For even a highly skilled craftsman there must continually be new jobs, either provided by the Government or by private enterprise. For private interprise to create new jobs there must be a profit incentive. And for our Federal Government must encourage, even create that incentive. And, gentlemen, that cannot be done by skyrocketing interest rates.

Any idea that manpower and welfare programs can best be handled by the States just is not upheld by historical facts. Federal programs designed in good faith to promote Health, Education, and Welfare, when delegated to the States have been bottlenecked, bogged down and destroyed by State and local bureaucratic boondoggling.

Furthermore, there is no equality between the recipients of these programs in one State and those of another because of the different opinions of State officials.

Organized labor in this area is all in favor of federally financed and federally administered training programs to habilitate or rehabilitate our deprived citizens. But we in the building trades are wholeheartedly opposed to a training program that encourages school dropouts by promises of good paying jobs after a few weeks of simple introductory courses, while others who have gone on, at least through high school, and have run the full course of apprenticeship training to become a craftsman, are themselves out of work.

This type of training does not improve the economy, it will drag it down, because the efficiency of the truly skilled worker will be lost in the inefficiency of his unskilled brother and lower wages for all is the inevitable result.

I wonder, gentlemen, could this be the real purpose behind this movement?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator NELSON. Our next witness is the Reverend W. H. Colson of the Urban Coalition.

I am pleased to have you before the committee. Do you have a prepared statement?

Reverend COLSON. I have a prepared statement. I want it taken down, please, sir.

Senator NELSON. Everything will be taken down.

STATEMENT OF REV. W. H. COLSON, URBAN COALITION

Reverend COLSON. I would like to make an introductory statement and then I have some documents to present to you.

Senator Nelson, Senator Yarborough, I would like to join Dr. Hector Garcia and others in expressing our gratitude for your coming to Corpus Christi to be with us. I feel that you have honored Corpus Christi in that you have asked us to be one of the six areas of the United States in which you will hold your hearings.

I would also like to point out to you that I think this city and this area offers you one of the best laboratories of study in the field of labor and in the field of manpower that you could find in the United States.

I want to direct my thoughts in four different points and I will do my best to be extremely brief in this.

In the first place, the manpower situation is not just a problem of the United States. It is one that has lasted for years.

Since 1865 when attention first began to be given to manpower problems in the United States following the beginning of the industrial revolution, year after year and decade after decade we have gotten just a little bit further behind in meeting the needs of people.

The beginning of the industrial revolution left many hundreds of thousands of people behind and each decade with the advance of technology and science this has continued to happen.

With the facing of the programs of technical advance there is before us, the possibility is that in the next 20 years the United States, in my opinion, will get further behind in meeting the real challenge of manpower, talents, and opportunity of contribution to this Nation than we have in the last 100 years.

So, it is well that you come today to give real attention to this matter of study. I do not want as a representative of the Urban Coalition to come today to completely endorse any of the three pieces of legislation which are before you. I have asked Mr. Ron James, legislative assistant of the National Urban Coalition Council, to sit with me and would like for him to contribute later if there are questions to be asked. I would like, as a member of the local Human Relations Commission and as a representative of the Urban Coalition, to point out some things which I feel that the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States ought to consider as a study-the probability of the complete reformation of the manpower program.

I have here, in my files today, a cataloging of the present manpower programs as sponsored by the Government of the United States. We have to take off our hats to the Congress, to the President, and to the people of the United States, in recognizing that our country is far in advance of others, but this does not leave us with any lack of guilt in our failure to measure to the total responsibility which we face as a people.

The first thing I would like to point out in connection with the point in question is why we need a new manpower act.

There are a number of things that I could say but let me mention a few things.

We, as people of the United States, need to take a real look at what we mean by unemployment. We have the figures of who is unemployed and who is not. Recently we boasted here in Corpus Christi the fact that we had 3%1⁄2 percent unemployment and some people say that is real good but if you were here, you would know that employment depends on what side of the freeway that you live on. The Steiger bill, I believe, was presented to the U.S. Senate sometime during the month of May; it was pointed out therein that there were 32 percent of the people in the United States, in the minority races, who were underemployed. It was also pointed out that three times the national average of this unemployment rate was among our young people.

Then when you get to the minority groups, it is three times that, which makes six times the number of unemployment in the percentage abiss among our youth as being unemployed in the United States.

Following the riots in Chicago, Newark, Los Angeles, Detroit, and other places, a group of people were called together in Washington to form the National Urban Coalition. I was one of these founders.

In the adopted policies of that meeting, the Congress of the United States was asked, at that time, to provide an avenue through which 1

million people could be employed in public services and we go on record today 100 percent for a program of manpower that will involve a study and a training program that will implement the public services programs of the cities.

We, also, in this meeting, called upon Congress to take a strong look at the total responsibility that we faced as a people to our country and that we not procrastinate any longer and recognize that we had the resources.

We have everything that we need as a people to meet the challenge of providing full employment, employment training, and opportunity for all.

We need, as we look at this, to recognize this underemployment. Recently in a study, which I made in the city of Corpus Christi, in calling 16 of the Negro race, I believe there was one Mexican-American and one Anglo. I asked these people who were underemployed, "What you would like to do about your employment situation."

Every one said, "We are desperate. We need more money to support our homes."

They also said they would like another job. They also said they would like to be trained. I found three problems that these people had. One was that they did not know how to find other jobs. Another was they did not know the source of training that was available to them and a third thing was that these men were afraid to venture out, lest they might lose some of the security that they have.

It is not a good climate when the environment provides for fear, but it ought to be an encouragement, on our part, to provide a better opportunity for these people to get the training and the help that they need.

I have here 11 of these men's names, their addresses, the jobs that they hold, a slight biographical information about them which I would like for you to make as a part of my report today in this matter. Senator NELSON. We will have that printed in the record. (The documents follow:)

Ralph Drake, Jr., 2121 Stillman. 884-1258. 21, December 28, 1947. High school. Good health. No serious illness in his immediate family. Army, 2 years. Employed at Berry Contracting, drives truck and does minor mechanical jobs. No serious financial difficulties. No arrests. Ambitions: Electronics (worked with computers while in service). Would like to work at a refinery such as Pontiac, Hess or Reynolds and has applications at these places.

Connell, Dansby, 1802 Darcey. 855-0026. 18, December 11, 1951. High school, now enrolled in Del Mar College. Good health. No serious illness in his immediate family. No military service yet. Student. No serious financial difficulties. No arrests. Ambition: Computer engineer.

Otis Johnson, 1314 Palm Drive. 888-5788. 23, April 14, 1946. High school. Good health. No serious illness in his immediate family. Army, 3 years. Employed by Contractors' Building Supply as truck driver and delivery man. No serious financial difficulties. No arrests. Ambitions: To be an appliance repair man or air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanic.

James Liggins, 1709 Sycamore. 854-5572. 40, April 11, 1928. 8th grade. Has back troubles and has had nervous breakdown. Army 2 years 11 mos. Employed at Reynolds Metals as a tool crib. Had serious financial difficulty when was off from work six months when had nervous breakdown. Has been arrested for drinking; is now a lay minister at St. John. Ambitions: Would like to go to school and get more education and concentrate on his ministerial work.

Johnny Brooks, 1714 Nueces. 882-7367. Age: 24, Nov. 10, 1945. 10th grade. Fair health. No serious illness in his immediate family. Army six months; medical discharge. Employed at Bradley's Supply, Port Ave. No serious financial difficulties. Has been arrested once because he was trying to help brother when he was in trouble with the police. Ambitions: welder or lineman.

Herman L. Bice, 21111⁄2 Van Loan. TU 4-0488. 28, Feb. 1, 1921. High school. Good health. No serious illness in his immediate family. Army, 3 years. Western Company, General Maintenance. Has serious financial difficulties now since he has been out of work for three months and has a wife and 3 children. No arrests. Ambition: Mechanical work; would like to work at IBM or Pitney Bowes, etc.

Douglass Perryman, 1504 Sam Rankin, Apt. 8. 883-8039. Age 34, Feb. 15, 1935. High School, Two years college. Good health. No serious illness in his immediate family. Army 2 years. Employed at Menger Olds., Service Dept. Until last couple of years wasn't making enough to make ends meet. Never arrested. Ambitions: Social work; likes working with people; clerical work. Likes working for Menger Olds.

Lee E. Flemmings, 2842 Carver Drive. No phone. Age: 34, March 1, 1934. 11⁄2 years of college at Texas Southern University. Good health. No serious illness in his immediate famil. Navy 2 years. Employed at Lichtenstein's, Stock control. Has serious financial difficulty because has stopped selling insurance so can do more church work, etc., and only gets $129 every two weeks, and used to get $130 per week when was selling insurance. Standard of living was too high and got many payments when selling insurance. Never arrested. Ambitions: Clerical work, experience in bookkeeping when selling ins. Would like job similar to the one Bob Johnson has at airport.

Sammy J. Thomas, 4535 Valdez. UL 2-3472. 35, April 21, 1934. 8th grade, passed high school test in Army but wasn't recorded. Good health. Parents have no serious illness. Employed at Gulf Supply as truck driver and machine operator. One year in Army. No serious financial difficulties. No arrests. Ambition: Do electrical work.

Calvin Reid, 3029 John. 883-4158. 31, January 22, 1938. High school, is now going to Del Mar Tech studying air-conditioning. Good health. No serious illness in parents. No military service. Is employed as P.E. Instructor at elementary schools. No serious financial problems. Ambitions: Mechanical work.

Eddie Hall, 1220 Palm. TU 4-6547. 27, September 26, 1942. School teacher, physical education at Crosby, Booker T. Washington. Good health. No military service. No serious financial difficulties. No arrests. Ambitions: Engineering, worked at aircraft co. in St. Louis and at Sterling Steel in Michigan doing blue print engineering.

Reverend COLSON. Now, in regard to the training of these people, we need innovations in training. We have Del Mar Tech. I think that one of the best public school technical school programs in the United States is right here in Corpus Christi. But it is so easy for educators and for any of us individuals to get hepped on one idea that it can meet all the needs.

With our technical programer, we are going to have so many computer operators in the United States that we could run all the computers in the world.

Another thing that we need the Government to do is to help to provide avenues of employment. Most of the employment in Corpus Christi, or much of it, is highly technicalized employment. Many of these people will never catch up with this kind of employment. By the time you train some of these men, they will be too old for the job. We have some companies now that are asking men 55 years of age to retire because they have got to be retrained. By the time you get these fellows trained, it will be time for them to give up.

In order for us to train these people, we are going to have to have some innovations. We are going to have to have some methods and avenues of employment for them.

The garment industry is one of the things we have been working on here. I took a survey myself in a local public housing institution where we have 320 familes. One-half of the familes in this unit are occupied by women who have children but they have no man to support. Most of these people are on welfare. We, as a people, have no option. We have got to take care of these people. We have got to take care of these children. There are hundreds of them.

I propose that the Government consider, through some kind of a loan program-maybe we need to go back to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation approach that Mr. Roosevelt advanced and make possible for local businessmen and other means that they could borrow money without attaching their present properties and taking all the risk and let's provide some kind of employment for these people.

I want to point out, in referring to this housing unit, that these women in this half of 360 are not prostitutes as many of the people of this country would have us to believe. Most of them have either lost their husbands in war, some kind of tragedy, they have been disowned or divorced and are going through some tremendous heartbreak.

Then we face the problem of employing this lady as to what we are going to do with her children. We need the Manpower Act and, Mr. Yarborough, I address you, as my friend, and my Senator, we need a program to come to Corpus Christi that would help us to provide for these children.

I am superintendent of the missions for Corpus Christi Baptists Association and I have one church that opened its doors and they had 42 children to take care of.

The Agricultrue Department comes along with 30 cents a day per child to help it just to feed these children. We need some help to pay someone to care for these children when the mother is getting on her feet. We need to look at the minority. We need to look at the poverty problem, but we need to look at the total approach of meeting the total needs of the people of this Nation.

Our Government, that is able to provide the finance, the resources, the ability, the scientific know-how to launch a program that would put a man on the moon, should be able to meet the challenge of the individual needs in this country.

There are many other things that I could say, but let me say a word about the administration of this program as we come up with it and my feeling is that Congress ought to study the O'Hara bill. I prefer it.

There is one thing I feel certain about. When you get ready for the administration of this program, turn it over to the Labor Depart