child chinics throughout the State. The vast majority of them are located north of Albuquerque and there is very little coverage in the south. The crippled children's program in this State is of course under the direction of the department of public welfare. Sincerly yours, STANLEY J. LELAND, M.D., Director. Senator HARRY BYRD, JEWISH COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF ESSEX COUNTY, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, DEAR SENATOR BYRD: We are most gratified that the House of Representatives has passed the public welfare amendments bill (H.R. 10606). We hope that you will support passage of this bill by the Senate. We should also like to comment on some of the provisions adopted in the House, based upon our experience as a central voluntary agency for the planning and financing of health and welfare programs in our community for families, children and the aged. First, the House bill failed to retain Secretary Ribicoff's original proposals to provide incentives to the States to reduce or eliminate residence requirements for public assistance. We would like to see these put into the measure in the Senate. Residence restrictions do not solve or eliminate problems. They only place them on the doorsteps of voluntary agencies which do not have the funds to meet them, draining funds from other needs which depend exclusively on voluntary support. Secondly, there is a section in the bill which permits States to take a variety of actions with regard to payments to children of needy families (Aid to Dependent Children) other than withholding support. This section opens the door to all kinds of abuses such as voucher payments, excessive punishments and lowered standards. Such practices have been clearly proven to be undesirable. There is in the bill, provision for "protective payments," which in the case of unreliable families, safeguards them from improper actions. Thirdly, the present bill permits increasing the disparity in the level of Federal matching grants between needy families with children and the needy aged, blind, and physically disabled. It is our belief that families with needy children should be treated no differently from other public assistance recipients. We are confident that you, in your awareness not only of the need for passage of the essential provisions in the House bill but of the importance of the three additional points I have made here, will do everything within your power to assure Senate approval of H.R. 10606. Thank you. Very truly yours, MARTIN JELIN, President. NEW JERSEY OPTOMETRIC ASSOCIATION, Hon. HARRY F. BYRD, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, DEAR SENATOR BYRD: This is to inform you that the New Jersey Optometric Association is in favor of the amendments to H.R. 10606 proposed by the American Optometric Association and to solicit your support of them when this measure comes before your committee. The amendments which (1) retain inclusion of optometrists in the aid to the blind section and (2) specifically authorize the utilization of optometrists in Kerr-Mills section are soundly in the public interest because they afford beneficiaries the right of free choice in the selection of a practitioner of their own preference. Your support of the American Optometric Association amendment will be greatly appreciated by the patients of optometrists throughout the country. Sincerely, Dr. JOSEPH J. IACOPELLI. Chairman, Committee on Social and Health Care Trends. Dr. A. J. SHACK, Chairman, Committee on Vision Care for the Aged. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOUSING & REDEVELOPMENT OFFICIALS, Hon. HARRY F. BYRD, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, DEAR SIR: In connection with the hearings that your committee will be opening within the next week or 10 days on H.R. 10606, “Public Welfare Amendments of 1962," I should like to put our association on record in hearty support of the general goals of the bill for the prevention of dependency, for the strengthening and improvement of family services, and for the provision of more rehabilitative services for aiding families in becoming self-supporting. The bill in the form it was first brought into the House, as H.R. 10032, seemed to us to have satisfactorily provided for reaching these goals and we hope the Senate will bring out a bill that contains all of these original provisions. The association's interest in the bill stems from the work that our membership does with the tenants of public housing developments and the relocatees from renewal areas, many of whom are clients of public assistance agencies. The general purposes of the association are described in the attached membership folder. As you know, the Housing and Home Finance Agency and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare have recently joined forces in an effort to reach some of the objectives of the bill by exploring ways and means of concentrating in local public housing and urban renewal projects many of the services that stem from HEW. Attached is a copy of the most recent issue of our monthly Journal of Housing in which we have sought to make specific what such a concentration of effort might accomplish.1 We also enclose a copy of the program resolution adopted by this association's members last fall and call your special attention to the section on social goals.1 If there is some way that our Washington office staff can be of assistance to your committee during the course of the hearings on H.R. 10606, please feel free to call on us. Respectfully, A. J. HARMON, President. CITIZENS' COMMITTEE FOR CHILDREN OF NEW YORK, INC., Re H.R. 10606 (formerly H.R. 10032). Hon. HARRY F. BYRD, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, DEAR SENATOR BYRD: Citizens' Committee for Children, organized in 1945 to work in behalf of New York's children, urgently requests your action to report this bill out of committee and your vigorous support on the Senate floor. We are particularly interested in the inclusion for the first time of a Federal program for the day care of children and the provision of matching funds to States to faciiltate the development of urgently needed resources (title V, pt. 3, sec. 527(a)). Hundreds of thousands of children are without proper attention during all or part of the day because their parents must work or are unable to care for them and insufficient or no resources are available to supplement parental care. New York City has developed a good public day care program, but it is grossly inadequate because the city has had to carry the entire financial burden; no State or Federal funds have been provided. Expansion is long overdue-New York City day care centers now have a waiting list of 4,488 children, which grows longer every day. Many more preschool children, the number can only be guessed at, are looked after by relatives or neighbors who may be willing, but are not always dependable caretakers; other young children are found completely "on their own" with door keys hung around their necks, and all too often children are found locked in apartments with no one to look after them. The importance of good care for these children cannot be overestimated. 1 Enclosures made a part of the committee files. 84071-62-39 We plan to write you in the near future about other provisions in this bill about which we have much concern. We strongly urge your favorable action. Re: H.R. 10606. FRANCIS HAIGHT, Mrs. ERIC HAIGHT, Chairman, Day Care Section. CITIZENS' COMMITTEE FOR CHILDREN OF NEW YORK, INC., Hon. HARRY F. BYRD, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, DEAR SENATOR BYRD: Citizens' Committee for Children, dedicated to the purpose of assuring the well-being of New York's children and their families, urges your support of H.R. 10606 (formerly H.R. 10032), a bill which would "extend and improve the public assistance and child welfare services of the Social Security Act, and for other purposes." We sincerely approve the overall purpose of this bill. We are pleased with its advocacy and provision of preventive and rehabilitative services for people in need and with the expansion of child welfare services. It will, if enacted, encourage all States to improve their programs and to develop comprehensive plans based on sound nationwide standards for meeting these many-facetea problems. As we explain later, we have serious questions about some of the changes which were made in the original bill by the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee and urge your committee to reinstate the sections needed to restore the original intent of the bill. We commend in particular: The constructive approach to the conservation of our Nation's manpower through development or restoration of work skills and the emphasis on preventing or reducing dependency through developing productive, selfsufficient individuals. We believe that it is sound to require each State to make available to applicants for or recipients of public assistance, services to help them attain or retain capability for self-care and self-support and to maintain and strengthen family life for children. The expansion and improvement of child welfare services; The appropriation of funds for day care for children (about which we have already written); The offering of incentives to employment through taking into account the expenses incurred in earning income and by allowing the dependent child to retain part of his earned income toward future identifiable needs, such as education; We believe that an adequate supply of trained personnel is the all-important element to the success of the proposed constructive welfare program, but question the possibility of realizing it without extended planning with and financial assistance to the professional schools of social work to enable them to expand to meet the increased enrollment, and the appropriation of funds for tuition; We welcome increase in the Federal matching formula for the aged, the blind and the disabled, but are distressed at the widening disparity between the formula for these categories and that for the grants for aid and services to needy families with children. There is urgent need for a revision to narrow or erase this gap; We welcome expansion of the temporary program to provide aid and services to needy families with children (when the father is unemployed) for 5 years, though we had supported the administration's recommendation that this provision be made permanent; We have deep concern about the inherent dangers in subsection 107(a), section 405 in regard to protective payments presumed to be for the benefit of the child. The broad authority conferred on the States by this section weakens the Federal role in the partnership program by giving precedence to State law over the State plan requirements of the Federal law; it opens the door for punitive, retaliatory action against all assistance recipients when a vocal group in the community arouses feelings against them, perhaps because of a small isolated incident; it threatens the intent of the section-i.e., protection of the welfare of children-by leaving the gate open to many ill-advised measures which could be permitted under a literal interpretation of the section. All opportunity to use any part of a livelihood grant to degrade and depersonalize the recipients must be removed. The residence eligibility requirements as now incorporated in the bill stand in need of correction. We would like to see all State residence requirements removed so that there would be no obstacle to a mobile labor force and to the movement of families seeking better jobs and better living. The original bill with provisions modifying residence requirements and providing financial incentives to States to remove such requirements was a long overdue step toward the realization of this goal. It should be reinstated. May we express again our support of the greater part of this bill and urge favorable action by your committee and the appropriation of the necessary funds. We ask your most active support when the bill is before the Senate. Sincerely, MRS. MAX ASCOLI, President. THE SALVATION ARMY, SOUTHWEST DIVISIONAL HEADQUARTERS, Phoenix, Ariz., May 2, 1962. Senator HARRY FLOOD BYRD, DEAR SIR: It has been brought to our attention that H.R. 10606 has passed the House of Representatives and is now in the Senate and is being referred to the Committee on Finance of the Senate. Two important provisions were eliminated from this bill when it finally passed the House. It is our conviction that in the interest of good social work, these two provisions should be reinstated. One makes reference to permission to purchase services from voluntary or nongovernmental agencies and receive reimbursement from the Federal Government, and the other provision covers the elimination of restrictive prerequisites based on residence. I trust that the Committee on Finance will take the necessary steps to have these provisions reinstated in this extremely important bill. Thank you for your favorable attention to this request. God bless you. Yours sincerely, ERIC NEWBOULD, Lieutenant Colonel, Divisional Commander. THE AMERICAN LEGION, Washington, D.C., May 15, 1962. Hon. HARRY F. BYRD, Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR BYRD: As national child welfare director for the American Legion and its affiliated organizations, I wish to make known to you the position of the American Legion on the Public Welfare Amendments of 1962 during your consideration of H.R. 10606. The child welfare program of the American Legion nationally, not only encompasses the activities of some 16,000 posts, but likewise approximately 14,000 units of the American Legion Auxiliary. In addition, the work of the affiliated organization known as the 8 and 40 coordinates its child welfare activities through our American Legion National Child Welfare Commission and this office. Our interest in sound public programs for children began in the middle 1920's and has continued uninterruptedly since that time. As some indication of the magnitude of our interest we expended more than $74 million last year on child welfare activities, the greater part of which went to help the children of veterans who are in need and whose needs were not being met from any other source. Records which I know are available to the Congress will indicate the American Legion's leadership long before the Social Security Act was adopted in helping obtain State mothers' aid laws. Later we supported the Social Security Act itself and have continued to recommend amendments to that act from time to time. Early in 1960 the National Child Welfare Commission of the American Legion became concerned with the present aid to dependent children program in some of the States. Our own temporary financial assistance program, in which we use our own funds to help meet children's needs. is a most sensitive barometer of conditions for children and many times reflects local public welfare practices. As our concern increased, a special committee of the national child welfare commission was appointed to study various problems as they appeared to us and make recommendations to our full commission. This study has been in process for more than a year in which we have received, among other things, the opinions of our State child welfare chairman throughout the Nation. As a result of this study, certain recommendations were made to our national executive committee, who on May 3 adopted the attached resolution which establishes the official position of the American Legion. We earnestly urge the consideration of this resolution by your committee as it considers H.R. 10606. One additional point on which we would urge your consideration does not appear in Resolution No. 41, since it has been the position of the American Legion for several years. That point applies to residence requirements, especially in the aid to dependent children program. In the American Legion's own temporary financial assistance program, where it is spending its own money, the legal residence of a child has never been a consideration in whether or not assistance is granted. Our belief has always been that a child in need is entitled to what assistance we can give regardless of present geographic residence. We were, therefore, much disappointed when H.R. 10606 failed so completely to take cognizance of the mobility of our Nation and the discrimination brought about by stringent residence requirements. We sincerely urge your committee, Mr. Chairman, to give this point further consideration, even if it is necessary to provide only the Federal share of assistance payments to children when, through no fault of their own, they are in need and find themselves without sufficient residence to meet State requirements. As you well know, there are approximately 70 million children in the United States 18 and under. Approximately 40 million of these children are the children of veterans for whom our organization has pledged care and protection. Although we are vitally concerned with these 40 million, we are no less concerned with the remaining 30 million children, for the second part of our purpose is to improve conditions for all children. Thank you for the opportunity of presenting our view in behalf of the American Legion. Respectfully, RANDEL SHAKE, Director, National Child Welfare. NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN LEGION HELD MAY 2-3, 1962 Resolution No. 41. Committee: Child welfare. Subject: Strengthen public welfare programs for children and youth. Whereas our present public welfare program has been in operation for 27 years with little basic change; and Whereas during the same period social, economic and cultural changes of great magnitude have taken place including the creation of new rehabilitation skills; and Whereas experience in the past few years has indicated the need for reconsidering our public programs for children; Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the American Legion reommends the following points as needed to strengthen and improve the Nation's public welfare program: 1. The establishment of a program of rehabilitation and counseling services for families dependent on public support. 2. Reaffirm and strengthen our support for funds for training of needed personnel to carry out programs of rehabilitation and counseling. 3. An increase in Federal matching funds for families with dependent children commensurate with the increases proposed for the aged, blind, and disabled. 4. That the long established principle of the American Legion's child welfare program permitting payments of assistance to a third party. when circumstances require, be authorized for public welfare payments where it is determined the parent is incapable of management of funds. We continue to recommend, |