are undernourished and can't take part in the sports activities we provide; it does not make sense. So the impact, I think, is like cutting the program in half as far as I am concerned.

Senator CRANSTON. What will be the consequence in both of your communities if the program is pared back in terms of canceling programs built around availability of food; for example, how many recreational programs will perhaps be canceled out in this case?

CHILDREN NEED FULL PROGRAM-NOT PARTIAL

Mr. KOPLAN. For the city of San Antonio, no program will be canceled because food has always been a part but not all of the program. It would be like saying, "We are not going to have softball, badminton, and field trips, but you can have arts and crafts." The centers will still operate, because the centers have to operate. There has to be something; we are not a highly industrialized city and besides, I don't think you ought to put every youngster in the world to work; I think they ought to have an opportunity to be children for a while.

Senator CRANSTON. They would have softball and the other recreational activities but lack food?

Mr. KOPLAN. Yes; the disappointment, I think, would be the big factor, but as far as the operating programs, they will operate, because they are funded out of the Department of Labor and will continue to operate.

Mr. ROBLES. We have some programs that probably will cease to exist, and probably one of the most important ones in our area is the Headstart program. The Headstart program has no funds for summer operations. They normally discontinue operations for the summer months.

But this year, we felt, with the food program, that Headstart would operate under a volunteer-type organization, provided that they could obtain the food as part of their program, which was a large factor last summer. It cost them so much money last summer to operate where they had to buy the food in order to exist, that they didn't feel they could do it this year.

So this means that probably for 6,000 youngsters, the Headstart program will not operate this summer, along with many of the other grassroots programs that are only in existence during the school years. Senator CRANSTON. I have been talking to an athletics coach in the ghetto areas here in Washington, who coaches young kids, and the coach says he can't get excellent performance out of the kids up to their full capacity because of their poor diets in a great many cases and, in some cases, when the diets are so poor, the kids just don't have the energy even to compete. There really is no justification for this in a Nation with such an abundance of food. Thank you very, very much. Senator McGOVERN. Thank you, Mr. Robles and Mr. Koplan. We appreciate your testimony.

The committee is in recess, subject to the call of the Chair.

(Whereupon, at 12 noon, the Select Committee was recessed, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.)

USDA DECISION TO WITHHOLD FUNDS FOR SECTION 32

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1971

U.S. SENATE,

SELECT COMMITTEE ON

NUTRITION AND HUMAN NEEDS,

Washington, D.C.

The Select Committee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 5302, of the New Senate Office Building, the Honorable George McGovern, chairman of the committee, presiding. Present: Senators McGovern and Hart.

Staff members present: Kenneth Schlossberg, staff director; and, Nancy Amidei, professional staff.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HART

Senator HART. The committee will be in order.

The chairman of the committee is delayed by-as all of us discoverthe evils as well as the goods of the telephone system; a long-distance call. He has asked that we begin the hearing. While I regret very much that at the moment I would not be able to introduce the first group of witnesses to Senator McGovern, I am nonetheless delighted that I have the chance to function as the chairman.

The committee welcomes three persons from Michigan whose testimony will, I am sure, be useful in persuading the Congress-and, I hope, the Department of Agriculture-to aggressively move forward in the pursuit of the goal that we all make speeches about: Insuring that there be no starvation.

I speak these words of welcome to Miss Dorinda Jones of the mayor's Committee for Human Resources Development; Father William Cunningham, director of Project FOCUS: HOPE, and his assistant, Mrs. Eleanor Josaitis. Please come to the witness table right in front here. For the record-but also for those of us who are here this morningeach of the witnesses that the committee welcomes is a dedicated-and I use that in the precise, very literal sense-community leader. They have been involved deeply. Now I am delighted to be able, first, to open the meeting, and now to present to our chairman three extraordinary people. They have been the principal energizers, really, in Detroit's supplemental food program.

VOLUNTARY COMMUNITY ACTION IS IMPRESSIVE

I am just one of many who have been enormously impressed by the voluntary community action that the groups in Detroit have been able to mobilize in getting goods to hungry people there. In Detroit, volunteers handle packaging and delivering and transportation and the

numerous other details involved in operating food assistance programs. In addition, under the leadership of Father Cuningham, Project FOCUS: HOPE organized a sustained effective publicity letter writing campaign to get Federal support to continue the supplemental food program and expand the help to more hungry mothers and children. I speak from recent personal experience because part of that campaign of his was directed at me. The appeal was made very effectively. It persuaded my staff and myself of the importance of their cause. The upshot was that the Detroit supplemental food program got the necessary Federal support from OEO to continue its operation of distribution for another year but the efforts to get more food to serve additional mothers and children seemed to get nowhere with the Department of Agriculture. Other areas, we are told, face the same problem.

So, to assure adequate resources, you, Mr. Chairman, and I joined in proposing a special amendment to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to spend an additional $20 million from section 32 funds for supplemental food programs this year; $16 million in the agricultural appropriation bill. There is $36 million there. The Senate and the House promptly acted on passage of the bill. The bills were signed into law the end of June.

Hopefully this additional funding authority will ease the food problems in areas hard hit by inflation and unemployment. Many people in need reportedly are being missed by ongoing food and welfare programs. Certainly the tighter food stamp regulations are bound to work hardships on many families with young children. I do now urge that the Department of Agriculture use this special authority to supply more supplemental food where it is needed.

Beyond that, I would like to take this opportunity again to urge that we proceed to plan realistically for the future so that people who are genuinely in need no longer will be left without help as far as food is concerned, victims of their Government's failure to make delivery on its promises. I am convinced that the work of groups like those we welcome this morning, representing the Detroit community, are essential ingredients if we are going to get any answer to the question of how to guarantee access to full delivery of Government

assistance.

I am delighted that the committee and Congress can hear from Father Cunningham, from Miss Jones and from Mrs. Josaitis. I am proud to present them to you.

Senator MCGOVERN. Thank you very much, Senator Hart. I apologize for my late arrival. We are pleased to have these witnesses. You may proceed in any way you see fit.

STATEMENT OF REV. WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, DIRECTOR,

FOCUS: HOPE-DETROIT

Reverend CUNNINGHAM. Thank you, first, Senator Hart for the support you have given us in Detroit.

Senator McGovern, the program called supplemental food and supplemental feeding program is one the name of which we have somewhat changed. Many public people in the Detroit area see this as surplus food. In order to underscore the real purpose of the program, we have called it in the Detroit area the food prescription program.

Essentially it is a medical program. It is under the direction of clinics in the Detroit area. The food, therefore, is medically prescribed, and it should not be read then as simply a food surplus or supplemental food program in that sense.

I am painfully aware of the food needs of schoolage children, of the elderly, of the working poor, and of the unemployed in our community. It is impossible to pick out a particular group as the hungry group in our Detroit area. We cannot bring ourselves to select the deserving poor, or to program conditions and requirements before a hungry man can eat. Our group maintains that and I think this is an important consideration-food, like warmth, clothing, housing, medicine, and dignity, are inalienable rights of all human beings. We acknowledge that for thousands of years the world lacked food, and men built protective devices, in the words of Margaret Mead: "To shield himself from viewing the miseries of the starving."

"MAINTAINS A MONSTROUS IMMORALITY"

Now that in this country food spills from the wealth of our Nation, and we restrict huge sources of food to keep from inundating the market, it is grossly immoral that so many millions here-not to speak of our brothers and sisters abroad-are starving. The protective callousness that permits shuffling of pilot programs, partial solutions, and gradual successes, maintains a monstrous immorality in this Nation. We are talking specifically here about a program that affects pregnant women, and children through the age of 5. We are particularly interested in this program because it involves irreparable, irreversible effects. In the Detroit area, our nutritionist studies at Hutzel Hospital, and case histories from the Detroit General Hospital pediatrics department, point up the severe need, in a city which has considered itself wealthy, to feed large numbers of people.

It is estimated-and conservatively estimated-in the Detroit area that we have 53,000 people in the category of mothers and children under 5 who are severely malnourished. That is a staggering figure. I say it is a modest estimate.

Yesterday morning, some Detroiters knew that we were coming here to address ourselves to this tribunal. The head of pediatrics at Detroit General Hospital called, and she asked me to relay this information to you:

Presently at Detroit General there are three children suffering classic rickets. She had just spoken with a mother who brought a youngster in from a family of 10. The youngster was 3 years old, suffering from severe rickets. The child was brought in not because of the rickets but because of a laceration. The nurse and the doctor diagnosed the rickets and told the mother: "We have to keep this baby." The mother said, "But all my other kids look funny, too. All of my other kids have legs shaped like that. I don't want this youngster to be any different from the rest of my kids."

She related a case among the dozens presently in Detroit General of children suffering from severe anemia.

STARVING MOTHER AND MALNOURISHED CHILD

She talked about a 16-year-old pregnant mother who was visiting her child brought in because the child was suffering lapse of consciousness. The mother-and, God, this is shocking-the mother was eating the baby's trays. The nurses, upon discovering the mother was