advantage of other agencies of having a smooth transition from year

to year.

A lot of the slowdown I blame on bureaucratic bungling. I think in looking at our record in the Southeast during the last 2 years though, we did get current as a region. When I left there at the beginning of November we were currently funding on a current level for the first time since OEO was started.

A lot of the problems that we faced as an agency in the funding process I think have been caused by the lack of an adequate definition of our total mission from the beginning. Community action agencies differ from city to city and county to county, and this difference I think is really the thing that makes community action appealing. But I would pledge to you, Mr. Chairman, and I know of your concerns in this area, and to the members of this committee, that I will do everything in my power to bring up to date the regional funding of programs.

I am meeting this week with the 10 regional directors and the theme we will be talking about is "let's get current, let's don't have any footdragging as far as funding of programs is concerned."

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate that. You impress me with your determination to cut through the problems and get the money there, if the money is made available. I will certainly stress the fact that there has not been that reliable continuity of funding.

Let me get a little bit of your experience with the migrant programs and how they work and what they are doing and what is good about them and what is wrong about them and how they can be improved.

Mr. BATCHELOR. First when we say we are talking about migrant programs we are talking about two different categories of programs, I think. One is a migrant program and the other is the seasonal farm workers program.

The difference between the two is the one is more mobile than the other. When we speak of migrants, usually we are talking about people who follow the crop harvest from city to city, from State to State. And seasonal farm workers are less mobile people who stay in one place working seasonally in gathering the crops.

I have observed the migrant programs quite closely in the South, especially in the State of Florida where we have a lot of migrants doing lots of different kinds of agricultural work.

I will state this emphatically, I have been dissatisfied. A lot of our programs seem to be abandoning the approach of the problems of the migrants, of giving some emergency help now, or emergency health care or doing something in temporary housing.

I think maybe the time has come when we should look further ahead gearing not only the efforts of OEO but the efforts of the Department of Labor, the efforts of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, all in one direction of trying to formulate programs that will lead somewhere.

I am talking now about programs for education and training that will lead to a permanent solution. I think most migrants I have

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talked to have indicated to me and I think most migrants feel this way, that we too want to put down roots and I think our comitment ought to be as Government agencies to formulate some types of programs that will enable these people to have homes, to have a place that they can call home and to have adequate training and education that will lead to productive jobs.

We have tried to experiment in the southeast region in the State of Florida with trying to consolidate all the efforts with State. Federal, and local help of trying to formulate a program that will do just what I have described that will give the migrants something to look forward to.

I am afraid too often our emphasis has been on getting the crops in. Maybe our emphasis should be switched entirely to the welfare of people. The age of mechanization is upon us and I am told that within a very few years in the State of Florida, the demand for migrant farm labor will be decreasing sharply each year because of mechani

zation.

But the people don't go away. They will be with us and I think we have a firm obligation to plan collectively, interagencywide throughout the Federal Government with the States in trying to formulate some types of programs for migrants.

The CHAIRMAN. Just on one detail, vocational training of an individual who is a hand laborer. How broad is the OEO activity in training people to become capable of using the machinery of agriculture today? I can think all the way back to a pilot project, which was at the beginning of vocational education for hand workers who were mi

grants.

This happened to be in Camden, N.J. There were 24 in the class learning how to operate and take care of tractors. There were about four dropouts in the program of 16 weeks-all of the others immediately got permanent employment using the machinery that they then were trained to handle.

This was only a demonstration, but it certainly was demonstrated to be effective. How broad is that kind of program now?

Mr. BATCHELOR. It is perhaps not broad enough. I think it has been tried not only in some of the places in the South where I have most of my experience but also in the West. But you have got to remember one thing, for that machine that we train one person to operate usually it is taking the jobs of several migrants. So that is a part of the answer. But the total answer is not there. I am reminded of the cottonpicking machine that changed the life of the South. One machine could do the work of 25 people, when it was first invented and now it can do the work of 50 people in 1 day. It has one operator.

I would like to see us do a lot more work in adjusting the training, whatever it might be, to jobs that exist and I am afraid that all too often we have trained people for nonexistent work.

The illustration that you have given, Mr. Chairman, is certainly training for a job that will exist, because those machines are going to be there.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, coming back to this, what are the other skills that are taught for people who are migrant workers?

Take one of the greatest supports for education in this country, the horse industry. You know, there is a shortage of grooms to take care of the horses that run the races that produce the money that go to the schools. Wouldn't this be an activity that OEO could be helpful in?

Mr. BATCHELOR. It could very well be. I should point out here that most of our efforts have been spent in adult basic education. We see this as coming first. We teach reading, writing, arithmetic to people who have been passed over in the educational process.

After this, we can get out in many areas and I think we are right now ready, especially in the State that I am most familiar with, we are ready to get into new vistas, try new things. I had never thought of the horse being so closely associated with the process of education, though, but it is.

The CHAIRMAN. At least in New Jersey it is and I think it is also in other areas in other States. Florida is in your district, isn't it? Mr. BATCHELOR. Yes, horses and dogs down there.

The CHAIRMAN. What other areas are in the OEO responsibility for migrants?

Mr. BATCHELOR. Emergency food and medical services.

The CHAIRMAN. Just emergency?

Mr. BATCHELOR. That is the provision within the bill that we have used.

The CHAIRMAN. How about these ongoing clinics?

Mr. BATCHELOR. We have done in conjunction with the Office of Health Affairs in OEO and with HEW I think some good work in providing basic health care for migrants.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that OEO's responsibility?

Mr. BATCHELOR. Yes, we have the responsibility for starting that and we have an Office of Health Affairs that has done a commendable work in providing comprehensive health services. I might point out I think one of the greatest needs in the migrant area today is adequate health care.

We shall strive to work not only with the Office of Health Affairs within OEO but within HEW and with States and local levels in trying to provide better care.

The CHAIRMAN. Where does the money come from? We appropriate money for migrant health programs. There are separate authorizations, I am advised. There are two problems here. No. 1, setting up a facility, recruiting to man the health facility, and No. 2 is getting the people basically to accept health services.

I have been out on hundreds of farms in this country in migrant work and the people had a fear of getting anywhere near a clinic. The clinic was there, they just never had in their lifetime any exposure to what we consider routine health service.

I took a fellow who had a bad dogbite, bitten by his own dog, who was fearful of going down to the clinic. We got him there and I have never seen, an hour later, a more grateful man, but he had a block on this because of his total ignorance of the attention of a doctor or a

nurse.

Mr. BATCHELOR. I think this is one real contribution that OEO's migrant program has made. Anywhere we have a funded program for migrants we have provisions for employing Outreach workers and the Outreach workers are the migrants themselves who know how to talk to migrants.

They are given training and I have been very impressed with the quality of work that they do. In the illustration of the man with the dogbite they could get the man to the hospital a lot quicker than you or I could. They know the man and they have a form of trust they

have built.

I can't say too much for the Outreach provisions that we have not only in the migrant program but in the community action program. We have thousands of indigenous people who are employed as community aides who are going into the communities knocking on doors.

I had the experience of starting a comprehensive health unit in Chattanooga back in 1965-66. I was told if I started this health unit in a predominantly black neighborhood that the poor whites would never use it. We found that by using Outreach aides and by offering quality service once they arrived at the health unit that the color of a man's skin made very little difference and it was utilized fully by both the predominant black community and the adjacent white community. The CHAIRMAN. You are needed in the job and I think you will be excellent in the job and we hope to see this confirmation move right ahead.

Mr. BATCHELOR. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing is adjourned, subject to call.

(Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the hearing was adjourned, to reconvene subject to call of the Chair.)

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