LACK OF FEDERAL INTEREST

How stands then the executive branch? USDA, the Department of Agriculture, in the main confirms the findings that both, "Their Daily Bread," and "Hunger, USA," have stated. But we also find that the Department of Agriculture equates counties with States and extends to them the same decision prerogatives to determine whether or not poor people shall be allowed to suffer chronic hunger and the ensuing dehabilitating malnutrition.

In the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, we find they are not very interested in studying malnutrition even though the Senate as long ago as August 2, 1967, instructed HEW and USDA to study the incidence and prevalence of chronic hunger and malnutrition and health problems incident thereto and report back to this Senate. As of April 30, 1968, that mandate had not even been started to be carried out.

We find that HEW has helped conduct malnutrition studies in 30 countries overseas but has never conducted a broad malnutrition study in this country. It seems to be Pakistan, yes; South Carolina, no.

OEO seems willing to study these problems now, but the Bureau of the Budget seems to prevent them from acting. And we go into sizable detail on BOB in our written testimony. Unfortunately

ATTITUDE OF BUDGET BUREAU

Senator RIBICOFF. Will you summarize the Bureau of the Budget's attitude from your experience since we have a representative here and since the Bureau of the Budget seems to be so strongly opposed to us trying to do anything. I think much of the problem and the blame of what happens in the executive branch falls on the shoulders of the Bureau of the Budget. It does not seem to be a very forward-looking organization.

Mr. CHOATE. As you know, sir, the Bureau of the Budget is not only a budgetary agency; it also has the responsibility for coordination of agencies in the executive branch. It does not seem to be executing much coordination.

We found that the Bureau of the Budget in the main is more concerned with what the Nation wants to spend on feeding hungry people than on how many people are hungry in this country. We have found that the Bureau of the Budget has worked with USDA to take funds from a kitty which OEO had for feeding hungry persons on an emergency basis and has allocated them to USDA for the routine expansion, the anticipatable expansion, of the food stamp program. We have further found after certain Senators slapped them on the knuckles for this that BOB then endorsed the taking of $300,000 from this same emergency food fund to reimburse farmers whose milk was damaged by irradiation. Again, certain Senators slapped them on the knuckles, and I do believe that $300,000 has been returned to OEO.

I think these two examples are a fair indication of how little concern has BOB over chronically hungry persons.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

Let me conclude with this statement. Unfortunately, the confusion that we detect in the executive branch seems to be matched on Capitol Hill. The legislation that has been enacted will not clarify that poor people have a right to eat. Food is welfare for budgeting purposes but not for overseeing purposes.

Appallingly, those States with greatest hunger problems have the greatest political power to meet their needs and they seem not to want to use it. Two bills are pending right now before the total Congress, before the welfare-oriented committees for a change. On this side of the hill, 39 Senators, Mr. Ribicoff included, joined in sponsoring a Senate resolution calling for better attention by the executive branch to the food needs of hungry persons and also calling for the establishment of a select committee of the Senate to look into legislative oversight problems.

On the House side, 82 Congressmen, again from both sides of the aisle, have joined together in a series of House resolutions calling for substantially the same thing over there; they are looking toward a Presidential commission somewhat patterned after the President's Commission on Civil Disorders-the Riot Commission.

These two bills are today pending before the Senate and the House. They will be heard starting May 21 in the House, and starting May 23 in the Senate. They are a start toward the Senate and the House looking at their own responsibilities in regard to the Executive snafu over food programs. But we are concerned with what time it is going to take to correct the existing food programs.

EXHIBIT 40

[S. Res. 281, 90th Cong., second sess.]
RESOLUTION

Whereas it has been demonstrated that every American does not have the basic food, clothing, and other necessities essential to life and health; and Whereas surveys conducted by Government agencies and responsible groups of citizens show that, in spite of America's abundance of food, fiber, and other resources, our Federal food programs fail to reach many of the citizens lacking adequate quanities and/or quality of food, which may result in the lifetime impairment of children mentally and physically, and in unnecessary disease, suffering, and premature deaths among both young and adults; and Whereas restricted use of programs authorized by Congress, reversion of funds, divisions of responsibility and authority within Congress and administrative agencies, unwise regulations and other obstacles impede and frustrate efforts to banish starvation and want necessities among desperately disadvantage poor within our Nation: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the President, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the office of Economic Opportunity, the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and any and all other agencies with applicable authorities shall use to the fullest possible their authorities under existing laws, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Johnson-O'Malley Act, section 32 of the Tariff Act of 1935, the Office of Economic Opportunity Food Assistance Act, the school lunch and all other authorities for child and relief commodity programs, to meet immediately the food, fiber, and other basic needs of the Nation's poor to the fullest extent possible; and be it further

Resolved, That there is established a select committee of the Senate composed of three majority and two minority members of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, three majority and two minority members of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, and three majority two minority Members of the Senate

appointed by the President of the Senate without regard to committee assignment, to study the unmet basic needs among the people of the United States and to report back to the Senate not later than the opening of the 91st Congress legislation necessary to establish a coordinated program or programs which will assure every United States resident adequate food, clothing, and other basic necessities of life and health: Provided further, That the select committee shall recommend to the Senate appropriate procedures for congressional consideration and oversight of such coordinated programs.

INFANT MORTALITY DUE TO HUNGER

Mr. CHOATE. I mentioned in the beginning that in 256 counties of the United States I think we can statistically document that there were an excess number of infant deaths amounting to 6,645. It is this observer's personal belief that one-third of that 6,645 infant deaths can be attributed to lack of food and to malnourishment. I believe that there is something terribly wrong in the United States, in a country which can produce as much food as we do for the world's mouths, when in 256 identified counties there is an extremely high suspicion that 2,215 infants die per year from a lack of food.

As I said at the beginning, I am looking for the responsible people who will help us look into the heart of this, who will help us clean up the Augean stable of the executive branch. We need to totally revamp the hearing process for such matters up here on Capitol Hill and to seek a better method of legislative oversight among the congressional committees. If our present efforts fail with the two bills now pending in the Senate and the House, we can only depend, Mr. Chairman, on your committee.

(The statement follows:)

TESTIMONY PRESENTED BY ROBERT B. CHOATE, CONSULTANT, CITIZEN'S BOARD OF INQUIRY INTO HUNGER And MalnutRITION IN THE UNITED STATES

Mr. Chairman, Senators; my name is Robert Choate. I have been active in the field of poverty work for a decade. I have recently been a consultant to the Citizen's Board of Inquiry Into Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States as it prepared its report entitled Hunger, USA. I have also been in frequent contact with Miss Jean Fairfax, whose group of five women's organizations just pub-. lished a report entitled Their Daily Bread. This document, jointly researched by the National Council of Catholic Women, National Council Jewish Women, National Council of Negro Women, Church Women United, and National Board of the YWCA, is a magnificent analysis of the current operation of the National School Lunch Program.

I therefore come before you bearing these two reports which I shall use to footnote many of the statistics which are in my testimony. Where new material is introduced, I shall try to identify sources.

I feel honored by the opportunity to testify. All of us who have performed the research for these recently released reports on food programs of the United States Government realize we have been given a rare opportunity to study a ment in action. an action which we find to be confused, distorted, maladministered and malsupervised.

govern

You have been considering the value of a reorganization effort, perhaps patterned after a Hoover-type Commission, which would improve governmental performance. Our remarks here today look at both the Executive and Legislative Branches of Government. I feel that a completely independent Commission, having the insights of the Congress itself among its members, is the only hope if we are to eradicate the immense problems we are about to outline.

NEEDS

Most of us would admit that man's basic needs are food, clothing and shelter. Most of us would admit that shortages of these among large segments of our

population would constitute a national embarrassment, a national scandal. Most of us would admit that of these three elements, food is surely the most critical, for a 48 hour shortage of food becomes a personal emergency to any human being.

There are visible steps by which a shortage of food affects a family. When there is fear of shortage, the whole family purpose becomes focused on food. With consumption cut to two or one meal a day, tempers become short; the body is listless; attention spans are abbreviated; energy evaporates. If the shortage of food continues, the hunger becomes chronic. The body starts to change. Malnutrition becomes the enemy. Malnourishment is medically provable; hunger is not. With malnourishment may come too frequent disease; parasites frequently invade the body and consume food in the intestines which is already in short supply. Respiratory diseases thrive. The lassitude is obvious; the body is at the mercy of the elements and society. A child who is found by bio-chemical tests to be malnourished is therefore the product of many months of chronic hunger. Death, particularly among those under one year, is all too prevalent. Physical and mental retardation, particularly among those found malnourished under 4, is all too common.

If you questioned the average American citizen, he would say that these conditions do not occur in the United States. He would say that the private enterprise system provides enough, more than enough, food for all. He would also point to the governmental food programs as taking care of those who cannot obtain enough food through private enterprise sources.

Our findings indicate that private enterprise considers the U.S. population and their "market" to be the same. It is not. Roughly stated, the "market" to which private enterprise sells is, quite naturally, that market from which the food industry—a complex and fragmented industry-can elicit a profit. Perhaps 90 percent of all Americans are served by the private enterprise market. 10 percent are not. That is 20,000,000 people. Some of these consume that which temporarily gluts a market; some consume damaged goods; some have to pay a huge share of their monthly income for their food budget. (The food industry boasts that approximately 18 percent of the typical American's budget goes for food. Among the 20,000,000 poor who do not benefit from private enterprise there are many who spend 40 and 50 percent of their budget for food.) Among this 20 million are roughly 5.8 million who get some food help form the government's direct distribution program and the food stamp program, and from school lunches and the breakfast program. But despite these programs, the Board of Inquiry feels that 10 million Americans are chronically hungry most of their lives, and another 10 million face food conditions so erratic as to render them chronically hungry part of their lives.

Americans have a distorted interpretation of the value of their governmental food problems. Today we have an admitted 29 million poor. Let us examine how they are served by the nation's food programs.

EFFECTIVENESS OF EXISTING PROGRAMS

The Committee on School Lunch Participation-the coalition of women's groups alluded to earlier states that 18 million children are served by the School Lunch Program. (There are 50 million school-age children in our country.) Of the 18 million who receive lunches, 2 million who are poor receive free or substantially reduced-in-price lunches. But there are 9 million poor children of school age. Thus the School Lunch Programs substantively benefits about 22 percent of the poor children, while catering to the food needs of 16 million children not considered poor.

The Committee uses case histories to protray what this means:

Example: "It is when a large number of needy students attend a school that the system of providing free lunches for them collapses. It is in these schools that the stopgap measures noted in the above examples are employed-rotating the free lunches, or having the teacher buy the children lunch, or hoping the others will share, or having the children stand at the end of the line to see whether any food is left over. It is in these schools where the problem is so overwhelming that principals cannot cope with it and the hungry children just sit and watch their classmates eat while they go hungry." P. 21 TDB.1

Example: A Louisiana principal: "1250 out of 1800 pupils cannot afford to eat". P. 17 TDB

1 TDB=Their Daily Bread.

Example: Cleveland, Ohio: "All 136 elementary schools in the city are excluded from the School Lunch Program; 60 percent of Cleveland's children attend school without lunch facilities." P. 52, TDB

Example: South Carolina: "School officials refused to allow white schools to be included in our study. We discovered that Negro schools rely solely on ESEA funds for lunches; we were told that in the white schools free lunches are part of the regular National School Lunch Program." P. 31, TDB.

Example: Albuquerque: "ESEA is feeding 4595 children daily in 15 schools, compared with about 1930 children who get free lunches from the National School Lunch Program." P. 91 TDB.

Example: Detroit: “Only 79 out of 224 elementary schools participate in the School Lunch Program. Of those not participating for lack of facilities, 78 are located in the slums." P. 52, TDB.

Now let us examine the Commodity and Food Stamp Programs. According to USDA's own figures, there were 5.4 million persons participating in these programs as of March 1968. But we note that there are 29 million poor. We also note the following: Of the 10 million poor in 283 counties in twenty states of the Southeast, in the fall of 1967, only 1 million benefited from the Commodity or Food Stamp Program.

Neither program was to be found in approximately 1000 of the nation's 3000 counties.

Among the nation's 800 counties in the lowest economic quartile, over 300 counties did not have active programs in the fall of 1967. The majority of these 300 still do not have them today.

Among those receiving commodities a USDA release states: . . . "the quantities purchased have regularly permitted the distribution of one 30-ounce can of meat to each person participating each month . . ."

A poverty family of four with a monthly income of $40 receives help from the Food Stamp Program according to a certain formula. Of such a family in the South (and there are many), the food stamp regulations demand that such a family pay out $20 in a lump sum to obtain a total of $60 worth of food stamps. Thus governmental regulations demand that such a family spend 50 percent of its paltry budget on food, food which cannot last out the month.

And from the Field Foundation' report entitled "Hungry Children": "In child after child we saw: evidence of vitamin and mineral deficiencies; serious untreated skin infestation and ulcerations; eye and ear diseases, also unattended bone diseases secondary to poor food intake; the prevalence of bacterial and parasitic disease, as well as severe anemia, with resulting loss of energy and ability to live a normally active life; diseases of the heart and the lungsrequiring surgery-which have gone undiagnosed and untreated; epileptic and other neurological disorders; severe kidney ailments, that in other children would warrant immediate hospitalization; and finally, in boys and girls in every county we visited, obvious evidence of severe malnutrition with injury to the body's tissues its muscles, bones, and skin as well as an associated psychological state of fatigue, listlessness, and exhaustion."

From New Orleans the Board received a report from Revius Ortique, past President of the National Bar Association, that a reporter from a local TV station had recently uncovered the fact that 1,000 persons living in tar paper shacks surrounding the city dump relied upon the food they scavenged there for survival. This situation came to light when the city decided to institute a charge for dumping garbage at the city dump. The resultant decrease in use of the dump caused severe hardship and an outcry from the families who depended upon the steady flow of garbage in order to survive."

We can go on and on. I refer you to Their Daily Bread and Hunger, USA for the details on how the programs have fallen short of their mark. Hunger, USA describes the lives of many of the 10,000,000 Americans who are chronically hungry. These reports include comments on the ignorance about malnutrition in the nation's medical schools, the disengagement of the nation's food firms, the lack of knowledge about domestic hunger among the state and Federal public health services, and the inattention of nutritionists to the eating habits of the poverty community. But we are not here to talk about food. We are here to talk about the response of Government to such conditions. Let us first look at the executive branch, and then examine the overseeing responsibilities in the Congress.