What becomes of them when this happens is up to us right now. If we wait, the only answer will be to carry them as tax burdens-social misfits and economic parasites who make no contribution to the defense or welfare of our Nation.

There is a more immediate and much more satisfactory answer than preparing a place on future relief roles. Why not make it possible for these youngsters to receive at least as much education and occupational training as the compulsory attendance laws of the various States supposedly guarantee our children? Is this too much to ask on behalf of the present-day migrant youngsters, and those yet to come, who by reason of the occupation of their parents barely learn to read, write and add? Is this too much to ask of a Nation in which the 79 major crops, most of which they help harvest, represent a total annual value of over $19 billion? Is not this the only fair thing to do in view of the fact that the Nation and the agricultural industry demand that this occupation continue to exist for the benefit of the 180 million people who are not migratory farmworkers?

House Resolution 9872 introduced by the Honorable Edith Green of Oregon resulted in part from some of the studies which were made in Oregon, and I am proud of Mrs. Green's contribution in this field. I wish the committee to know, however, that I also support the ideas and approach taken in H.R. 10378 and 10379 introduced by the Honorable Cleveland Bailey of West Virginia and the similar legislation introduced in the Senate by Senator Williams of New Jersey. It is my hope that you will combine the best from all of the bills and mold them into an effective Federal approach which can make an impact on this problem. If more money is necessary than is mentioned in some of the bills, then let's spend more now to save a great deal later. The States and school districts need a boost now in order to initiate an adequate program.

I join with many others who are not farmers in a feeling of genuine sympathy for the economic problems of the farmer, and many of us are willing to help solve these problems. We are not nearly as sympathetic, however, with the policies of some farm organizations. I think they would be well-advised to reexamine their positions with respect to Federal legislation designed to reduce the human misery among both the young and the adult populations in our migrant streams. A speaker sent by Secretary of Labor Mitchell to the Western Interstate Conference on Migratory Labor expressed the thought in this way, and I quote:

One thing seems to me certain. The time is not far distant when the American farm laborer will be restored to a position of equality with other working Americans. This is not the issue. The issue is whether this inevitable end will be accomplished in a contest of bitterness, brass knuckles, and distrust, or of maturity, forbearance, and reasonableness.

On behalf of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and many others of similar thinking, we want to work with responsible farm groups to help them with their problems. We want to see agriculture again enjoy public acceptance as a full partner in our society, providing a decent standard of living for both the migrant worker and the farmer who employs him. I am confident that we can reach agreement most quickly on the great challenge of improving the educational

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opportunities for migrant children. Agriculture has everything to gain by helping in this cause a healthy, stable, and better trained work force, plus better public acceptance of the real economic problems of the farmer. Senseless opposition to constructive proposals can do everlasting harm to the public relations of the agricultural industry.

It is my hope that most of the industry will see fit to join us in urging Federal action on this problem, along with the lines of the bills before this committee. They provide a pattern for acceptance of national responsibility which will be helpful to the States and, without which, we at the State and local level cannot make adequate progress.

Thank you for the opportunity to be heard on these important bills.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Nilsen, you have a practical approach to this problem since it has been your primary business and objective over the years as commissioner of labor in Oregon.

To what extent do you have summer schools for the use of these migrant children available to you?

Mr. NILSEN. There is very little, Mr. Chairman. In the St. Paul and Woodburn area some of the church groups have established some pilot programs but it is not far-reaching enough to cover the entire field.

Mr. BAILEY. We have had testimony indicating that in Colorado the operation of a series of summer schools has been quite beneficial in that the same families return year after year. In other words, they are a more stable group of migrant workers.

I was just wondering if it would not be beneficial in the State of Oregon if it could be possible to set up some of these summer schools for instruction. You get a more dependable class of migrant worker and you do not have to depend on more or less itinerant, unmarried individuals, generally not as dependable as a man with his family. I am just wondering what progress you have made in Oregon.

Mr. NILSEN. In interviewing the migrant workers, many of the first questions asked by the migrant family, the adult, is, "What facilities are there for the education of my children," and if there are educational opportunities for their children, why the adults are more apt to return and reside in this area in which education is provided. Mr. BAILEY. What crops in Oregon are these migrant workers generally employed for and what season of the year?

Mr. NILSEN. Peas, sugar beets and cane crop and being from the east coast, maybe the cane crop is unfamiliar to you. When we speak of cane we speak of berries, raspberries, blackberries, logan berries, boisenberries and berries that are grown on a cane, so-called. course, there is the strawberry crop, and then there is the apple and the pear, which are very popular in the State of Oregon.

Mr. BAILEY. What season of the year?

Of

Mr. NILSEN. The strawberries come out in June and July and the berries are about the same time.

Mr. BAILEY. Where do these migrant workers come from? What section of the country are they from?

Mr. NILSEN. The area in which most of the recruiting is done is Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California.

Mr. BAILEY. Do you have any of the contract workers? What percentage of these are Mexican extraction of the migrant workers?

Mr. NILSEN. Of the 60,000 migrant workers in Oregon, 38 percent are Spanish speaking. We term them Spanish-speaking people. These are all American citizens. As far as the agreement between Mexico and the United States, there are only about 200 of these Mexican nationals that came into the State in the Medford area to work in pears.

Mr. BAILEY. That came in under the contract plan?

Mr. NILSEN. Precisely, about 200 of them. The numbers coming into Oregon have diminished tremendously in the past few years. Three years ago there were 500 and last year there were about 198, if I recall the figure correctly.

Mr. BAILEY. What is the attitude of the people in the respective school districts of Oregon toward them? Are they willing to accept them in school if school is available?

Mr. NILSEN. The American Texican, you are talking about?

Mr. BAILEY. I am talking about the American migrant worker. Mr. NILSEN. Dr. Putnam is here. He is superintendent of public instruction. I would prefer, Mr. Chairman, that that question be posed to him. He is an expert and I am a layman as far as this is concerned.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Udall, do you have any questions?

Mr. UDALL. A comment or two.

I want Mr. Nilsen to know that we share his affection and high regard for Mrs. Green on our committee and not surprisingly, she is one of those who is out ahead doing creative work in this important field.

Mr. State of Arizona and, of course, this is one of the problems that I am afraid we have not done as much as Oregon in this field. We commend you for the pioneer work that you have done. It is encouraging to have someone such as yourself appear and give us facts that we can deal with and bring a constructive attitude toward solution of this problem. I am very happy to have heard your testimony this morning.

Mr. BAILEY. Thank you, sir.

Do you have a copy of this report?

Mr. UDALL. Yes. I have it here. I will certainly take a look at it. Mr. BAILEY. Mrs. Green?

Mrs. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I have some questions, probably, that I should also address to Mr. Putnam because they pertain particularly to the schools and the school program.

I would ask Mr. Nilsen one only, and that is, is it your feeling that legislation of this type should cover the children of families who move around from one area to another within a State as well as those who are interstate, the interstate migrant stream?

Mr. NILSEN. Our definition of a migrant worker is one who leaves his place of abode, his place of lodging to work in the agricultural area. That could be a resident of the State of Oregon or of a certain county, although he leaves his home overnight to work in the agricultural field. That is our definition of a migrant worker.

It does not mean one from Mexico, Arizona, or California. It could be an Oregon resident who leaves his home to work in the agricultural field.

Certainly, with the Federal aid, it would be a tremendous help to these poeple because of the fact that educational opportunities are not available and as you know, our basic school law provides that every child less than 18 years of age has to attend school, acquiring at least an eighth-grade education.

Mrs. GREEN. Thank you very much, and again my real appreciation for your being here today and I am sure you have helped us a great deal, not only by the testimony this morning, but by the report.

Mr. NILSEN. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to reaffirm my statement, that the Mexican national coming from Mexico is a single person and is not accompanied by his family.

Mrs. GREEN. So this legislation has nothing to do with the Mexican national?

Mr. NILSEN. This is for American citizens only. Our surveys provide that at least one Mexican family has an average of three children. There are three children to every Mexican family that comes to Oregon. That is the average we have found and certainly education should be provided because employers are insisting before they hire that they have an educated background.

Mr. UDALL. Would the gentlelady yield?

Mrs. GREEN. Yes.

Mr. UDALL. Being from Arizona, I am very familiar with the Mexican labor program. The truth is these are workers who come in and their families, at least in our part of the country, don't come in with them. We do not have a problem in that instance. Is that true?

Mr. NILSEN. Precisely.

Mr. BAILEY. The Chair would like to ask another question. I like to approach this problem from the standpoint that the Federal Government has impacted these American migrant workers by putting on the statute books this contract proposal between the United States and Mexico. In other words, they bring them in and take away the job opportunities for your Americans and there is where I tie the Federal responsibility. They impact them just like they impact a school district by reason of defense activities.

We appreciate very much your testimony, Mr. Nilsen. We know it is the result of your firsthand experience in the field and that is the kind of testimony we want. We appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Mrs. GREEN. The other person that we have from Oregon, Mr. Chairman, is our State superintendent of public instruction, Mr. Rex Putnam. Mr. Putnam has given many years of dedicated service to the State of Oregon. We really are delighted to have you here this morning, Mr. Putnam. I was more pleased than I can tell you when your letter came advising me that you would be in Washington. We would have been delighted to have had a statement to file but it is so much more meaningful when you, yourself, can be here, and I am sure I speak for the committee in welcoming you to these hearings.

STATEMENT OF REX PUTNAM, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOR THE STATE OF OREGON

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

I want to assure you, to begin with, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee, that I am not an expert, although I am a long

way from home. The further away I get from home, however, I find the less expert I become.

Mr. BAILEY. Before you start giving your testimony, I find it necessary to go downtown to a meeting of the group on trade relations and I expect to turn the chair over to the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Udall, which will preclude my listening to the testimony of my good friend, the executive secretary of the Council of Chief State School Officers. I had a question I wanted to ask him and I am going to inject it here.

Mr. UDALL. I want to say, if you want to chastise him, I will chastise him for you.

Mr. BAILEY. No. I would have asked this question of the good doctor: The Federal Government spends quite considerable money in the establishment of refugees to protect migratory birds. I am wondering if the good doctor would agree with me that we certainly owe equal facilities to these migratory youngsters?

Mr. PUTNAM. Are you talking to me? I thought you were talking to Dr. Fuller.

Mr. BAILEY. I was going to talk to the doctor had I been able to stay with the committee and I just thought that I would inject that question into the record.

Dr. FULLER. Mr. Bailey, I am sure that the agriculture commissioner from Oregon could tell us that there not only is more attention paid to birds but more is paid to pigs and cows and even the semiobsolete horses than to some classes of children like the children of our agricultural migrant laborers.

Mr. BAILEY. I appreciate that very much, Doctor. I will leave you now in the hands of the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Udall, and the gentlewoman from Oregon.

Mr. UDALL (presiding). Please proceed with your statement, sir. Mr. PUTNAM. I was going to say:

Hon. Cleveland Bailey, chairman of the General Education Subcommittee, and members of the General Education Subcommittee, my name is Rex Putnam, State superintendent of public instruction for the State of Oregon. I have come to speak in behalf of House bill 9872. The Oregon State Department of Education was very gratified to hear of this pending legislation.

As you may know, a pilot program for the education of migrant children was authorized by the 1959 Oregon Legislature, and the provisions of that law are now being carried out. As the 2-year study of migratory educational conditions in the State progresses, we find the intricacy of problems crosses State lines, and we see the need for Federal help in this interstate problem.

The immensity, the extent, and the variability of the problem are such that we believe there is an area of Federal responsibility here, and we wholeheartedly support House bill 9872 in principle.

Now I would like to speak specifically about each section of the

bill.