problems of handicapped persons and has given his life to improve public understanding of these problems and of their solutions.

So, we are very pleased to welcome to testify today, Mr. Harold Russell, chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped.

STATEMENT OF HAROLD RUSSELL, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT OF THE HANDICAPPED, ACCOMPANIED BY MR. McCAHILL, DIRECTOR; MR. POSNER, DEPUTY; MR. LEONARD AND MR. MESSMER, ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE SECRETARIES

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to have this privilege and opportunity of appearing before this distinguished committee.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I hope so.

Mr. RUSSELL. I am happy to highlight, clarify, and comment briefly upon the prepared statement and backup material you have before you.

As you well know, I am a volunteer and not skilled legislati vely, so I have with me our director, Mr. McCahill; our deputy, Mr. Posner; and our two assistant executive secretaries, Mr. Leonard and Mr. Messmer. I came well supported.

Mr.B RADEMAS. I am happy to have you with us.

Mr. RUSSELL. We consider these amendments equally significant to the his toric 1954 and 1965 amendments. Relative to my comments on section 8 of Public Law 565, now section 403 in H.R. 8395, we have met with the Secretaries of Labor and HEW several times as part of the larger meetings of our advisory council. Our respective staffs do have a continuous and harmonious close working relationship both with Labor and HEW.

On page 2 we strongly suggest writing into law certain permissive administrative practices supportive of the Governors' committees on employment of the handicapped as we feel this will benefit both the handicapped and the agencies involved in this cooperative endeavor. We hope your committee will thus support funding of Governor's committees throughout our Nation and their staffs.

On page 3 we recommend that you take the same action the House took in passing therVocational Rehabilitation Amendments of 1968; namely, remove ou ceiling. This does not mean any open door to spending or any avoidance of your committee.

It does end the constant search for new legislation every time rising salary and other costs force us to do so. Actually, we seek closer contacts with this committee in the future.

Our use of the word "free-standing" implies no dissatisfaction with our cooperative housekeeping arrangements with the Department of Labor under Executive Order No. 11480.

On page 4, I suggest the possibility of pioneering in this legislation and providing second or subsequent injury protection to disabled veterans and voc rehab clients. The hearings before the National Commission clearly indicate that Federal interest in this area is no longer the "no-no" it once was, particularly since passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970.

We initially thought that veterans could serve as an opening wedge, but your hearings provide an opportunity for possible earlier action and wider coverage beneficial to both the disabled and employers who hire them.

On page 5, we appeal for greater liaison between State vocational rehabilitation agencies and workmen's compensation commissions. On rereading H.R. 8395, I do find a specific reference to public employment offices under State Plans on page 10.

Statistics from the U.S. Employment Service are no longer particularly meaningful to us since the socially and culturally deprived, addicts and penal offenders are now included as "handicapped" placements, while the total placement figures remain generally the

same.

If our mail, the economic situation today and visits of our staff to communities around the country are any indication, the fact is, fewer and fewer mentally and physically handicapped people are being served by the employment service.

My statements on page 6 speak for themselves. We favor the "National Information and Resource Center for the Handicapped" with specific liaison with the President's committee.

We also believe we should be among Federal members of the National Committee on Transportation and Housing for the Handicapped, particularly because of the leadership we have already demonstrated in this area.

The legislation before you makes no reference to what I have called the "numbers game," but perhaps your committee report can direct RSA and State agencies to pay at least as much attention to the hard cases as to the easier ones. Your own bill, H.R. 8947, would seem to be one definite solution, provided the title were properly funded.

In closing, and I believe I have observed your 10-minute rule, I wish to pay tribute to the close working relationships we have had with HEW and Labor Department officials from top to bottom.

They are aware of what we are doing and are generally part of the planning and execution as working partners in our various programs and projects. I would be very happy to respond to any questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Russell, both in the substance of your statement and for its brevity. If you ever decide to run for public office, you better not seek to become a member of the other body.

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Let me put two or three questions to you, Mr. Russell. You commented on the need for the legislation to authorize funds for staff positions and related expenditures of the State committees on employment of the handicapped, which are your counterparts, as I understand it, in several States.

Could you comment on how many Governor's committees in the States have, today, full-time staffs and how are the existing staffs being funded presently?

Mr. RUSSELL. Let me very generally say that the existence of our State structures, as far as staff is concerned, is quite weak. But specifically, let me ask Mr. Messmer, who handles our State relations, who can give you a more detailed report.

Mr. MESSMER. Mr. Chairman, we have about 14 committees that have full-time executive secretaries. The funding for these comes partly from the employment service. In other words, the position is established in the employment service.

Some of them are funded as a position in vocational rehabilitation. Others are funded by State funds through the Governor's office, maybe allocated through another agency, but through the Governor's office.

The staffs include, generally, an executive secretary, a clerical person, occasionally an assistant executive secretary or a filed person, one who visits local communities and works with and organizes mayor's committees.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I just want to observe, before I put another question to you, that I am distressed to find that so few of the States have gone out on their own to initiate such committees in an area of such obvious importance. I should have thought that Governors in particular would have made an effort to earmark at least a modest sum of funds for such programs and to seek legislative authority for them from their State legislatures.

Do you know if any effort has been made across the country in some systematic way to encourage the establishment of such State committees?

Mr. MESSMER. To encourage the establishment of the committees, yes, Mr. Chariman. There has been a general effort, a concentrated effort by the President's committee and its staff, the vocational rehabilitation employment service, and related agencies to establish the committees and provide an executive secretary and backup assistance.

There has not been that kind of concerted effort, although there has been some effort in working with the chairmen and secretaries of the Governor's committees, and there is one in every State, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, to get them to think in terms of going to their Governors or their legislators to obtain legal base and funding.

There are a few States, about four or five, which do have these positions legislatively and yet, they still may be funded through the employment service or through vocational rehabilitation or through three-way funding, State, rehab and employment service.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I wonder if it would not be too much trouble if you could supply for the committee, which we would put at this point in the record, some background memorandum on the State committees of employment of the handicapped, how many there are, whether they have full-time staffs, and how much money they have for them, so that we could obtain a more accurate picture.

And, I might just add one followup question. Are there any committees that are analogous to the President's committee or to these State committees, wherever they exist, in large metropolitan urban areas in the United States? Is there, for instance, a New York committee on employment of the handicapped?

Mr. McCAHILL. The New York mayor has a committee. It is a relatively new one. It works independently out of the mayor's office. It is not really connected with the Governor's committee.

Many of the metropolitan areas used to. For instance, Hubert Humphrey, at one time, was chairman of the committee in Minneapolis-St. Paul when he was mayor. He took that job right after the

war.

In the metropolitan areas there has not been as much interest and activity in recent years that there used to be. For instance, in Chicago there is no committee. In Los Angeles there are 23 local committees in the whole area and there is a Greater Metropolitan Los Angeles Area Coordinating Council that is one of our pride and joys.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Perhaps you could add similar information with respect to the cities. Isn't it sensible to involve as many State governments and local governments as possible in this effort so that it would not be strictly a President's committee without a lot of support out in the country?

Mr. RUSSELL. I think that is where the problem is, it is in the cities and towns and localities around. If we can't reach handicapped people there with proper support of the particular committees, then we are not doing a job. I don't think we can do it in Washington.

We do have committees in all the States and territories, but we need staff, we need the support of the people in these committees.

Mr. McCAHILL. We have about 1,000 we know of in the communities in the country that are organized but not all of them, of course, are on a 12-month basis. Some of them really wind up and do a great job during Hire the Handicapped Week in October and then they are dormant.

But, like anything in this world, there are good, bad, and indifferent. But, we will get you what we have, sir.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you. Mr. Russell, you also said in your statement that the latest figures of referrals to vocational rehabilitation show that workmen's compensation referrals come to about 1 percent of the total. Why are there so few?

Mr. RUSSELL. I think there are many, many reasons. Probably the prime reason is because most workmen's compensation agencies in the States don't have rehabilitation facilities, they don't have rehabilitation committees.

I think, after a certain period of time, when the disabled worker is referred to a committee of workmen's compensation that deals primarily with rehabilitation and then the necessary training or whatever is needed is gotten to this person and he has gotten back to work.

In Massachusetts we do have such a committee. We find that while it doesn't solve all the problems, we are able to reach the more seriously handicapped worker and get the training necessary or whatever he needs to get back to work. This is helpful.

There are many other reasons, but this is primarily one of the basic reasons. We don't have enough rehabilitation procedures in workmen's compensation agencies.

Mr. McCAHILL. Mr. Chairman, on that subject, last week we did testify before the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws and Commissioner Newman also testified. Both of us admitted that neither the President's committee nor RSA has really done enough to encourage Workmen's Compensation to work more closely with Rehab.

We really are pointing this up because statistics are rather startling and since we have become more and more involved with Workmen's Compensation, Mr. Russell serves on the Massachusetts Commission. We do feel that since you are taking a good look at the whole picture, this is something that you really ought to have another look at.

We think there should be a lot more referrals because the timelag is very bad.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Another question, Mr. Russell, has to do with nonservice-connected veterans with disabilities. I believe you used that phrase. Could you comment or maybe give me a definition of what you mean by that phrase and some indication of how you would like to see an approach made to their needs?

Mr. RUSSELL. I think we are talking about the older veteran who, for one reason or another, has become disabled and needs retraining, and so forth. One of the things we have asked is, we dived into the possibility of creating a second injury line of workmen's compensation where, if the employer were to hire handicapped persons, specifically disabled veterans, and there was a second injury, he would not be charged with the whole bill. The second injury form would take care of this.

We think, as the veteran population gets older and older, we find an increasing number of older veterans who become handicapped through one reason or another. Many times, these people need a lot of help.

Mr. McCAHILL. Mr. Chairman, a specific definition of the nonservice-connected disabled veteran is a veteran who has a disability and the disability is not connected with his service.

"Disabled veteran" is a technical term which means that somebody has compensation from the Veterans' Administration. But, for instance, many of these young people coming out of Vietnam get. banged up in automobile accidents or have other problems after they get out.

Many of them can't prove it was service connected. They are certainly disabled as far as their physical condition is concerned. They aren't compensable as far as the VA is concerned. They can't get VA vocational rehab, which is much better than the general GI bill.

And, the President's six-point statement has indicated that where a veteran has a disability and it is not service connected, he should go to vocational rehab, but there is very little backup on this publicitywise. We think there should be more.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Russell, at the outset of your statement, you observed that in amending the Vocational Rehabilitation Act, this Congress will be enacting landmark legislation as important as the 1954 amendments, and you went on to say it is urgently important that what Congress says should happen does happen.

Do I take that to mean you support the passage of H.R. 8395? Mr. RUSSELL. Yes, Mr. Chairman, we do.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Do any of your colleagues have any further comment he would like to make or points to raise about the legislation? Mr. McCAHILL. Mr. Leonard is our expert on transportation and architectural barriers, and since there were two sections in that bill, I don't know if Ed wants to supplement anything.

Mr. LEONARD. No.