the surplus food distribution program, somehow these children have not been reached and consequently have not been given a diet sufficient to maintain a high level of mental and physical activity. The cost to the community of this malnutrition is appalling. Children thus affected are not able to develop their full potential through the educational facilities offered by our free public school system. Almost inevitably they will lag, physically and mentaly and socially, behind their companions to whom better opportunity is offered. By chance or accident a few of these chidren may be able to break the barrier with which their environment surrounds them, but for the most part we may expect that the limitations of their childhood will hamper them throughout life; in their future education, in their ability to secure productive employment, and in their general social adjustment. By helping these children we do not extend to them charity. We act in our own self-interest. The future of America demands of each citizen his utmost talents, and he who cannot develop and use those talents is and will be a burden not only to himself but to the whole Nation. As a Nation and a community, we cannot afford to let that happen. On the other hand, as a nation and as a community we can afford to do something about it. Our national granary is full to overflowing. We produce more than enough foodstuffs to provide an adequate diet for every adult and every child in the United States. In good conscience, we cannot withhold it from those who are hungry. It is obvious that the problems of low-income families will not be solved simply by the distribution of surplus foods, through a school lunch program or any other method. Both private and public welfare agencies in the community must be granted much greater support so that a broad-scale program may be instituted to preserve, strengthen, and improve family life and the family unit. Public assistance, social security, and unemployment compensation benefits should be increased to aid in establishing a more healthy economic base for the community. Unfortunately, even if the community embarked tomorrow upon a crash program to eliminate the evils which plague our low-income families, hungry children would still go hungry for a long time to come, their health, physical development, and mental growth damaged, perhaps irreparably, during the years in which they are dependent upon others to provide for them. A school lunch program would not by itself provide each needy child with a balanced, adequate diet, but it is the very least which we are morally obliged to offer. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, we urge that this committee and the Congress act quickly to eliminate this basic community problem. And I might say, Mr. Chairman, that this is the first opportunity that we have had to appear before you during this present Congress on behalf of the Greater Washington Central Labor Council, and we wish to extend to you our heartfelt thanks for your, what I would consider a great, sacrifice in continuing to serve on the Central District Committee. We know how busy you are, but it is certainly a wonderful thing that you have been willing to continue on this committee which some Senators seem to want to avoid serving on. And again we want to say that we are very glad you are back with us to help us with our many problems. Senator MORSE. Mr. Turner, I appreciate those comments. But they are really undeserved, because this is no sacrifice, it is an opportunity. If as a result of our hearing 2 years ago we were helpful to help any children in the District, or if as a result of these hearings we were able to get food for just one child, I feel that is a greater contribution than I make on most other committees, because here in the Senate you seldom see any immediate results of your work. But here is an opportunity where we can, I think, working together with the various organizations represented in this hearing, get some specific results. I would be very much surprised, if as a result of these hearings, we are not at least incidental in securing some appropriation funds that otherwise would never have been secured. I said earlier this morning, I am going before the Appropriations Committee this afternoon, and I will urge an increase in funds to restore some of the losses that we suffered in the House. And I assume from your testimony that I will be accurate if I say this afternoon that, representing the Greater Washington Central Labor Council, you support a restoration of whatever funds we can get. Mr. TURNER. Whatever is needed to do the job, that is correct, sir. Senator MORSE. I want to thank you very much for that support. Is there anything you wish to add? Mrs. PICCOLO. No, sir. Senator MORSE. Thank you very much. Without objection, at this point in the record there will be inserted a statement received from Mrs. Edward B. Morris, representing the Randle Highlands and the Glover Park Citizens Associations, and a letter from Dr. Frederick E. Reissig, executive secretary of the Council of Churches, National Capital area, dated March 20, 1959. (The statement referred to follows:) Hon. WAYNE MORSE, COUNCIL OF CHURCHES NATIONAL CAPITAL AREA, Chairman, Senate District Committee on Health, Welfare, and Education, DEAR SENATOR MORSE: Since I will be out of town at the time of your hearings on the feeding of school children, I am submitting a brief statement. I am very sorry not to be able to be present and testify in person. The committee has no doubt heard all the arguments for and against the feeding of the children who come to school hungry. I understand there are some 7,000 such children in need. It would seem to me that in a community as affluent as our community is, that we could not live with our consciences if we let children go hungry. We respond quickly as a rule to any call for help for hungry children in other parts of the world, but we often neglect our next door neighbors in this respect. The checks that will be made to ascertain what children ought to be in such a feeding program would safeguard this plan and only such children who are in need would receive aid. There are those whose families are on public aid, those who are receiving surplus foods, and others would be certified by a nurse or doctor. We would like to, as representatives of the churchs in this community, go on record as favoring a feeding program. We appreciate your very great interest in this and we hope that the necessary authorization will be given so that the Board of Education can carry out this very important and necessary program. Sincerely yours, FREDERICK E. REISSIG, THE RANDLE HIGHLANDS CITIZENS ASSOCIATION AND THE GLOVER PARK CITIZENS ASSOCIATION (Mrs. Edward B. Morris, 3760 Benton Street NW.) The Glover Park Citizens Association and the Randle Highlands Citizens Association do not take issue with the premise that genuinely underprivileged children should be given some help, since hungry children cannot do their school work properly. It has been proposed that all elementary schools be equipped with cafeterias to give these children hot lunches, and, in fact, to permit other children to eat at school. With this we are in disagreement, for the reasons which follow: 1. The cost to the District of Columbia of providing facilities and staff for cafeteria service in elementary schools would be prohibitive. Even if the Federal Government should pay an additional amount for this purpose, it would be an unnecessary expenditure, and one day it might be passed right back to the District. Money could be much better spent in providing an adequate number of textbooks, up-to-date books in those subjects whose content is changing with the times, replacing tables at which smaller children sit with individual desks so that they do not have to turn halfway around to see the blackboard behind them, etc. 2. Cold lunches are just as nutritious as hot lunches, and may be prepared and brought in from outside. Most children who go home are given sandwiches, salads, and milk and cookies, and where there is a choice in secondary school cafeterias, this is what many choose. An article in the Star a few months ago brought out that the temperature of the food did not contribute to its beneficial effects, and a letter to the editor just last week by Dr. James A. Gannon, Sr., a longtime member of the Board of Education, reiterated this. (I give you Dr. Gannon's letter for the record.) Since cold lunches could be provided at much less cost in cash and confusion, they would seem to be the answer. 3. It has been proposed that all children should be permitted to eat lunch at school. One only has to watch the hordes of children come shrieking out of the buildings at noon to realize that they need to get rid of their pent-up energy, and walking home is probably the most orderly way in which this may be done. Most children live within a reasonable walking distance of elementary schools and need the exercise; they get all too little in these days of cars and television sets. If the weather is particularly inclement, they might be held until 1 and then dismissed for the day, as was done in my days in the elementary schools. Actually, there was not too often need for "one sessions" as this procedure was termed. Many accidents happen on school playgrounds, especially those which are covered with concrete. It is better that the children's energy be expended in going home to lunch than in playing wildly at noon on school grounds, sitting around on cold ground or concrete, sometimes fighting, getting knocked down, or falling off playground equipment. Teachers need some relaxation at noon. Now, they take turns supervising those who bring their lunches because their mothers work, but if all the children or a much greater number remained at school at noon, the teachers would all have to spend their own lunch periods on patrol duty. It would not be fair to them; even under present circumstances we have a hard time obtaining and keeping good teachers, chiefly because those who may like to teach resent having to act as policemen because too many parents have not taught their children respect for authority. Too, it is at noon that children pour out their problems to their mothers, tell them of what is going on in school. At other times they are preoccupied with play, TV, or, occasionally, homework, but at noon they are bubbling over with information and mother is likely to give them more attention than when father is home to dinner. Parent and child need this contact. If the child ceases to go home for lunch, the mother may feel more free to obtain outside employment and not be home at the end of the schoolday, leaving the child unsupervised. Parents need to have more, not less, supervision over their children. Many do not realize, and others do not care, that children stop in stores en route home from school in the afternoon and even en route to school in the morning to buy candy, soft drinks, and other sweets. If children take money to school to buy lunches, the money itself will become a problem-it will be lost, or provide temptation to the weak. Many children will skimp on lunches to buy sweets en route, or use any extra money for this purpose. Some secondary school children do this now-or buy two or three desserts instead of other items in the cafeteria. Certainly, many much prefer sandwiches and other cold items to the hot foods that are served in the cafeterias, and would be more likely to save their money for these than for the frequently tasteless steam-table vegetables. I had intended coming before you as an individual-as a parent who has enjoyed the noon hour with her children, as a teacher who knows that noon relaxation makes for better teaching in the afternoon, and as a taxpayer who believes that really hungry children can be fed adequately, and, so far as they are concerned, more acceptably, with appetizing and varied cold lunches, without the cost of cafeterias and without changing the routine for those who do and should go home to lunch. I was interested to learn, at the Glover Park Association meeting, that others of the approximately 40 persons present were in accord with my views. A number of them expressed themselves in the same vein, and the vote on the motion to so advise this Senate committee passed with but one dissenting vote. Those at the Randle Highlands Citizens Association meeting reacted similarly when the subject was brought up. We appreciate the opportunity of coming before you, and are also appreciative of the amount of time which you devote to the problems of the District. COLD SCHOOL LUNCHES The appalling number of children who are attending the public schools and who are in need of nourishment should open the hearts and the pocketbooks of the citizenry until Congress can appropriate funds for this necessary cause. Absorption of knowledge must be seriously interfered with if absorption of food in sufficient quantity is not supplied. Grandma used to insist that sulfur and molasses in the spring was a "must" for the preservation of the growing child. In the wintertime she was equally insistent on a good hot lunch every day. Both ideas are obsolete. Nonheated food is just as nourishing as hot food. We now know that a sufficient number of calories, plus minerals and vitamins, are all that are required for proper nourishment, and that high temperature does not add one whit to the value of the meal. Hot meals require fuel and stoves and pots and pans and dishes and tableware and labor, which are all expensive. A nonheated lunch consisting of a sandwich or two and fruit in season is quite as satisfactory, and much, much cheaper. The kind neighbor of other days who selected tender beef, spent hours while it simmered, seasoned the broth, and carried it to the sick friend wasted a lot of effort. The result of her labor was salt solution flavored with beef, which could not nourish to any degree. The custom of taking soup at the beginning of a meal was to improve the appetite for what was to come period. So, let's supply day-old bread (which dealers can't sell to their customers), a slice of beef, chicken, or lamb, eggs, or tuna fish, etc. And maybe Senator Byrd will donate some surplus apples. This will accomplish the same result as will hot lunches at a fraction of the cost. JAMES A. GANNON, Sr., M.D. Senator MORSE. I have just received a notice that we have to close this hearing at this time because of pressing Senate business. We will continue these hearings, Mr. Lee, tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. (Thereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, March 26, 1959.) PROBLEMS OF HUNGRY CHILDREN IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1959 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH, OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne Morse presiding. Present: Senator Morse. Also present: Chester H. Smith, chief clerk; William P. Gulledge, chief counsel; Donald P. Feldman, assistant counsel; and Charles Lee, assistant chief clerk. Senator MORSE. The subcommittee will come to order. There will be inserted in the record a table prepared by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare dated August 27, 1957, and for comparison purposes such equivalent data of 1958 as is available. There will, also, be incorporated in the record at this point, the second informal report to the District of Columbia Regional Committee of the Health and Welfare Council of the National Capital Area about the Junior Village Committee by Mrs. Philip Graham. (The reports of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare dated August 27, 1957, and April 2, 1959, and the second informal report are as follows:) DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, BUREAU OF PUBLIC ASSISTANCE, To: State agencies administering approved public assistance plans. |