they are injecting into their programs matters having to do with both current affairs and with general reading from a cultural standpoint.

The officers of the home-demonstration clubs and the homedemonstration agents always tell us that in the counties that have good library services, bookmobiles, and that kind of thing, this general program moves much faster than in other counties, and that in counties which do not have library facilities and that kind of thing this program hardly moves at all.

I understand that this bill has been approved in principle by the Bureau of the Budget, although there is some question about its being consistent with the President's financial policy at the present time. The Department of Agriculture has a great deal of interest in the bill and hopes that the committee will give it favorable consideration.

Mr. TACKETT. Thank you, Doctor.

Mr. Howell, any questions?

Mr. HOWELL. You are firmly convinced that it would be a good adjunct to the extension service and would meet a real need?

Dr. WILSON. Very decidedly so. It would be a very important and very decided adjunct and would be most decidedly helpful to all agencies which are working toward improving agriculture and country living.

Mr. HOWELL. I know the extension service and the county agents have done a wonderful job and are in a position to know the need for this work. I thank you.

Mr. TACKETT. Mr. Greenwood.

Mr. GREENWOOD. No questions.

Mr. TACKETT. I believe that this concludes our testimony. I know this is the first time that I have ever participated on a committee. hearing any kind of legislation that someone hasn't appeared and protested. I do not mean by that that the Congress will not find it rough sledding to try to get a bill like this passed, but I consider this legislation to be in the interest of the national defense and that it is imperative that we try to do something to educate the people in rural areas. I fully feel that most of us actually try to learn something long after we get out of school.

Dr. WILSON. I believe that is true throughout the country.

Mr. TACKETT. Are there any others who would like to be heard?

STATEMENT OF HON. LISTER HILL, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ALABAMA

Senator HILL. I am Lister Hill of Alabama.

Mr. TACKETT. Thank you, Senator. I am glad you came over. Senator HILL. I appreciate your kindness. I will detain you only a few minutes.

I happen, Mr. Chairman, to be the author of this bill in the Senate and am very much interested in it. The measure, as you gentlemen well know, has the strong approval and support of the American Library Association. In fact they are the real sponsors of the measure, I think I might say. I am sure you are familiar with the terms and I need not go into them.

The bill provides a basic grant to each State of $40,000 a year for five years with additional funds available under a variable matching formula based on rural population and per capita income. The cost of the program, not to exceed seven and one-half million dollars per year, will depend on how rapidly the States move to improve and extend library service.

Of course this is a bill of Federal aid to the States. It does not set up any Federal program, so to speak. We have the State plans just as we have followed in other measures where we have provided Federal aid, so the administration, control and authority would be in the hands of the States without any Federal interference or any attempt at all at any Federal control.

In spite of its importance to our democracy I think we must agree that the public library, like the public school, has suffered from considerable neglect. There are 33 million people in our country today without library service. Ninety percent of these people live on farms and in small communities. I believe, Mr. Chairman, when I came in you were saying something about the fact that so many of the people in our rural sections do not have the advantage of library service today. In addition to those on the farms and small communities there are some 35 million additional people who have inadequate library service. In fact, in only eleven States and the District of Columbia is public library service available to as many as 85 percent of the people. More than 600 counties in the United States, roughly one out of five, are without any public library service. Less than one-third of our 3,070 counties have county-wide library service.

I am sure you all agree with me that your libraries and your schools complement one and the other, that they go hand in glove together. The great purpose of course is the education of our children and of our people.

The urgent need for strengthening our schools and library service is once again proven by the high rate of rejection of men under selective service for educational deficiencies. I am sure you gentlemen of the committee recall how many men were rejected during the last great war because of educational deficiencies, the equivalent of some 14 infantry divisions, three and one-half times as many divisions as the United States has committed to Europe.

Since the Korean war over 300,000 men have been rejected by the Selective Service for educational deficiencies. A recent 6-month survey by the New York Times reveals the extent that the quality of public education is suffering by virtue of the great financial hardship under which our schools are struggling. The survey shows that 31⁄2 million rural boys and girls are receiving an inferior and inadequate education due to overcrowded classrooms, shortages of well-trained teachers, inadequate courses of study, double sessions, and part-time instruction.

I was interested the other day in a statement from the superintendent of education of the State of Arizona in which he said that you could go out to many schools in Arizona and find the kids lined up to go in for part-time day schooling just like you might see a lot of folks lined up in front of a factory to go in for a certain shift. The greater the deterioration in the quality of public school instruction, of course the greater must be the reliance upon the public library. Library service complements and supplements the work

of our schools by carrying the school into the home. Schools cannot serve their maximum usefulness without adequate libraries to provide home reading and other educational materials. The public library extends the educational process for the adult who may find that his schooling of 10 or 20 years ago is inadequate in meeting today's problems.

I think we can say that this bill provides the cheapest and most effective way for bringing within the reach of every citizen the tools for continuous education. Never in our history have the people had greater need for knowledge upon which to base their opinions and build their decision. With many grave problems facing our Nation today our national welfare demands that the ordinary citizen be able to get books, newspapers, and other sources of knowledge about the world he lives in. The tasks of peace are the most difficult ever to challenge the genius of a nation. A highly trained, fully informed citizenry is essential to the defense of our freedom and to the building and maintenance of lasting peace.

May I add this word: I realize the situation that confronts us with the tremendous expenditures today for national defense. I realize how we are confronted with this enormous budget. But after all, there is no way to take our children and put them in some kind of coldstorage plant and then afterward bring them out and put them in a hothouse, so to speak. The time that they lose is lost and gone forever. You remember Kipling wrote that poem about filling the golden minute with 60 seconds' distance run. If we fail to fill the golden minutes with the 60 seconds' distance run, there is no way in the world to go back and pick up those minutes. Schooling loss is schooling and training and preparation gone forever, and we do not remain static.

The fact that we have all this huge burden to carry from the military standpoint doesn't mean at all that we will not either go forward or retrogress. Unless we continue to grow, unless we educate and train and prepare our children and our people generally, we cannot go forward to meet the many problems and demands that will be upon our citizenry in the days to come.

Let me say that if we pass this bill, then it will be up to Congress to determine how much money each year shall go into it. We have many authorization bills, as you gentlemen know, where we are not now attempting to appropriate the full amount authorized. This will give us a beginning. I want to say from long years of service here in the House and in the Senate, I do not know why it is, but when Congress acts, even though that action may be only a small part of the over-all action needed, this action here serves as a great stimulus, a great challenge to the States and the people back home to come in and do their full part and to furnish the remaining action so much needed. I often think about our road program. I see it today in our hospital program. Of course, under all those programs the larger part of the funds and practically all the action is being provided by the people back home. But these programs are stimulated. I believe this bill will be the beginning, if we can pass it, of an adequate library system in this country, one that our great democracy, this government of the people, needs and must have.

I want to thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. TACKETT. We want to thank you, Senator. (Off the record.)

Mr. TACKETT. If there are no objections, we will place in the record here a list of organizations and individuals who have written the subcommittee endorsing the provisions of the Library Service bill. (The list referred to follows:)

LIST OF ENDORSERS OF LIBRARY SERVICE BILL

Ester M. Baker, library director, Ridgewood Public Library, Ridgewood, N. J. Tommie Dora Barker, Atlanta, Ga.

Henry W. Peterson, mayor, Woodbury, N. J.

Barbara A. Mearns, president, Bergen and Passaic County Library Club, Hohokus, N. J.

Eloise Brock, librarian, Natchitoches, La.

John H. Ottemiller, Box 1603-A, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn.

Blanche A. Smith, librarian, State Traveling Library, Des Moines, Iowa.

W. H. Brumfield, Amite, La.

Maude W. Catha, librarian, Tangipahoa Parish Library, Amite, La.

Mrs. Gerald H. Winser, 61 DeForest Avenue, Summit, N. J.

Eleanor Stephens, librarian, Oregon State Library, Salem, Oreg.
Mrs. Robbie Rowlett, Yell County librarian, Danville, Ark.

John L. B. Williams, 366 Carteret Place, Orange, N. J.

Clarence A. Cluck, president, Adams County Free Library, Gettysburg, Pa.
Mrs. C. Spears Hicks, 121 West Seeman Street, Durham, N. C.

Hannah Severns, chairman, regional planning committee, New Jersey Library
Association, Moorestown, N. J.

Alice L. Javett, 303 South Columbus Avenue, Mount Vernon, N. Y.

Lucille Arceneaux, parish librarian, Lafayette, La.

Mrs. Oliver Shurtleff, chairman, West Virginia Library Commission, Charleston, W. Va.

Edith Peterson, librarian, Lafourche Parish Library, Thibodaux, La.

Mariam Evans, chairman, New Jersey county librarian, Toms River, N. J.

E. W. Miller, director, public library, Jersey City, N. J.

Margaret F. Ransler, librarian, South Orange Public Library, South Orange, N. J. Alice Moore, librarian, Somerville Public Library, Somerville, N. J.

Leo R. Epzkorn, director, Free Public Library, Paterson, N. J.

Mrs. M. Ned Williams, State legislative chairman, Idaho Conference of Parents and Teachers, Boise, Idaho.

Mrs. Elizabeth Magee, president, CLA Public Library, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Miss Hollis C. Haney, 2249 NW. Twenty-first Street, Oklahoma City 7, Okla.
Mrs. Louise M. Arnett, chairman, executive board, Cooper Memorial Library,
Clermont, Fla.

Mrs. Harry L. Brown, librarian, Box 612, Clarmont, Fla.

Miss Mary Louise Giraud, Louisiana State Library Demonstration, St. Joseph, La.
Debora R. Abramson, 828 North Eleventh Street, Baton Rouge 8, La.
Nantelle M. Gittinger, care of State Times, Baton Rouge, La.
Katharine M. Holden, 401 Cedar Avenue, Mount Vernon, N. Y.
Dorothy Dodd, State librarian, State of Florida, Tallahassee, Fla.
Emily W. Reed, librarian, Rapides Parish Library, Alexandria, La.

Marian C. Manley, chairman, Federal relations committee, New Jersey Library
Association.

Mr. and Mrs. Rolan Huson, Catahouls Publishing Co.; Ruby M. Hanks and staff, Regional Librarian Winn, Catahoula Parish, Harrisonburg, La.

Mrs. E. B. Romig, Broyler ville, Pa.

Doris Lessel, parish librarian, Homer, La.

Jack B. Spear, 397 State Street, Albany 10, N. Y.

F. C. Haley, superintendent, Claiborne Parish schools, Homer, La.

Mrs. Elsa Smith Thompson, president, New Mexico Library Association, Albuquerque, N. Mex.

Louis R. Wilson, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.
John E. Carr, Edith P. Carr, 3 Crescent Court, Fort Thomas, Ky.
Mary Moore Mitchell, librarian, Madison Parish, Tallulah, La.

Agnes C. Norton, vice president, New Jersey Library Association, Teaneck, N. J.
John L. B. Williams, president, New Jersey Library Trustees Association, Newark,
N. J.

Ruth P. Tubby, librarian; Marjory Quigley, librarian; Montclair Public Library,
Montclair, N. J.

John B. Kaiser, director, Newark Public Library, Newark, N. J.
Fanny T. Taber, secretary, Mays Landing, N. J.

Mary Obrsore, president, New Jersey Library Association, Trenton, N. J.
Kay Werner, librarian, Iberville Parish Board, Plaquemine, La.
Marion Butterworth, Passaic, N. J.

Mrs. S. R. Gray, librarian, Concordia Parish Library, Ferriday, La.

Margaret L. Nelson, president, Glenrock Library Board, Glenrock, N. J.
J. N. Rails, publisher, Plaquemine, La.

Emma A. Martin, director, West Orange Library, West Orange, N. J.

Mary Mims, rural sociologist, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La. Harold C. Many, Camden Free Public Library, Camden, N. J.

Dorothy P. Mulvey, librarian, Wenonah (N. J.) Public Library Commission,
Wenonah, N. J.

Mildren G. Brown, director, Camden County Free Library, Camden, N. J.
Julia Killian, librarian, Freehold, N. J.

Ruth E. Scarborough, librarian, Centenary Junior College, Hackettstown, N. J.
J. Carville, president, Plaquemine-Iberville Chamber of Commerce, Plaquemine,
La.

Harriet R. Forbes, director, Orange Public Library, Orange, N. J.

Hamilton Township Library Commission, Trenton, N. J.

Margaret Whaley, librarian, Elizabeth, N. J.

Mrs. Hoffman Jones, librarian, Morehouse Parish Library, Louisiana.

Gretchen Peirce, president, East Greenwich Library Association, Mickleton, N. J.

Celeste Slauson, library director, Johnson Public Library, Hackensack, N. J.
Mary L. Tarbos, 2 Lincoln Street, Jamestown, N. Y.

Miss Alice E. Paine, 815 West Twenty-sixth Street, Kearney, Nebr.
Henry Bethard, Coushatta, La.

Margaret Fulmer, librarian, Great Falls Public Library, Great Falls, Mont.
Elizabeth B. Aygarn, library supervisor, Onslow County, Jacksonville, N. C.
John Hall Jacobs, librarian, New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans 13, La.
Dorothy E. Henry, secretary, Sussex County Library Commission, Newton, N. J.
Marian H. Scott, president, New Jersey School Library Association, Westfield,
N. J.
Emily B. Sitterly, president, Morris County Libraries Association Morristown,
N. J.
Emmor Roberts, chairman, Burlington County Library Commission, Holly, N. J.
Helene D. Wheeler, education committee chairman, Ely School and West Junior
High School, Duluth, Minn.

Elizabeth House, secretary and director, North Carolina Library Commission,
Raleigh, N. C.'

Kate Sutton, chairman, library board of trustees, Cumberland County Public Library, Fayetteville, N. C.

Mrs. H. C. Bridger, Bladenboro, N. C.

Mrs. W. S. Hester, president, board of trustees, Rockingham County Library, Reidsville, N. C.

Estellene P. Walker, executive secretary, South Carolina State Library Board, Columbia 1, S. C.

Mrs. K. L. Smoke, 249 North Washington Street, Gettysburg, Pa.

Mrs. G. N. Ashley, librarian, Pineland College, Edwards Military Institute, Salemburg, N. C.

Zelia J. French, extension librarian, Kansas Traveling Libraries Commission, Topeka, Kans.

Sarah A. Thomas, county librarian, Cape May County Library Commission, Cape May Court House, N. J.

Mrs. Anita W. Jones, librarian, Haddon Heights Public Library, Haddon Heights N. J.

Charles Penrose, Route No. 1, Potsdam, N. Y.

Miss Gladys Higdon, Tioga, La.

I. Marie Gustafson, 1075 Park Avenue, Schenectady 8, N. Y.

Ernest I. Miller, president, Ohio Library Association, Cincinnati Public Library, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Mrs. John A. Miller, 27 Elmwood Street, Albany 3, N. Y.

Marion Taylor, parish librarian, Miden, Ala.

Evelyn Peters, librarian, Professional Library, 1532 Calliope Street, New Orleans 13, La.

Mrs. William G. Fisher, president; Mrs. Laura Edmunds, secretary; the Library League of New Orleans, 1014 Aline Street, New Orleans, La.

Mrs. Elizabeth F. Kelly, librarian, Freeport Memorial Library, Freeport, N. Y. Mrs. Mary S. Wilson, R. F. D. 4, Gettysburg, Pa.

Herbert L. Leet, 502 South Street, Endicott, N. Y.