Job Corps Quotes
This quotation is one of the few times where history helped to implement policy. President Johnson & Singletary, a historian and ex University of Texas Chancellor, has decided that Camp Gary at San Marcos would serve as the first Job Corps urban center; enrollees from 6 different states were to be sent. The youth would be living in integrated quarters in proximity to San Marcos, whose citizens were concerned for the safety of their area and the virtue of their daughters. But most of the opposition was racial. One group to go was 100 youth from Memphis. Connolly’s staff had recommended that he veto the Tennesseans, and he sent a communication to Singletary asking him to withdraw the Memphis contingent as prevention to his veto. The phone was silent for a minute after Singletary’s statement. Then the governor replied, “We Texans are a lot of things but we are not ungrateful. OK we’ll take the Tennesseans, Otis, but make sure that they are nice boys and not too uppity.” History had won.
When her husband was vice president she was at a Job Corps center to speak, but was asked by the press about rumors that her husband has been involved with another woman:
This statement was part of the historical and philosophical underpinnings of major public works programs as public employment programs such as the Job Corps, CCC, WPA and the like.
Fogleman came out of retirement at the request of Air Force General Bernard Schriever, Commander of Air Force Systems Command, which was responsible for acquiring all missiles. He oversaw 40 percent of the Air Force budget most of which was spend on procurement contracts with companies. Schreiver wanted an experienced business man to oversee his procurement. In 1964 Foglemen volunteered to start up and train the procurement department for Sargent Shriver, President Johnson’s designee to direct the War on Poverty. 210 Job Corps Centers had to be constructed and corporations hired to operate the largest ones—all within a two year span. Fogleman faced the same problem where the Federal officials responsible for the Job Corp had very little business experience. He was very successful and persuaded Shriver and his key staff to hire a cadre of people with business experience and pay them at the high end of the Federal pay scale. The unit met the President’s deadline and obtained great prices, making exemplary use of taxpayer’s money. Fogleman retired for the third time, and after a few years the Job Corps was transferred to the Labor Department and the typical government procurement staff and norms began to operate. Forlleman and General Schreiber were unable to institutionalize Fogleman’s methods and after the General retired, the command that had been so effective for a few years, reverted to standard DOD procurement. See {634893} for a quotation of one of Fogleman’s trainees on military procurement.
This was one of the early suggestions for providing jobs for the unemployed to work at developing the national infrastructure. In this case if highways and the river could be improved, transportation would allow goods to be reach more of the country cheaper. The CCC and the Job Corps of America would use a similar reasoning for public employment.
The Labor Department never would commit to a recommendation. The Job Corps leadership examined the insufficient data and made their best guess which for the most part turned out to be right as the Job Corps was the most effective youth job training program in the history of the country. It and Head Start were the only two of the anti-poverty programs that were still operational into the 21st century. Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand expressed the same idea more generally in {482001}.
