Marion, in the southeast part of the State, has some 900 farms, more than half of which are part time and residential. The county's recently formed rural development committee is broadly representative, includes farmers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and employees of both agricultural and nonagricultural agencies.

Houston County, a small county in the northwest, had only 622 farms in 1954. A merchant, Carlisle Mitchum, heads the representative rural development committee and the county agent, J. D. Lewis, is secretary. To help people maintain adequate homesteads in the county, its leaders are seeking industry which will provide off-the-farm jobs. Members of the Tennessee Rural Development Committee assisted leaders in both counties to organize their programs.

Green Gold is the title of a report on timber resources in the Cumberland Plateau region of eastern Kentucky which was issued through the cooperative efforts of the Kentucky Bankers' Association, the State departments of economic development and conservation, and the United States Forest Service. Attractively illustrated with photographs of the region's fine stands of timber and easy-to-read charts and maps, the report invites businessmen to look into wood industry prospects in east central Kentucky. Green Gold is similar to another cooperative forest resources report titled "Micova," covering the middle Connecticut Valley region. A third report is in preparation describing forest resources in the area where Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky meet. Effective presentation of area resources is a big step toward area development. These cooperative United States Forest Service development group reports are models of resource salesmanship. (For information, contact regional foresters of the U. S. Forest Service.)

PROGRAM AIDS AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT, SAYS PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Calling attention to the tremendous productivity of the Nation, $412 billion worth of goods and services in 1956, and urging alertness to possible inflation dangers, President Eisenhower sent his annual economic report to the Congress early in January. In a section, Promoting Agricultural Adjustments, the report singles out the rural development program for special mention. "Progress will come in part through better farming (in low-income areas)" says the report, "but education and vocational training, improvement of health and personal security, information on full-time job opportunities off the farm, and part-time farming supplemented by other employment also have important roles to play."

IN BRIEF

With two formal meetings already held, Florida's planning committee is diccussing a rural development program for the State and naming a pilot county. During 1956 farmers working part time in trades and industry in the United States obtained 7,390 land-bank loans totaling almost $34 million through local national farm-loan associations. The Farm Credit Act was amended in 1955 to enable lending to this group of farmers—a major aid in achieving more rural development.

A current publication of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, Ten Steps to Industrial Survival candidly states the need for dispersion of industry as an essential national defense step. According to the CD booklet, dispersion "is a necessary means of industrial survival" although it creates many difficult problems, affecting the lives of workers, the community, and the economy of metropolitan areas.

The Agricultural Marketing Service has prepared a list of marketing and processing operations best suited to low-income rural areas. Many industries on the list would provide off-farm employment and also better farm marketing facilities in an area. (To get a copy, write Rural Development Program News, Office of Information, Department of Agriculture, Washington 24, D. C.)

Hardin County, Ill., in an almost completely rural Ohio River area, has published a pamphlet giving a thumbnail sketch of the county's resources, which include fluorspar, timber, rock products, coal, Ohio River water. The pamphlet is a model of concise presentation.

An article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine stressing the need for objective evaluation of areas being considered for plant location has high praise for rural

areas. Entitled "Where To Put Your Plant," the article states: "The primary advantage of country labor is not so much lower hourly rates, but higher productivity ***." In rural areas "a factory job offers relatively high and regular pay and shorter hours (in relation to other jobs in the area). Country factories, therefore, usually get the pick of the local labor market."

On many small farms the conservation reserve part of the soil-bank program offers an added source of regular income plus real long-term conservation benefits. A new USDA publication. The Soil Bank's Conservation Reserve, tells all about it. (To get a copy, write Office of Information, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington 25, D. C.)

Note: In some copies of the December News, A. E. Triviz, associate director of the New Mexico Extension Service was referred to as the dean of agriculture. Dr. Robert A. Black is dean of agriculture in New Mexico.

PILOT COUNTIES AND AREAS IN THE RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM 1956-57

South Carolina: Berkeley, Chesterfield, Bamberg.

Tennessee: Grainger, Hardin, Macon, Houston, Marion.

Texas: Camp-Franklin-Titus area, Cherokee, Shelby-San Augustine area.

Virginia Carroll, Cumberland.

West Virginia: Lewis,' Raleigh.'
Wisconsin: Price, Sawyer.

1 Area center.

[In addition there was supplied and placed in the files of the committee a publication, Progress in the Rural Development Program, September 1956 and a special report, Rural Resource Development, February 1957.]

Senator DOUGLAS. The next witness is Mr. Rocco Siciliano, Assistant Secretary of Labor.

I had not realized, Mrs. Wickens, that you were Mr. Rocco Siciliano. STATEMENT OF ROCCO SICILIANO, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF LABOR, AS PRESENTED BY MRS. ARYNESS JOY WICKENS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF LABOR FOR MANPOWER AND EMPLOYMENT

Mrs. WICKENS. Senator, this is not a case of mistaken identity, but a case of conflict between two Senate committees.

Senator DOUGLAS. Very well.

Mrs. WICKENS. If the committee will permit, I should like to present Mr. Siciliano's apologies; but at this moment he is testifying before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations at a meeting which was postponed for a week, due to circumstances beyond either their control or ours.

Senator DOUGLAS. We are very glad to welcome you here.

Mrs. WICKENS. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Siciliano has prepared a rather long statement for the record, and, in view of the time, I think it might save the committee's time, if it is agreeable to you, if this were introduced for the record and if I read a brief summary of these remarks, which was also prepared by Mr. Siciliano.

Senator DOUGLAS. Very well.

Mrs. WICKENS. We will address ourselves primarily to those matters in the bill with which the Department of Labor is primarily concerned.

It is my understanding at this time that the committee is interested principally in three bills, S. 104, S. 964, and S. 1433.

Senator DOUGLAS. Yes.

Mrs. WICKENS. As you know, the Department of Labor is very much concerned with the problem of labor-surplus areas and with helping to design measures for dealing with it. This concern stems from our legislative mandate to foster and promote the welfare of wage earners. Our studies during the postwar years and the development of our labor-market information program have made the Department the authoritative source of knowledge about local employ

ment conditions.

Mr. Chairman, I have a rather lengthy prepared statement here. If it pleases the subcommittee, I will limit my remarks today to the matters of greatest concern to the Department of Labor and file the full prepared statement for the record.

The problem which presently gives us concern is the existence of small pockets of relatively substantial unemployment in the face of unparalleled national prosperity. The problem is not a sectional one. It is not confined, as some suppose, to a few regions or States. The 19 major areas and the 59 smaller areas which were on the substantial labor-surplus list for March 1957 are located in 22 States and in

Puerto Rico. Combined, these areas represent only 5 percent of the Nation's labor force, but they account for approximately 10 percent of the Nation's unemployed.

Many of the major areas presently on the labor-surplus list have persistent unemployment problems. Relatively heavy unemployment in other of the areas is due to temporary cutbacks in the production of autos, nonelectrical machinery, and railroad equipment. In smaller labor-surplus areas, long-range employment cutbacks in coal mining, textiles, and ordnance, as well as lack of an adequate industrial base, are the most common causes of substantial unemployment. On the average, unemployment in these labor-surplus areas represented over 8 percent of their labor force early this year.

The persistence of this degree of unemployment in some areas is properly a matter for Federal concern. Legislation of the type proposed by the bills before this committee is a recognition of the growing feeling that the Federal Government must take bold steps to assist these areas to alleviate conditions of substantial and persistent unemployment. We are happy that this is not a partisan objective.

Mr. Chairman, with regard to the responsibility for administration of the program, I would like to make a comment.

Both S. 104 and S. 1433 would establish an Area Assistance Administrator in the Department of Commerce. S. 964 proposes the creation of a new independent agency within the executive branch, an Area Redevelopment Administration. The creation of an independent agency runs counter to what I believe is sound policy-to avoid a proliferation of independent executive agencies.

Senator DOUGLAS. You favor having this in the Department of Commerce?

Mrs. WICKENS. Yes, sir.

Senator DOUGLAS. You do not want it in the Department of Labor? Mrs. WICKENS. No, sir.

Senator DOUGLAS. This is something unusual for the Department of Labor.

Mrs. WICKENS. May I reserve my answer, sir?
Senator DOUGLAS. Surely.

AREAS ELIGIBLE FOR ASSISTANCE

Mrs. WICKENS. To continue, S. 1433 and S. 964 propose somewhat different tests or criteria for determining which areas shall be eligible for assistance. I believe the criteria included in S. 1433 are better designed to identify those areas which have serious and long-term unemployment problems, and I emphasize the words "long-term unemployment problems."

S. 1433 specifies that the Secretary of Labor designate as areas of substantial and persistent unemployment, labor market areas in which unemployment is currently at least 8 percent of the labor force and has been 8 percent or more for most of each of the preceding 2

years.

The criteria of S. 964 are somewhat different. There are four aspects of the criteria in S. 964 about which we are quite concerned. I shall just mention them now, as they are treated at some length in my prepared statement.