must be able to muster the concern, compassion, and commitment to aid some of our own fellow citizens who are starving. And, Mr. President, we do have a problem of starvation. The Citizens' Board of Inquiry went into my home State of Texas, into San Antonio where we have a large percentage of Mexican-American citizens, and found "that severe cases of anemia were commonplace, that children 1 year old frequently weighed less than their birth weights and 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds weighed around 20 pounds." I spoke in this Chamber recently, when we considered the School Lunch Act, on the effect of such staravtion in the early years of life. The effects include permanent mental retardation and physical crippling. Dr. Robert Coles, M.D., of Harvard University, describes the more insidious effects: Weight loss, muscle weakness, eye infections, and loss of vision, infections of the mouth and throat, rickets and skin diseases of all kinds, loss of appetite and fatigue, and bleeding due to poor protein intake and the whole range of psy chological difficulties like lethargy, despair and exhaustion that accompany what might be called a "malnutrition syndrome." How many Americans have we looked down on and patronizingly told to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps because of their "lethargy, despair, and exhaustion" when in fact their problem was malnutrition? The effect of starvation on those lucky enough to live is bad enough, but many are dying. Medical specialists tell us that infant mortality during the first year of life can be directly correlated to the level of malnutrition. In my own State of Texas that level is increasing. Infant mortality in Texas is on the rise. In the last 4 years, infant deaths, under 1 year per 1,000 live births, have risen from 21.9 to 24.3 while the U.S. average has been steadily declining. Something is tragically wrong in Texas and the Nation, and I pledge myself to work to see that young Anglos, young Negroes, young Mexican Americans, and young Indians do not die or grow up into unproductive persons because we let them starve. Our Declaration of Independence lists at the beginning of our inalienable rights the right to life, and we must assure our citizens the necessities of life. Mr. President, in the comfort of unprecedented affluence it is difficult for most Americans even to imagine the scope and depth of hunger. not to mention starvation, that exists in our country today. In the light of revelations offered by the starving report of the citizens' board of inquiry, it is clear that our present efforts to deal with hunger are not enough. One need not conclude that our present efforts are bad, but one cannot escape the fact that they are woefully inadequate. The cutting edge of this Government's present attempt to combat hunger is the food stamp program, which was established administratively in 1961, was codified in the Food Stamp Act of 1964, and was extended and expanded last session by approval of Public Law 90-91 on September 27, 1967. Yet the progress of this and other surplus food-for-the-poor programs has not been sufficient to meet the need. and this report documents the fact that millions of our fellow Americans suffer the endless agony and desolation of hunger and malnutrition. I can turn to my own State for an example of the failure of the food stamp program to meet its basic commitment to the poorest of the poor: the hungry. There are 254 counties in Texas; only 10 have a food stamp program-El Paso, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis, Presidio, Brewster, Pecos, Terrell, Tarrant, and Red River. In their study, the Citizens' Board of Inquiry found 30 Texas counties with an emergency hunger problem-these are all counties where over 40 percent of the population live in poverty, and a huge percentage of those suffer anemia, growth retardation, protein deficiencies and other signs of malnutrition. The most tragic evidence of starvation in these 30 counties is their outrageous rates of infant mortality. In addition to these 30 emergency-hunger counties scores of other Texas counties were shown to have serious hunger problems. Of course, these statistical units do not account for the miserable pockets of poverty and hunger that exist in virtually every county in Texas and the Nation. Thus, Mr. President, more than half of the counties in my State have a serious hunger problem, and 30 of those face a problem of emergency proportions, yet a food stamp program is operating in only 10 counties. And there is bitter irony in the fact that not a one of the 30 emergency counties in my State has a food stamp program. A look at the future of the food stamp program nationally indicates further inadequacy. Only last week, the Consumer and Marketing Service, which is responsible for administering food stamp, testified before the Appropriations Subcommittee considering their budget request for fiscal year 1969. I am a member of that subcommittee, which is very ably chaired by the distinguished Senator from Florida (Mr. Holland). In light of the findings presented in the report of the Citizens' Board of Inquiry, the budget request of the Consumer and Marketing Service for the food stamp program is very meager indeed; in light of the tragic, human suffering documented by that report, the budget requests appear insensitive, and I find them unacceptable. Hunger, U.S.A. says at page 32: ... it is possible to assert with a high degree of probability, that we face a problem which, conservatively estimated, affects 10 million Americans and in all likelihood a substantially higher number. At page 146 of volume 2 of the "U.S. Department of Agriculture 1969 Budget," the following statement is made: By June 30, 1968, it is estimated that the program will be reaching 2,745,000 participants an increase of 900,000 above June 30, 1967. So, Mr. President, we have brought the figure up from something over 1.5 million to about 2.75 million, by June 30, 1968, out of the 10 million in desperate need-just about one-fourth of those in desperate need. Clearly, we are not even approaching the need. Worse yet, the 1969 budget request shows that the Department of Agriculture contemplates no expansion during 1969 in terms of the number of food stamp participants. In his testimony last week before the Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations for the Department of Agriculture, Mr. Rodney E. Leonard, Administrator of the Consumer and Marketing Service, offered the following explanation of his budget request for the food stamp program: An increase of $40,055,000 is proposed for 1969. The funds requested will be necessary in 1969 to finance the 2.7 million participants anticipated by the end of fiscal year 1968. It soovite, Mr. President, that if the entire increase of $40,055,000 is necessary to finance the participants in the program at the end of leaves no money to allow more people to enter the De exid part of State Resolution 21, which I have cosponsored 1 with the Setter from South Dakota (Mr. McGovern) calls for a elet over to lok into the jurisdictional problems to our prgrats to mid the limery. This is a real problem that must be met. Ikea fa persoal experience on the Labor and Public Welfare Cotitree, on the Education Subcommittee, and the Agriculture Ap propriations STOLmittee that there is little coordination. One program will deal with hunger under one committee and be administere by OEO, Anorher will be considered under another subcommittee and go to Agriculture, or HEW or another agency. I congratulate Senator McGovern for revvanending this resolution to examine our juris dictional newis. I am pleased to cosponsor this measure and to lend to it my fullest support. こ |