times during the past 15 years. The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation has a full-time consultant in aging who works with State rehabilitation agencies. More than 12 percent of the 500 research and demonstration grants made by the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation are for work with middle-aged and older people. Financial assistance, under the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, is now helping to support over 40 special projects which are seeking new techniques and methods for dealing with problems of disability among older people.

We are supporting legislation pending before the subcommittee of which Mrs. Green is chairman, which would broaden the scope of the Federal-State vocational rehabilitation programs.

We have specifically proposed amendments which would liberalize the present requirement that employment potential must be reasonably clear before rehabilitation services can be made available to a handicapped person. We have also proposed a flexible 5-year program of grants to enable nonprofit groups to build rehabilitative facilities with Federal matching on the same basis as now provided for Hill-Burton projects. These provisions would increase the rehabilitative services available to older persons, and we hope very much that your committee can see that these important amendments are passed this year.

In the future, veterans and their wives and widows will be an even larger portion of our aging population-about two-fifths in 1970 and nearly one-half in 1980.

Mr. BAILEY. Will be veterans?

Mr. COHEN. Or their wives or widows. These figures demonstrate that the Veterans' Administration's responsibility to veterans is becoming increasingly a responsibility to the aged and aging.

Consequently, the Veterans' Administration, through collaborative planning with a wide variety of community agencies is testing new approaches in their care of veterans in need of hospital treatment or domiciliary services. They are emphasizing rehabilitation, and they are stepping up their research to seek ways to better cope with the diseases and disabilities of the aging veteran.

Mr. BAILEY. This is a very serious problem right at this time, Doctor, among the group of veterans. We will say the World War I veterans. They are up now into their sixties.

Mr. COHEN. That is right.

Mr. BAILEY. The reason I know that they failed to make much provision for adequate provision for their declining years is they come to the Congressman and ask him to try to help them establish serviceconnected disability, so that they can get funds through that source. That is how I have come to know that it is getting to be a serious proposition for that age group that are now 63 to 70 years of age, veterans from World War I.

Mr. COHEN. That is one of the reasons, Mr. Chairman, why the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs is a member of this Federal Council on Aging, and you will find in this report here a section dealing with the work of the Veterans' Administration, I think you are going to find that increasingly, the Veterans' Administration's concern about health care, mental health, disability for older veterans, will become more and more important. They have done a lot in the last 10 years to start working in that direction.

Food and drug control: Exploitation of our older people by quack practitioners promoting quack treatments for the ills of the aged has

grown in proportion to the increasing number of older people in our population. Such remedies run the gamut from "geriatric vitamin capsules" and quack health diets to contraptions for the cure of cancer and other diseases. The "take" in this dreadful business totals $500 million a year. Fighting such quacks is a day-to-day job for the Food and Drug Administration.

I think this is a particular problem since the income of older people is small, so any extent to which it is diverted from their primary needs by much of this kind of attempt at quick treatment, and so on, is particularly unfortunate.

Older persons face serious problems of getting and retaining jobs, as we all know. Today their problems are greatly intensified by the large number of young people entering the work force and by the breathtaking speed of technological invention and changes. Legislation enacted during the past year, at the request of the President, will assist older workers. Special counseling and placement services are being stepped up in public employment offices throughout the country.

The Area Redevelopment Act of 1961 and the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 will, we believe, help to create new employment and to extend opportunities for occupational retraining for those whose skills have become obsolete and for the thousands of women entering the labor force after their children have grown up. The proposed new $600 million public works program in areas of high unemployment and the proposed new standby authority the President is requesting for initiation of $2 billion of public works projects in the event of a recession would provide additional help to some older people, in case it had to be used.

There are many other programs affecting aging people going on in both our Department and in the other agencies of Government which I shall not take the time to describe or to mention. They are all fully dealt with in the booklet that you have before you. What I have given you, however, I believe is sufficient to sketch for you the broad and comprehensive scope of the on-going activities which the Federal Government is engaged in in the field of older people. In summarizing what is being done to help our older citizens, I certainly do not mean to imply that all their needs are being met. I do contend, however, that we are making progress particularly in the very fundamental needs of income security, health facilities, employment, housing, and rehabilitation. We have built gradually and carefully on the existing governmental structure, mindful all the while of the proper role of the Federal Government and the role of State and local governments.

We need always to remember that our senior citizens are not all right here under the roof of the Federal Government. They are in the cities and towns and communities all over the country. Problems of the aged are complex. They will always be complex because aging is a part of life and life has many facets. Some persons lament what they see as a fragmentation of programs and services. They get frustrated because there is not some simple solution for all the problems of aging wrapped up in one neat package and shipped to them prepaid.

Major responsibility for coordination and provision of community services rests with the States and localities. It was for this purpose

that the special staff on aging has encouraged the formation of State commissions and has stimulated these commissions to urge the creation of similar coordinating mechanisms in the various communities. Better coordination of Federal programs and services is something we in the Department will work hard to achieve. In our opinion, it must come through strengthening the existing governmental structure, however, rather than from some new group superimposed on present departments and agencies with active operating programs and duplicating their functions.

In this connection, I am particularly happy to report to you that the President is announcing today that he has issued an Executive order which will convert the Federal Council on Aging into a President's Council on Aging with increased stature and clear-cut responsibilities.

This new President's Council on Aging will be composed of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, as Chairman, and the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, and the Treasury, the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, and the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs. The heads of other departments and agencies will be invited to meetings at which a significant matter within or affecting the area of their responsibility is being considered.

The President's Council on Aging is given several important functions. It will maintain continuing study of the overall responsibilities of the Federal Government in relation to the problems of aging and will make recommendations to the President on policy and program matters, particularly those which cut across department and agency lines. It will identify problem areas which require coordinated action by two or more Federal agencies and make arrangements for appropriate joint or coordinated action. It will promote the sharing and dissemination of information among Federal departments and agencies and between them and State, local, and private agencies and organizations having functions or interests in fields related to the problems of aging. Finally, it will submit to the President, each year, a consolidated report of the activities of the Council and of the several Federal departments having programs in aging.

We are confident that, with this redefinition of authority and emphasis and a strengthening of staff resources, the new President's Council on Aging will rapidly increase its effectiveness in assessing national needs, reviewing, and evaluating current Federal programs, coordinating present activities, and initiating such policy recommendations as may be indicated.

From our considerable experience in the Department, from our conferences with State executives for aging, and from our hundreds of visits to localities-all underwritten by recommendations of the White House Conference on Aging-we believe there are two forms of stimulation and assistance which the Federal Government should offer at the present time: First, intensive and long-term training of specialized personnel to work in the field of aging; and, second, support and encouragement of special demonstration, research, and evaluation projects which would determine the ways and manner in which some of the problems of the aging can best be solved.

The President is today transmitting to the Congress a 5-year program of legislation totaling authorizations of $50 million to reach

these objectives. The proposed bill will do these two things: Support research, demonstrations, and evaluation projects to deal with some of the problems faced by our older people. The projects would generally be carried on by States, local communities, and nonprofit institutions and organizations. Encourage and assist universities, professional schools, and other appropriate institutions, organizations, and agencies to step up their training programs for professional and technical personnel needed to provide the broad range of services required by older people.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Now Mr. Chairman, if I may interrupt at that point, I wonder if it would be possible for Mr. Cohen to give for inclusion at this point in the record the text of the legislation to which you refer, together with any message that the President may send on it? Mr. BAILEY. If there is no objection, we will accept that for inclusion.

Mr. COHEN. I would be very happy to, and I have some extra copies of the proposed bill here, Mr. Chairman, which members of the committee might like to have, and perhaps also, if it is agreeable with you, I could put it at the proper point the President's Executive order establishing the new President's Council.

(The documents referred to follow :)

(Office of the White House Press Secretary, immediate release, May 15, 1962)

EXECUTIVE ORDER ESTABLISHING THE PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL ON AGING

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. (a) There is hereby established the President's Council on Aging (hereinafter referred to as the "Council").

(b) The Council shall be composed of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, who shall be Chairman, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, and the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs.

(c) The Chairman of the Council shall invite the head of any other Federal department or agency to attend any meeting of the Council at which any matter within or affecting the area of responsibility of such department or agency is considered and to be a temporary member with respect to such matter.

SEC. 2. The Council shall:

(a) Maintain a continuing study of the overall responsibilities of the Federal Government with respect to the problems of the aging and make recommendations to the President concerning policies and programs required to meet Federal responsibilities, particularly on matters which do not fall within the jurisdiction of a single agency.

(b) Identify matters which require coordinated action by two or more Federal agencies and make appropriate arrangements for joint or coordinated action, including, as appropriate, conference, joint studies, and the development of recommendations to the President.

(c) Promote the sharing and dissemination of information on the needs of the aging and policies and programs relating to the aging, among Federal departments and agencies and between them and State, local, or private agencies and organizations having functions or interests in fields relating to the problems of the aging.

(d) Prepare an annual consolidated report to the President concerning the activities of the Council and the several Federal departments and agencies having programs relating to the aging.

SEC. 3. (a) Consonant with law, each department or agency represented on the Council shall, as may be necessary for the effectuation of the purpose of this order, furnish assistance to the Council in accordance with Section 214 of the Act of May 3, 1945, 59 Stat. 134 (31 U.S.C. 691).

(b) Other Federal departments and agencies are also authorized and directed, to the extent not inconsistent with law, to cooperate with the Council and to

furnish it such information and assistance as it may find necessary in the performance of its functions.

SEC. 4. The Federal Council on Aging, established by a letter from the President to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, dated March 7, 1959, is hereby abolished and that letter is hereby superseded.

THE WHITE HOUSE, May 14, 1962.

JOHN F. KENNEDY.

[ Office of the White House Press Secretary, for release at 12 noon, Eastern Daylight time, May 15, 1962]

The White House today made public the following letter from the President to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. THE WHITE HOUSE, May 14, 1962.

Hon. LYNDON B. JOHNSON,

President of the Senate,

Washington, D.C.

Hon. JOHN W. MCCORMACK,

Speaker of the House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: (DEAR MR. SPEAKER:) I am transmitting herewith a draft of a bill entitled the "Senior Citizens Act of 1962." The bill has two principal purposes:

First, it will provide assistance for research, demonstration, and evaluation projects leading to the development of new and improved programs to help older persons. These projects will, in most instances, be under the control of the States, local communities, and nonprofit institutions and organizations.

Secondly, it will encourage and assist universities, professional schools and other institutions, organizations and agencies to increase their programs for training those professional and technical people needed to provide the broad range of services required by older people.

The life expectancy of our population, the number of older people, and the number of years that our citizens spend in retirement are increasing. By 1970, approximately 20 million persons will be over age 65. Many of our older citizens face special problems resulting from reduced incomes, inadequate housing, large medical bills, declining health, unproductive leisure time, and lack of opportunity to continue their useful service to society. While our present programs are helping them to meet their most serious problems, important gaps remain in services for our older people.

The purpose of the proposed Senior Citizens Act of 1962 is to enable the Federal Government to help fill these gaps in existing programs through participation in a major cooperative effort with the States and local communities to accelerate efforts already underway to improve the living conditions of this important segment of our population. It will permit the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to assist such activities as (1) community planning of coordinated services for older persons, (2) experimentation and demonstration of techniques for more fully using the leisure time of retired persons through community service projects and educational and recreational programs, and (3) training of gerontologists and other specialists needed to expand services to the aged.

For these purposes, an annual authorization for $10 million in appropriations for 5 years is requested.

Sincerely,

JOHN F. KENNEDY.

A BILL To provide assistance for research or training projects leading to development of new or improved programs to help older persons, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "Senior Citizens Act of 1962".

FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF PURPOSES

SEC. 2. (a) The Congress hereby finds and declares that the life expectancy of our population, the number and proportion of aged people in our population,