of your investigation, gentlemen. Is this not the subject of the Sermon on the Mount? Fifteen million Spanish-speaking Americans need your help. And I am one of them. (The prepared statement of Mr. Chavez follows:) STATEMENT OF DENNIS CHAVEZ, JR., NEW MEXICO Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Committee: I appreciate the opportunity to be heard, but I am sick at heart, for on the way here, I passed by father's statute in the Rotunda of the Capitol. On the plaque are engraved words in English, Spanish, and Navajo. The English version says generally that he was a friend to all but he championed the poor. The Spanish citation translation says that he left an illustrious path so that others might follow. The Navajo version was told to an old Indian trader by an Indian medicine chief when my father died: "We are destitute; our voice is gone." I am sick because the cause for which my father fought all of his life required a lawles act in order to focus the attention of the nation on the plight of those bumble people whom he loved. This took place at Tierra Amarilla. The group was led by a man now called "King Tiger". My father would writhe in his grave at the thought of tanks and helicopters, heavily armed state police and countless armed sheriffs deputies and national guardsmen being employed against his people. They terrorized innumerable little villages in search of two dozen persons. They placed 18 old, humble people and a 16 year old girl in a cattle pen. There is a Tiger stalking this land. It is not Reics Lopez Tijerina, gentlemen. It is hunger, lack of education, lack of jobs. It is a lack of hope. These people are not looters, arsonists, killers. They yearn for lands on which their ancestors cut wood for their homes and on which they have grazed their sheep for generations. These people have witnessed a great social revolution by another minority when the Supreme Court integrated our schools. They have seen other minorities attain positions of power and honor. Since statehood came to New Mexico, they know there has never been a Gonzales, a Chavez or a Montoya appointed to a cabinet post or solicitor general or assistant secretary since 1912. They know that there have been appointed three Federal Judges and two Ambassadors in this same period. Only when they had the votes and the help of understanding non-Spanish speaking Americans have they elected a Gonzales, a Chavez and a Montoya. They want to be heard-they are tired of being catspaws-they can no longer be taken for granted. The so called revolt in Tierra Amarilla was quelched by Guardsman's tanks and state police and deputies. The so-called revolt was over in two hours-imagine the threat to our security-the danger to our country. In Texas they used the Texas Rangers led by Captain A. Y. Allee, the fastest gun, who is a known killer, a professional Mexican hater whose saying is, "Shoot first and talk later," to maim and pistol whip Spanish speaking Americans to pick melons for the entrenched growers at 40¢ an hour. In 1948 Governor Coke Stevenson, running in the primary against L. B. Johnson for the Senate, sent this notorious killer and his Texas Rangers to Jim Wells County, to burn ballot boxes when he knew that 97% of the vote was Spanish speaking. In California the growers use Goons against a National Union of the A.F.L. C.I.O. to force Mexican American farm workers to work for peon wages. Tierra Amarilla is symptomatic and I thank God for Tiejerina. I don't condone his actions but to charge him and 9 others including a 16 year old girl with kidnapping which could bring the death penalty is ridiculous. 15 million Spanish speaking Americans want to enter the main stream of American life. We, and I am one of them, want respect for our rights—we want respect for our dignity. We want to participate in the life stream of this country. Human dignity and human rights are the subjects of your investigation, entlemen. Was this not the subject of the Sermon on the Mount. 15 million people need your help. Mr. RESNICK. Well, thank you, Mr. Chavez. As one who admired your father, I certainly appreciate your coming, appreciate your statement. I further would like to add that I appreciate that you understood vhat I was trying to say to the other witness. It was not a question of whether or not the States should turn to the Federal Government for help. It is that when that help is available, somebody ought to see the rural areas get it. The cities do very, very well. Rural America does not. So if the pot is $100 million, I think the way it works out, $90 nillion goes to the cities, $10 million might go into a rural area. This s the point I was trying to make with Mr. Crangle. And even in planning, which we all know does not involve very much money-even in planning, rural America gets shortchanged. The point that I was trying to make was very simple. This office of planning did not even go into rural counties and tell them about what services were available. I have to agree with your statement 100 percent. I do not condone violence in any sort of way. I think it is the tragedy of our times that the only way people seem to get attention is through violence. It is a tragedy of which I think we are going to see more. But the only way you get the attention that is needed to get the reforms is through violence. It is a terrible thing. Your coming down here has been very helpful. Speaking for myself, I think that one of the things that these hearings pointed out is the plight of the Spanish American. They have been forgotten; and their problems overlooked. This is one of the results. I would like now to yield to my colleague, Mr. Montgomery. Mr. MONTGOMERY. I would like to thank the gentleman for appearing before the committee today and also for having his mother, who I believe he said was in the audience, with him and I thank him for his sincere statement. I have no questions. Mr. RESNICK. Mr. Goodling? Mr. GOODLING. I do want to make the same observation. You have made a fine statement here. I cannot completely agree with one statement. You say your people do not have a voice in Government. Mr. CHAVEZ. No, Mr. Goodling, I do not say our people do not have a voice in Government, because they do. They have Senator Anderson, our senior Senator. They have Senator Montoya. They have Congressman Morris and they have Congressman Walker. The Navajo said, when my father died, we had been left destitute, we have no voice in Washington. Now, if you are talking about administrative positions in Government, I wish you would question me all day, because I can cite everythere has never been a Cabinet officer, there has never been an Assistant Secretary, there has never been a solicitor in a department, there has never been other than two judges-three judges. My uncle resigned judgeship as Federal judge in Puerto Rico. Now, there are two judges in Texas and that is all. We have two ambassadors, Mexican-American ambassadors, one of them by the name of Garza, the other by the name of Telles, from El Paso. We have another one just appointed and if the Senate confirms him, and I have no doubt that they will, we will have three. Now, that is five appointments, for God's sake, for 15 million people. Now, what was your question about that, sir? Mr. GOODLING. The only point that I was trying to make is that both Congressman Gonzales and Senator Montoya are respected men and they are Mr. CHAVEZ. No question about it, sir. But I said it was until they were elected by the Spanish-speaking voter and the understanding and considerate, non-Spanish-speaking American citizen, when they were elected by these people, then we had a voice in the Congress. But I am talking about administrative positions in Government. Now, if you have any questions about that during any administration, I would be glad to answer them. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. RESNICK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chavez. I would like to announce the witnesses for tomorrow. Mr. Ross D. Davis, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development; Mr. Roger Fleming, secretary-treasurer, American Farm Bureau Federation; Frank H. Murkowski, commissioner of economic development, State of Alaska. I would also like to announce at this time that with permission of our distinguished chairman, Congressman Poage, we will have additional hearings on July 10, 11, 12, and possibly the 13th. They will commence at 1:30 p.m. Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Chairman, if we run a little ahead of time tomorrow, I have a statement-in other words, rather than getting people not to come up here, I would like to read a statement and put it in the record. I would like to read it, though. Mr. RESNICK. I will be very happy to have you read that at the outset. We are recessed until tomorrow at 9:30. (Whereupon, at 11:30, the subcommittee recessed.) EFFECT OF FEDERAL PROGRAMS ON RURAL AMERICA WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1967 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:35 a.m., in room 1302, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Joseph Y. Resnick (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Resnick, Nichols, Montgomery, Goodling, and Zwach. Also present: Hyde Murray, assistant counsel; Francis M. LeMay, staff consultant; and Martha Hannah, subcommittee clerk. Mr. RESNICK. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Rural Development of the House Committee on Agriculture will now come to order. At this time, we will hear from the Honorable Ross D. Davis, Assistant Secretary for Economic Development of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Secretary? STATEMENT OF HON. ROSS D. DAVIS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I come before this committee at a very appropriate time, in this sense, that Secretary Freeman is currently on a trip which he describes as a look, listen, and learn trip, which is taking him and his party through parts of Iowa, Mississippi, Alabama, and Indiana. He invited me to go along and I did. I was able to participate in this look, listen, and learn program in both Iowa and Mississippi. In Iowa, we traveled in four or five counties around Ottumwa, and in Mississippi, we traveled from Greenville through Scott, Cleveland, Mount Bayou, Clarksville, Batesville, and I left at Oxford, Miss. This was a particularly useful experience for me as a deskbound bureaucrat and a city boy as well. One of the things that was brought home to me is the identity of interests between the economic development activities of the Department of Commerce and those of the Department of Agriculture. I was, Mr. Chairman, extremely impressed by the many representatives of the Department of Agriculture who briefed us on this trip. It was quite evident that the Department of Agriculture has been instrumental in producing massive improvements in farming technology and in the quality of rural life. I also was struck during this trip by the changes in agricultural activity that have taken place to date and the changes that are projected for the future. And, of course, what we see, at least in those parts of the country that I was privileged to visit, is an acceleration of the change from a labor-intensive activity to an essentially capital intensive activity. More and more farming and related activities are handled by machines, and the need for labor is steadily and rapidly decreasing. One of the side effects of this Mr. RESNICK. You mean the need for farm labor? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, sir. One of the side effects of this is the change in the character of the family farms. As I am sure you know and as one might expect, the family-sized farm is becoming increasingly large in order to take advantage of the potential for mechanization and to make a profit on increasingly slim area between cost and sales prices. I got the definite impression that the Department of Agriculture is constantly reevaluating its role and objectives. This particular trip consisted not only of officials from the Department of Agriculture. but also officials from the Department of Commerce, from the Department of Transportation, from HUD, Labor, OEO, and SBA and other agencies as well, including the Bureau of the Budget. Now, what this seems to say is that the dimensions of the problems of rural development are changing, and we have an increasing recognition of the identity of interests between the so-called rural populations, the so-called urban populations, and those who reside and work in between. Secretary Freeman, as you know, often speaks of the need for a better rural and urban balance, and I think that his trip and some of the things that may come out of it are one more evidence of an effort to reappraise where we are going generally and what we should be doing in rural, semiurban, and urban communities. With your permission, I should like to turn now to my testimony, which makes many of these points. Rural development can take many forms. It can bring to our rural communities many amenities and advantages found in urban areas. It can increase the efficiency and productivity of our farmers. Or through the process of "economic development," it can diversify rural economies, creating jobs and increasing income for those workers who are being displaced by the pace of technological change and the patterns of national growth. I should like to discuss the process of economic development in the following terms: 1. Economic development will not succeed if it is merely viewed as a program to bring jobs to the farm. Raising incomes or creating new employment opportunities on substantial scales requires a change in the whole pattern of rural life. To achieve the benefits of economic development, we must be prepared to pay the necessary costs-social as well as economic. 2. Economic development through industrialization requires an intensive as opposed to an extensive production organization. In other words, it requires a certain degree of "clustering" of people and the |
