The committee that has been studying juvenile delinquency, its causes and effects, has heard reference made to the problem of the comics. The Nation spends more each year for comics than for all books on both the elementary and secondary schools. Four times as much is spent on comics than is budgeted for all public libraries in the Nation. Much emphasis is placed on the dearth of reading habits, both in adults and youth, yet we do not provide reading materials. Perhaps one reason for the growth of the comic book habit can be traced to the lack of library facilities. Let's think about the importance of substituting library services for the comic book habit.

In the interest of saving your time, I will omit the next two paragraphs of my prepared statement. You have heard many witnesses who have spoken very ably on the need.

I would just like to conclude very quickly with this prepared state

ment.

The National Congress of Parents and Teachers believes in the principle of this bill. It is wholeheartedly in favor of the library services bill.

We believe that all children are our children. It is for the children who are deprived of library services that we plead today. One of our objectives is to raise the standard of home life. Reading in the family is one requisite of a good standard of living. Without libraries many families are deprived of this experience of reading together, and of establishing good reading habits. It is then that they turn to a substitute the tabloid, the comic or one of the trashy type of pocket books. The American culture is at stake today when so many of our population are deprived of the pleasures and privileges of reading facilities.

The National Congress of Parents and Teachers has faith that you will find the way to approve the library services bill and will report it favorably from your committee. We know that you will keep faith with the children of America, their parents and their teachers.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That concludes the prepared statement which I brought today.

As I was coming down on the streetcar this morning, though, I had one other thought that I would like to add, if I may.

Through the years as I have driven over many States in this great country of ours I have been impressed in many cities with the fact that the library, the Carnegie Library, is one of the landmarks, one of the chief sources of civic pride. It is one of the buildings that one finds on post cards in every city where they are available.

These libraries were given because of the faith and vision of one man who, through a life of early deprivation and hardship, had learned to value having access to the accumulated wisdom of the ages. And he knew that the citizens of America in the future needed and should have these facilities.

I don't believe that when he gave the libraries he asked the communities whether they were going to be asking him for additional funds later. I don't think he felt that was important.

Today I am afraid we have no more Andrew Carnegies, and I don't know that our tax structure is going to permit that they could develop, so that it seems the time has come for our Congress to follow the vision and the leadership of Andrew Carnegie by appropriating funds for library facilities in the areas that do not have those services at present.

Thank you very much.

Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you.
Do you have any questions?
Mr. METCALF. No questions.
Mr. LANDRUM. Mrs. Green?

Mrs. GREEN. Over the years, of course, I have known that the Congress of Parents and Teachers has been very much concerned about library service, and I am delighted that you could appear here, Mrs. Gray, to give that to the committee.

I think your last point is very well taken in regard to the Carnegie libraries over the land being landmarks, something that the citizens can point to with pride.

Mrs. GRAY. I think the citizens have taken over those gifts from one man, and have developed them far beyond perhaps even his great vision when he made those grants. So that, from experience, we can say with assurance that when the library services are given to the new areas, to people who have not had those opportunities before, they will carry on, they will contribute on their own as they see the advantages and appreciate what a library can offer.

Mr. LANDRUM. Mr. Coon?

Mr. Coon. No questions.

Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you very much, Mrs. Gray.
Mrs. GRAY. Thank you.

Mr. LANDRUM. The next witness is Mr. James G. Patton, president of the National Farmers Union.

Is this Mr. Patton?

STATEMENT OF REUBEN JOHNSON, LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANT, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION, PRESENTED ON BEHALF OF JAMES G. PATTON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION, ACCOMPANIED BY MISS SARAH SHAVER, WASHINGTON LEGISLATIVE SERVICE OFFICE, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I am Reuben Johnson, legislative assistant, National Farmers Union, and I have the brief statement of Mr. James G. Patton, president of the National Farmers Union, which I would like to read to the committee at this time.

I would like the record to show that I have with me here today Miss Sarah Shaver of the Washington legislative service office.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, the library-services bill to extend library facilities to rural areas without such service or with inadequate services is fully supported by the National Farmers Union. Our interest in this piece of legislation is patent in that we represent many of the rural areas which will be helped directly by this bill. However, we support this bill 100 percent, believing it is not only in the interest of those living in rural areas but in the interest of the Nation as a whole.

It is imperative today that farm families have as much opportunity as urban dwellers to use modern information facilities. But the facts show that they do not. In North Dakota, for instance, 59.1 percent of the total population is without any sort of local library service. There are only 13 States in the entire Nation in which there is less than 10 percent of the population without local libraries.

This measure of our quantitative lack of library facilities is shocking enough. But when we consider that included in these service statistics is every sort of inadequate, old-fashioned, and obsolete library imaginable, the need for Federal aid to insure equal opportunity for all our people regardless of where they live becomes more urgent.

There are only three States in the Union which provide per capita expenditures of the level recommended by the American Library Association to meet minimum standards. The significance is that many States and local areas have limited funds with which to extend library service to rural areas. When money is available it is spent in highly populated localities and rural people get no library service facilities at all.

The overwhelming majority of counties which lack an adequate library service are in rural areas. Rural districts traditionally suffer from the lack of educational facilities in general. Rural areas, because of the sparse population and inadequate funds from taxation, are unable to provide libraries necessary for their cultural, social, and economic development. The library services bill is urgently needed if a solution to this problem is to be found.

Part of the oldest American tradition has been our belief that everyone should have the opportunity to participate fully in our society. Out of this concept has come our greatest strength. But the times are changing, and today we are living in a vastly more complex world where interest and ambition alone are not enough in order to succeed as citizens or as a nation. It is more important than ever that all our people have access to a maze of information not only on technical subjects but also on social changes, foreign developments, historical trends, political and economic conditions.

The chance to learn has always been of greatest importance to us, and wherever Americans have settled they have built schools so that their children might be educated. But today it is even more necessary than it has ever been to recognize that we must extend the means of continuing to learn to our adult population.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to interject at this point an experience that I have witnessed in connection with high school libraries.

In some rural areas the high school library is the most adequately equipped of any available to rural people. Whenever Johnny or Mary take a book out and take it home it seems that mother and father and some of the older brothers and sisters want to read it, too. That means that these books are kept out of the library, the school library, longer than they would be otherwise. And it seems that some of the pressure on school libraries, which are all too limited, would be relieved if we had some sort of program to make it possible for mother and father and older brothers and sisters to get the books that they would like to read. The average American both in the city and on the farm today has the prospect of a longer and more productive life due to scientific advances of the past and the present. However, the average American also faces a more difficult situation than did his fathers. The education that is obtained during a man's first 20 years must be constantly adapted today if we are to have an informed public.

Countries such as Korea or Indochina, phrases such as radioactive fallout, and even the term "automation" loom large in all of our lives. Improved communication via the press, radio, and television bring news of these events into our lives. But in the interest of our

Nation as a whole we must not fail to provide opportunities for people, whether they live in the city or the country, to explore further and to evaluate what they hear or read upon the basis of wider knowledge.

We feel that development of rural libraries is necessary for the technical progress of the country. We feel also that it is even more necessary for social and economic development. Understanding of our social and economic system generally lags far behind technical development. Such understanding is absolutely necessary if we are to maintain our democratic society.

National Farmers Union favors provisions of the bill under which each State is to work out a rural library service program tailored to fit its particular needs. We think it is important that selection of books, material, and personnel be left to people within the respective States who are most familiar with local problems and needs in the educational sphere.

As we understand provisions of the bill, funds are authorized to be apportioned to the States whenever a library service program is established in accordance with the objectives defined in the bill.

Mr. Chairman, we urge the committee to consider favorably the legislation before you in order that we might provide needed library service facilities to rural people who do not have them or who have inadequate facilities at the earliest possible time.

Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Are there any questions?

Mr. METCALF. No questions, thank you.

Mr. LANDRUM. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Mr. LANDRUM. The next witness is Miss Sallie Farrell.

STATEMENT OF SALLIE FARRELL, FIELD REPRESENTATIVE, LOUISIANA STATE LIBRARY, BATON ROUGE, LA.

Miss Farrell, you are the field representative for the Louisana State Library?

Miss FARRELL. That is right.

Mr. LANDRUM. I might say for the record that Mr. Thompson, Congressman Thompson from Louisiana, spoke to me about you and about his concern and feeling for this legislation. He has submitted a statement for the record.

With that, will you identify yourself and proceed.

Miss FARRELL. Thank you very much.

I have been wracking my brain trying to think, Mr. Chairman, about some connection or association or tie I had with Montana and Oregon, but I have not been able to.

However, I did check you, Mr. Landrum, in Who's Who in America, and I found that you did attend our State university for a year. So that is sort of a tie with the chairman.

I am delighted to be here.

Mr. LANDRUM. It was a very pleasant period of my life.

Miss FARRELL. I am sure that I was asked to appear before this committee for two reasons. First, because part of my job as field representative for the Louisiana State Library in Louisiana is persuading both State and county officials that the importance of libraries justifies

their support by public funds. Second, I believe I was asked to testify before you because the philosophy of the library development plan in Louisiana is that of the library services bill. That is, the State furnishes funds for library establishment on a temporary basis in order to stimulate and encourage local library support on a permanent basis.

This legislation which you are considering this week and which is of much concern to all of us will do the same thing for the whole United States, we think, that our plan is doing for Louisiana.

30 years ago in Louisiana there was no library service at all to rural areas. Today 41 out of 64 parishes-we call them parishes, as you know, instead of counties, in Louisiana-have parish-wide library service. And may I interject here in my testimony to say that we are not bragging about this record; 41 out of 64 for a period of 30 years is not too good.

I do think it is significant to note here, though, that 37 of this number, this total of 41, had access to library service for the first time through library demonstrations. Also noteworthy is the fact that for the first 5 years of the Louisiana State Library program, and we bring Mr. Andrew Carnegie into this testimony again, the Carnegie Corp. provided funds to demonstrate to Louisianians the value of libraries. These outside funds showed the people and officials what a State library agency could do and did make the difference in Louisiana's future library program.

We who are so interested in the passage of this bill believe it is a responsibility of our Federal Government to provide funds that will give an impetus to library development in each of the States.

Under the Louisiana library demonstration plan the State library brings thousands of books into a parish and sets up a library system of branch libraries and a bookmobile service so that nobody has to go far for the books he wants and needs.

The State library operates the system for a year's trial period. During that time the greater part of the expense is borne by the State with the parish, or county, providing certain overhead expenses. At the end of the demonstration period it becomes the responsibility of the parish to continue the service.

If local support is assured the State library leaves the books in the parish on an indefinite loan, and the bookmobile, until such time as the parish can replace it.

This demonstration plan in Louisiana is exactly what the name implies. The State library works on the theory that the people of a parish are willing to support their library locally after seeing efficient library service demonstrated for 1 year.

I remember in the 80th Congress when a subcommittee was considering similar library legislation a congressman observed that several of the States were making commendable progress without benefit of Federal funds.

May I say that many local and State governments are making vigorous efforts on behalf of the establishment of libraries. However, in many areas where neither taxpayers nor governing authorities have ever enjoyed or benefited from good library service, progress is slow and support inadequate because the community does not recognize a library's educational values.