eating a malnourished child's trays, in their own shock began to deliver two trays to the room for each meal.

This nurse related to me that nobody comes to the hospital because they are hungry. She said, "We are used to that stuff. We only come into contact with starving people in the city of Detroit when they

come for other reasons."

One of the great side effects of the prescription feeding program has been that people have come to our maternity and infant care clinics to get food, because they have heard that that is the place where you can get food allotments. When they come, the doctors and nurses can check out the other problems and do considerable things to upgrade the health of Detroit's very poor.

I want to talk about how this program succeeded in Detroit and why it succeeded. I do not want this to sound like a personal, pompous description of something that we made work. The way this program worked in the city of Detroit was that one nutritionist pleaded that the program was going down the drain last November because there was no budget setup-a monstrosity in itself-either for the storage of the food or delivery of the food.

30-POUND LOADS FOR PREGNANT WOMEN

The food comes in cartons weighing upwards of 30 pounds. A preg nant mother was being asked to board a bus, pick up her 30-pound carton-or two or three if her children were given allotments-and carry these cartons to her home. While the program was projected to 3,500 people in the city of Detroit, it was impossible or next to impossible to pick those cartons up.

None of us who is middle class can conceive of asking a pregnant wife or a pregnant mother to pick up anything heavier than 5 pounds, or even to do the family shopping with a station wagon. Yet this is what we expected of people because they were poor.

When we received that knowledge, we sent out an appeal to the thousands of volunteers who belong to an organization called FOCUS: HOPE, which is dedicated to racial justice, and we asked people to go to the Detroit maternity and infant care centers so that all of the records from the centers, which contain the names of certified participants, be given to us.

We called and drove to the homes of all the participants to inquire why they were not picking up their food. The majority of instances: No way; no transportation. No way to pick up the heavy cartons.

Within 3 months' time, that program grew to its full projection of 3,500, and presently the program is beyond its projection. We had our wrists slapped for going beyond the 3,500. We are now at 4.300, and we are delivering surplus commodities from the program when it was failing.

At the present time, our infant care centers have waiting lists of malnourished mothers and youngsters through the age of 5. who cannot be part of this program. The Department of Agriculture has been contacted repeatedly. The Government agencies in the city of Detroit have met with no response. We asked for 500 increase some months ago. We received absolutely no response from the Department of Agricul

ture. We are now being told that there are other programs. As Senator Hart alluded, through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteers we have written letters, have requested answers, and we get back from Agriculture stereotyped answers; actually mimeographed sheets over several signatures. The same answer: other programs.

There is an allusion to the stamp program and how it has increased 115 or so percent in the city of Detroit. But the very dates given-and the mendacity of this is appalling-the very dates given are those dates when the General Motors strike was in effect and when the UAWCIO managed to get Detroit strikers on the stamp roles. Those are the statistics being used to justify not covering starving mothers and kids of our city. I cannot believe that Agriculture does not know that.

What we are saying about this Detroit program is that it is building a constituency of and for the poor. We now have 10,000 volunteers, many of them suburbanites, who will not brook the sidestepping and the lethargy-and, in many cases, the open mendacity-of Federal sources which refuse to unleash the richness of this country while thousands starve.

We are saying that persons have a right to eat if they are hungry. There need be no other conditions. And a government which says that one must justify his right to food if he is hungry is morally anachronistic-in fact, morally Cro-Magnon.

We are asking some specific questions. My report contains examples, and statistics, but we are asking these specific questions this morning and we feel that we must go back from this tribunal-particularly with the representatives of the Department of Agriculture here-with some kind of answer to the constituency of the poor in Detroit.

WHO JUSTIFIES FEEDING ONE-STARVING 13

We want to know: Will the Department of Agriculture be committed to sending food to Detroit to feed the 18,000 projected for this year? We can handle that number, and more than that number. The one obstruction remains the Department of Agriculture at this point. Will they agree to send supplemental food for the entire 53,000 of Detroit's estimated need or do they feel that they can justify feeding only 7 percent of our malnourished and justify the concomitant decisions that result from that selectivity, morally.

I want a moral answer. I do not want a bureaucratic answer. I do not want a statistical answer, I want to know if they feel that they can justify feeding less than those who need by our statistics.

Second, will the Department of Agriculture insure adequate funds for local storage and distribution of supplemental food? We have witnessed too many programs that have been programed to fail; that come off with bugling and trumpeting of what great things will be done, and essential ingredients are left out of the program. Or that Federal funds be provided through HEW or the Office of Economic Opportunity for the year coming.

Third, will the Department of Agriculture include in the food prescription program the variety of richly nutritional food currently included in the commodity distribution program? Capriciously and arbitrarily Agriculture has cut out of this program scrambled egg mix,

peanut butter and do these men and women who cross something off a list know what it means to a 4-year-old in the city of Detroit who is hungry, who rips open a box and finds this month there is no peanut butter because somebody has some slick way of working with another program and saying: "Oh, well, that is provided in other programs." It is not provided in another program for this kid. All of the commodities are needed; all are wanted.

EVEN THE HUNGRY SHARE THEIR FOOD

For instance, can we take a hard look at the authorization rates? Why can't a mother have eight cans of meat instead of one can of meat? Who is going to quibble about the fact that she is going to feed somebody else over the age of 5 with that canned meat? Who in this room would have ushered that 16-year-old pregnant mother out of the hospital room when she was eating her starving kid's food? Or would we all have done what the nurses did-bring another tray? Who is going to say: "Are you against any of these programs on the basis that some of this food is being shared by hungry people?"

Finally, will the Department of Agriculture withdraw its recent exclusion of preschool children ages 1 through 5 from the supplemental food program? They have announced that this is the case across this country. Whether it is the case in Detroit or not, we plead for the rest of the Nation. The kids 1 through 5 are also starving and they are included under no other program that we know of-except, in some places, the commodity program, which we do not have.

It is no longer any good to talk about the stamp program. Less than 10 percent of those who are involved in the food prescription program in Detroit are in the stamp program. We are tired to pain of having people talk to us about the stamp program. For the most part, only lower middle class folks can be on that stamp program, any way you look at it. It shows a crass ignorance of shopping conditions in our innercity to suggest that the stamp program there helps anybody at all.

I have talked to Agriculture about this. I have said to them that in the innercity of Detroit, in an area of 250,000 people, we now have six chainstores. In the city of Birmingham, we have eight chainstores serving 24.000 people. A&P and Wrigley's are both closing two more stores. A&P slates another five stores for closing.

"LET THEM TAKE BUSES"

Innercity people who use stamps have to go to stores where they pay 40 percent more for their groceries, completely off-setting savings of the stamps. When I mentioned this to Agriculture, with witnesses. we were told-this is reminiscent of the famous French Queen who helped tip off a revolution-"Let them take buses." There is no way that this can happen.

Let me end by asking you to read these things. If there is anything more we can answer from the city of Detroit, we would be glad to. I am afraid if I continue I am going to lapse into paranoia, because at this point the immorality in this country is just so monstrous that we can no longer live with it.

I must say that I have not known until quite recently, Senator, the extent of this need. I am appalled and I will not rest-nor will I allow the 10,000 present volunteers of FOCUS: HOPE to rest-until we have a solution. And we are impatient people, because I do not think justice should have any quality of patience.

Mrs. Josaitis is far more involved in this than I and, perhaps, she or Mrs. Jones would like to add or subtract.

Senator MCGOVERN. Thank you very much, Father Cunningham. Mrs. Josaitis?

STATEMENT OF ELEANOR JOSAITIS, PROGRAM COORDINATOR, FOCUS: HOPE-DETROIT

Mrs. JOSAITIS. Thank you, Senator.

I just came through five States on vacation in the Smoky Mountains. I saw gorgeous highways, beautiful scenery, and forgot all about the problems in Detroit for 5 days. When I get home, I won't forget the problems.

I have been delivering food. I have been picking up the mothers. I have been going to a warehouse on Saturday afternoon and have watched them packaging the food and I am very much aware of the fact it is needed.

When I am pregnant, the first thing that I am told is: Eat the proper diet. Watch what I pick up. Take care of myself. Eat the right foods. When I pick up the mothers, it makes me painfully aware that when you are poor you do not stand a chance. Pick up the 32 pounds of food and carry it home. It is very disturbing.

I want the program to continue. I do not want to feed only 7 percent of the folks in Detroit that need it. I want to take care of the 53,000, and the children that are there. I have seen it. I have seen the things that the father has talked about; about the mother that is eating off the child's tray. I have listened to the woman,

When we had the volunteers, we divided them into groups and asked them to go and pick up the mothers who had no means of transportation. You cannot put two women in a car for 3 hours and not have them talk about some of the other problems that they are confronted with. The poor housing, the jobs, the lack of food, the lack of knowledge of where to go to get the help that is needed.

One of the beautiful things about this program is that it does not only take care of the welfare mother, the ADC mother, the working poor. It takes care of the uneducated, too. It takes care of the 17-yearold girl that is going to say: "No, I like Coca-Cola so I am going to give my baby Coca-Cola," or "I do not have any money so I will give the baby sugar and water so he will stop crying."

When the mother is pregnant and goes into a clinic, she sees a doctor who turns her over to a dietitian, who says: "You need additional food to have a healthy baby." Instead of giving this mother a prescription for an antibiotic, he gives her a food prescription. The mother goes out she has the prescription in her hand but what will she do with it? There is one industrial warehouse and she lives miles from there.

VOLUNTEERS MAKE PROGRAM WORKABLE

This is where the volunteers come in. The volunteer goes and picks up the mother, along with her coupon book, delivers her to the center and takes her back home again. The volunteers are people that, No. 1, have time to spare; No. 2, have a car; No. 3, they are concerned.

And they are learning, too. They are learning, perhaps for the first time, what it is like to be poor. They can walk in somebody else's shoes or feel a part of helping someone else. They pick up the mother, take her to the center, talk with her, become involved with her, help her solve some of her other problems, and can say to her: "You are really not helping this baby by giving it sugar and water. You should take the food. You should use it."

"The baby don't like Pet milk. The older children don't like Pet milk."

"Do you know you could make ice cream out of it?"

"Have you ever made pudding?"

"You know, you should take this child back for shots. I will pick you up."

When this volunteer hears a program will be stopped and cut out because of lack of funds, she becomes very irritated, and she is the woman that writes the letter. Not the poor woman; the woman that has made it. She says: "You will not cut out this program." She becomes angry. She is the spokesman for the poor. It is an educational process on both sides. The poor woman is certainly benefiting by the woman that picks her up and drives her, but the woman that made it is going to understand when this woman screams about stamps or is hungry or complains. She will understand, and she is the woman who will be able to go back into the greater suburban community and say: "Hey, there are hungry people."

It is not like driving down an expressway, where you do not see anything but the beautiful scenery. Drive on the side street and see what it is like. As I say, coming through five States I would have just forgotten all about it because it was beautiful. I thought there are no problems. But if I take two roads off the expressway, then I

see it.

Do WE STARVE CHILDREN AGE 2-5?

That is what I am confronted with in Detroit. We are concerned about it. We do not want the program to stop. We cannot talk about feeding 3,500 people when we know we have 53,000 people that need to be fed. We cannot talk about stopping a program and only giving it to children up to 1, and not giving it to children of 5. Are you going to tell me that children between 2 and 5 are not hungry? Who will take care of them? The school lunch program? They are not eligible to get under that.

This mother leaves a clinic after she talked to the dietitian and he said: Now, you want a healthy baby, you give him this, this, and this. She goes out of the hospital and goes to her corner store to buy it and she does not have Gerber's or Heinz to choose from. She does not have meat and vegetable to pick from. She has one thing. She may be told to pick up a can of Pet Milk. In the suburban areas you can pick up