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this year, it received its third grant. For over a year now, it has been serving about 32,000 students in southwestern Minnesota. The pri mary objective of this center is to provide cultural experiences for students and other members of the rural communities that are not normally available because of the geographical remoteness of our area, Experiences are in the fine arts, including performances by symphony orchestra musicians, mobile art exhibits, touring dramatic productions and so on.

The fulfillment of this project's second objective will be to find a general upgrading in appreciation for and instruction in the fine arts. One of the reasons I think this has met with such widespread enthusiasm is because it is a locally conceived program, planned and prepared by people who know the problems of our community. It had a limitation. It was not a perpetual grant. We have received the last bit of money that we are going to get. From now on, our program has to stand on its own two feet in our community. I think those are strong points that ought to be considered.

Mr. RESNICK. Thank you.

Mr. Zwach?

Mr. ZWACH. I have no more questions.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Olson, I would like to ask you, just a matter of information. In my district, I have one daily paper and 22 weekly papers. I note that you put out a biweekly newspaper?

Mr. OLSON. It should be semiweekly instead of biweekly. Semiweekly is twice a week. That was a typographical error on the front sheet here.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. What days do you put your paper out?

Mr. OLSON. Wednesday morning and Saturday morning.
Mr. MONTGOMERY. Thank you. I was just interested in that.
Mr. RESNICK. Thank you very much.

Our next witness, after our recess, will be Mr. Philip H. Young, who is field representative for Appalachia, National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

(Short recess.)

Mr. RESNICK. Come to order.

STATEMENT OF PHILIP H. YOUNG, STAFF MEMBER, BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, you have before you a 15page mimeographed statement, which I assure you I have no intention of reading in its entirety.

Mr. RESNICK. If you would like it put in the record—

Mr. YOUNG. Yes, sir.

Mr. RESNICK. With no objection, it will be entered into the record. (The prepared statement of Mr. Young follows:)

STATEMENT OF PHILIP H. YOUNG, STAFF MEMBER, BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Philip H. Young. I am a staff member of the Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. with field responsibility for Appalachia. I am also currently serving as the

President of the Council of the Southern Mountains, Inc. I lived for many rears in Hazard, Kentucky and at present reside in Blacksburg, Virginia. My lenomination is a constituent member of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

The National Council of Churches is composed of thirty-four Christian comnunions, whose aggregate membership was 42,500,000 at last report. No one could speak for all of these people, and I do not pretend to. I am speaking for the Division of Christian Life and Mission based on policy approved by the General Board. This Board is the representative governing body of the National Coucil of Churches, and is composed of 255 members chosen by the member communions in proportion to their size and by whatever procedure each sees fit. No one can speak for the General Board of the NCC without authorization by the General Secretary and without a very explicit basis in policy adopted by the General Board after a rather lengthy and democratic process of preparation. In behalf of the National Council of Churches, I appreciate this opportunity to bring to the attention of the subcommittee on Rural Development of the Committee on Agriculture of the United States House of Representatives its concern for rural development and the effects that various government programs have had in rural communities.

Having contributed far out of proportion to their population number to the total wealth and prosperity of the nation and the world, rural people now in turn must experience full development.

As early as June 4, 1958, the General Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. demonstrated its hope that the pressing needs of rural people would be considered by issuing a pronouncement on "Ethical Goals for Agricultural Policy." This statement included the following:

"Poverty is often crippling to human personality. The fact that many farm families could not achieve adequate levels of productivity and income even during the decade of comparative farm prosperity following World War II makes it clear that both their situation and the national interest call for national programs designed to assist them to higher levels of living. General farm organizations, farmer co-operatives, and government should be encouraged to develop programs which will enlarge the opportunities for low-income farm families to earn adequate incomes and achieve satisfactory levels of living either on or off the farm, as the sound basis for wholesome personality growth."

In spite of this declaration, the captive poor exist in ever increasing numbers throughout the United States and particularly in rural areas. Indian Americans, Spanish speaking Americans, Negro Americans, Southern white Americans and all the structurally unemployed and underemployed Americans challenge the myth of American affluence.

Altogether there are some 67 million people who live in the small towns and country areas (under 10,000 population) of the nation. The hard reality is that one-third of the nation's population includes over one-half of the nation's

poor.

Warren H. Wilson in his early pioneering days of the rural church movement recognized a relationship between the economic status of the people of a community and the effectiveness of their church. He saw the need of integrating the church with a better living for the people of the land. He linked arms with economic improvement agencies in providing adult education through institutes and conferences to achieve better living for rural people.

This historical approach to rural community problems has been expanded in the Rural Development Program of the USDA which began in 1955 on a pilot basis in fifty low income counties. This approach now currently incorporated in such units as the Rural Community Development Service of the USDA has great validity. However, without sufficient funds or personnel, the necessary and full planning by multicounty units has as yet not occurred.

The National Council's efforts to raise the issues surrounding the problems of poverty and the need for rural development have given rise to many comprehensive policy statements and resolutions. The texts of statements are available regarding economic growth, area development, employment and wages, income maintenance, food and clothing, health services, housing, family life, minority racial problems, farm and agricultural problems, migrant workers, children and youth, public assistance, and many others. A recent statement, "The Concern of the Churches for Seasonal Farm Workers," was adopted by the General Board

on December 3, 1966. Included in this statement was an emphasis on a ministry of legislative action, and specifically calling for: (1) Inclusion of farm workers under the provision of the National Labor Relations Act and accessibility to the services of the National Labor Relations Board. (2) Adequate funds from federal and state sources for education of migrant children, day care services. health services, housing and sanitation facilities, and other welfare service needed to overcome the special disabilities suffered by seasonal farm workers. (3) Expansion of available vocational training and placement services as are required to re-train and relocate farm workers who are displaced by mechanization and urbanization.

"In a spirit of concern and love, we express our conscientious conviction or the plight of agricultural migrants in the United States. We believe that re sponsibility for improving their conditions must be shared by many persons and groups-growers, workers, consumers, labor unions, governmental agencies, and residents of sending and receiving communities."

Since 1920 Churches of America have cooperatively carried on an expanding ministry to the millions of these workers and their families who constitute the nation's seasonal farm labor force. The "Migrant Ministry" includes a far-flung field service program sponsored by the Church Women United and the Division of Christian Life and Mission of the National Council, state councils of churches, and state and local migrant committees, and a number of denominational agencies. This service involved both full-time and part-time professional staff numbering in the hundreds as well as volunteers in excess of 10,000 persons each year.

The special problems of rural Spanish speaking Americans, and particularly in Texas, have been indicated by Leo D. Nieto of the Migrant Ministry in Texas: "Next to urbanization the most notable trend in Texas population is a 'fanning out' of Mexican-American people from Southwest Texas to virtually all parts of the state. Cities hundreds of miles from the Rio Grande had experienced huge Latin population gains. County-seat towns in Central and North Texas with little or no Latin population until recently now find that they have a growing seg ment of Spanish-language citizens.

"Many persons are hardly aware of an increasing number of new neighbors who wish to share the good life available in their home towns. As a rule, the Mexican-Americans who are settling down in cities and towns remote from the border are somewhat more acculturated and more easily assimilable into their new communities than if they were new to Texas. Actually, many of them are long-time residents of the state and probably are second- and third-generation Texans. But it should be borne in mind that most of them have always been economically and educationally deprived. They have moved to a new community in the hope of greater employment and a better chance. (It was the residents of states east of the Mississippi who came to Texas during the days of colonialism and early statehood seeking land and greater opportunities.) Economic and social conditions today are very different: basic human needs are virtually unchanged."

The Good Neighbor Commission of Texas in their 1966 report on Texas Migrant Labor point out:

“During 1966, a year of diminished total production due to acreage restrictions, the use of the machine in the cotton harvest is estimated to have displaced over 208,000 workers in Texas. Similarly, machine harvesting of vegetables probably displaced about 10,000 workers that formerly worked in those crops. Despite the fact that many localities in which vegetables are grown have available surpluses of hand labor, machine harvesting has made progress even in some vegetables: canning spinach, for example, is now 100 percent machine harvested, sugar beets 100 percent, bush beans 75 percent, and carrots 25 to 50 percent.

"The average yearly income from farm labor and the migrant worker has been reported at less than $1000 over recent years, and every year it is becoming increasingly difficult for most of them to find steady employment. As a conse quence, they must travel farther for fewer days of work. Since these workers are not generally skilled in other work and cannot readily be absorbed in industry or the services, they will become under-employed to an increasing degree from now on. This, in turn, poses a serious problem to the Texas communities where they have their homes, as these communities are entirely unprepared to sustain, by themselves, the large numbers of unemployed with which they will be faced."

The so called "settling out" from the migrant stream of farm workers are creating some of the worst rural slum areas in and adjacent to rural towns and

nall cities throughout America, with major emphasis on the west coast and estern portions of the country. The changing nature of agriculture through inreased mechanization, thus decreasing the need for hand labor, and the woeilly inadequate resources of most of the receiving communities, makes at least No major developments mandatory:

(1) A training and retraining program for former migrants to prepare them dequately for participation either in the mechanized agricultural industry or ther occupations, and

(2) The development of industries in widespread rural areas which will proide wage work opportunities. In this regard considerable effort should be exended to attract those industries whose demands for labor might be somewhat easonal in nature, thus allowing for possible correlation to the needs in seasonal arm work.

It should be noted that many spokesmen in the farming enterprises are calling or such industrial development, recognizing the impossibility of the agricultural adustry to much longer carry the full economic load in their communities. Such projects as the St. John Baptist Parish Farm Bureau educational and revocational training program for 120 underemployed seasonal farm worker eads of households, at Reserve, La. need to be encouraged. The highly successul Migrant Opportunity Program, OEO, in Arizona has demonstrated such need. Another highly effective and rewarding approach to the problem of adult educaion and training and placement has been demonstrated by the Valley Migrant League in Woodburn, Oregon.

The Migrant Health Act has proven itself to be the most successful program or the relief of misery among agricultural migrants that is in existence today. Migrant Ministry reports contain many accounts of individuals-children and dults-who have received much needed medical care as well as countless situaions in rural areas which have been relieved through the efforts of federally unded Migrant Health projects. However, we need to bear in mind the fact that his act came into being in 1963, and has built upon experience.

Of equal importance in the life of the rural poor are the anti-poverty projects of the Economic Opportunity Act. Under Title IIIB, Child Care Centers, Literacy, Adult Education Housing, Sanitation may be added to the job training mentioned above. They are proving highly successful in their benefit to migratory farm workers. The Elementary-Secondary Education Act, as it gets underway, is offerng to children in rural areas the educational advantages that will help provide for hem equal opportunities.

It would be tragic to curtail these programs just as they are becoming effective. Many projects failed in the beginning because of the inexperience and lack of training of directors. As leaders gain expertise and the poor receive training in working with their own people we are convinced that the expansion of such projects is of the utmost importance.

Somewhat similar situations pertain to American Indians, where we are witnessing the phenomena of hundreds of Indians either living in abject poverty on Reservations, or moving out of Reservation areas and attempting to make a living off reservation communities. While many of these are in large metropolitan areas such as Chicago and Los Angeles, in many cases they are found in distressing slum areas in and adjoining the small cities and towns adjacent to the Reservations. Here again, community resources are taxed beyond limit-job opportunities are all but non existent. Skills for the few jobs available are inadequate. We note with appreciation that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has responded to this situation through the efforts of their Branch of Industrial Development, urging industries to decentralize and establish branch plants on or near Indian reservations. Many successes have been achieved, but many agree they are all too limited. While they have begun to meet a need, an even greater contribution has been the demonstration of the feasibility and helpfulness of such a development and approach. We can point to such places as La Guna, New Mexico, the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico-Arizona, and the Pine Ridge Reservation where the general Indian society and life ways have been greatly altered for the better because of wage work opportunities.

The plight of the small farmer and the sharecropper have also been of great concern. Sustained adequate income is essential both as a requirement of justice for farmers and of stability for our total economy. Because of their ineffective and powerless bargaining positions, farmers do not participate in the growth of the economy except in times of extreme demand. We have encouraged general

farm organizations, cooperatives, and the creation of programs designed to assist these persons to earn adequate incomes and achieve satisfactory levels of living. The problems which face the minority group persons living in rural areas are far more difficult to define and attack than those of the urban resident. Our own observtions of rural poverty across the country have led us to believe that this group lives under the worst conditions with the least hope of finding solutions to their problems of any group in this country.

It was in recognition of this fact that the Delta Ministry of the National Council of Churches was initiated. This attempt to assist the poor-primarily rural-in Mississippi has had the support of the churches throughout the world as well as many secular agencies. One of the learnings which we have gained from active involvement in this situation is that there is a culture of poverty which stifles initiative and creates a hopelessness of despair. Although we are not yet certain that we have any answers for breaking through this attitude we believe we have some clues. It is clear that organization which begins with the poor and which responds to their concerns is one way of beginning to break through. We have been involved in a number of educational, welfare, health, and developmental projects and programs in Mississippi which we feel may be patterns for future action. Daily contact with scores of the most poor indicate to us that a crisis is impending. A particular problem has arisen because of the changeover from food commodity distribution to the food stamp plan. Although the food stamp plan has much to commend itself, under the present guidelines it would work an undue hardship upon those who have no cash to purchase the stamps.

100,000 more people in Mississippi will be out of work in 1967, according to the noted USDA analyst, Dr. Calvin Veale of Washington, D.C. This loss of work is a result of further mechanization in cotton. Many of those out of work will be permitted to remain on the plantations, but will have no cash income. The changeover from the distribution of surplus commodity food to the purchase of food stamps will result in further suffering for the multitudes of the poor in Mississippi. Unless cash is provided or the payment waived, the people will go hungry. To protest this inequity, a rally of 800 people occurred in January at Cleveland, Mississippi. On April 14, a team from the USDA heard testimony and received over 100 affidavits from people who have no cash income.

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. has consistently expressed its concern for public assistance programs. In a policy statement adopted by the General Board on June 4, 1958, it was stated:

"The primary objective of public assistance programs is to furnish monetary assistance to persons in accordance with the determined degree of their economie need.

"For the people dependent on all of these programs there is universal need for an improvement in the standards of assistance so that health and decency may be maintained. The churches have a vital role to play in raising these standards, and churches need to work for the elimination of all inequitable and punitive policies."

People who have seen the food stamp program in action say that these things sometimes happen:

Store owners sometimes accept stamps only for the most high-priced brands.

Retail prices often are raised on the days when stamps are being traded. Public meetings to explain the program to poor people are not held as the federal government says they should be.

County supervisors do not tell poor people that they have voted to have food stamps instead of commodities.

People are told they will lose their welfare checks if they do not sign up for stamps.

The Rev. James F. McRee, of 341 Cameron, Canton, Mississippi, President of the Madison County Movement, has stated:

"People don't have money to purchase stamps. Not as many people buy food as received surplus commodities. I would estimate two-thirds of the people who received commodities can't afford stamps. Some people can't buy stamps even on a two-week basis because they don't have the money to buy the stamps on any regular basis. If you don't buy the stamps twice in a row, you are told you have to re-apply. A lot of people just quit the program completely because they would rather let it go than mess with the red tape."

Mrs. Mildred Cosey, route 2, Box 10-B, Vicksburg, Mississippi, testifies:

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