bennett, had come to the attention of John
Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, through Secretary of Agriculture
Wallace. Wallace soon had plans for Mr. Bennett to use his conservation skills
to help Collier in his mission to preserve and perpetuate Native American
cultures.
Before the New Deal, Collier was active in Indian affairs and had been critical
of Federal Indian policy and the Office of Indian Affairs. He was a potential
candidate to be Commissioner of Indian Affairs, but so too was Harold Ickes.
During the presidential campaign, Ickes had sought support among fellow
progressive Republicans for FDR and aspired to be Commissioner of Indian
Affairs. Collier and others persuaded him to seek the Cabinet post of Secretary
of the Department of the Interior. Collier, perhaps the leading advocate for
reform of government policies toward Tribes, wanted to lead the Office of Indian
Affairs himself. Ickes was certainly sympathetic toward the Tribes, but Collier
regarded him as too inexperienced in the area and temperamentally unsuited to
the job of reform.(11)
Collier’s selection as Commissioner of Indian Affairs revolutionized government
policy toward Tribes. For most of the late 19th and early 20th century, Indian
policy promoted assimilation into American society. Collier’s experiences,
especially an epiphany at Taos Pueblo, converted him to cultural pluralism in
which Tribes perpetuated and strengthened their unique cultures. Retaining their
land base and economic viability was critical to the success of cultural
pluralism in Collier’s view.(12)
In viewing the potential for the reservations to support a viable livelihood,
Collier and Ickes focused first on the Navajo reservation for some obvious
reasons. The 16 million acre reservation was about one-fourth of the acreage in
all reservations, and the Navajo were one-sixth of the native population of the
United States.(13)
The Navajo had adapted their economy and culture to the sheep, goat, and horse
introduced by the Europeans. After the Navajo release from captivity at Bosque
Redondo and Fort Sumner and their resettlement in New Mexico, the U.S.
Government supplied about 15,000 sheep and goats and distributed food, seed, and
implements. From 1870 to the beginning of World War II, the Navajo population
grew from around 10,000 to 50,000. Their livestock increased from a few thousand
to more than a million at times and the reservation was expanded from 3.5 to 16
million acres. By the 1930s many familiar with the Western range, including the
Navajo reservation, thought it had suffered land degradation from periods of
overstocking.(14)
HUGH HAMMOND BENNETT AND COOPERATION OF BUREAU OF
CHEMISTRY AND SOILS WITH THE OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
John Collier’s eldest son and assistant in the Office of Indian
Affairs, Charles W. Collier, took on the mission of identifying the people to be
consulted on conserving and rehabilitating the reservation lands.(15)
Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace suggested cooperation with Hugh
Hammond Bennett and others in the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils.
On or before May 24, 1933, an employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, probably
Charles Collier, met with Bennett, W. Ridgley Chapline of the U. S. Forest
Service and Frank Craighead of the Bureau of Entomology, and sought their advice
concerning erosion problems on the reservations. According to Collier’s notes,
Bennett believed erosion on the Dakota reservation could be “economically
controlled,” and offered to send George W. Musgrave, director of the erosion
experiment station at of Clarinda, Iowa, to investigate and make
recommendations. Concerning Oklahoma, Collier reported that Bennett “believes
that it would be very profitable to undertake erosion control in almost
unlimited amounts.” Bennett recommended H. G. Lewis, director of the Red Plains
Soil Erosion Experiment Station at Guthrie, Oklahoma, and endorsed even more
strongly, Dr. Nathaniel E. Winters of the Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment
Station. Winters was a State, not a Federal employee, but Bennett thought it
might be feasible to get him assigned to the Federal project. Winters, a Kansan,
had the added advantage of partial Indian ancestry.
The complement of erosion experiment stations that Bennett supervised did not
include a southwestern station, and the group discussed the possibility of
establishing one. The idea of an experiment station would find favor with the
Office of Indian Affairs group. After the meeting Bennett departed for a
five-day fieldwork trip and his supervisor, Dr. A. G. McCall, chief of Soil
Investigations in the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, wired Musgrave and Lewis to
prepare for travel to the reservations.(16)
DISCUSSIONS ABOUT SOIL CONSERVATION ON THE NAVAJO
RESERVATION
Prior to asking Secretary Wallace to arrange a meeting of the
primary parties in USDA and USDI, the Office of Indian Affairs met with Bennett
and McCall several times. Wallace called on Henry G. Knight, Chief of the Bureau
of Chemistry and Soils. Knight held the meeting in his office on June 8th, and
it included John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Charles W. Collier,
Assistant to the Commissioner, and Jay B. Nash, Special Assistant to the Indian
Commissioner. Attending from the USDA were Knight, McCall, and Bennett of the
Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Attending from the BAE were Samuel H. McCrory,
Chief, and Lewis A. Jones, Division of Drainage and Soil Erosion Control.
William Ridgely Chapline, who had coauthored Soil Erosion: a National Menace
with Bennett, and who was in charge of range land investigations for the Forest
Service, also attended.
At the meeting Collier and colleagues expressed an interest in developing a
research station to study erosion problems on reservations in the Southwest.
This idea probably developed from the earlier discussions with Bennett and
others. For this reason, Bennett, with his experience setting up the soil
erosion experiment stations, was a logical collaborator. Additionally, Collier
saw the station as an educational center to which Navajos would travel for
instruction in soil conservation methods. Knight understood the objective would
be to develop “local leadership among the Indians themselves.” The group decided
that a team of representatives from the Office of Indian Affairs and USDA would
meet at Harvey Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico on June 26 to study the conditions,
especially the areas of eroding land. The group would select tracts where
various known control measures would be utilized.
The Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, at the request of the Office of Indian
Affairs, assumed leadership of the project and Bennett was made chairman of the
committee.(17)
IImportantly, the proposed cooperation had the enthusiastic support of Secretary
of Agriculture Wallace. He responded to Knight's report on the meeting. “Thanks
for your prompt and thoroughgoing cooperation with Commissioner Collier and his
associates. This work has my very great interest and it is a pleasure to see how
you have responded to the suggestion of cooperation.”(18)
John Collier cleared the plan with Secretary Ickes, who was "powerfully
interested” and Collier expressly asked that Bennett serve as “informal chairman
of this composite groups."(19)
  Photographs attached to "Report of the Conservation Advisory Committee for the Navajo Reservation, July 2, 1933." File 1-275, Central Classified Files, RG 48, National Archives-College Park. |
Late in June 1933, the committee met at the Navajo Reservation. Bennett
represented the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. C.E. Ramser, Senior Drainage
Engineer, represented the BAE. Ramser also had researched and written on
terracing and gully control techniques. Representing the Forest Service was C.K.
Cooperrider from the Southwestern Forest and Range Experiment Station, who was
also in charge of the erosion and streamflow research.
During the brief tour Bennett noted observations in his field diary about range
conditions, erosion, and grazing by goats and sheep. Bennett met the people
knowledgeable about reservation conditions and collected oral tradition stories
about changes in land conditions and the names of other contacts that could be
helpful. Some of these people such as E.A. Johnson, forester for the Office of
Indian Affairs at Albuquerque, would later work with SCS on the range program.
Bennett noted citations for further reading such as the works of anthropologist
Alfred Louis Kroeber and Ancient Life in the American Southwest by Edgar Lee
Hewett. Toward the end of the trip when he was no doubt looking forward to
writing the committee report, Bennett stated what he termed “The Problem,” in
his field diary, “We find that the Navajo Indian Reservation has suffered so
seriously from overgrazing that range areas now have little present value.”(20)
NAVAJO TRIBAL COUNCIL APPROVES EXPERIMENT STATION
John Collier called a meeting of the Navajo Tribal Council at
Fort Wingate on July 7 and 8, toward the end of Bennett’s trip. It was Collier’s
first appearance before the Council as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The
reformer and outside critic was now center stage at the meeting of the Council
and another 1,200 Navajo Tribal members. Indian Service officials from the
Southwest and Washington, who had previously been the objects of Collier’s
criticism, attended. Collier’s primary objective for his first meeting with the
Council was approval of the experiment station. Bennett spoke to the Council and
emphasized the erosion that had taken place and the need for experiments and
education.(21)
The next day, July 8, the Council approved the government’s selecting a
representative area for the “Erosion Control Station.” The resolution stated
that “unless sound plans for the control of this erosion are developed and
carried into practice without further delay, the greater portion of the
reservation will be damaged beyond repair.”(22)
After approval, CCC crews started fencing the area at Mexican Springs almost
immediately. Bennett had chaired the committee that wrote the report on the
conservation work needed on the reservation. The committee report became the
blueprint for the action program that Collier proposed to Secretary Ickes.
ASSISTANCE TO OTHER INDIAN RESERVATIONS
While Bennett traveled to the Navajo reservation, some of his
experiment station superintendents traveled to other reservations and wrote
reports to the Office of Indian Affairs on the erosion conditions and needed
conservation methods. George W. Musgrave, superintendent of the Clarinda, Iowa
station surveyed the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations. Musgrave explained
that the reservations were “so large and the problems so diverse that a minimum
of several days seems necessary to do anything like an adequate job.” Musgrave
assured the Office of Indian Affairs staff that the entire soil survey division
staff, including director A. G. McCall, were interested and would “endeavor to
give to you the very best possible service.”(23)
J. M. Snyder superintendent of the erosion experiment station at Statesville,
North Carolina, wrote a report on erosion conditions on the Cherokee
reservation.(24) H.G. Lewis of the Guthrie, Oklahoma station was an advisor on the Indian Civil
Conservation Corps camps in Oklahoma. He wrote a technical bulletin "Emergency
Conservation Soil Erosion Control Work on Indian Lands in Oklahoma.” The request
from John Collier was giving McCall, Bennett and the experiment station
superintendents an opportunity to achieve one of their objectives, seeing that
their research findings were utilized.
ALLOTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS FUNDS FOR SOIL
CONSERVATION
Ickes typically sought FDR’s personal endorsement
of projects approved by the Special Board for Public Works. On July 17, 1933 the
board allotted $5,000,000 for soil erosion prevention work on public and private
lands under the direction of the Public Works Administration.
McCrory and
Lewis A. Jones, head of BAE’s Division of Drainage and Erosion Control, believed
that their Bureau would be given leadership of the erosion control project. The
project would be operated as outlined in their plan of June 9, which had been
sent forward a week before the NIRA was signed.(25)
Acting on the same supposition, USDA’s Daily Digest of news stories on July 25
reported on the allotment of $5,000,000 for soil erosion prevention. It quoted
the Special Board for Public Works as saying the plan ”provides for the practice
of terracing, which agricultural engineers have found to be the most effective
means of controlling erosion.” Funds were to be allotted to the States in
proportion to their cultivated acres.(26)
As it turned out, the announcement was premature. In early June as the Colliers
were meeting with USDA officials, but before the passage of NIRA and before the
committee had studied the Navajo reservation, Samuel H. McCrory, Chief of the
BAE, drafted a plan that called on the Federal Emergency Administration of
Public Works to fund a national terrace-building program. In the letter that
Acting Secretary Rexford Tugwell sent to Harold Ickes, USDA recommended that the
BAE be designated “to handle the administrative and engineering features of this
work.” Secretary Wallace penned a note to the outgoing letter. “I have had this
matter of expenditure of Public Works money for erosion control up with the
President and he is very much interested.”(27)
BUREAU OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING PROPOSAL AND
BENNETT’S ANGER
The announcement of the BAE’s proposal evidently touched off the
episode recounted in Wellington Brink’s Big Hugh and in Rexford Tugwell’s
Roosevelt’s Revolution: The First Year – A Personal
Perspective. Tugwell was writing more than forty years after the
incident and Bennett’s recollections were obviously the source for Brink’s
account. While somewhat different in details, the two accounts comport in the
essential elements.
 Rexford G. Tugwell. LC-USF344-003738-ZB. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress. |
In an agitated state, Bennett ignored protocol and went straight to the
Assistant Secretary’s office, where Tugwell invited him in. Tugwell had the
various plans laid out on his desk. He tried to assure a skeptical Bennett that
he, Tugwell, had planned to consult Bennett before making a decision. The two
knew each other, at least through correspondence, before Tugwell–a professor of
economics at Columbia University–became Assistant Secretary on March 7, 1933.
Tugwell also served in FDR’s “Brain Trust,” the personal advisors selected more
for their expertise and commitment than for their political connections and
acumen. Bennett had supplied material on soil erosion for Tugwell’s
American Economic Life and the Means of Its Improvement.(28)
Both Bennett and Tugwell, from their different perspectives had come to view
soil as a kind of public trust.
Reacting to the national terracing proposal, Bennett repeated his familiar
arguments for interdependent, mutually supporting practices for soil
conservation. Terraces certainly contributed to soil conservation when designed
properly and when built on the appropriate soils. However, terraces were no
panacea, and should be supported by strip cropping, contour plowing, crop
rotations and grassed waterways. The soil conservation experiment station under
Bennett’s supervision had been researching soil-conserving efficiency of all
these practices. Furthermore, Bennett feared that this propitious moment for a
national soil conservation program might be squandered if a narrow approach were
taken. As recounted through Brink, Tugwell agreed saying "That sounds reasonable
to me," Tugwell agreed. "I'll see what I can do to direct the use of the money
approved by the public works board under Secretary Ickes.” Further Tugwell
assured Bennett that he would have a leading part in the program.(29)
PLANS OF THE OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS
Another problem with the national terracing plan was that it did
not seem to accommodate the work John Collier wanted done on the reservations.
Collier requested $2,500,000 for work on the reservations which would be handled
by The Office of Indian Affairs, “rather than through the Department of
Agriculture.”(30)
Collier remained enthusiastic about Bennett. In response to an inquiry he wrote
to Congressman Will Hastings, “I have seen a good deal of Dr. Bennett in recent
months and have developed the highest regard for him.”(31)
Collier understood that improved range management, in addition to water
development and control of erosion, would be needed on the reservation. He saw
the wisdom in Bennett’s interdisciplinary approach, and heartily recommended him
to Ickes to head up the soil erosion work. John Collier assessed Bennett thusly,
“He sees the matter steadily and whole, and is not an engineering fanatic nor a
re-seeding an ecological fanatic nor an animal husbandry fanatic.”(32)
TUGWELL’S INFLUENCE
Rexford Tugwell’s actions confirm the assurances given to
Bennett in their meeting. Tugwell held a conference on July 24 and directed
changes in the Bureau of Agriculture Engineering plan which had been submitted
to Ickes on June 9. The revised plan bears Bennett’s handiwork. The work would
be limited to approximately ten large areas where, “Terracing, strip-cropping
and seeding to permanent pastures are to be the principal control measures
employed on the crop land, with possibly some tree planting on the steepest and
most severely washed slopes.” Each project would include specialists in
agronomy, engineering, range or forestry and other disciplines. The outline
generally fit with the future organization of the demonstration projects that
Bennett would initiate as director of the Soil Erosion Service. Also, the idea
of large work areas accommodated Collier’s plans for the Navajo Reservation. The
Navajo Project was destined to be the second demonstration project initiated and
the largest in real extent of all the projects.(33)
Tugwell had influence with the President and with Secretary Ickes. Ickes would
soon be making his ill-fated case to Roosevelt to evolve the Interior department
into a Department of Conservation that would necessitate transferring the Forest
Service. Ickes regarded Tugwell’s ability highly and hoped to entice him to
assume the chief administrative position in the new Department of Conservation.
Given the conflicts in USDA over supervision of the soil conservation work,
Tugwell recommended placing the soil conservation operation, based on Bennett’s
plan, in the new Public Works Administration. Tugwell thought Ickes had agreed
to this arrangement. While on a trip in the West, he was surprised to learn that
Ickes had placed the new Soil Erosion Service in the Department of the Interior
on August 25.
Tugwell was more successful in recommending the first director. He favored
Harlan Barrows, professor of geography at the University of Chicago. Barrows
taught courses in conservation and natural resources and, reputedly, the first
course in historical geography in the United States. True to his word, Tugwell
passed along the suggestion to Barrows that Bennett should have a prominent role
in the organization. At Ickes request, Barrows travelled to Washington where
Ickes offered him the job on August 30, 1933.(34)
After conferring with the Dean of the Physical Science Division and the
President of University of Chicago, Barrows declined the job.(35)
Ickes, dismayed at the delay, wrote to Wallace; “I am anxious to have this
matter undertaken at once, as I know you are, and I regret the delay due to our
waiting for Dr. Barrows, since, in the end, his decision was in the negative.
How about H. H. Bennett of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, of your
department?”(36)
SELECTION OF HUGH HAMMOND BENNETT AS DIRECTOR, SOIL
EROSION SERVICE
Secretary Wallace called Bennett in to discuss his transfer to
the Soil Erosion Service and they reached an agreement that it was best he take
leave without pay from USDA while working on the soil conservation project.
Bennett asked that a number of the specialists at the experiment stations under
this direction be detailed to the work, and Wallace agreed. Although the job had
initially been offered to Barrows at Tugwell’s suggestion, Wallace assured Ickes
that “I have the feeling that Mr. Bennett is the best qualified man available to
take over these duties. He has devoted more study to the problem of erosion than
any other man in the country…”(37)
Bennett prepared a plan for the new service, and discussed it with Ickes on
Saturday, September 16.(38)
The following Monday Bennett wrote Ickes trying to persuade him that the best
name for the agency would be the Soil Conservation Service. Bennett favored the
more optimistic, positive term. The term in fact more accurately described the
interrelated methods used to conserve and improve soils, not just hold them in
place. Ickes would not relent and Bennett became Director, Soil Erosion Service
(SES). The Soil Erosion Service was moved to USDA at President Roosevelt’s
direction in March 1935 and an act of Congress on April 27, 1935, created the
Soil Conservation Service.(39)
Wallace’s assessment that Bennett was the best-qualified person to lead a
concerted Federal action for soil conservation was correct. Preparation and
opportunity intersected in his selection as Director of the Soil Erosion
Service. The events of June through September of 1933 were particularly
decisive, demonstrating the role of contingency in historical developments. In
this case those events were critical to the history of the Soil Conservation
Service and Hugh Bennett’s recognition as the father of soil conservation.
Biography of Hugh Hammond Bennett
- April 15, 1881 - July 7, 1960, The Father of Soil Conservation
Quotes from Hugh Hammond Bennett - Publications and
Lectures
Speeches of Hugh Hammond Bennett
Article References
1. SCS was renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service as a result
of the Federal Crop Insurance Reform and Department of Agriculture
Reorganization Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-354).
2. Hugh H. Bennett, The Hugh Bennett Lectures
(Raleigh: North Carolina State College, The Agricultural Foundation, 1959), pp.
12-13.
3. Hugh. H. Bennett and William. R. Chapline,
Soil Erosion A National Menace. U.S. Department of Agriculture
Circular No. 33 (Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928, pp.
20-23.
4. The first part of the essay is based on Douglas Helms, “Hugh Hammond
Bennett,” In Press, Modern American Environmentalists
(Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press).
5. Cong. Rec., 73rd Cong., 1st sess.,
77:1, 650, 659-660.
6. Ickes Diary, May 16, 1933, Papers of Harold L. Ickes, Manuscript
Division, Library of Congress. Hereinafter cited as Ickes Diary.
7. Henry A. Wallace to S. H. McCrory, May 30, 1933, File 3-20-C Soil
Conservation, General Correspondence, 1931-39, Records of the Bureau of
Agricultural Engineering, Record Group 8, National Archives and Records
Administration-College Park, Maryland. Hereinafter the following abbreviations
will be used: RG for Record Group and NARA for National Archives and Records
Administration.
8. Executive Order No. 6198, July 8, 1933.
9. 48 Stat 195, 201.
10. Rexford G. Tugwell, Acting Secretary, to Administrator, Federal
Emergency Administration of Public Works, June 9, 1933, File 19414 – 1933 –
Control of Erosion - 344, Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian
Division, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, RG 75, NARA—Washington, D. C.
11. Donald L. Parman, Indians and the American
West (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) pp. 92-93.
12. Parman, Indians and the American West, pp. 76-77.
13. E. R. Fryer, “The Navajo Service.” pp.1-8.
Proceedings of the First Navajo Land Management Conference, March
2-6, 1937, Falstaff, Arizona, pp. 1-8, Soil Conservation Service Region Eight
Records, Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico.
14. Solon T. Kimball and John H. Province, “Navajo Social Organization in
Land Use Planning.” Applied Anthropology
4(Number 1, 1942): 19-20.
15. John Collier, From Every Zenith: A Memoir and
Some Essays on Life and Thought (Denver: Sage Books, 1963), pp.
237-238.
16. “Report on interviews with H. H. Bennett, W. R. Chapline, and Frank
Craighead. (Stamped received in Bureau of Indian Affairs, May 31, 1933. Jay B.
Nash, Director, Indian Emergency Conservation Work wrote to A. G. McCall on May
24, requesting Musgrave’s and Lewis’s assistance. The meeting took place on or
before that date). File 19414 – 1933 – Control of Erosion - 344, Records of the
Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division, RG 75, NARA-Washington, D.C.
17. Knight to Wallace June 9, 1933, File 37017, General Correspondence,
Records of the Bureau of Soils, RG 54, NARA-College Park.
18. Wallace to Knight, June 14, 1933, File 37017, General Correspondence,
Records of the Bureau of Soils, RG 54, NARA-College Park
19. John Collier to Wallace, June 10, 1933, Records of the Civilian
Conservation Corps - Indian Division, 194141 - 1933 - Control of Erosion – 344,
RG 75, NARA—Washington, D. C..
20. Navajo Dairy, Hugh Hammond Bennett Papers, Southern Historical
Collection, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
21. Donald L. Parman, The Navajos and the New
Deal (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), p. 42.
22. Navajo Tribal Council Resolutions, p. 151.
23. Musgrave to J. B. Nash, June 29, 1933, File 19414 – 1933 – Control of
Erosion - 344, Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division, RG
75, NARA-Washington, D. C.
24. A. G. Rice to A. G. McCall, October 10, 1933, File 19414 – 1933 –
Control of Erosion - 344, Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian
Division, RG 75, NARA-Washington, D. C.
25. Lewis A. Jones to S. H. McCrory, July 19, 1933, and Jones to C. E.
Ramser, July 20, 1933, File 3-20-C Soil Conservation, General Correspondence,
1931-39, Records of the Bureau of Agricultural Engineering, Record Group 8,
NARA-College Park.
26. Daily Digest, Vol. 50, No. 20,
July 25, 1933. Copy in Civilian Conservation Corps - Indian Division, 194141 -
1933 - Control of Erosion – 344, RG 75, NARA-Washington, D. C.
27. Rexford G. Tugwell, Acting Secretary, to Administrator, Federal
Emergency Administration of Public Works, June 9, 1933, File 19414 – 1933 –
Control of Erosion - 344, Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian
Division, RG 75, NARA—Washington, D. C.
28. Some colleges had adopted the book as a text but dropped it when
Tugwell became the lightening rod for critics of the administration’s land and
agriculture policies.
29. Wellington Brink, Big Hugh: The Father of
Soil Conservation (New York: Macmillan, 1951), pp. 82-84; Rexford G.
Tugwell, Roosevelt’s Revolution: The First Year, A
Personal Perspective (New York : Macmillan, 1977), pp. 246-249.
30. Ickes, Federal Emergency Administrator of Public Works to Colonel
Waite, August 9, 1933, File 1-275 Soil Erosion, Central Classified Files,
Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, RG 48, NARA-College
Park.
31. John Collier to William Hastings, July 28 1933, Chronological File,
John Collier Papers, Microform of the original papers in Yale University
Library. Sanford, N.C.: Microfilming Corp. of America, 1980.
32. Douglas Helms, “Hugh Hammond Bennett,” in press,
Modern American Environmentalists. (Johns
Hopkins University Press).
33. Memorandum in Regard to Erosion Control Project of the United States
Department OF Agricultural Under Authority of the National Industrial Recovery
Act, July 31, 1933, File 1-275 Soil Erosion, Central Classified Files, RG 48,
NARA-College Park.
34. Ickes Diary, August 30, 1933, Page 253.
35. Harland Barrows to Rexford Tugwell, September 1, 1933,
“Positions-Outside,” General Correspondence, Records of the Office of the
Secretary of Agriculture, RG 16, NARA-College Park.
36. Ickes to Wallace, September 3, 1933, “Positions-Outside,” General
Correspondence,” RG 16, NARA-College Park
37. Wallace to Ickes, September 12, 1933, “Positions Outside,” General
Correspondence, RG 16, NARA-College Park.
38. Ickes Diary, September 16, 1933.
39. Bennett to Ickes, September 18, 1933, File 1-275 Soil Erosion, Central
Classified Files, RG 48, NARA-College Park
|
|
Back to Top