ber have created works of eternal beauty and significance. The music education program in the U.S. public schools and in our colleges and universities, has no parallel anywhere in the world.

Yet it is with a sense of shame that we must admit that the economy of music in the United States is in a parlous state. In spite of the tremendous orchestral growth in this country in the past 60 years, only five of the major orchestras have seasons long enough to supply more than a marginal income for the orchestral musician. There is only one permanent opera company with anything like a full season, and most of our singers are forced to go abroad for performance opportunities in opera.

There are few concert engagements for those counterparts of Van Cliburn who have not made a hit in an Iron Curtain country. While many of our American conductors are occupying minor posts, our professional orchestras, with a few exceptions like Washington's splendid National Symphony, are largely under the batons of foreign-born conductors.

Our composers do not generally receive remuneration sufficient for a livelihood, but must engage in their creative work in the hours after the day's bread and meat have been won through other jobs.

The music disseminated by our mass communications media is often a travesty on the art. Mr. Newton N. Minow, the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has recently described much of television as "a vast wasteland" and has called for an upgrading of many of the tawdry programs which daily enter the American home under the guise of entertainment.

These are problems of more than local concern. They need to be attacked on a national scale if the full musical resources of this country are to be developed. We need desperately the kind of central guidance and large-scale planning which can come from the establishment of a Federal council.

The United States is the only major country which has not given governmental support and encouragement to the performing and visual arts. The influence of the Arts Councils of Great Britain and Canada on the artistic life of those countries is a magnificent example of what can be accomplished through national support of the arts.

We are heartened by certain recent events: the fact that the President's Commission on National Goals has cited the importance of supporting the arts and has urged the Congress to concern itself with the problem of broadening the basis of our cultural activities, by the important stress laid on the arts in the last presidential inaugural and its attendant ceremonies, and by the statement of President Kennedy as reported in the New York Times:

When so many other nations officially recognize and support the performing arts as part of their national cultural heritage, it seems to me unfortunate that the United States has been so slow in coming to a similar recognition.

The two excellent bills under consideration by this committee do not abrogate the right of the State, the local community, or the individual to support, to subsidize, or to sponsor the arts. They proceed in the American way. They are designed to provide leadership for the solution of national problems and to propose ways and means whereby private and local governmental initiative may be brought into play for the encouragement and development of new programs and the support of existing programs in the arts.

The establishment of a Federal Advisory Council on the Arts would serve notice to the world that the arts, as well as the sciences, are of inestimable concern to our people. The image of America must not be projected only as a mechanistic facade. The other peoples of the world must see us as we truly are, a nation of deep abiding faith, with souls sensitive to beauty, and proud of the manifestations of our own cultural development. We must not forget that a large part of our misunderstandings with other nations stems from the mistaken idea that we as a nation are solely devoted to material things.

Even our tremendous expenditures for foreign aid have not served wholly to dispel this unfortunate picture, for other nations often view this with the suspicion that somehow there must be "something in it" for us. What we must do is to present another image of America abroad—an image of a country which devotes a substantial portion of its time and financial resources in pursuit of the arts, a country which has an eye and an ear for the things of timeless beauty, as well as engineering know-how.

We have expended over $12 million in the last 7 years to send cultural presentations abroad. This was a wise investment and has earned large dividends of good will and understanding in many parts of the world. Can we not now call upon the Federal Government to give official recognition to the arts on our own shores?

We believe that the proposed Advisory Council on the Arts, as constituted through the provisions of this bill, will gain increased respect for our cultural maturity on the part of other nations, and that it will be a bold step forward for our indigenous fine arts, particularly if implemented by the program of matching grants to the States.

In conclusion, we should like to quote a resolution passed by the National Music Council on January 5, 1961:

That whereas it is generally agreed that the creative arts and the humanities are a highly important part of the cultural and spiritual atmosphere of a , country, and although the Federal Government has recognized this importance in its cultural exchange programs, the contribution of the Federal Government to the creative arts in the United States has developed slowly, and

That if the United States is to maintain and improve its world leadership, to increase its prestige in international relations, and most important, to improve the cultural opportunities for our own people, it seems clear that the Federal Government must assume a greater interest in and a greater responsibility for the further development of the creative arts and the humanities

Mr. THOMPSON. Doctor, thank you very much for this splendid statement.

I note that you represent and are speaking for 255 leading schools of music and departments of music of colleges and universities. Is it your feeling that almost unanimously these schools and colleges favor this type of legsilation?

Dr. GORTON. Yes, sir; it is. We have had many discussions of the idea of a Federal Advisory Council on the Arts in our annual meetings and the sentiment seems to be overwhelmingly in favor of this proposal.

Mr. THOMPSON. I assume that you are a member of the National Music Council; are you not?

Dr. GORTON. Yes, we are.

Mr. THOMPSON. That organization represents everyone in the United States who is active in music, does it not, teachers, colleges, universities, musicians, and so on?

Dr. GORTON. Yes, it covers the whole spectrum.

Mr. THOMPSON. Í thank you very much.

I have nothing to add except to acknowledge your long trip here with thanks.

Dr. GORTON. I appreciate the opportunity.

Mr. THOMPSON. And I wish to state also that there is nothing new in the proposition; nor is there anything political in it. The Eisenhower administration requested this legislation for several years. Secretary Flemming, Assistant Secretary Richardson of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and now Governor then Under Secretary Rockefeller testified in behalf of it. Also the presentations abroad have been made under a program established by President Eisenhower, the President's emergency fund which was made a permanent part of our foreign policy and therefore our national policy by legislation cosponsored by Senator Humphrey and myself several years ago. Thank you.

Mr. Martin?

Mr. MARTIN. Yes.

As a native and resident of Nebraska, a neighboring State to Kansas, I would like to call attention to the fact and perhaps you are familiar with the fact that in the northern Kansas area and southern Nebraska area we have a volunteer symphony orchestra. They are all amateurs. It is composed of 90-some people who drive as much as 175 miles for rehearsals, purely because they love music, and to get together and practice, I believe, about once a month, which is not too often but there are great distances involved. They have put on several concerts over our TV stations in the southern Nebraska and northern Kansas area. They do it simply on their own with their own initiative and I think it is one of the finest developments that we have in our area of the Midwest.

Dr. GORTON. Yes, I am. We are proud to join hands with the Nebraskans in this fine endeavor.

Mr. MARTIN. I have one other thing which I would like to ask you. You mentioned the TV programs. Do you have any specific recommendations as to how improvement could be made in that field along cultural lines?

Dr. GORTON. Well, it would seem to me that there are certain governmental pressures that might be exerted to increase the ratio somewhat of cultural events on television to those which operate on a much lower level. They have been described very well and I do not need to define it.

Mr. MARTIN. Do you mean pressures of this council, if it is set up, or from the FCC?

Dr. GORTON. I think recommendations from this council to the FCC. I think there has to be some kind of an advisory group which will advise the FCC of its responsibilities, perhaps, in this matter.

The new Chairman of the FCC has indicated that he has watched television and does not like particularly everything which he sees. There are certain pressures in the way of advice which could be transmitted through the FCC by such a Federal advisory council on the arts to create a better climate in the networks for cultural program

Mr. MARTIN. Do you have any educational TV stations in Kansas? Dr. GORTON. No, sir. We are trying to get some State funds set up for this. We have a pilot project which is underway now, a study of an educational TV network which is to be operative soon.

Mr. MARTIN. I think that has great possibilities along this line, an educational network that would carry this type of program. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. THOMPSON. The broadcasters in meeting here last week suffered almost as much at Government hands as the Government did a week or so earlier at the hands of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I think it was former Governor Collins who started out shocking the big network people and they had hardly recovered from that when Newton Minow took the stage and gave them a comeuppance which was long overdue.

I do not think that anything is contemplated or possible in this legislation to do more than advise; nor should it be. We cannot legislate taste and, if shoot-them-up programs sell cookies or soap or whatever they sell, then I do not suppose that the sponsors are going to change and put a symphony orchestra on. We might finally get to a point, however, where there are some live musicians on radio and on television and a few less records used over and over again at the expense, really, of the musician; but certainly this legislation does contemplate a thorough review of the Government's role in the arts and it will be expected to make recommendations to the appropriate agencies having to do with the arts. In that sense I think it can be very valuable, but in no sense will it be a censorship group or a group the purpose of which is to require any action on the part of any citizen. We thank you very much, Doctor.

Dr. GORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. THOMPSON. Our next witness is Dr. Clifford Buttelman, of the Music Educators National Conference.

Is Dr. Buttelman here?

STATEMENT OF DR. CLIFFORD BUTTELMAN, MUSIC EDUCATORS NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Mr. THOMPSON. You may proceed as you wish, sir.

Dr. BUTTELMAN. I have something here which you might want to consider. I am fortunate to be representing the Music Educators National Conference of which I am executive secretary emeritus.

The organization is the department of music of the National Education Association. As an entity, it has been organized for 55 years. As a department of music it approaches 73 years. We have approximately 37,000 members, almost all teachers of music in the schools and colleges or directors of departments, and ineluded in that number are some 10,000 undergraduate students of music education who join as student members and become active members as soon as they graduate and take jobs.

There is a fairly large public adjacent to these people because there are several million pupils in the schools who are receiving music attention from these teachers, and I would not be surprised but what we could get almost unanimous approval from our teachers and the parents of these children for the kind of action that is projected by these two bills.

It seems to me that everything I could say on behalf of our organization is being said by other witnesses. However, I might speak of two among the several reasons that I am very much interested personally and I know I represent the will and the wishes of our membership in general. Of course, it is a fundamental reason that should be stated because almost since I can remember reading about the Music Educators National Conference before I became associated with it in 1930 our members through their meetings, through their resolutions adopted at conventions and in various ways have been advocating Federal, let us say, recognition and support of the arts, of course including music.

There used to be a line in the constitution of the organization taking that stand that we should advocate the development of at least some interest and recognition on the part of the Federal Government of the arts. That was not something that originated in the minds of these people here. Many of them were at that time musical products, to a greater or lesser degree, of European musicians and music schools.

In any event, the endorsement and support of the arts with such programs as are provided in these bills will really be a shot in the arm to thousands of voting citizens who are in a position in their own communities to help develop, among other facets of the strengthening growth of our culture, some of the do-it-yourself agencies in the various areas of the arts.

The second point that I will pick out is that Federal endorsement and support of the arts in the manner prescribed by these bills will do much to enhance our stature and our status around the world, especially among those countries which give recognition to the cultural aspects of the lives of their citizens.

Now I will speak of Russia. I see the topic can be introduced here safely. I hold no brief for Russia, but I am very much impressed by what we learn of the things they are doing in education in general and in the arts in particular, and particularly in the specialty of music, of course. I am going to draw only a few comments from the report of our executive secretary, Vanett Lawler, who I am sure was invited to come here and asked me to substitute because she had another engagement that she had to fill in another city. Miss Lawler was one of the mission on the arts to the Soviet Union last year. This was an official State Department-sponsored mission and it involved Miss Lawler, Mayo Brice, and Ralph Beelke, representing the U.S. Office of Education and the Art Department of the National Education Association, respectively.

I knew something about what they would find over there and one of the reasons is a letter from which I think I will take the time just to read a brief paragraph. This letter came from one of our members, a Russian who had been in this country for 47 years and was pretty well Americanized in that length of time. He went back to Russia for a visit with his family.

We realize how far education has reached the masses of the Russian people. I can cite as an example my own large family. In pre-Revolutionary Russia there was not one that I knew of

that is of his family

that had a high school education. While I was in the Soviet Union last summer my family included professors of mathematics, physics teachers. Nieces and