Wyoming, which are administered by the State parks commission for recreation. The man-years for these reservoirs will be in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation reports to you or your committee. The parks commission also has several historic sites, monuments, scenic areas, and such which could use quite a number of workers. If this would include supervision and technical knowledge, we could use 100 men through the summer months for 3 years. However, our budget would not handle this number of men unless supervisory personnel and technical workers were also available. Sincerely, HAROLD ODDE. Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, STATE OF WYOMING, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: Mr. Jiacoletti passed away March 7, 1964. The responsibility and authority of the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is restricted to the management of Wyoming's wildlife resources. Development projects within our prerogative include range improvement, habitat improvement for both game and fish, and some involvement in boating facilities, such as boat ramps, docks, buoys, etc. I am taking the liberty of forwarding a copy of yours to our State park director Harold Odde, at Shoshoni, and State Forester Carl Johnson, stationed at Cheyenne. They may wish to comment. Hoping this sufficiently answers your inquiry, I am, DEAR SENATOR NELSON: Your letter to our Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been referred to this office for comment. As you are aware, in most State forestry departments timber management practices are conducted on State lands and professional assistance is provided to the private forest landowner under various cooperative forestry programs such as the cooperative forest management program, Public Law 566 (small watersheds), tree planting under the section 4 of the Clarke-McNary Act and several others. In Wyoming we also extend these services to the private forest landowner. However, our primary purpose is to institute multiple use, scientific management on our State lands. In this management we do have a number of practices which could utilize the unemployed. We do have a problem, though, that you might want to be made aware of and perhaps this may only be peculiar to our State. We have had several counties designated for ARA assistance in order to employ the unemployed. In attempt. ing to use accelerated public works funds, some of our Federal agencies find they have to pay higher wages than is current in the area in order to obtain sufficient personnel to conduct their specific projects. This, of course, takes employees from the small industry who cannot compete with the wage scale or other considerations provided. Some of our forest industry also find that the unemployed group would rather draw unemployment compensation rather than work during the winter. In other words, they are working 5 or 6 months and "resting" on compensation for the remainder of the time. I cite these because it appears we are now obtaining legislation that makes it more profitable for an individual to become one of the unemployed. I do hope and urge your consideration of this facet in any legislation you are undertaking. We do realize there are many areas where employment is necessary, and perhaps legislation is the best method to meet the problem. To be specific, we are currently attempting to utilize our prison population on conservation projects. This has not reached fruition at this time, but should in the near future. We also could use additional help in other areas, but our State funds are limited. It is becoming more difficult to obtain “matching funds" from our State legislatures to meet the increasing number of Federal programs. Actually our program would be small should any program be instituted. Although we do have a very serious bark beetle infestation that is threatening to destroy a great deal of our commercial forest land in the Black Hills of Wyoming as well as South Dakota. Perhaps this might be one of our projects. I hope this will provide you with some insight of our planning and thinking. Should you desire more specific information, we will be happy to supply it to you. Very truly yours, CARL E. JOHNSON, State Forester. CITY OF LARAMIE, Laramie, Wyo., July 2, 1964. Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: I wish to apologize for the delay in answering your letter of June 12, in reference to conservation projects through municipal agencies. Here in Laramie the city is confronted with the shortage of available funds for such things as park developments, roadside improvements, etc. We could utilize workers in such development programs if the funds for such projects were available. Without special preparation it would be almost impossible to estimate the number of man-years required to complete these projects: In making a rough estimate, it would take approximately 15 man-years to complete these areas. I hope this information is of some value to your legislation. The agency that would conduct a program under the terms of the legislation, as specific information on what activity could be financed in the District of Columbia under the legislation you recently introduced, S. 2958, on the conservation of the human and natural resources of the Nation. The agency that would conduct a program under the terms of the legislation, as we would interpret it for the District of Columbia, would be the National Capital region of the National Park Service, which has responsibility for the adminis tration, maintenance, operation, protection, planning, and improvement of that portion of the National Capital Parks system located within the District of Columbia. This park system, which includes approximately 7,700 acres within the District of Columbia, is supported by funds carried within the District of Columbia Appropriation Act. This agency has developed a tentative plan for what might be done under such legislation if it were passed and funds subsequently appropriated for its execution. The proposed program is shown in tabular form in attachment I. There are certain significant facts that may create problems and of which you should be aware. We based these comments on the assumption that legislation is passed in time for the program to start in the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1965. Provision of job opportunities for unskilled people is a subject of general concern to the Congress. As you are aware, there is either pending or already in existence legislation that deals with this subject. Major programs that would be pertinent in that they might influence action under S. 2958 are: (1) The community work training program which has been proposed under the AFDC-UP program in the District's pending public welfare 1965 budget. (2) The District program under the President's antipoverty legislation. (3) The training programs under the Manpower Development and Training Act. Some doubtful areas exist that might or might not be included under your legislation in an urban area. The District, for example, has a Tree Division in its Department of Highways which has a responsibility for the care of trees on city streets and of certain terraced areas. Whether work on such areas could be included will need clarification. Financing within a local area budget will be a complication, even for approval of 25 percent of total program costs. In the District, for instance, submission is now being made to the Commissioners of the 1966 budget or that for the year July 1, 1965, to June 30, 1966. By October 1964, Commissioners' action on the Budget will have been completed for submission to the President based on available resources. Any new program has to compete as an added starter against this approved program which may have meritorious items already deleted due to a tight revenue situation. Chapter 1 of our annual report for 1962 and 1963 to the Congress discusses this problem. The above is particularly important since it illustrates how the need for local governments to secure local financing can slow down program acceptance even of desirable programs. A proper training program should be developed to go with any local program. The inclusion of training, which is a most promising feature of your proposed legislation, would mean that if a program providing an intelligent combination of on-the-job training plus a minimum of formal training could place some limi tation on program size. The complexity of training and the availability of personnel to conduct training would be a major consideration. Further, a need might exist for literary training of the new type now being developed under the Manpower Development and Training Act. You are probably aware of these matters but they are of such significance that we wanted to be sure that they were brought to your attention. If we can be of any further assistance, please let us know. Sincerely yours, WALTER N. TOBRINER, President, Board of Commissioners, District of Columbia. Attachment I. Possible expanded program of activity in the District of Columbia 1 This does not include man-years for training and other supporting activities. Source: Department of General Administration, Budget Office, July 22, 1964. 37-181-64——21 INTERSTATE COMMISSION ON THE POTOMAC RIVER BASIN, Hon. GAYLORD NELSON, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR NELSON: This is in answer to your letter of June 3, requesting information regarding the utilization of unemployed workers on conservation projects. This Commission does not have programs under which such workers are employed. We are strictly a factfinding, education, and advisory coordinating agency and do not have operational authority which is left to the member States. There are ample opportunities for the development of a program you envision in the Potomac River Basin. Many of the small communities do not have sewage systems or adequate water supplies. There is an opportunity to develop small stream valley parks in many of the communities in the basin which would not only protect these small feeder streams from trash and other pollution but would add substantially to the appearance and the recreational opportunities for people. As you may know, sediment is one of the most serious pollutants in the Potomac. Costs of removing this from the Potomac estuary I understand are in excess of $1 million annually. There are other costs which are not so easily measured, such as the effect on fish and other aquatic life, the esthetic and safety factor insofar as recreational use of the water is concerned. While the highway systems in the Potomac Basin are substantial contributors to this sediment, little is being done to correct this. In my judgment, such projects would be ideal for the type of employment you are contemplating. Very truly yours, CARL J. JOHNSON, PREPARED STATEMENT OF RAYMOND M. HILLIARD, DIRECTOR, COOK COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID My name is Raymond M. Hilliard, director of the Cook County Department of Public Aid, a county that includes the city of Chicago. In this position, I am responsible for a program that maintains on public assistance 273,072 persons at a monthly cost (July 1964) of $15,213,600. Of this number, approximately 50,000 are able-bodied persons who are on relief with their numerous dependents because they cannot find work they are capable of doing. For many reasons, hereafter set forth, I endorse the bill by Senator Gaylord Nelson, of Wisconsin, entitled "The Human and Resource Act of 1964" (S. 2958). It is a constructive act of "social invention." The situation in Chicago and Cook County convinces me that we are fighting a losing battle, unless we are as successful with social invention to cope with changing conditions, as we were with the industrial invention that changed living and working conditions for all of us. Unless we make a correct analysis and diagnosis of the factors controlling present conditions, particularly in our large cities and urban centers, we will not succeed greatly. Fortunately, we have seen the passage in the present Congress of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964—the so-called antipoverty bill-which can be con structive social invention. Along the same lines, I have been advocating the Youth Conservation Corps for 20 years past, because I realize that for thousands of youths in our cities-particularly those who were school dropouts and never had a job or a skill-there was nothing to look forward to except a lifetime on relief or in a reformatory or in jail, together with the probability that they would be the progenitors of a third generation of children on relief. For the same reasons of social invention, we have here in Chicago maintained industrial training and work for most of our able-bodied relief recipients and have also conducted literacy training for thousands of our relief people, because their lack of education is the prime factor in their unemployability. The sad fact remains, as will be set forth later, that in our great cities of today, such as Chicago, there simply will not be in the foreseeable future, enough real jobs to provide an honest livelihood for all the persons who need constructive employment-persons who have not enough education or enough usable skills particularly if they are older workers displaced by automation or for other reasons and need this employment now. It is in the light of this thinking and experience, that I wholeheartedly support Senator Gaylord Nelson's proposal, as embodied in the human and resource con servation act, which also has the merit of proposing the way to finance the program. May I refer to the most recent book by the very distinguished economist, Gunnar Myrdal: "Challenge To Affluence." In effect it is a challenge for "social invention" to keep pace with the new situations created by industrial invention. As the author says **** we shall discuss the economic and social consequences at home of the slow and unsteady growth of production in the United States. We will start out by a consideration of the high and rising level of unemployment and of the causes of this trend. This will bring us to the wider problem of poverty in the midst of plenty and of the operation of a vicious circle tending to create in America an unprivileged class of unemployed, unemployables, and underemployed who are more and more hopelessly set apart from the Nation at large and do not share in its life, its ambitions, and its achievements. "As this unutilized or underutilized substratum of the American people at the same time represents Americas greatest waste of productive resources, we will find that at this juncture of history there is a striking convergence between the American ideals of liberty and equality of opportunity on the one hand, and of economic progress on the other. Indeed, the chief policy means of spurring economic progress will have to be huge reforms that are in the interest of social justice." For the The growth in population alone would make us "run fast to stand still." This is particularly true among minority groups in cities and urban centers. Nation as a whole the population growth is: 1960_. 1964. 1970 1980 2000 180, 007, 000 192,072, 000 211, 430, 000 252, 066, 000 361, 947, 000 But this total gain in population does not tell the whole story. For example, in the city of Chicago, there is a predicted increase of nonwhite population between 1960 and 1970, of 362,000, while the white population of the city is decreasing because of the even larger number who have moved to suburban Cook County. The white population, moveover, is more convenient to the many industries which have moved out of the central city, while the nonwhite population is left stranded, thus intensifying its problem of unemployment. I will not attempt here to discuss the well-known effects of automation and the reduction entailed in jobs for the unskilled and semiskilled, which falls particularly hard on minority groups. Suffice it to say, that in the Chicago area, the steel industry, which is the largest single employer of labor, is actually using less labor to produce more steel than ever before. Again, there has been a great movement of industry and consequent displacement of labor, from the city to rural areas or even to distant points. For example, the stockyards, which until recently were great employers of unskilled or semiskilled laborers-even of totally uneducated laborers—have almost disappeared from Chicago and this movement effects most adversely the great Negro population. A more recent illustration of the trend to establish new industrial plants outside the city, is that of the Chrysler Corp. to establish a new plant in Illinois about 70 miles from the city on open farm land, so that the anticipated employment of 5,000 men will be of no benefit to the ready labor pool in Chicago, which consists of minority group people. Any person who would seriously propose a panacea for unemployment and more particularly for unemployment, complicated by racial or other prejudices, is not worthy of our attention. There are so many problems that there must be many different proposals each to fit a specific condition. Fundamentally, there are long range proposals whose effect on unemployment is certain, but which can be fully realized only after many years. In the front rank on such proposals, is the intensification of education all along the line-starting at a younger age; a longer school day and an all-year school (at least in urban areas); prevention of school dropouts, particularly until high school is completed; more validity and speed to vocational and industrial training; wide support for junior college and college attendance; and almost all other educational programs, because education is so fundamental. There are many other long-term and short-term programs for improving the unemployment situation, such as the new Antipoverty Act. This, and others, |