In 1914 the anthracite industry employed 179,000 people. In 1955 the industry employed 35,000 and we have lost almost all our textile employment. The tremendous drop in the number of people employed in the anthracite industry is largely due to the loss of the anthracite markets to competitive fuels and to the technological improvements made in the mining industry. These losses have resulted in our community losing approximately 50,000 of our people as was pointed out in the 1950 census.

They have left our area for other fields and most of them I feel sure would like to come back. But the most important result of this is that we presently have approximately 20,000 people, mostly men in our unemployed rolls. When these figures were finally driven home to the leadership in our community, this leadership determined to do something about it.

We had seen our neighboring cities of Scranton and Hazleton slowly drying up and the effort that both were making to bring other industry into their areas and to diversify their economy. But we in Wilkes-Barre had closed our eyes saying in effect, "It cannot happen here." But suddenly it did, and we have been trying to do something about it. Like most communities while things were going okay, no one bothered to prepare for adverse conditions. Now, with the 1950 census figures in front of us and our unemployment increasing as men were continually laid off in the coal industry, we faced reality and something had to be done.

A small group met and agreed to hold a series of 10 meetings inviting 10 different leaders in every field: business, labor, banking, church, education, practically every facet of our town was brought into this

group.

The startling facts were laid before them and from these meetings was organized what we call the Committee of 100, which actually now comprises about 250 men and women.

I was drafted to head this group. I accepted but only after each person who had agreed to serve on this commission had signed of his own free will in the privacies of his home or his office with no one to urge him or to stand over him to get his signature on this pledge. They signed the pledge which reads pretty much as follows:

"I hereby pledge to my community to give of my time and my talents and my resources as called upon by the chairman."

In effect, every one of our 250 people who have shown leadership in one field or another, signed a blank check to serve in any capacity as called upon and most importantly, to give of their resources as called

upon.

I am very happy to tell you that this pledge has been kept almost 100 percent as given. We have raised $14 million in free gifts in the past 5 years, which means we have made a start on solving our problems but we have a long, hard road ahead.

I think I should point out that topographically we have more than ordinary handicaps. Hemmed in by the mountains and the valley, we have no large vacant tracts of land and what we have is mostly undermined and this creates problems to any new industry. It was obvious that if we were to induce new industry to locate in our area, we would of necessity have to acquire large acreage in the mountain area immediately adjacent to our comunity. This we were able to do.

A large plot of approximately 1,500 acres serviced by railroads was acquired. We then, of necessity, had to persuade our public utilities, principally power and water companies, to make huge investments to make these services available. We had to bring roads into the area, and have to date, in our Crestwood Industrial Park, located three large plants. When the last one is completed, we will have created here in the park over 2,000 jobs.

I might add that we are quite sure that we have 2 other and possibly 3 excellent prospects for additional plants in our industrial park.

The total value of the buildings either built or acquired by the fund is $15,820,000. The total number of jobs created so far is 6,913. The total payroll dollars created by the fund is $17,710,000 annually. You will remember that I said our forefathers had not given much thought to the future. Our inheritance, instead, has been many problems which other communities with more foresight had already solved. One of our greatest of which was the creation of 32 communities instead of 1 large one.

I would like to quote from a report done by the Department of Commerce which in one section faces the breadth of the Wilkes-Barre economic labor program, is further indicated by the considerable work that has been done by the committee of one hundred to energize and guide the smaller towns of the valley.

Their integration into the economic rehabilitation efforts of the area is recognized as a first essential.

This is a very delicate business and should be done in the most diplomatic way possible. It takes a variety of forms. For example, the political science department of our college, Wilkes College, each year conducts a 10-session seminar for smaller town officials and issues periodic bulletins on the problems facing the area. The community chest and several small industrial development funds of some of the smaller places have been integrated with those of the city of WilkesBarre.

Another has been the ability of the committee of one hundred to get 15 of the smaller towns to contribute to a common fund for developing a joint program for compliance with the Pennsylvania pure-streams law. This was the first time in history that cooperation on such a scale between Wilkes-Barre and the smaller communities of its hinterland had been achieved.

One other very important move that followed after the pattern of cooperation had been established between the towns, was the correction of our vocational education program.

Here again, our forefathers had never given any thought to the fact that a community without trained people is at a severe disadvantage. We found that while the city of Wilkes-Barre very cooperatively started a vocational education program when the need was pointed out to them, on the outskirts, no one community was of sufficient size to support a good vocational program. This job was assigned to a few really devoted people to persuade 15 different school boards to join in vocational school support. This task took 2 years, and the last June it became a reality.

I have heard that occasionally there are some slight areas of disagreement among the Senators and you have differences in trying to get an agreement among yourselves. But I assure you that no one in the Senate or the diplomatic corps that could have handled this

very touchy subject better than these same devoted people who battled local prejudice, suspicion, and the possible loss of some political jobs to a final conclusion and our West Side Vocational School at last has become a reality.

Another interesting problem that we faced involved the Post Office Department. Crestwood Industrial Park was serviced by a very small local post office. The service available was completely inadequate for modern industry. The plant we are presently building uses a tremendous amount of post-office service. Literally thousands of packages go out almost daily. It was imperative that something be done to provide the adequate service when it would be needed.

Here, once again, local pride was a tremendous obstacle, but the Post Office Department was most cooperative and it is our understanding that this will now become a branch of the Wilkes-Barre Post Office, with real service provided. Thus, another problem was finished.

Certainly, I couldn't pass without commenting that our own Congressman Flood had been a tower of strength in this particular. I would like once more to quote the Department of Commerce source in which they say:

The difficulties of areas of critical economic distress are really the fruits of neglect.

In particular, they are the fruits of our Nation's failure to make adequate and continuous provision for the growth and maintenance, among local communities comprising it, of capacity to cope with emerging area problems. The weaknesses to which the troubles trace are usually an unintended result of the centralization of business control and the centralization of Government activities during the past several decades.

These forces have served to tear up the roots from which once grew the selfreliant attitudes and the associated capacities to cope with the merging community problems for which American communities have been distinguished.

The difficulties came because comparatively little was done to make up for what was being destroyed. Progressive withering of capacity at the local level to initiate and carry out adequate problems for coping with local problems has been the result.

With this quote as a background and using the Wilkes-Barre situation as a criterion, I believe that the finest assistance that the Federal Government could give to an area such as ours, would be that after a community has demonstrated its willingness to help themselves to the best of their ability in creating a community enterprise such as an industrial fund, or call it what you will, but a creation by the citizens themselves to do something for themselves, the Federal Government, upon presentation to the proper departments that the said industrial fund or community did have a copy that would move into the area and provide jobs if a modern building were made available to that the then nonprofit industrial fund might be given the privilege of issuing tax-exempt bonds that would be guaranteed by the rental of such a building and could give banks the privilege of buying such bonds.

I believe that a program such as this would do more to ease the financial burden which a depressed area must face than almost any other device. I believe that this should be done after a demonstrated willingness by the citizens to help themselves.

I believe that the tenant of such a building should be able to prove that he is financially able to meet his rental agreements. I believe that if this were made a part of Senate bill 2663 that the amount suggested for a loan then should not then be 66 percent but held to a limit of

333. With this tool, any community should be able to raise through its own financial institutions in a given area, through insurance companies, and through neighboring area banks, the other 66% percent, provided it has a reliable tenant.

I would suggest that if public facilities are needed in an area that they be only made in the form of loans rather than outright grants. I believe any business going into a new area should bear its fair share of community cost and such a community should be willing to repay such a loan that would make available new payroll dollars.

I think quickly of a local problem in our industrial park. Here we will eventually have to provide a sewage-disposal plant. The industries that will have to use such a plant certainly should pay for this service. If a loan were made to our fund or to a municipality authority, I believe that this should be repaid. It should not be in the form of a grant. I do not believe that the administrator of any special bill should have the right to initiate problems of public facilities without regard to State, municipality, or organized funds such

as ours.

I do not believe that tax-writeoff benefits would be at all necessary if tax-exempt bonds were available.

I do not believe that surplus-food distribution should be included in such a bill.

The other provisions of this bill are, in my opinion, very practical and would be of great help to chronic distressed areas. May I emphasize again there should always be the first condition that the community or the area should have first demonstrated its willingness to do something for itself.

Senator DOUGLAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Sword. That was very constructive testimony.

Mr. SWORD. Thank you.

Senator DOUGLAS. Final witness for this afternoon is Dr. Irvin F. O. Wingeard, director of research and statistics of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Employment Security. Dr. Wingeard?

Mr. WINGEARD. Thank you, Senator.

STATEMENT OF IRVIN F. 0. WINGEARD, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND STATISTICS, PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY

Senator DOUGLAS. We are troubled with a time schedule, and I wondered if you would make your statement part of the record, and then if you would be willing to summarize it.

Mr. WINGEARD. I was about to say that I have a prepared statement regarding Pennsylvania's unemployment problem, with attached supporting tabular and graphic materials, which I would like to submit in entirety for the record.

Senator DOUGLAS. We will do that.

(The information is as follows:)

STATEMENT BY IRVIN F. O. WINGEARD, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND STATISTICS, PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU OF EMPLOYMENT SECURITY

PENNSYLVANIA'S ECONOMY BASICALLY SOUND

Pennsylvania is the third largest State in the Nation in terms of population, labor force, income payments to individuals, value added by manufacture and value of mineral production. Although the Pennsylvania economy has achieved

relative maturity as compared with the United States generally, its position is good and it is clearly capable of further substantial growth and expansion.

PENNSYLVANIA'S UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

The most recent estimates available show that a total of approximately 241,000 Pennsylvania workers were totally unemployed in mid-December 1955. This total constituted 51⁄2 percent of all of the workers in Pennsylvania's civilian labor force. The national unemployment rate was 3% percent in mid-November 1955 and the State rate at that time was 5 percent.

While Pennsylvania's unemployment, in keeping with national trends, has decreased substantially in recent months, during the first half of 1955 it had averaged 320,000 or over 7 percent of the labor force, and in 1954 it had been even higher, averaging 340,000 for the year, or 8 percent of the labor force. Moreover, the current level is still 84,000 in excess of the 1953 average, when the unemployment rate was 3% percent.

Despite the substantial improvement of the past year, Pennsylvania still faces the serious economic and unemployment problems which have plagued the State for decades, and which have consistently kept Pennsylvania's unemployment rate higher than other States and the Nation as a whole for many years. Substantially all of these problems derive from the fact that the State's unemployment has always been very heavily concentrated in certain distressed areas of the State. These areas have been faced with serious, chronic unemployment problems dating back to the depression days of the thirties and continuing ever since even through the booming production days of World War II and the Korean conflict despite extensive and sustained efforts on the part of the affected communities to improve their lot. As a consequence, Pennsylvania has continuously had far more than its share of areas of substantial labor surplus, or so-called depressed areas.

PENNSYLVANIA'S EXCESSIVE SHARE OF DEPRESSED AREAS

Pennsylvania currently has 14 areas classified as areas of substantial labor surplus on the official area classification list of the United States Department of Labor. Five of these are major metropolitan areas which are regularly included in the classification system and nine are smaller areas which are currently classified because they have substantial labor surpluses.

Exhibit A, attached, shows the classification, name, and geographic coverage and location of each classified labor market area in Pennsylvania, as well as the area classification criteria and the number of areas in each classification category in Pennsylvania and the Nation.

In the United States as a whole, only 19 major areas are currently listed as areas of substantial labor surplus. Thus the five major areas in Pennsylvania alone account for about one-fourth of the total in the entire country.

Likewise, Pennsylvania's nine smaller areas of substantial labor surplus represent one-eighth of the United States total of that type. Furthermore, 3 of

the Pennsylvania major areas (Altoona, Scranton, and Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton) as well as 4 of the smaller areas (Clearfield-DuBois, Pottsville, SunburyShamokin-Mount Carmel, and Uniontown-Connellsville) have shown a substantial labor surplus continuously for more than 3 years.

A review of the situation over the past 3 years points up the fact that Pennsylvania has constantly accounted for more than its share of labor surplus areas. Throughout most of 1954 and 1955, Pennsylvania had eight major areas of substantial labor surplus, representing one-fourth to one-sixth of the national total. In the year 1953-a good year employmentwise-Pennsylvania accounted for about one-fourth of the major areas of substantial labor surplus. In respect to smaller areas, Pennsylvania's share has also been sizable. The number has ranged from 4 throughout 1953 to a high of 15 from May through September of 1955 and has represented 12 to 22 percent of the United States total.

Exhibit B shows the average volume and percentage of unemployment and usual area classification for each of Pennsylvania's 14 areas of substantial labor surplus during each of the last 3 years (1953–55).

BASIC CAUSE OF UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

The basic cause of Pennsylvania's unemployment problem arises out of the fact that the State and its depressed areas have a heavy preponderance of basic national industries in which severe and sustained, long-term employment declines