Also there is a lack of diversification in the area and particularly in Rock Island. It is these two problems that we hope that we can get some assistance in solving. As regards our local effort, we feel that the community has done a great deal. In 1954, for instance, the citizens of the city won the All-American City Award put out by the National Municipal League for intelligent citizen action in trying to improve their government. We have adopted a planning program; we are in the third year of it; $44,000 it has cost the city to try to figure out the facts of our community and economy, methods of planning, street location, publicworks programing, and so forth. Public works actually has also been sizable. For instance, just in streets we have paved 17 miles of streets costing over $2 million. I have here a copy of the city's annual report for 1956 which does to some extent itemize the major accomplishments. I would like to put on record that report to show the type of thing, to illustrate the type of thing being done locally. We have developed the port of Rock Island, which has been lying dormant, you might say, for almost 30 years. Thanks to the Federal Government, we have been able to obtain a Federal building, a Federal building and post office, under the leasepurchase program, and we are the only city in the United States that has done so. Senator DOUGLAS. Has construction started on that building? Mr. BODINE. Yes, it has, sir. It is at least 30 percent along. That particular project was done on an arrangement with the city whereby the city provided the land. It was quite a legal battle, which has been going on for years, as a matter of fact. But it is a major accomplishment, I think, when you consider no one else has done it and that you really had to put out to accomplish it. The annual report summarizes that point and others also. In regard to solving this particular problem of diversification and increasing job opportunity, last year there was formed the Rock Island Development Committee, which aims to explore possibilities for bringing in new industry, finding locations for them, making it attractive for them. The same thing has also started in the city of Davenport and in the city of Moline within the last year. In particular the city of Rock Island has annexed a square mile of land which is highly suitable for industrial development. There is a picture in there on the inside of the front cover. This is a rather unusual annexation inasmuch as the city had to jump a river to annex it, and we had quite a battle to do so. Incidentally, we would like to have the laws of Illinois changed somewhat to make it a little simpler for cities to annex land. It is a little cumbersome now. There are 5 or 6 additional square miles just to the west of the particular picture which is in the process of coming in to the city. Senator DOUGLAS. Is this an island? Mr. BODINE. No, sir; that is mainland. That is south of the Rock River. There is good high ground and good level ground as well as some low ground. We had to jump the low ground to get to the higher ground. In this particular area across the river the city has in the last 6 months made a special contract of $14,000 for detailed planning of an industrial park. I have just been to Chicago yesterday to try to arrange for a public works advance planning loan from the Community Services Administration I believe of the HHFA in regard to water and sewer. Both of those projects we can finance by revenue bond issues but we have to get over the hump of the initial engineering costs, which we can do, and it looks promising that that can occur. In addition to that, the city has received Federal approval for refunding the Centennial Bridge bonds. Those will be paid off in 2 years. On the sheet following the center page in that booklet you will see the outline of about a 3-mile stretch of road in the city to be financed by Centennial Bridge bonds, the bridge bonds which are being refunded, which bridge is owned by the city now. The main point there is to connect with the Interstate Highway System south of the city, which Interstate Highway, incidentally, runs right through the middle of this newly annexed territory which we plan to develop. It also has a railroad and additional access streets in it. So we feel we have taken some major steps recently to try to pull ourselves out of this dilemma which we really do face there. We do feel that some help is needed. Utilities we can take care of. We may need some help for things like railroad spurs and some access roads which would come under the grant section-I hope-of this particular bill. In addition to that, of course, we do aim to get industry in there, and if something can be done if local facilities cannot provide the funds, we do hope that some more attractive way can be brought about to attract it in this vicinity where it is needed as against some other place which may not need it so much from an economic standpoint. This bill, I feel, will help. It recognizes the localness of unemployment problems. In other words, it gets around this overall metropolitan problem situation where it falls in class C and we do not. We fall below that. I think it is good in that it does hit three aspects of the financing problem-loans to industry or committees there and to the locality, to the cities, and an outright grant if it is really neces sary. I like it particularly because it aims not at a temporary remedy. Our people do not want handouts. We want something to help us invest money which we can repay back. But we must get over this hump, which is rather serious. I like the idea of using local committees to help analyze our local situation. The adequacy of the money provided, I cannot appraise. Somebody else has to do that. I hope we can get there first. That is about all I can say. That seems to be what the problem is in most of these programs. I do think the bill should be passed. And it is not a matter of an insurance policy for us. It is a matter of now. We would like to have it very much and would appreciate anything that can be done to afford its passage. Thank you very much. Senator DOUGLAS. All right. I appreciate your testimony very much. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Senator DOUGLAS. Do I understand that the general nature of your testimony has been approved by the City Council of Rock Island? Mr. BODINE. Yes, sir, it has. Senator DOUGLAS. Thank you. Mr. BODINE. I do not have it in writing, as you know, however. Senator DOUGLAS. Thank you very, very much indeed, gentlemen. We are much obliged to you. Mr. GREATHOUSE. If I may, Senator, I would like to make one more comment. While I did not submit it for the record, we have something you might like to have a study which we have made of the reports of the Defense Department, which we think answers very conclusively those people who would say that many of these unemployment problems can be taken care of by preference given on defense orders. You will note this is a study from July 1, 1955, through December 31, 1956, and in going down the report you will find that the contracts which have been placed in areas on a preference matter basis by the Defense Department are very, very small. Most of them are complete zeros. I think this study is worth while not only in the consideration of what could happen, what needs to be done, but what is not being done in the present allocation. Senator DOUGLAS. What distinction do you draw between the next to the last column and the last column? The next to the last column says "Total placed." Mr. GREATHOUSE. This was placed in that area by the Defense Department. The last Senator DOUGLAS. How does that differ from the total preference? Mr. GREATHOUSE. What? Senator DOUGLAS. How does that differ from the last column? Mr. GREATHOUSE. It is a question of whether it was on a preference basis, whether the contract was placed in the area because of the preference due to labor surplus; and the other column shows the value of the contracts placed in the area for all reasons, including preference. Senator DOUGLAS. I see. In the State of Illinois apparently the total preference in a year and a half is a $114,000 contract placed at Litchfield. Mr. GREATHOUSE. That is right. The only preference given in that period in Illinois. Any other contracts that were let were let on a competitive basis. Senator DOUGLAS. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. We deeply appreciate it. Mr. MILLS. Thanks a lot for your kindness. Senator DOUGLAS. Thank you, Mayor, for coming in. I am very happy to have a number of witnesses come on from my home State of Illinois, and I am going to ask the distinguished Congressman of the 25th district, Mr. Kenneth J. Gray, to introduce them. 91201-57-pt. 1-20 STATEMENT OF HON. KENNETH GRAY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS Mr. GRAY. Thank you very much Senator. As always, it is a great pleasure for me to be able to come over and watch the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois leading the fight to try to find the answers to this knotty problem of distressed areas. We have with us today an aggregation of gentlemen from southern Illinois, the 25th Congressional District that I have the honor of representing. These gentlemen are representing organizations that have over the years tried to work for the inducement of industry to take care of the job losses that we have suffered in the coal mines and other areas of southern Illinois. I think all of them will attest to the fact that everything is being done on the local level that can be done, consistent with what we have to work with. I am going to introduce each one of these gentlemen for the record. We have with us today Mr. Goffrey Hughes, executive secretary of Southern Illinois, Inc. We are mighty glad to have you, Mr. Hughes. We have Jack Wenzel, an attorney at law from Gillespie, Ill. We are glad to have you, Mr. Wenzel. We have Dr. William Tudor, who is the director of the division of area services of the Southern Illinois University. Dr. Tudor, we are happy to have you. We have Mr. Al Imle, of Hillsboro, an attorney at law. Mr. Imle, we are certainly happy to have you with us this morning. We have Mr. Howard Mendenhall, who is the manager of the Rend Lake Conservancy District of Benton, Ill. As I said a moment ago, all of these gentlemen are doing everything they possibly can to raise the social and economic well-being of all of the people of southern Illinois. However, I think all of them will testify here this morning that legislation is needed to give them the necessary tools with which to work. The first witness that we have this morning, Senator, is Mr. Goffrey Hughes, who is the executive secretary of Southern Illinois, Inc., a nonprofit organization that is bending every effort to help southern Illinois in its economic ills. Senator DOUGLAS. Mr. Hughes, we are very glad to have you here. Off the record. (Off the record.) Mr. GRAY. If I may be indulged for a moment-I have here a telegram from one of the mayors of one of our cities. It says: Senator PAUL H. DOUGLAS. Please give them your best. You have our wholehearted support for this legislation. K. NEIL THURMOND, Mayor, Johnson City, Ill. Senator DOUGLAS. Mr. Hughes, we are very glad to have you. STATEMENT OF GOFFREY HUGHES, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, SOUTHERN ILLINOIS, INC. Mr. HUGHES. Senator Douglas, chairman, Subcommittee on Production and Stabilization, Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, and other members present, as executive director of Southern Illinois, Inc., and in behalf of my board of directors and the memhership of our organization, I want to express our appreciation for the privilege of this appearance and the opportunity to reiterate our support of area redevelopment legislation. Southern Illinois, Inc., is a nonprofit organization, incorporated June 17, 1940, with its objectives defined as follows: To preserve present industry located in southern Illinois; to publicize and promote the industrial advantages of southern Illinois; to publicize and promote the recreational advantages of southern Illinois; and to promote the educational advantages of southern Illinois; and particularly to promote the expansion and growth of Southern Illinois Normal University. In order that you may have an unbiased or neutral appraisal of our efforts and understand more fully the approach we take to our problems, and that you may learn of our efforts at finding solutions for the vexing problems of chronic unemployment, with attendant heavy general assistance relief loads, I submit the following quotation from Depressed Industrial Areas-A National Problem-A Policy_Statement by the NPA Special Committee on Depressed Areas and a Report by William H. Miernyk: Planning Pamphlet No. 98, National Planning Association, Washington, D. C., January 1957, pages 27-28: A situation similar in many respects to that described for the anthracite area of Pennsylvania exists in the bituminous coal area of southern Illinois. Between 1920 and 1950, employment in Illinois coal mines declined from 85,000 to 28,000, and by 1954 there had been a further drop to 15,000 workers employed in the mines. Senator DOUGLAS. Mr. Hughes, do you have any estimate as to how many there are now ? Mr. HUGHES. I think we are holding at just about that figure. I am going to say that a little later, Senator Douglas. Senator DOUGLAS. I see. Mr. HUGHES. The quotation continues: At the end of 1955, it was estimated that there were almost 20,000 unemployed persons in the 16 southern counties of Illinois. A survey conducted by the Illinois State Employment Service, in cooperation with Southern Illinois University, revealed that about 75 percent of the unemployed had held their last jobs in southern Illinois. All but 3 percent regarded southern Illinois as their permanent home, and more than half-52 percent-owned the homes in which they lived. A number of smaller communities in this area are among the chronically depressed. These include Herrin— I am reading a direct quotation. Herrin, as an individual community, would hardly qualify, but because of its surrounding area and because it is the office of the employment service, it shows up in this report. These include Herrin, Murphysboro, West Frankfort, Mount Carmel, Olney, and others. The situation in southern Illinois has been aggravated by depressed conditions in local agriculture. It has been estimated that during a recent 10year period there was a decline of more than 6,000 farms in the 16-county area. The problems of this region are again not as highly localized as those of the textile communities of New England, but encompass the entire area covered by the 16 southernmost counties of the State. To develop a coordinated program of rehabilitation, a development organization known as Southern Illinois, Inc., was established soon after the end of World War II. Local chambers of commerce, and the industrial development departments of railroads and utilities serving this region have cooperated with Southern Illinois, Inc., in its efforts to attract manufacturing jobs to the area. It has been estimated that the combined efforts of these organizations have added an average of about 1,000 new manufacturing jobs per year since 1946. |