Mr. JEFFREY. That is right. In some of our States there have not been enough recreators yet to join together to form an official chapter. We have active individual members from the other States than the 30 in which we have chapters.

Senator GRUENING. Well, now, give me an illustration of what you do in a specific State. Take some State that you would like to use to illustrate your activities.

Mr. JEFFREY. In Pennsylvania, for example, we would have a State chapter. This group would have its professional conferences, workshops, and meetings. It would develop solutions to the problems that face recreation. Its president, for example, has written us on this matter. In the 1,200 communities in their State they vitally need the property materials and supplies and equipment for maintenance and for other purposes in caring for the buildings and other operations. This would be possible through this program if it were authorized to make available the benefits of surplus property to tax supported public recreation and park agencies.

Senator GRUENING. Well, what is the relation of the chapter to Government organizations, Federal and State, municipal and county? What is your relation to them? How do you relate your activities to the existing public parks, let us say? How do you work that?

Mr. JEFFREY. We would develop those professional knowledges which are important in park operation. We would very seriously work in terms of, for example, at this time encroachment on recreation and park space. The wildlife refuge in Idaho, for example, is as much of a concern to us as would be the little 18-acre plot of land in Bridgeport, Washington State. This playfield property was declared surplus and the community had spent $100,000 in work bees on this property and yet they could not afford to buy it back.

Senator GRUENING. Is your organization working to save the dunes in Indiana?

Mr. JEFFREY. Yes. We are very interested in that.

Senator GRUENING. How do you work this? What do you do?

Mr. JEFFREY. Well, our members are actually working in those facilities, in the Indiana Dunes State Park. One of our members is serving on the Outdoor Recreation Review Commission.

Senator GRUENING. You are saying that you work for, say, wildlife refuges. Now, the dunes do not exist as a recreation area, and I was wondering what you were doing to help save them. I would like to get an idea of your activities. Do you lobby?

Mr. JEFFREY. We bear testimony in support of those programs, for example, that would require budgets, like Mission 66 or Operation Outdoors.

Senator GRUENING. Who pays the workers in your organization? How are they paid?

Mr. JEFFREY. By individual membership dues, sir.

Senator GRUENING. Well, I mean, are you hired by municipalities or counties?

Mr. JEFFREY. I am hired by the members of the profession.

Senator GRUENING. But your individual workers, how many people do you have working for this American Recreation Society?

Mr. JEFFREY. For the society; there are three working for the profession in my particular office. There are 400 members, who serve on

national committees. We have a service organization with a great many other employees who are working for this interest. This is a private service organization while parallels our professional society. Senator GRUENING. You say you represent 5,154 recreators.

Now, for whom do they work? What do they live on? Who pays them?

Mr. JEFFREY. They work in all the situations to which recreation is adapted: Parks, public recreation, hospitals, Armed Forces; rural, private, and voluntary agencies, and others. They are paid for in many instances by the municipalities as the employees of city or town or county recreation departments, and sometimes schools. Senator GRUENING. Athletic coaches and so forth?

Mr. JEFFREY. No, Mr. Chairman. Recreators are interested in developing all of the recreation programs which revolve around the human interests of people, and they are also responsible for facilities, areas and for the recreation programing of communities.

Senator GRUENING. Well, it isn't quite clear to me just how you intermesh with existing recreation facilities. Give me a specific example of what some of your recreators, your 5,000 recreators, do. What specifically do they do?

Mr. JEFFREY. For example, we have a member of our society who is responsible for a park in Wheeling, W. Va. He is responsible for its maintenance and its operation.

Senator GRUENING. This is a city park?

Mr. JEFFREY. This is a municipal park.

Senator GRUENING. Does the municipality pay him?

Mr. JEFFREY. Yes, it does.

Senator GRUENING. In other words, you are a profession of people engaged in recreation whose services are available if communities want to hire them. Is that a correct statement?

Mr. JEFFREY. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Senator GRUENING. And you have a total of about 5,154.
Mr. JEFFREY. Members of our society.

Senator GRUENING. You say that the surplus property is available. Just what do you mean by that, and how do you know there is?

Mr. JEFFREY. Our members have told us. I have, for example, included in my testimony the fact that at one of the Air Force bases in the West, an area council of the Boy Scouts received a surplus bulldozer. The school camps received lumber, tarpaulin, tents, and many other useful tools, and the tax supported units have not been able to receive the same privilege, and it is this that we are particularly

interested in.

Senator GRUENING. Well, now, there are various organizations which overlap your demand, such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. You are simply speaking in general on behalf of the principle of having surplus donated to recreation. You don't expect your society as such to receive it, do you?

Mr. JEFFREY. No, we request this privilege for tax-supported governmental units.

Senator GRUENING. What would be your method of accounting for such properties as you receive? Have you facilities for accounting? Mr. JEFFREY. Yes, I believe we have, because in our State park departments or in our municipal government operations, we are accountable for the inventories of our property.

Senator GRUENING. Well, you say you think you are.

Where would

the accounting take place? At what levels? Do you, as executive director, have an office?

Mr. JEFFREY. Yes, sir.

Senator GRUENING. Where?

Mr. JEFFREY. Here in Washington, sir.

Senator GRUENING. Would you do the accounting?

Mr. JEFFERY. No, sir; the individual member employed by the taxsupported recreation and park departments. For example, the superintendent of parks and recreation in Richmond, Va., or in Wheeling, W. Va., or any other tax-supported recreation and park authority would be accountable for this property.

Senator GRUENING. Why shouldn't surplus property go to the State agency and be distributed by the State agency to your organization if that was considered desirable?

Mr. JEFFREY. The procedure you indicate would be highly desirable. This is exactly the privilege which we have not yet had, sir, for taxsupported recreation and park services.

Senator GRUENING. In other words, you want to be made eligible for distribution through the existing State organization. Is that it? Mr. JEFFREY. State and local governmental organizations. Senator GRUENING. Mr. Shriver wants to ask a question.

Mr. SHRIVER. Mr. Jeffrey, if this property is made available to your organization, what control would you have over the property after it is allocated?

Mr. JEFFREY. Each of these individual members of our society are employed by either State or local governments and they are accountable to the State or local government.

Mr. SHRIVER. So the local people would be held accountable for control of this property after it is allocated?

Mr. JEFFERY. That is right. This would be a government function. Senator GRUENING. Thank you very much, Mr. Jeffrey.

Mr. JEFFREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Jeffrey is as follows:)

TESTIMONY ON MAKING AVAILABLE SURPLUS PROPERTY TO PUBLIC TAX-SUPPORTED

RECREATION AND PARKS DEPARTMENTS

The American Recreation Society, representing 5,154 recreators throughout the Nation, urges support of legislation to make available surplus property to taxsupported recreation and parks departments.

During this 86th Congress 21 Senators and 4 Congressmen, to our knowledge, have introduced and sponsored bills which would permit the donation of surplus property to tax-supported recreation and park services. We respectfully submit this testimony in support of their action.

Surplus supplies and equipment deteriorate, need maintenance, and use up space in warehouses throughout the country. Real property represents a vital source of park lands and historic sites which we need in the planned preservation of park and other facilities against encroachment on our outdoor resources and the encroachment of selfish interests trying to violate the general good.

We represent the officially expressed wishes of the members of our 30 State chapters of the American Recreation Society. Lay citizen recreation boards from every area of the Nation who, themselves, are representative of the recreation needs and wishes of all ages, economic classes, races, and groups in their communities have also joined our individual members in expressing the need for passage of legislation to make available surplus property. This legislation presents a commonly held expressed need throughout the United States. We urge

the favorable report by the Government Operations Committee and the enactment into law of the privileges well expressed in bills during the 86th Congress, 1st session.

There is, without a doubt, no other service which more nearly includes all of our citizens than does planned community recreation.

An increase in the number of requests for surplus solves the problem of delayed distribution of surplus. The administration, organization, and management which Federal, State, and local government authorities would work out would make surplus available without delay. We respectfully suggest that through their State representatives recreation and park departments would expedite the movement of this property. Granted the legal right to request, financial loss due to damage and storage would be reduced. The expense caused by storage and maintenance would be eliminated.

In the interest of the Nation and its citizens, recreation and park need for real property exists where many of these are located. As a nation on wheels, these lands are accessible to the taxpayers in every State in the Nation. They are of primary importance to the local citizens. The interests of the local citizens and the equal interests of all citizens in every State would be better served. This principle is, we know, important to the Government Operations Committee. Many private recreation agency already are eligible to receive surplus supplies and equipment. Since tax funds paid for this material originally, it seems only fair that tax-supported agencies should also be able to use these surplus items. This, in turn, would be a saving to the Government operations in town or city, village, county, or States. The present laws allow such agencies as public schools, health departments, veteran organizations, youth agencies, Boy and Girl Scouts, etc., to acquire surplus property on a gratis basis. We respectfully request the same privilege for local and State and public recreation and park services.

The question is asked what would recreation agencies use surplus property for. Five months ago at one Air Force base, the VFW came in for a complete F-86 aircraft to use for display. An area Council of Boy Scouts received a bulldozer. The school camps received lumber, tarpaulin, tents, and likewise many other useful tools and equipment were given on a surplus basis to such organizations. These illustrate an answer to the question numbers of the committee have asked for the practical application of various surplus goods. The uses of supplies and equipment are as varied as recreation activities and facilities in parks, playgrounds, and indoor recreation centers. Our inventories include program supplies, office supplies, as well as items which maintain and keep property in good running order. Graders, tractors, and bulldozers can be found among the heavy maintenance equipment. Buildings are painted and properties given all kinds of protection to prolong the life of the physical plant. Public recreation and park services would make a sincere, honest, and beneficial use of surplus.

We urgently need participation in Federal surplus property disposal to stretch tax dollars spent on supplies, equipment, and property for public recreation and park services.

Why all tax-supported agencies were not included in this legislation in the first place is very difficult to understand. Surplus property continues to lay in warehouses in Texas according to statements from our members. Officers in charge of surplus say the more requests there are, the more quickly supplies, equipment, and property move.

Not long ago, in Bridgeport, Wash., a park area was declared surplus. Although this community had invested $100,000 in materials and labor at work bees on this 18-acre property, they could not afford the available funds to repurchase the land and to set aside this space in their community for generations to come. There is no State in the Nation where this same situation might not be duplicated. The disposal of real property to governmental units prevents the growing crisis in our outdoor recreation resource needs. Idaho's potential wildlife refuge would cost the Federal Government more than the purchase price to return the land to the original owners. This cost would result from the flood-controlled waters that rise and fall over the what would then be private lands. A community in Oregon may be ready to operate a historic building which the park service cannot. Along our eastern seabord we may find surplus space near our sprawled out urban areas.

This year Pennsylvania is spending $28 million to build reform schools. It is also interesting to study the mental hospital costs compared to the cost of public

recreation services. Budget of the majority of the community recreation programs are too low to meet the recreation needs of our people. Recently, we had a letter from the president of the Pennsylvania Recreation Society, representing more than 1,200 communities in that State, urging that H.R. 702, HR. 2186, and H.R. 543 be passed so that the tools necessary to make a well-rounded program might be made available.

Members of the American Recreation Society have had the opportunity to observe the public recreation and park needs for surplus property in all the States.

We believe Federal, State, and local government recreation services are important to our country in this age of leisure. It is unrealistic to exclude the local and State governmental agencies for recreation from sharing in the vast benefits which might be made available to their people through the disposal of Federal properties, supplies, and equipment.

In planned recreation, we hold the key to our industrial future. We produce more than survival needs. In many towns, cities, and counties, recreation services cannot be primed and started unless the basis of property, supplies, and equipment is made available to the citizens, and the recreators who provide the leadership.

The availability of surplus has always been urgent and important. It is a fine action to have the proposals for making available and permitting the donation and other disposal of property to tax-supported, public recreation and park agenices expedited.

We hope that Congress will make it possible for these bills to come out of committee and be passed. In the House, H.R. 896 was introduced by Congressman Younger, H.R. 702 was introduced by Congressman Baldwin, of California, and H.R. 2186 by Congressman McDowell, of Delaware.

We have letters indicating vigorous support of the type of action taken by 21 Senators and 4 Congressmen who have submitted surplus legislation this session.

We request that the real benefits of surplus be made available to tax-supported public recreation and park agencies. Respectfully submitted.

HOWARD JEFFREY,
Executive Director,

American Recreation Society, Washington. D.C.

The following are some of the many Senators interested in recreation and parks who submitted legislation during the 86th Congress, first session:

8. 2102-Mr. Bible.

S. 2013-Mr. Chavez.

8. 1766-Mr. Clark.

S. 2244-Mr. Goldwater.

S. 2270-Mr. Gruening.

S. 155-Mr. Kerr and Mr. Monroney.

S. 1365-Introduced on March 9 and 10, 1959, by Mr. Keating, Mr. Javits, Mr. Langer, Mr. Saltonstall, Mr. Case of South Dakota, Mr. Young of North Dakota, Mr. Bush, Mr. Beall, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Carlson, the Government Operations Committee in rewriting.

S. 2367-Mr. McCarthy.

8.101Mr. Stennis.

Senator GRUENING. Mr. Hubert Snyder.
Mr. Snyder, we are happy to hear you.

STATEMENT OF HUBERT SNYDER, CHAIRMAN OF THE PARK
SECTION, AMERICAN RECREATION SOCIETY, INC.

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say first of all that I may have an answer to Mr. Jeffrey's question-that Mr. Jeffrey was asked, with regard to membership of the American Recreation Society.

I am a member of that society, which is a professional organization. I am also the director of the recreational parks, Baltimore County, Md., and chairman of parks and facilities for recreation section of the