NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1963

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 1318, Senate Office Building, Senator John G. Tower presiding.

Present: Senators Burdick, Tower (presiding pro tempore), and Javits.

Subcommittee staff members present: Frederick R. Blackwell, counsel; Harry Wilkinson, associate counsel, and Woodruff Price, research assistant; George Denison, minority associate counsel; and Robert Locke, minority research assistant.

Senator TOWER. The subcommittee will come to order for continuation of hearings on S. 1321, the National Service Corps bill.

The first witness this morning is Mrs. Virginia Burnham. We are glad to have you with us this morning. Will you proceed with your testimony?

STATEMENT OF MRS. VIRGINIA SCHROEDER BURNHAM,

GREENWICH, CONN.

Mrs. BURNHAM. Thank you. Senator Tower and members of the committee, my name is Virginia Schroeder Burnham, housewife, mother, and business executive of Greenwich and Waterbury, Conn. I have the following legislative proposal which I place before you for a Home Service Corps which is respectfully submitted in the interest of the public service. The proposal is:

To create and sustain an organization of men and women enlisted to serve in homes as apprentice mothers and homemakers, known as the Home Service Corps, thereby establishing a new national career category of homemakers.

The objectives of this proposal are:

To relieve unemployment, especially in the categories of unskilled teenagers and women.

To release mothers trained in a profession so as to relieve critical shortages in nursing, teaching, et cetera.

To guide underprivileged groups into a better way of life and a higher standard of living.

To prepare young men and women for the management of their homes and the raising of their children.

To assist in preventing juvenile delinquency through the proper supervision of motherless children or children of working mothers.

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To prevent habitual crime, drug addiction, and other forms of delinquency which might stem from idleness and poverty.

To provide constant and reliable supervision for children of working mothers.

To provide homemakers for the elderly and the infirm in such cases where it is more desirable and beneficial to maintain the home.

To alleviate the pressures attendant upon homemaking and motherhood.

METHOD

By the enactment of appropriate legislation, to establish under the direction of the Federal Government an organization of individuals to serve as deputy homemakers and mothers in various homes throughout the United States.

To provide for a coordinated program of training and education preparatory to and/or during the period of employment with the sponsor-family.

To set definitive standards of pay, housing, and subsistence.

To provide for instruction and guidance of the sponsoring families, with the express objective of creating the proper status within the household and the community for the homemaker assistants.

To assure a system whereby both the employee and the employer may have recourse to arbitration in the event of abuse of privileges by either party.

To create a new image of the homemaker as constituting a worthwhile career with the dignity which it deserves.

The administration and control of this program may be coordinated with official, State, and local employment services.

It is respect fully suggested that the Congress consider this proposal as a companion program to the National Service Corps on the grounds that it would greatly broaden the objectives obtainable under the proposed law as now written.

It is further suggested that as an adjunct to the pending legislation in regard to a National Service Corps (S. 1321) a new area of responsibility be included to provide deputy homemakers for underprivileged homes where the need exists.

ADVANTAGES

For the career homemaker:

(a) Working conditions that are warm, clean, and safe, as well as being conducive to societal advancement and cultural advantage. (b) The opportunity to learn while earning.

(c) The emotional benefits of belonging to a family group such as learning consideration for others, and the development of personal affection which might otherwise not be readily available to the participant.

(d) The opportunity of caring for and working with children, a privilege for which there is no adequate substitute.

(e) The inner satisfaction and emotional reward that comes from helping others.

(f) The advantages of good food and housing, and net pay which would compare favorably with the net pay of factory and office workers.

(g) The advantages of diversified work as contrasted with the tedium and repetitive nature of the type of work frequently performed by the factory and office worker.

For the employer-sponsor:

(a) Considerable relief from the excessive burdens of the mother and homemaker whose responsibilities are a composite of the occupations of cook, nurse, taxi driver, houseworker, laundress, gardener, and teacher, not to mention those inherent in her relationship to her husband as wife, partner, amanuensis, and confidant.

(b) The provision of proper supervision for the children of working mothers.

(c) The provision of a higher degree of security in terms of safety, precautions for health, relief from undue confinement within the household, and at least a modicum of leisure time.

(d) The inspirational benefit of working with and contributing to the training of another person.

(e) The opportunity to pursue a profession, avocation, or such interests as art, literature, volunteer, church, and social work which constitute a creative outlet for the individual.

I would simply like to say that the reason I am here today is because I have heard so much about unemployment. This issue of the U.S. News & World Report is very timely. It has an article about jobs and says that 1 out 10 Negroes and 1 out of 20 whites are unemployed, mostly unskilled teenagers and unskilled workers. I have been thinking about this a great deal and know the need for new jobs. For many, many years there has been a desperate need for assistance in the home. We used to call these people domestic servants. They are not called that any more. I do not wish to label them as such. This profession has been downgraded and many of us women-I am a mother of 6 children have struggled over many, many years to do what it took to try to keep the home together and keep our health.

So putting 2 and 2 together, it seemed to me, that we can create a good 2 or 3 million jobs in this category, if it is properly done.

PHILOSOPHY AND GENERAL REMARKS

This hypothesis is based upon the premise that there is no more significant or revered career than that of mother and homemaker, and, unfortunately, such a career on a paid basis has become undesirable in our present-day society.

The home, or family unit, is the keystone of our democratic society. The sole individual who makes a home is the wife and mother. Hers, today, is the prime responsibility for the future of this country, for she is the molder of the men and women of tomorrow. This is a responsibility not to be taken lightly, and young women march daily into marriage with little or no preparation. There is no concerted effort made in this country to provide young people with preparation for parenthood.

It is not uncommon to see the young mother-and often the not-soyoung mother-of today a harried, distraught, weary, and frustrated individual. No matter what her background or education, she requires and deserves rest, quiet, recreation, and leisure time in order to maintain her mental and physical health.

In the majority of households, these minimum requirements of daily living are not available to her. Often the result is a mental or physical breakdown of a varying degree of seriousness which can produce a chain of events leading to an unhappy or broken marriage, and high-strung children who are often emotionally unstable. Such an environment can lead the children into delinquency and/or an unhappy adulthood, fraught with instability.

Automation will never supersede the housewife and mother. Duties can be streamlined, but nothing can take the place of a pair of loving hands and a loving and understanding heart.

As is well known, the concept of domestic service has been downgraded in dignity and prestige. In fact, the full-time household servant is becoming virtually extinct. This is occurring in an age when the size of families is increasing, although I read today it is decreas ing, and the grandmother or maiden aunt is no longer available or interested in giving assistance. Also of considerable moment is the plight of the elderly and the infirm in a society which no longer commands day-by-day care from the nearest of kin, and in which the number of elderly citizens is rapidly increasing.

The express intent would be to launch a campaign to glamorize the job of homemaker. This can be embarked upon with forthright honesty and integrity, without deceit or attempts to delude or mislead

It is also a reasonable hope that a rewarding byproduct of such a program will be to tend to diminish the class barriers and lines of artificial social demarcation which, although lessening more and more in recent years, are basically incompatible with the free democratic society toward which most Americans aspire.

Much today is written and spoken of unemployment and the attendant problems adherent to our society because of it. To recognize a problem is to attempt to solve it. It is the considered opinion of many that there is a crying need for service in the home. There are thousands of women of deprived groups who are eminently qualified to be homemakers. Ethnic groups such as Negro and Puerto Rican are known to be kindly and good to children, the old, the infirm. A point to consider is that many Americans are unable to compete with present academic standards and it is our responsibility for economic and social reasons to provide jobs instead of handouts.

It is respectfully submitted that the program suggested above may go a long way toward solving the current problems of unemployment. Senator TOWER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Burnham.

Counsel, do you have any questions that you would like to ask? Mr. BLACKWELL. No, sir.

Senator TOWER. Thank you very much, Mrs. Burnham, for your eloquent testimony. We are grateful for you coming here today. Mrs. BURNHAM. Thank you, sir.

Senator TOWER. The next witness this morning is Mr. Robert Bondy, of the National Social Welfare Assembly.

Mr. Bondy, we are glad to have you here this morning. We appreciate your coming down to testify before our subcommittee.