of enthusiasm and dedication, and this program for a small amount of money will harness that enthusiasm and dedication? Mr. FORBES. That puts it very well. It took me a long time to try to say it. Senator BURDICK. I have one more question. As publisher and editor of one of the leading financial magazines of the country dealing with investments, would you consider this a good investment in the United States? Mr. FORBES. If it had stock on the market, I would like to buy some. Senator WILLIAMS (presiding). I certainly regret that I could not be here, Mr. Forbes, for all of your statement. As a matter of fact, I had a meeting with the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Cary, and abbreviated the meeting to get back here to hear you. I think it is significant that you come from an economic world where circumstantially it might be thought you would not be interested in this kind of program. Yet you certainly are. This, I think, is one of the keys to the nobleness of this program. People of thoughtfulness, whatever their occupation or walk of life, know that there are great human needs and know that there are many people who want to volunteer to help meet these needs. I think you are a graduate of Princeton, are you not? Senator WILLIAMS. There was a great deal of publicity given to some of the aberrations of the Princeton boys a couple of weeks ago. I looked below the surface to see what the Princeton University students are doing constructively and it is a great record. The unheralded, untold story of the good work that these university students are doing in hospitals in Trenton, in some of the other institutions in the State, proved to me the truth of what we are saying in this bill, that we have, without headlines telling us, a great reservoir of people of of thoughtfulness and understanding and sympathy who would very willingly give a year or two of their time to this kind of work. I have not been here but I am sure that is the story that you have been telling us. Mr. FORBES. Thank you very much, Senator. As I say, you and I have shared somewhat similar backgrounds in terms of our interest in public affairs. In this bill I gather there are difficulties, too. There seems to be some apathy and, secondly, the fear of more Federal activity. It seems to me that the essence of this program should appeal to those whom I know so well and who are normally, I would say with justification, critical of some Federal activities. It should appeal to them as the type of thing and interest that they should be enthusiastic for and should encourage because it might be a means of meeting admitted problems, not with vast spending but by harnessing this tremendous reservoir as has been so effectively done by the Peace Corps. So I hope your efforts are most successful and, if there is anything I and a lot of others can do, we will be glad to do it. Senator WILLIAMS. I am grateful to you. Thank you very much. Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Senator. Senator WILLIAMS. We now recess the subcommittee until our meeting next Tuesday when Secretary Celebrezze will appear. (Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene Tuesday, June 4, 1963.) NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1963 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS, OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 4221, New Senate Office Building, Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Williams (presiding) and Tower. Subcommittee staff members present: Frederick R. Blackwell, counsel; Harry Wilkinson, associate counsel; Woodruff Price, research assistant; George Denison, minority associate counsel; and Robert Locke, minority research assistant. Senator WILLIAMS. The subcommittee will come to order and again we will return to our consideration of the bill, S. 1321, a bill to provide a National Service Corps and to strengthen community service programs in the United States. We are highly honored to have with us this morning the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Mr. Anthony J. Čelebrezze. We look forward to your testimony this morning with a great deal of pleasure, Mr. Secretary. STATEMENT OF HON. ANTHONY J. CELEBREZZE, SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Secretary CELEBREZZE. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be with you today to support S. 1321, the National Service Corps Act introduced by Senator Williams of New Jersey and 23 other Senators. In his special message on youth, delivered to Congress on February 14, 1963, President Kennedy called for the establishment of a National Service Corps consisting of, "A small, carefully selected volunteer corps of men and women of all ages working under local direction with professional personnel and part-time local volunteers to help provide urgently needed services in mental health centers and hospitals, on Indian reservations, to the families of migrant workers, and in the educational and social institutions of hard-hit slum or rural-poverty areas." The bill before you today is a significant and important measure which has as its aim the strengthening of community service programs in this Nation. My experience as mayor of a large city has impressed upon me the importance of stimulating commuunity efforts in areas of critical human needs. I have observed firsthand how much can be accomplished in projects such as neighborhood settlement houses working with young people, day-care centers for the children of working mothers, recreation and cultural centers for the elderly, and in programs such as "friendly visitor" services working with the sick and the disabled. Personal involvement of individual citizens working as aids to professional personnel in public and private programs plays a vital role in bridging the gap that separates many of our disadvantaged citizens from full participation in the life of the community. As Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, I am daily confronted with problems of unmet human needs in locality after locality and with trying to find ways of providing the community services to meet those needs. In virtually every program area, there are critical shortages of personnel to carry out needed services-shortages of physicians, dentists, nurses, social workers, teachers, and many other persons. The National Service Corps program would recruit skilled and dedicated persons who would be willing to give a year or two of full-time service as assistants in these professions. Past experience has demonstrated the value of both voluntary efforts and the use of aids to professional personnel in the development of health, medical, social, and educational services. Nowhere is there greater need for expanded services than among economically, socially, and physically disadvantaged persons-persons for whom the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has a special concern. I strongly support the bill pending before you today because it is based upon the following fundamental principles: (1) It would stimulate and implement-not supplant-local community efforts. (2) No project would be undertaken without consultation with the local governmental authorities and interested nongovernmental groups and except by invitation from a responsible local public or private agency or organization. (3) Projects would be well designed by the local agency sponsoring it and would be considered in terms of longrun value to the community. (4) Careful evaluation of projects would be built into the program so that the experience of one community can be made available to other communities. (5) Projects would be designed so that after a period of time they would be fully taken over by a local sponsoring agency. It may be useful for the subcommittee to review a number of examples of the types of projects in the area of the Department's responsibilities in which the National Service Corps would be helpful. In health as well as in other fields, the United States today lacks adequate numbers of personnel to meet current and emerging needs of people. The Nation will have to tap all possible sources of trained manpower including part-time volunteers and full-time aides to the professional personnel. Service Corps members could provide valuable services in this area as aids to professional personnel in hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities. Expanded services are urgently needed in the fields of mental retardation and mental health. There are approximately 5.4 million mentally retarded persons in the population. There are about 600,000 resident patients in State mental hospitals in the United States. National Service Corps members could provide a wide variety of services to the mentally ill and mentally retarded both within and outside of institutions. They could assist professional staffs in mental hospitals in followup home visits, seeking boarding home facilities, and contacting relatives. They could work to strengthen educational programs for the mentally retarded under professional guidance. Corpsmen could provide human contacts-such as recreational services for mental hospital patients. There are 4 million children under 6 years of age whose mothers work, and all the licensed day-care centers in the entire country combined today accommodate only 185,000 of them. There is a tremendous need for more day-care centers in practically every metropolitan area in the country. Assisting local public and private agencies to develop and initially staff day-care centers would be useful work for National Service Corps personnel. The field of education offers valuable possibilities for Corps activity. Here, as in other fields, it is among the disadvantaged-the children of slum areas, for example that the greatest challenges to community action lie. The school dropout rate is highest in the lower economic levels. Forty percent of the pupils entering fifth grade do not graduate from high school. Nearly one-third of those entering ninth grade are high school dropouts. Studies of school children in the core cities of our 14 largest metropolitan areas have revealed that a third of them were so culturally deprived as to be incapable of learning by usual classroom methods. Only 31 percent of young people go to college-and this at a time when our whole economy rests upon mastery of complex technology. In schools located in slum areas or in economically depressed areas, a Corps project designed to deal with the school dropout problem could utilize corpsmen as special assistants under professional educational supervision to perform activities such as visiting homes of dropout pupils, working with community agencies on dropout problems, and maintaining close relationships with potential dropouts. Mature retired teachers, serving as corpsmen, could provide tutoring service, remedial reading courses, and guidance and counseling. There are an estimated 350,000 to 450,000 children under the age of 18 in migrant farm workers' families. More than half of these migrant children are from 1 to 4 years behind their age group in schooling. Their educational achievement is usually less than the fourth grade level. In rural localities having a large number of migrant children, corpsmen could provide services to farm migrant children, traveling with migrant groups and helping pupils adjust to new school or nonschool educational situations. They could assist in remedial work with children who are behind in school or who have language problems, or they could be assigned to regular school staffs during periods of large influxes of migrant children to assist classroom teachers with noninstructional responsibilities. The problem of adult illiteracy impedes the success of many programs aimed at the rehabilitation and restoration to independence and self-support of the disabled, the unemployed, and the underemployed. There are 8.3 million persons in the United States with less than 5 years of schooling; some 22 million with less than 8 years of schooling. 99-865-63- -7 These so-called "functional illiterates" lack the background for effective performance as citizens, employees, and parents. Illiteracy is a barrier which must be overcome before many disabled persons can be restored to gainful occupations. Lack of basic education is a major cause for the unemployed to be disqualified for retraining under the Manpower Development and Training Act. In some areas, volunteers have undertaken programs to combat the problem. The National Service Corps offers an excellent vehicle for stimulating and expanding such efforts. In our Federal-State programs of vocational rehabilitation, projects of the Corps may make valuable contributions as demonstrations in the vocational rehabilitation of the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, and the physically disabled. Projects of the Corps could do much to demonstrate the role of the nonprofessional in rehabilitation centers as case aids, in vocational halfway houses as houseparents and recreation workers, in rehabilitation workshops as shop assistants, and in a variety of other helpful capacities. I should like to point out that various program units of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare have professional experts, consultants, and technical staff that could be of assistance to working out sound Corps projects. Moreover, the work of the corpsmen should be undertaken in a way that would enhance the effectiveness of existing departmental programs by providing an essential person-to-person bridge between the professional staff and the people in the locality who need services. A vast manpower and womanpower resource, with wisdom, skill, and experience, exists in our elderly population. Many of these have now retired. Others will soon retire. Older people can bring to the Corps their wisdom, skill, and maturity. Among the men and women aged 60 and over, who will soon retire and are now active in the labor force, are: 126,000 schoolteachers; 36,000 lawyers; 3,000 dietitians and nutritionists; 18,000 college faculty members; 12,000 social, welfare, and recreation workers; 11,000 librarians; 32,000 physicians; and 43,000 professional nurses. There is a large amount of talent and experience among those retired people, who could make a major contribution to the Corps and at the same time inspire other older people to find a useful role in community activity. It is important to bear in mind that many of the helping professions shortages are partially explained by the fact that so many members of the professions are mature and able women who have dropped out of the labor market to marry and make a home. Among the elementary schoolteachers, 10 percent of the professionals drop out each year; among professional nurses, 5 percent. Thus, there exists. a large reserve of trained teachers, nurses, occupational therapists, and social workers, and a number of them would respond to a call to serve part time in their professional capacities. So long as shortages of qualified service personnel exist in the United States, local communities will have little difficulty in finding useful activities for Corps volunteers that otherwise could not be performed by currently available staff. Use of corpsmen need not conflict with intensified recruitment and use of other volunteers and paid staff. On the contrary, if appropriately organized, the Corps would pro |