they can receive are the people who are sophisticated enough to go out and press the right buttons. There has been a tremendous underutilization, not only of Government services but of volunteers, in making sure that people are reached as they ought to be reached.

NEED FOR YOUNG VOLUNTEERS

In this regard, Senator, I think that one of the events which I hope will take place as a result of the regulations and the previous legislation is a drafting of young people in these programs. The young very often get along with the old better than they get along with the generation immediately above them.

The old are not interested in seeing only older people. They are very happy to see younger people. It is a good relationship. Fortunately, at this point, young people are very much more aware of social problems and the needs for advocacy than their parents' generation is, so that the drafting of young people to work in programs of this sort is not only a way to have highly qualified free manpower, but also, to build some strong advocacy into the program and to avoid the sort of episode that you just mentioned.

Senator PERCY. Thank you very much, Dr. Mayer.

At this time we will call a panel of directors of State agencies on aging: Charles A. Chaskes, executive director, Michigan Commission on Aging; James O'Malley, acting director, New York Office for the Aging; and Mrs. Elizabeth Breckinridge, supervisor of section on Services for the Aging, Illinois Department of Public Aid.

I give an equal welcome to all witnesses, but particularly to the witness from Illinois. Now, that our distinguished Chairman has issued a sermonlike statement, he will probably be delayed for a few moments on the floor and with the media, but I know he will be right along and I think it would be his intention that we go right ahead at this particular time and he will go over the record of all the testimony given.

Have you decided in which sequence or order you would like to go? Mr. CHASKES. As president of the national association, I would like Mr. O'Malley from New York to lead off if he will.

Senator PERCY. Fine.

STATEMENT OF JAMES J. O'MALLEY, ACTING DIRECTOR,

NEW YORK OFFICE FOR THE AGING

Mr. O'MALLEY. I feel in an awkward position at this point with a lovely lady on my right-and particularly one of your constituents and a hard worker. But perhaps, Senator Percy, I can borrow on my status as a former Chicagoan and thank you for the work that you have done on this particular program, and hopefully that you will continue to do, since I have parents back in Chicago who, by age alone, at least, are considered senior citizens.

When Congressman Pepper talked about the young people in the room, I, too, was pleased, particularly because many of them are from Queens College in New York. But I was also disturbed in the sense that there were not enough older people.

We are here today talking about proposed regulations for a nutrition program for older people, and I want to begin my official testimony by thanking you and the members of the Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs for the opportunity to talk about the proposed rules and regulations for Public Law 92-258, the national nutrition program for the elderly.

I am honored to testify on two counts. First of all, your committee has a long and distinguished record of concern for this particular subject; and second, I have the honor and the consequent responsibility to represent the largest segment of older people of any State in this Nation. If I have one objective today, it will be to suggest procedures, policies, and regulations which will make it possible for the largest number of those older New Yorkers as possible to avail themselves of this program.

Although I come before you today primarily as a State official concerned with the needs of older New Yorkers. I will also attempt to convey the concerns of my fellow State executives in aging in my role as treasurer of the National Association of State Executives on Aging.

I was pleased to learn that the original 15-day review and comment period on these regulations has been extended-through the work of your committee-to June 26. In this way, you and Mr. Twiname, the Administrator of the Social and Rehabilitation Service in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, will have an opportunity to hear from many more of us in New York.

This very week, we will be mailing out more than 10,000 copies of this new law, and the proposed regulations thereto, and I am certain that the voices of our older New Yorkers will be given attention in the revisions which seem to be needed in these regulations.

I would be remiss, however, if I did not begin by publicly acknowledging the hard work which the Administration on Aging has done in putting together this preliminary document. I have had several meetings with the Administration on Aging over the past months on this new law, and although all of our recommendations do not agree, I can appreciate that theirs was an almost herculean task in trying to pull together so many diverse views.

And I feel comfortable in knowing that what I say before your committee today will help both you and the people in the Administration on Aging in refining these regulations to the point where they will help all of us to serve as many older people as we possibly can.

NEED QUICK RELEASE OF APPROPRIATION FUNDS

But before I begin with any specific remarks, I would appeal to you, and through you-and I was pleased to hear that the House has already acted to help us in this task by acting with dispatch on the appropriations bill which will put the money behind the authorizations which we now have. And when that is accomplished, to help us to see to it that all of these funds are released as quickly as possible by the Office of Management and Budget.

For our part, we in the States will move ahead equally as fast so that we can, in fact, bring hot, nutritious meals to older people who so desperately need them.

76-300-72-pt. 2-3

For the moment, however, I cannot help but be reflective and hopeful.

Nearly 200 years ago, the British Tea Act required colonists to pay an excise tax on all English tea. Many people engaged in quiet revolt by refusing to drink tea; others, like the colonists in Boston, engaged in more outright acts of indignation by throwing the tea into Boston Harbor.

For too many years now, we, as a nation, have been conditioned to forget some of the more serious and pressing needs of our older people-not the least of which is their need for an adequate diet.

And so, in the passage of the nutrition program for the elderly, perhaps there is a symbolic parallel to the Boston Tea Party-though in this instance, we will be throwing out the idea of "tea and toast" for the elderly and replacing it with the commitment to provide a minimum of at least one hot meal a day for people 60 years of age and older who may otherwise not have even such a minimum diet.

Hopefully, this landmark legislation may have the same effect on our Nation's history-in terms of meeting the real needs of our older citizens as the Boston Tea Party had on our Nation nearly 200 years ago.

St. Francis de Sales, in his "Introduction to the Devout Life," made the following observation: "Persons of honor never think of eating, but at sitting down at table, and after dinner wash their hands and their mouths, that they may neither retain the taste nor the scent of what they have been eating." In the case of St. Francis, it was a spiritual act of abstaining from corporeal pleasures.

I am afraid that many of our older citizens could use the same words, but in their case they would have a more literal meaning; namely, that they would not want to remember the taste or smell of the food they were forced to eat because they could not afford to eat better.

Knowing the cause of a problem is only the first step. Creating the programs and services to eliminate these problems is the next and most important step. And that is why I am pleased that this new law is appropriately called a nutrition program and not just a hot meal program.

This new program will address itself to all of the present problems: It will provide the minimum of one hot meal per day in a central location; it will allow for meals to be delivered to the homebound; it will call for outreach to inform the largest number of eligible people about the program; it will provide special menus to meet dietary, religious, or ethnic requirements; it will provide for settings where-in addition to the hot meal-an older person can also have recreational programs and informational, health, and welfare counseling and referral services; it will provide training for the people who will work on the programs; and finally, it will seek the advice of older people who will participate in the program, as well as giving them a preference for staff positions for which they qualify.

We do, indeed, have the beginnings of an excellent program and we are all anxious to move ahead. Governor Rockefeller has designated our office for the aging in New York State to administer this new program and we, like you and the Administration on Aging, are anxious to move ahead.

With my testimony today, I am submitting specific recommendations for changes in the proposed regulations.* I shall be pleased to highlight these for you and officially submit them for the record.

But before I do, I would like to repeat a quotation of Archbishop Trench of Dublin, who, more than a hundred years ago, wrote what might apply most appropriately today when he said: "That which the fool does in the end, the wise man does in the beginning."

Let us, at this beginning, be wise men and not fools.

Senator PERCY. Thank you very much for an excellent statement. Betty, would you like to go ahead now? I would like to say for the record that my office has really enjoyed working with Betty Breckinridge. We have been helped specifically on projects, and long before others were talking about the problems of the aging and trying to solve those problems, Betty Breckinridge was in the field working, dedicating herself, a lone voice at that particular time, 10 to 15 years ago. I have no hesitancy however, in saying that being an older person myself and a grandfather now, that I have been in the field even longer than Betty. At age 29, I was the honorary chairman of the Bell & Howell retirees group, which always went to the chief executive office, so by nature, I was then put into the program of working with those who had retired or were going to retire in our own company. So I may even have been in the field a little longer than you but you have been absolutely outstanding and we are most grateful to you for what you have done in our State and we are very proud of you.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ELIZABETH BRECKINRIDGE, SUPERVISOR OF SECTION ON SERVICES FOR AGING, ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID

Mrs. BRECKINRIDGE. Thank you very much, Senator Percy.

We certainly have enjoyed the sensitive and intelligent response that your office has always given us in our program. I do believe I rank you a bit in the field because last March fourth was my 25th anniversary in working with and for older people. Our first Chicago city plan began on March 4, 1947, when I was 32.

Senator PERCY. You are absolutely right. I took over that program in 1949 and that is 23 years. You rank me by about 2 years.

Mrs. BRECKINRIDGE. The Illinois program is the second oldest State program for the aging; the New York State program started in 1947 under the aegis of Al Abrams.

I have not a formal statement for you today because we have just now completed the State's role in organizing, signing contracts, and setting up nine area agencies on aging in Illinois. As you know, this is in accord with the strategy of the administration.

In looking at this nutrition program for the elderly, at Title VII, and how it can be implemented, we have tried to take a pragmatic approach. I cannot help remembering the old man in the black retirement community of Pembroke Township who was found dead of starvation with his little dog beside him. I cannot help remembering the withdrawal of a congregate feeding program in another location for 1 month during which month one of the participants, a woman,

*See Appendix 1, p. 317.

was found dead of starvation in her room, and one man jumped out of his window and committed suicide because of the withdrawal of the nutrition program.

Therefore, I am urgently impressed with the need to implement the intent of Congress at the earliest possible date and I would like to suggest and recommend that the Administration on Aging and the Social and Rehabilitation Service authorize the States to use up to one-half of the supplementary Title III appropriations, which we now have in hand, for congregate and home-delivered meals programs, including transportation and related services. I believe this could be done through administrative action.

I would also recommend that, in such action there be liberalized authorization for matching in kind. This might include volunteers at $1 an hour-as was possible in the early days of the Older Americans Act-credit for volunteers to work in delivery of meals, escort services and outreach; matching in kind for rent at going rates for spaces used for meals, and matching in kind of a percentage of some supervisory staff time not currently allowed, plus the value of other donated services for food preparation, handling, packaging, and delivery.

This liberalized portion of the in-kind matching should not exceed 15 percent of the total gross budget. In other words, there would be 10 percent normal matching according to present Title III regulations and 15 percent matching on a special liberalized basis. This would constitute a 75/25 matching basis for the project. We could then easily convert to the 90/10 basis when Title VII is funded.

I would like to eliminate the administrative restriction that projects should be contained completely within one State planning and service area. In Illinois, this is particularly relevant in connection with the local OEO programs. We have one request for a home delivered mealsplus program from Effingham. Effingham has rounded up the county boards of supervisors of seven counties. They have each agreed to put up $1,000. Unfortunately, they are in three State planning and service areas and it is going to be a task for Solomon to fit this request into this particular pattern. I would like a little flexibility in that respect.

NEED FLEXIBILITY IN PROJECT AREAS

I would recommend eliminating the regulation that a project area cannot be less than a county. There are certain natural trade patterns in Illinois in some of our counties that cut across a county line and there are certain cities in one county-I am thinking of Aurora and Elgin-where a common project would be most difficult. They would each insist on their own programs, and I would like to see some flexibility there, not to the point of proliferating a thousand small projects, but a reasonable amount of give in that regulation.

I would recommend eliminating the requirement that there be only one grantee for each project in a city of 250,000 and over. I am thinking here of Chicago. In Chicago, we have letters of intent to participate in the nutrition program from the YMCA. This agency has a department for the aged. It has restaurants and cafeterias all over town. It would be an excellent supplement to the established program in the city of Chicago. We also have a letter of intent from the Catholic charities indicating the desire of 115 senior parish groups to partici