are doing so under any but the State standard. Neither is there evidence of any abuses as seems to be implied by introduction of the amendment.

The net effect of retention of the amendment thus would be the implementation of a double-standard in every payment office; good or bad one for the non-Federal employee, harsher by far another for the Federal employee.

We urge the deletion of the amendment.

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS ON APPROPRIATIONS FOR SALK VACCINE, BY DONALD MONTGOMERY, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON OFFICE, UAW-CIO

We recommend an amendment to H. R. 5046 as follows: In line 17, page 31, strike out "$30,000,000" and insert "$58,000,000."

The purpose of this amendment is to make available $28 million for grants to States to enable them to carry out, with respect to poliomyelitis, what has long been one of their major responsibilities—the immunization of children against contagious disease.

Almost from the beginning of public-health services the protection of children against contagious disease has been their first responsibility. This has become, through the years, a major reason for the existence of public-health services and a major source of strength to the Nation.

State and local health services have been doing a good job. They know how to reach children. They know how to encourage mothers and fathers to get their children immunized. They know how to give immunizations. Their record in preventing the spread of disease and in building sounder health in children is not to be challenged.

The $28 million additional appropriation which we recommended for maternal and child-health services will enable the States to live up to their traditions and achievements in this field.

The amount recommended is intended to cover the cost of Salk vaccine for immunization of the children who normally look to State and local health services for this kind of service.

The $28 million which we recommend is the amount requested by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in her letter of May 16 to the President of the Senate.

Our own calculation of the probable cost of the vaccine for children served by these local health services is $34 million. The difference is apparently due chiefly to the use by the Secretary of an estimate of the child population as of July 1, 1954, ages 1 through 19, that is 2 million less than the preliminary estimate for March 1, 1955.

Our $34 million figure also includes the cost of vaccine for the third inoculation of the 9 million children in the foundation program, all of whom the Secretary excludes from her calculation.

We suggest that the subcommittee ascertain the amount that is necessary to do the job.

While the Secretary's proposal covers the 18-month period ending December 31, 1956, we recommend that the entire amount be available for use in fiscal year 1956 in the event the supply of vaccine permits 3 inoculations for every child within that period.

We are challenged by this new discovery in science to act, to act promptly, and to act in the great tradition of the public health services to insure that all children, regardless of the social or economic condition of their families, are given equal opportunity to share in the benefits of this new discovery.

In addition to a proper concern for the children who will thus be protected, we must recognize that, in dealing with contagious disease, if any children in the community are neglected, the entire community is endangered. That is why immunization against contagious disease is, and long has been, a keystone of public health service.

Your committee has ready at hand the instrument through which this essential service to the Nation can be rendered-the maternal and child-health services of States and local communities, assisted by Federal grants through an annual appropriation under part I, title V of the Social Security Act. This, we submit, is all the enabling legislation you need. It stood the test of another emergency in 1943 when the Nation demanded that aid be given to the States to provide emergency maternity and infant care for servicemen's families. For that pro

gram a total of more than $130 million was appropriated under title V in fiscal years 1943 through 1947. It stood the test then; it will stand the test now in meeting the national demand that children share and share alike in the blessings that we anticipate for all of them from the Salk vaccine.

UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKERS, CIO

STATEMENT OF DONALD MONTGOMERY, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON OFFICE

SALK POLIO VACCINE

Senator HILL. You may proceed, Mr. Montgomery.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Senator, this is the prepared statement on the question of the appropriation for the Salk polio vaccine. There are just 3 points I want to make on your proposal, which is that the item in your bill for grants to States on maternal and child welfare, now $30 million-that is line 17, page 31-be increased to $58 million. just want to make these three points about that proposal.

The first one is that by putting it in this bill and putting it in that item you will have ready for the use of the money, just as soon as the vaccine is available, a service for getting it to the children that is already in operation, that knows how to do it. The Federal-State relationships have been worked out and have been working for years.

As you know, first under the Shepherd-Conner Act from 1922 to 1929, this Federal-State relationship on local health problems in the maternal health field were developed, and they were reestablished under the Social Security Act of 1935. So that this thing has been working ever since 1936.

You have there the machinery of people with the know-how to do this job.

The importance of it getting into that channel, it seems to me, is this, that if you just appropriate it to the Secretary and it is assigned to someone else in the Department, they have this very serious problem about controlling the production and quality of the vaccine. And we have heard in the hearings before your labor committee and in the House of the very considerable administrative difficulty they seem to be having in working out a program for distribution.

I submit this is one part of the polio operation that can be handled without all the difficulites that the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare seems to be encountering.

The machinery is here and is ready to go, and as soon as the vaccine is available this program will move swiftly. They will carry out these polio innoculations exactly as they have been doing for years, providing innoculations to children on diptheria, small pox, whooping cough, and in some cases, tetanus shots.

That is point No. 1.

LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY

No. 2, I think, is all the legislative authority you need. I base that statement on this fact: While the statutory limit for maternal and child health services in $16.5 million-and our recommendation would put it considerably above that, of course-in 1943 the Congress started appropriating money for the emergency-maternity and infant-care

program, the progam for obstetrical care and hospital care for the wives of servicemen. At that time the statutory limits on the maternal and child health services was $5,820,000. In 1946 it was raised to $11 million, but the appropriations during that time ran as high as $45 million in the year 1945, and in the fiscal years 1943 through 1947 a total of $130 million was appropriated for that purpose.

So I suggest that if that was an emergency, this is, too, and it seems to me very likely that Congress would, in this case, as in that one, accept this temporary enlargement of the appropriation above the authorized amount.

ESTIMATED COST OF PROGRAM

The third point I want to make is that while I don't know how the Secretary estimated the $28 million figure that she has put in here, I think I can guess how it was done. I want to point out that our own estimate is $34 million. The differences between the 2 estimates seem to come from 2 reasons. They are for some reason still using figures of the child population as of July 1, 1954, although preliminary estimates are available from the Bureau of the Census as of March 1, 1955. Those give a child population age as, 1 through 19, 2 million higher than the estimates they are using over there in the Department. As you know, the population has been increasing recently by about 2.8 million a year, and probably some nearly 2 million of that takes place in these age levels.

So that if you used the same figure in arriving at the $28 million that they have been using in their other statements concerning this program, they are using figures that are out of date.

An additional reason for our larger estimate is that we would include, we recommend that provision be made for paying for the third shot for the 9 million children from the foundation program. And she excludes those children from it.

I recognize perfectly well that not all of those 9 million children would be in the categories that these local health services ordinarily serve. But since these 9 million children we feel sure will get first and second shots, we ought to have at least that group that get the whole recommended inoculation. So it would be that basis for ascertaining the value of the vaccine and making this year's operation a better experiment. That is all I have.

Senator HILL. Let me say this to you, sir: I am sure I can give you every assurance that this committee will provide all the funds that may be necessary to make certain that all the children get this Salk vaccine.

Now, I have called a meeting of the legislative committee of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare at 10 o'clock Monday morning. We will consider at that meeting if any further authorization or legislation is needed. If there is, I shall certainly do everything I can to get the committee Monday morning to report that legislation out. You might have some question, too, not only of authorization of the amount, but there might be some question of the matching of funds and things of that kind.

We will go into all that on Monday morning to make sure that every dollar that may be needed for this purpose will be provided, will be appropriated.

62284-5571

We appreciate your testimony, sir.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. Thank you. May I emphasize again, the importance of, as we see it, putting it in the maternal and child health service, because the machinery is there ready to go.

Senator HILL. Yes. We have had the experience in other years with diphtheria and whooping cough, in other vaccines.

We appreciate your testimony here this morning.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. And it is well to realize that the means of allotting the money between the States has been worked out and agreed to between the Federal Government and the States. You do not have to start on a new formula.

Senator HILL. One reason for requiring that formula is that, you see, where you require matching you might have some delay if you required that this money be matched. It might be in this case that the Federal Government would want to put up every dollar. Otherwise you would have to wait until the State legislature met to provide the State funds to do the matching.

So we are meeting on Monday morning to consider this very question so as to make certain that every dollar that is needed to insure that every child gets this Salk vaccine will be appropriated.

Mr. MONTGOMERY. May I suggest that Dr. Elliott be called to the committee, if you are taking testimony on the question, so that he could answer questions of this sort that I was not able to?

Senator HILL. Yes. Thank you, sir; we appreciate this very, very much.

Now, Mr. Plumb.

CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS

STATEMENT OF MILTON PLUMB, DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE
INFORMATION

MEXICAN FARM LABOR PROGRAM

Mr. PLUMB. Mr. Chairman, may I say at the beginning that I am appearing here today in a dual capacity, both for the C. I. O., and as secretary of the United States section of the Joint United StatesMexican Trade Union Committee, which speaks for the A. F. of L., the Railway Brotherhood, affiliated with the railway labor executives. and the United Mine Workers as well as C. I. O., in matters pertaining to Mexican labor.

I am authorized to say that my statement is being made in its behalf, as well as for C. I. O.

We are, as a united labor movement in this country, very vigorously opposed to the reduction which the House made in funds for the Mexican farm labor program. The reduction was only $137,000, but in its impact upon this program the effect will be many times this seemingly and relatively insignificant amount.

LANGUAGE OF REPORT

What concerns us especially is the language of the report which relates to this cut. It reads, if I may quote just a section:

It is the committee's belief that any small increases in cost due to recruiting all laborers from the interior of Mexico, rather than recruiting a portion of the laborers at the border, can be absorbed by some reduction in compliance activities.

What that means is that the reduction in the budget cuts directly at the compliance staff. In our opinion, this staff has already been reduced to a mockery. This would be a complete abnegation by the United States, in our opinion, of its commitments to Mexico, which are made under the international agreement by which this program operates.

ANTI-UNITED STATES PROPAGANDA

Coming at this time it would be exploited in Mexico by small but active anti-United States elements, and they have already been making effective use for anti-United States propaganda purposes of developments which have occurred under this program during the last 211⁄2

years.

Senator KILGORE. Let me ask a question at this point on this program.

Mr. PLUMB. Surely.

Senator KILGORE. I have been very much interested in it.

One of the reasons for bringing these people up from the interior is really also a development. It helps Mexico train their agricultural workers; is that not right?

Mr. PLUMB. Absolutely.

Senator KILGORE. And that is why they want to bring them from the agricultural sections in the interior of Mexico rather than the border country which does not do anything?

Mr. PLUMB. Certainly.

Senator KILGORE. So that it is a cultural development as well as a safeguard against upsetting the domestic economy of this country; is that right?

Mr. PLUMB. Well, we say that this has done very much to upset the farm economy of our country. Let me make clear, if I may, that we are not opposed to the law as it stands, provided certain minimum amendments are made. But we object very much to the improper administration of the law. We saw that most of the faults of this program are due to the fact that the Labor Department has never exercised powers, which it has, under the law to do this job properly. Senator KILGORE. Is it not better to say, though, that they have not had such funds?

Mr. PLUMB. Absolutely. That is certainly the major part of it.

WETBACK PROBLEM

Senator KILGORE. And the most upsetting factor to the economy of this country is that if this program were properly carried on, then the only upsetting problem that we have would be the question of wetbacks, who are always an upsetting problem, and also the health problem; is that not right?

Mr. PLUMB. Absolutely.

Senator KILGORE. There again the program is sort of strangled at the roots because of lack of funds to properly enforce it?

Mr. PLUMB. That is exactly it.