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to children of migrant workers. Thus the freedom of choice of the parents would be retained and any money appropriated by the Federal Government would be used for the purpose of implementing this basic constitutional right of parents. In order to obviate administrative problems, the parent in cooperation with school officials could prepare an affidavit indicating that he requested and his child received education in either a public or nonpublic school for a certain number of days. The school then could, as the agent of the parent, forward this affidavit to the Commissioner of Education, who, in turn, would reimburse the school for the public service rendered to the parent.

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This practice would in no way interfere with or involve State laws. would be no infringement on States rights, no attempt to circumvent a State constitution. Nor would it raise any Federal statutory or constitutional question On the contrary, the Federal Government would merely reimburse educational institutions for services rendered to parents of children who, under such legislation, are regarded as national citizens. This position is not without precedent. During World War II the Lanham Act authorized the Federal Works Administration to make loans or grants to public and private agencies for public services which included child care centers and educational services.

In summary, it is suggested:

1. The proposed legislation does not involve a substantial Federal interest. 2. If the Congress feels some action should be taken, both equity and precedent dictate legislation which would be administered through the public welfare agency of the State and which would adequately compensate public and nonpublic agencies for services rendered.

Hon. CLEVELAND BAILEY,

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY,
Carbondale, Ill., May 3, 1960.

Chairman, General Education Subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Washington, D.C.

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE BAILEY: One of the most disadvantaged groups of our population in respect to education is the children of migrant agricultural workEvidence of the need for legislation such as is proposed in H.R. 9872 and H.R. 10379 is formidable.

ers.

For a number of summers I worked with migrant farm laborers in Yakima County, Wash., and I have had personal charge of one study of migratory farm laborers in that county and of another such study in southern Illinois.

In the latter, two questions were asked in 1957 of farmers who employed migrants which may be of interest to you. The first was: What would you think of local schoolrooms being made available to migrants during summer fruit and vegetable harvesting for school instruction of their school-age children who don't work, and for nurseries for their younger children, thus making it easier for mothers to help harvest crops? The distribution of their responses is as follows:

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Had there been neutral wording of the question, I feel sure that a considerable number of the responses would have been less favorable.

The followup question was: If this were done, where should the money come from to teach and supervise these children? Including a few double answers, the distribution of responses was as follows:

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Some explained that local school taxes were already very heavy, and difficult for fruitgrowers, who operate on very close margins, to pay.

This is consistent with evidence from other areas in the United States that most local communities are unlikely to provide educational opportunities during summers for children of migrant farmworkers unless all or most of the cost is borne by the Federal or State Governments.

In this same study, the report of which is almost completed, we found that many school-age children in migrant families missed much school during the 1957-58 school year or had not attended at all. A majority were retarded one or more grades. We also found that relatively few attended school in more than one community during the year, no matter how often they moved. I hope this information may be of some help to your subcommittee and its staff.

Respectfully yours,

MELVIN S. BROOKS, Associate Professor of Sociology.

AMERICAN PUBLIC WELFARE ASSOCIATION,
Chicago, Ill., May 3, 1960.

Mr. ROBERT E. MCCORD,

Clerk, General Education Subcommittee, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. MCCORD: We appreciate the thoughtfulness of Mrs. Green in asking us to be reminded of the forthcoming hearings on H.R. 9872 and H.R. 10378. The American Public Welfare Association has long been concerned with the need for improving the opportunities for children of migrant agricultural workers. In our view these needs are for the most part related to adequate assistance when resources are exhausted; improved housing and living conditions; adequate income and conditions of employment; the protection of children employed in commercial agriculture; adequate medical and health care; and educational opportunities that are suited to the circumstances and requirements of these children.

I am enclosing a copy of our "Federal Legislative Objective, 1960," and call special attention to Objective No. 38: "Federal programs should provide more effective aid to help meet the needs of migratory workers and their families." We are pleased to have the opportunity to support legislative proposals which carry forward these principles.

Sincerely yours,

LOULA DUNN, Director.

Mr. BAILEY. The Chair has been advised that Senator Williams of New Jersey is on his way to the committee room and we will remain in session until he arrives. If any of the other witnesses cares to stay, we would appreciate your remaining and hearing Senator Williams' presentation.

Mr. BAILEY. The committee will resume hearings.

Since the testimony taken so far for the record shows the interest of the State of New Jersey, we will be interested in having testimony from a Member of the U.S. Senate from that State, also.

We have with us the New Jersey Member of the House and a member of this subcommittee, Mr. Thompson and up until a few minutes ago we had Mr. Frelinghuysen, also of New Jersey, a minority member. He has, however, returned to his office.

Senator, you may further identify yourself to the reporter and proceed with your testimony.

STATEMENT OF HON. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, JR., U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and my good friend, Congressman Thompson.

My name is Harrison Williams, Democrat, New Jersey.

That is normally included, is it not, the "D" or the "R"?

Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement I would like to submit for the record and perhaps I can save your time if I do not read it but just give some general observations I have made as chairman of the Migrant Labor Subcommittee of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee of the Senate.

I believe you are familiar with the fact that about a year ago the Senate Labor Committee did create the Migratory Labor Subcommittee for a study of the general problems of migrant labor and I had the honor to be named the chairman of the subcommittee. Following the creation of the subcommittee, and after I was named chairman, we had extensive hearings on many of the problems that we face in this part of our life in this country.

We have had extensive field hearings and field trips. One of the first things we observed was the lack of opportunity that most of our farm migrant children had for adequate education.

Of course, by the very nature of their migrant life, they just do not fit naturally into any normal school year.

They come to communities for a few weeks at most and some for even less than that. In many communities, the school population suddenly doubles for a short period of time and communities, having no opportunity to tax these people, are called upon to have plant and staff that has to take care of, sometimes, twice the school populaion they have the year around. Very few communities are equipped to meet this need. We have seen communities where there will be an average classroom attendance throughout the year of 40 students and during the harvest period of 4 or 5 weeks, suddenly the school classroom population will be 80 students, double the normal but with the same teacher, same equipment, same materials and the teacher becomes not a teacher, but a peace-enforcement officer.

It is in response to this and many of the other inadequacies of the educational opportunities of our traveling families in the farm economy that I came to introduce legislation similar to yours to deal with this problem and deal with it in three ways.

First, to help overburdened communities with operating moneys on the model of the impacted area legislation, which your bill also does; second, to provide moderate funds, modest funds, for summer education; finally, the provision of limited funds for a study of ways. for States to cooperate in a better system of correlating education.

I think that the summer school aspect of your program is one of its best features. It would deal not only with the woeful lack of education of these youngsters, but it would relieve families of the anxieties that arise out of idle children, unwatched children, during the summer months when the parents frequently-both mother and fatherare in the fields working on the crops. Where we have seen summer schools, it has been refreshing indeed to see how it has improved the entire family life not only bringing educational opportunities to these thirsting children, but raising the whole quality and tone of the life of the family.

I thing that this measure, modest as it is, is one of our most important humane programs that is before the Congress now, and I certainly hope that you are successful in seeing this measure passed through the committee and to the House. If it does pass, it will be

a major accomplishment although certainly modest in terms of money expenditure.

With that, I would conclude my statement and submit the full statement for the record.

Mr. THOMPSON. Senator, I would like to thank you for coming over and I would like to express my appreciation to you for the work you have done in this field. It is a source of tremendous pride to me, not only because you are from my State and have been in the Senate only a short time, and have already distinguished yourself as one of the greatest that we have had, but because of our own close personal relationship. I think that that is not the type of legislation which has a tremendous amount of appeal here for rather practical reasons and most of which are not very good.

I have not seen as much of the conditions under which these people live as you have, but in an earlier colloquy with Mr. Batt of Pennsylvania who testified we agreed that New Jersey is one of the more enlightened States in this area. Yet, the conditions which I have seen in my own congressional district, 75 percent of which area is in farms growing tomatoes, potatoes and the like, and where this labor is used, the conditions there are atrocious.

Just because it is so horrible, I would like to be able to brush it out of my mind, to sweep it under the rug and say, "This does not exist," but we cannot ignore these things. We cannot ignore the plight of these people.

I see no excuse on earth for them not to be better cared for.

As you know from your service in the House, this body has no greater friend of education for as many people as possible at any level than our distinguished subcommittee chairman, Mr. Bailey. He is the father of the Impacted School Area law, Public Laws 815 and 874, which are so badly needed and so absolutely necessary, but they were not as badly needed as is this. He has been a remarkably tenacious and consistent advocate of Federal aid for school construction and for teachers' salaries.

He was a champion of the National Defense Education Act and so it follows quite logically that he would champion this legislation. He comes from a State which has had terrific economic problems due to the competition with foreign trade and due to the displacement of industry in the coal area and in the glass-manufacturing business particularly and he has seen so much suffering among his own people that he just cannot stand to see it among others.

I think it is a great tribute to both of you that your views are not so parochial that you would say, "Well, we are in good shape in New Jersey and that is satisfactory to me." This is a national problem that affects California and New Jersey as well, but West Virginia less than New Jersey because they have a vertical system of farming in West Virginia. They have to dig a pickax into the side of a hill and hang on with a rope in order to be able to plow.

Mr. BAILEY. If the gentleman would allow me to interrupt, they have one advantage in that they can farm both sides of it.

Mr. THOMPSON. They can. My father-in-law is a farmer in the panhandle of West Virginia so I know it is a depressed area or, as we said earlier, it was until the primary campaign. All of their financial woes have been alleviated for at least a week.

Senator, thank you very much for your appearance and we will make every possible effort here to follow Mr. Bailey's leadership. We hope that there will be enough time in what remains of this session and I think we can get a bill out of this committee if Mr. Bailey feels the time has arrived. Whether we can get a rule on a bill is quite another question but we have another parliamentary device of which we are availing ourselves.

Senator WILLIAMS. There are six Wednesdays left.

Mr. THOMPSON. Several Wednesdays left. The Rules Committee might finally arrive at the conclusion that perhaps they had better act on some things or else they will just have to sit around and watch on Wednesdays.

They say that one of the large objections they have is that they have been bypassed and yet they will not do anything on some of this legislation. I do not know what reception this type of a bill would get before that committee, but perhaps someday they will realize that their function is not to consider substantive aspects of bills but rather to work as the organizing force of a calendar of the House, rather than to decide among themselves without adequate information and without having heard testimony such as we have what we shall and shall not do.

I am trying to say really that I am optimistic, if Mr. Bailey is ready, about the reporting of a bill from this committee. I am a little less optimistic about getting a rule on it.

Senator WILLIAMS. I would like to say in that connection that I have been working on this problem in Virginia. I think it is germane to the discussion.

We have had magnificent support from the people in Virginia, a State which is a heavy user of migrant farm labor. I remember one day I went down and spoke with 500 Episcopalian women and talked about various problems of the farm economy and the people who work in the economy and specifically about housing and education. I talked about adequate housing and adequate education for our migrant farm families. It was gratifying indeed to see these people respond magnificently and affirmatively for this type of action to meet the need that is so manifest.

I think that it is significent that it came from such an important user of migrant farm labor, the State of Virginia.

Mr. THOMPSON. That is very encouraging.

Senator WILLIAMS. I want to say just one further thing. As devoted as I am from personal knowledge of the problems of our traveling farm families, there was no development that we greeted with greater joy than Congressman Bailey's introduction of this legislation, believe me. I can assure you that from one side of the country to the other it brought a new enthusiasm, to those who have an understanding and want to see some action, that this legislation was introduced, Congressman Bailey, by you and that you are its champion here.

Mr. BAILEY. In expressing my thanks for your appearance before the subcommittee, may I advise you that listening to one of the previous witnesses-and I am speaking now of the commissioner of labor from the State of Pennsylvania who testified this morning—we branched out into some other fields closely connected with this type

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