But since our retirement we have taken a great deal of interest in the senior citizens of our country. We have worked at it diligently and put in long hours. Most of our work has been through the final enactment of a homestead act.

May I speak on that just a moment, please?

Mr. MURPHY. It would be a very good thing to do.

Mr. CLAY. I will speak on this because I know more about it than anything else. For about 3 years we have been to Jefferson City several times a year introducing bills. The different senators and representatives introduced the bills. I am afraid that the compassion of our senators is not with us any more.

Mr. MURPHY. You are referring to the U.S. Senators?

Mr. CLAY. I am referring to the State senators. They are not all Senator Eagleton's, I will tell you, in Jefferson City. We go down there, we get answers, yes, "we are going to give you some relief on property tax": that is all we get.

We are going down next week to hear a homestead bill for the relief of property taxes for our senior citizens over 65. This bill has been passed in the house by a hundred percent majority and will be heard by the judiciary committee next week. We hope to get this bill out as soon as possible.

This bill went as far as the senate last year, and many of you probably know, there was a filibuster started down there that killed the bill. We are hoping it doesn't happen this year.

Certainly there are two types of bills down there. There is the homestead act bill, which relieves the property owners. There is also a certain circuit-type breaker bill, which includes the renters. If our bill is passed, the homestead bill, the one we are after, we certainly want. to include renters sometime in the future.

This bill is only asking this year that it go before the people of Missouri in the next general election to change the constitution of Missouri so that we can get a relief bill of taxes passed in our State. So why they hold up down there, these senators and representatives, we cannot understand. As of now it is not costing them anything. We are just leaving it up to the people of the State, if it goes this year to the general election. But we are hopeful for the passage of this bill that will certainly benefit most of you here in this room and people you know. There is just one other point I would like to make. I am wondering sometimes, maybe none of us here in this room, but about so many senior citizens, if they are not expecting at times too much, maybe not too much of what they really deserve, but they want to sit back, they don't want to do one thing in order to get the needs of life they might get if they would just get busy, and I am referring specifically to writing letters to our congressmen. This, indeed, is your only weapon. Those congressmen sit up and listen, believe you me, when you write them a letter and tell them what you want.

We have an organizational meeting every week or every month at our own place of business. I am from Chevrolet Motors at Leeds. We plead and we plead with our own people just to sit down and write letters. We get several of them to write, but the majority of them. won't. So I am asking you to go back to your people, whoever you represent, and tell them to start writing letters to their Congressmen for the things you want.

Thank you very much.

Senator EAGLETON. Thank you very much, Mr. Clay.
There is a Mr. Woods, right?

Mr. WOOD. Earl Wood, yes.

Senator EAGLETON. Good morning.

Mr. Wood. Mr. Chairman and committee members, guests, brothers and sisters: It is nice to be here today with so great a congregation of people who have spent 35 to 50 years in productivity and have worked, very, very hard to keep the country that we are so proud of, the way we would like to have it, and we shall continue to work and fight for the right to keep this country the way it is.

As stated a while ago, the property tax was brought up and a little was said about it and the gentleman to my right, Mr. Clay, here has mentioned a great deal about the homestead exemption and property tax. I shall speak a little on that, and I will try not to be so repetitious on it, but there are some things that I would like to bring out that in the way it would show you the difference in the city, county, State, and Federal governments, and the way that I believe that they can cooperate their efforts in bringing about something that would give some relief to you and me as propertyowners and senior citizens of Kansas City, the whole State of Missouri, and the Nation in general. As Mr. Clay told you, we have been working since 1968 for a homestead exemption bill for people 65 years and older. Last year he told you that a homestead exemption bill was passed by the House, and went to the Senate. I don't believe I need to tell you what happened to that bill in the Senate. There was a filibuster started on the last day of the session and it died. So that is why we keep on fighting for the homestead exemption bill because we believe that that is one way that the homestead people that own a home, the retirees who own their home, can get some relief on their taxes. That is what we need to do, is to try to keep working on this.

I am sure you gentlemen are very much aware of the retired pensioners and fixed-income citizens who are homeowners.

I have worked with senior citizens and also community services of the senior citizens of Kansas City, Mo., and I am very familiar with the problems of the senior citizens. I know you are aware that the high cost of living, property taxes, hospital care, medicine, utility taxes. Recently we had a 13-percent increase in water rates in Kansas City. Earnings tax went into effect last year that affected senior citizens who are forced to work part time to continue to make a living. Transportation sales tax was imposed recently. Senior citizens can't afford to ride the buses. We feel that something should be done along those lines by the city and the county in cooperation with the State in order to make some modification for the elderly people in the way of bus transportation.

You will also note that doctors' fees today are the highest ever

known.

I would like to quote here from our leading citizens of Kansas City, city officials, and county officials.

Mr. George Lehr, former Jackson County collector and now judge, has previously stated that many homeowners are being forced out of their homes because they could not pay their taxes. We believe that retirees and elderly homeowners should be able to live in their own homes with human dignity. They should not be penalized for owning a home or growing old.

I would like to read to you some statements from officials of city, county, State, and Federal Government concerning senior citizens. By doing this I hope to show there has to be a cooperation and coordination of city, county, State, and Federal officials that will bring about certain relief to elderly people.

Here are statements of two leading citizens of Kansas City that each and every one of you know real well. They were recently candidates against each other for mayor of Kansas City, Mr. Dutton Brookfield, a candidate, stated:

I am upset by the persons on fixed income, especially pensioners, who have lived in the city for years but who leave after retirement because they cannot survive under the present tax system.

Charles Wheeler, mayor of Kansas City, says, "The property taxholder is overburdened." His platform for senior citizens, you will remember, was tax abatement for citizens 65 years or older on property

taxes.

I want to say this, the school board of Kansas City, Mo., supported our homestead exemption bill every time we came up with one in Jefferson City.

Mr. George Lehr, now presiding judge of the county court, said, "Property taxes are outdated but schools have no place else to go. This has to be changed and it has to be done fast."

Mr. Lehr said that:

The homestead exemptions proposed by the county in the Missouri Legislature would solve some of the problems. It would give tax exemption to those years and older who have limited income.

Mr. Lehr, I want to say, has worked very diligently in the past for homestead exemptions. This is also true of Judge Harry Wiggins and the rest of the county court.

From the Washington report on aging in 1971 I quote:

Older persons are suffering heavily in the current economy. Soaring property taxes are jeopardizing their effort to hold onto their own.

Governor Hearnes, speaking recently in Kansas City before the National Tax Association Conference, said:

The burden of the property tax has become one of the most irritating of all sore points in our society. Part of the burden must be relieved by providing other sources of revenue for public school, county and municipal governments. Lieutenant Governor Morris said this:

The elderly will become a second class citizen and I urge something be done to help them.

The elderly of the state deserve aid and I hope the next session of the legislature will provide it. The federal government has begun to realize the need of the elderly and concern of property taxes throughout the nation.

Two presidential hopefuls have recently voiced their opinions of the need of the senior citizens and the problem of property taxes. You see, we aren't a forgotten people. Everyone seems to know the needs of the elderly retired pensioners and fixed-income persons, but, it seems to be the problem of too little action too late. That is why we are continuing to try to work for a tax exemption bill for the older citizens of the State of Missouri.

Now, we need the cooperation of the city, county, and State officials in getting legislation passed that will give immediate relief to the elderly citizens of Missouri and to all citizens 65 years old and older

and through the cooperation of the city, county, State, and Federal Government and the attitude that they are taking on the unconstitutionality of the property tax for the schools, I believe that we can coordinate all of our efforts and come up with some kind of a tax relief, a change in the tax structure of some sort, for you and I, the senior citizens of this State, and to all the people throughout the Nation.

Now, we believe that the officials of the city and county can assert a greater effort in getting a homestead exemption bill through the present senate. The Missouri House has passed a hometead exemption bill, and, as you have been told, it is now before the senate, and this is the first bill that they have out of committee passed. We have had this same trouble before. It is now in the senate and a hearing is to be held on March 7, in Jefferson City. I grant you we will be there trying to get something done on this particular bill. But we need the support, the active support, of all county and city officials in getting this bill out of committee. We hope this can be accomplished. In the past, it seems, there was no problem in getting an earnings tax or transportation tax passed in the last Missouri Legislature and other bills concerning legislators, but nothing has been done to give relief to the elderly pensioners and fixed-income persons.

I want to now do this, I want to thank those men in Jefferson City who have been responsible for this bill getting out of committee in the house of representatives and also the bill that was in the senate. That bill was introduced by one of our State senators, went to committee, and at the present time it is still tied up in the committee. I want to thank those people for the work they have done for you and me. It is hoped that they will continue to work and help us. So, you see, the elderly persons real problem is not the lack of knowledge of problems but the lack of constructive action.

We have heard all the problems of what the elderly and the aging need at the Governors conference. We have attended quite a number of them here in the past few years. But there is one thing we haven't come up with yet and that is immediate help.

I believe in planning, but I believe that sometimes we can plan too far ahead. Sometimes they tell you at these Governors conferences that you plan for 5 to 10 years in the future. We believe that help should be immediate. We need help now.

So my prayer today would be that all officials concerned, city, State, and National, can work to bring about some needed relief for the aged and retired persons without any great delay.

I also want to say, too, in the bill that has just been mentioned here today, Senator Eagleton's bill, and also they talk about nutrition, that Dr. Graham spoke about, and then in the report here about the people that are going to give the one hot meal a day 5 days a week. I do want to say that that has been started here in Kansas City, and I suppose a great many of you people know something about it, and that is the meals on wheels. I worked with the Swope Park Baptist Church in cooperation with the United Methodist Church in Kansas City in delivering those meals on wheels, and today is the day of delivery, and the group is set up to make those deliveries. And in working with the community services and with the meals on wheels I am in contact with a great many people that I know and I have learned of

the needs that they have. I believe that this bill, this nutrition bill, that is presented here and this bill 1163, will go a long way in keeping a lot of elderly citizens out of the hospitals, because I believe that a great many elderly citizens have malnutrition due to the fact that they aren't getting the proper kind of food. I believe that this particular part of the bill will be one of the greatest needs toward the helping of the elderly people and improving their health than anything that I know of.

In closing I want to say this, you and I have a job to do, we can't leave it all up to our legislators and our senators in the State or the Federal Government, you and I have a job to do. How do we get these people in office? There is one big mistake, as Mr. Clay said a while ago, we become complacent, we sit back, we want to let old John and Mary do the work. I want to tell, every one of you people, that you have a job to do, and that job is to register and then to vote for the men that you think is going to help you. So I say, "Don't forget that."

Senator and your panel, I thank you very much for allowing me to speak.

Senator EAGLETON. Thank you, Mr. Wood.

Mr. ALLEN. I want to concur on what has been said here but I want to take it one step further. I am speaking of our homestead bill. After we get it out of the committee and through the Senate, then it goes to you [indicating] and you [indicating], and there I want to ask everyone that's either an individual or any chapter of any kind, I want this talked up, for it has to be voted on this fall, it has to be voted on.

I thank you.

Senator EAGLETON. Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. LUEKING. I am a retired person. I have been retired 6 years and of the 6 years I have been working on retirees work 5 years. Although my work dates back some 38 years when we started the UAW in the automobile industry, we have been working for the underprivileged for 38 years and we will continue to do so. We have some 250,000 retired people who are living on fixed incomes. I would say some 90 percent of these people are homeowners. I am not going to go into the homestead bill, although I was the first one to go down. to Jefferson City and work on the homestead bill.

I want to say this, Congress has done a fairly good job in passing bills for money. But where the breakdown comes on this money is the administrative costs. We have untold numbers of buildings downtown filled with people who are administering these programs. In the morning paper I see in one program that Congress has decided that this one program which has 50 different branches is too many and that they are now going to cut it down to eight.

It gripes me to see this because I had to work real hard for my money, for what little I've got. The history of the UAW is not only that we have helped the auto workers, we have helped all the way across the country and across the ocean. We have some $1 million worth of Israeli bonds in our treasury. We have helped any number of countries throughout the world in their programs.

The reason that we are so vitally interested is that we are a little better off than most of the retired people. Through our negotiations.