the administration of the Corps. You will note at page X-2 a chart indicating the proposed administrative organization. In the judgment of the Study Group the Corps will require 17 supergrade positions in addition to the Director and Deputy Director provided for in section 4 of the bill, in order to assure the top-caliber personnel necessary to provide this leadership and administration. The 17 supergrades would be divided as follows: GS-18---- 2 GS-17------ 5 GS-16- 10 Consistent with the congressional policy stated in the act of October 4, 1961 (75 Stat. 785), the bill does not contain an allotment of these needed top positions. As indicated in the "Information" booklet, upon establishment of the Corps by the Congress, authorization for the necessary supergrade positions will be requested of the Civil Service Commission from the reserve made available by the Congress to meet the needs of newly created agencies. The Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, a member of the President's Study Group, has indicated that he is prepared to provide for the justified supergrade needs of the Corps, upon its establishment by the Congress, from this reserve. Sincerely yours, WILLIAM R. ANDERSON, Staff Director of the President's Study Group on a National Service Program and Presidential Consultant. Director: Statutory. Deputy Director: Statutory. NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SENIOR CITIZENS, INC., Washington, D.C., June 26, 1963. Senator HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Chairman, Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: I am enclosing a copy of a resolution on the National Service Corps which was adopted unanimously by the more than 1,500 delegates attending our second annual convention on June 13-14, 1963. Sincerely, AIME J. FORAND, President. RESOLUTION ON NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS Whereas over 8 million Americans have less than 5 years of schooling, a third of our youth become school dropouts, about 51⁄2 million suffer mental retardation; and Whereas the job to be done in our urban slums in combating poverty and deprivation is monumental; and Whereas the American Indians on the reservations, cut off from the mainstream of national life, suffer from malnutrition, inadequate sanitation, and lack of educational opportunity; and Whereas about a quarter million children of migrant workers need both social work and eductaional aid-and their parents also need such help; and Whereas about 2,000 job opportunities for senior citizens would be created thus permitting them to serve in an advisory capacity in the never-ending role of helping one's fellow man and serving one's country; and Whereas said job opportunities will in no way conflict with or take away employment from union members: therefore be it Hereby resolved, That the National Council of Senior Citizens support bills S. 1321 and H.R. 5625 introduced by Senator Harrison Williams and Congressman Frank Thompson, of New Jersey, which bills would initially authorize the appropriation of $5 million to set up a National Service Corps-better known as the Domestic Peace Corps-which would address itself to work with the sick, the poor, the uneducated, the physically handicapped, the mentally retarded, the elderly and the disadvantaged. UNITED STATES CONFERENCE OF MAYORS, Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr., Chairman, Subcommittee on National Service Corps, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I regret very much that the convening of the 30th Annual Conference of Mayors prevented the personal appearance of a mayor representing the United States Conference of Mayors before your subcommittee to endorse the pending proposals to create a National Service Corps. As the newly elected president of the United States Conference of Mayors, it is indeed my pleasure to assure you and your colleagues that the United States Conference of Mayors enthusiastically endorses this legislation. The executive committee of the conference had an opportunity to study this legislation in some detail early this year. And at our recently concluded annual conference, mayors from throughout the country had an opportunity to discuss the proposal. I understand the staff of the conference has alread forwarded the resolution adopted for inclusion in the hearings, but I did want to add this personal note of endorsement for the conference and in my own capacity as mayor of the city of Fresno. Very truly yours, ARTHUR L. SELLAND, President. EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE, COOPERATIVE TEST DIVISION, Senator HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR: I understand that you are currently investigating the need for a National Service Corps patterned after the Peace Corps. I would like to endorse the idea and add several specific illustrations of the types of services that such a program could render to cities large and small. As you can see from the enclosed clippings and reports, a group of Prince ton residents recently established a study center and tutoring program for the young people of Princeton. Since February, 30 to 40 youngsters-grades 6 to 12have been coming to the center to study each night and to get help with homework. They are assisted by adults who volunteer their services one or more evenings a week. This program has not been aimed exclusively at the so-called culturally deprived. There are many others in our community who have found the services of the center helpful. In a small way, I think we are doing something useful to keep youngsters from getting discouraged and possibly dropping out of school. A second phase of our project involves a tutoring program-one in which selected youngsters receive individual help from Princeton undergraduates and from adult volunteers drawn from the community at large. In both of these projects there is a need for part-time-perhaps even fulltime assistance beyond that provided by volunteers. At the study center, for example, we need someone to recruit and supervise the volunteer staff and to provide continuity from one evening to the next. At the moment, the lack of such a person is perhaps the greatest weakness of the program. I imagine that a National Service Corps man would perform this function admirably. Similarly, the tutoring program needs someone to coordinate various aspects of the program and to maintain close liaison with tutors, pupils, teachers, and school officials. We managed to hire a seminary student to help with this phase of the program, but we would need additional people to operate an expanded program. Princeton, along with other communities, has a crying need for neighborhood recreation centers. Those of us close to the situation here in Princeton feel that the need is acute. Lack of funds, lack of space, lack of facilities are all problems, but even if the community could provide these, we would still have the need of trained leaders who would work effectively with the young people and help them find wholesome, socially approved outlets for their energies. I am excited about the Service Corps idea because I can see these people functioning as catalysts for community action. There are, in every commu nity, vast numbers of men and women with time, energy and educational qualifications, and good will, who are willing-even anxious to work on projects such as those I have described. What is frequently lacking is the leadership and people with skills needed to harness and coordinate these human resources. Dedicated men and women, such as those serving in the Peace Corps, can help through direct service, but even more important, through indirectly helping to mobilize unused community resources for the benefit of our youth. I can think of no federally sponsored project with greater potential for doing good at such small expense to the taxpayer. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, BENJAMIN SHIMBERG, Director of Educational Relations. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES, Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr., Chairman, Migratory Labor Subcommittee, Labor and Public Welfare Committee, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Attached are the views of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States with reference to Domestic Peace Corps legislation. I would appreciate it if you would make this statement a part of the record of your current hearings. Sincerely, THERON J. RICE. STATEMENT OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES ON S. 1321, THE NATIONAL SERVICE CORPS ACT The Chamber of Commerce of the United States appreciates the privilege of commenting on the program envisioned in S. 1321, to provide for the establishment of a "National Service Corps to strengthen community service programs in the United States." As one of the organizations consulted by the Attorney General of the United States, whose study committee coordinated the developments leading to the present legislative proposal, the national chamber has followed all reports issued during the course of this development. It is apparent to us that the original concepts advanced for a Domestic Peace Corps have been greatly modified, with some characteristics completely eliminated. The President's message in February of this year on youth problems recommended among other things that the Corps be a "small, carefully selected group," but no suggestion appears in the legislation about criteria or methods of selection of either the corpsmen or corps projects except that they "will not displace regular workers or duplicate or replace an existing service." The earlier description of the proposed corps as an "elite, highly viable" group is nowhere implied in S. 1321. Nor is it any longer assumed, in provisions of the bill, that the program is designed to stimulate corpsmen to "further professional training and career preparation" for welfare work, as a statement in correspondence of the Attorney General's office once indicated. While the January report of the President's Study Group reported some 35 moded projetcs which agencies or individuals had suggested, nothing in the proposed legislation indicates how or whether priority would be given to such projects or how it could or would be determined that projects deemed so worthy by the agencies suggesting them could not be justified in their own State or community budgets and hence initiated without Presidential assistance. In general, the present bill increases the vagueness of the study group's original presentation to a point of complete uncertainty about the programs being proposed. It authorizes the President and his several administrative appointees, and presumably other employees he deems necessary, to make contracts or agreements for whatever projects they believe will do the most good with whatever governmental or nongovernmental agencies or individuals they may choose for whatever number of projects they deem expedient for as many years as the Congress will appropriate funds. In short, the bill authorizes the President to spend $5 million the first yearand unknown amounts in the future-to place Corps men as he defines them wherever he believes they can do the most good in assisting the agencies of his choice to resolve whatever he believes to be the most critical human needs of any area of the Nation. While the bill provides no operational meaning from which to predict its consequences, the advocates of such legislation have used certain sets of conditions and potential products to justify it. These activities thus presumed to be possible and needed to improve the conditions of migratory workers and their families or Indians living on or off reservations or residents of depressed areas or the elderly, the disabled, the delinquent young and dependent children, could be undertaken without further Federal legislation. The executive agencies of Federal and State Governments already include departments presumed to be serving such purposes Certainly those agencies and the manpower they already have deployed to assist in the solution of such problems would be the best judges of the feasibility of utilizing amateur volunteers in the welfare undertakings apparently envisioned in S. 1321. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is charged with such responsibilities; the Department of Commerce is already engaged in working with depressed areas under the Area Redevelopment Act; the Department of Labor already has a division handling problems of migratory workers as well as a Manpower Development and Training Act to provide for the upgrading of farmworkers; the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has agencies for the rehabilitation of the disabled, for assistance to dependent children and for the correction of delinquency. These agencies are in a much better position to judge the feasibility and set the priority for any such undertaking than the prospective administrators, advisers, or consultants which the President would be authorized to appoint under S. 1321. It was the unanimous judgment of the board of directors of the national chamber when polled in December last year that such legislation was unnecessary. The education committee of the national chamber, after further study, recommended to the board of directors on January 26 that the legislation be opposed, and their recommendation was also unanimously approved. The opposition thus expressed to the earlier proposal of the Attorney General's study committee is even stronger to the much more vague program of S. 1321. We respectfully urge this Special Subcommittee on Labor to seek full delineation of the operational meaning of programs envisioned in this bill to determine whether they are, in fact, necessary and, if so, whether they might not more effectively be carried out by present governmental agencies under existing legislation or through amendments to it. The chamber has found no justification for the enactment of the indeterminate legislation proposed in S. 1321. Re National Service Corps, S. 1321. Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr. Washington, D.C. CONSUMERS' LEAGUE OF NEW JERSEY, Montclair, N.J. June 18, 1963. DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: We wish to urge your support of the National Service Corps. We feel that it will prove immensely helpful in training volunteers to work in their own communities, in a constructive and thoughtful way. We have a pool of unused human resources in our country. These persons would welcome the opportunity of training others in their respective skills and at the same time being assured that these community volunteers would carry on the much needed work of improving local conditions. In New Jersey, we can easily understand the need of a National Service Corps. In the larger cities, we have slum areas, language difficulties of Cuban and Puerto Rican residents, and an ever-increasing number of school dropouts. We also have large numbers of migratory farmworkers who need education in the basic three R's, health services, and sanitation instruction. Community volunteers, provided they are shown the way, must be our main resource to aid these migrants. Furthermore, we have in New Jersey a large pool of persons who would wish to enroll in the Service Corps. Many of our college graduates are seeking just such an opportunity and a number of them will be returning from their 2-year term with the Peace Corps. In addition, New Jersey has a larger number than most States of skilled and professional persons who have retired in their early sixties. Many of their wives have been active in local affairs and know how to work with groups on community projects. Husband and wife teams could certainly be recruited in New Jersey and would welcome the chance to a 2-year intensive term of service. We have studied the techniques to be applied in the recruitment of Corpsmen and in the selection of communities where projects would be carried on. We believe that these techniques are sound and will mean a permanent improvement in the areas needing aid. We will look forward confidently to your support of S. 1321. SUSANNA P. ZWEMER, President. COUNCIL ON SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION, Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr. Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: The Council on Social Work Education strongly supports the establishment of a National Service Corps along the lines recommended by the President to the Congress, the essentials of which appear to be incorporated in S. 1321 on which you are now holding hearings. The problems which this program is design to deal with are increasing in size, complexity, and urgency. They affect some of the most vulnerable groups in our society whose future services to the Nation we cannot afford to jeopardize through further neglect. In our opinion the legislation recommended offers opportunity to develop practical and constructive measures for dealing with these problems, provided there is adequate financing and if the administration is properly organized and staffed. We urge that the Congress respond to the challenge which the President has provided in recommending this legislation by enacting S. 1321 during this session. Sincerely yours, ERNEST F. WHITE, Executive Director. Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. THE COUNCIL FOR EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN, DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: The purpose of this letter is to indicate the position of the Council for Exceptional Children with regard to the National Service Corps bill S. 1321. We are requesting that you place this, as a matter of record, in the hearings which are now in progress. The Council for Exceptional Children has observed the value of volunteer workers in various programs for the education of exceptional children. Many of the materials which are produced in braille for the education of blind children have been brought about by volunteer workers. Many of these people spent not only their time, but also considerable money on the production of these materials. We have also been impressed with the degree of cooperation of volunteer workers in certain parts of the country such as Tennessee, in assisting in the testing of the hearing of schoolchildren to try to find those who, because of hearing losses, require special educational attention. Many of the classes for the mentally retarded, for the cerebral palsied, and other types of handicapped children, have been benefited through volunteer services presented to them in many ways. It is our opinion that the passage of Senate bill 1321 would greatly enhance the provision of volunteer services as they are needed in various phases of our national life. Since the bill provides for the expenses of volunteers, and for a modest remuneration to them, it will also make it possible for many more people to participate in a volunteer program who otherwise might be unable to do so. We are particularly impressed with the possibilities which might open for newly trained students to obtain valuable experience prior to entering their permanent careers. These, and other considerations lead us to conclude that the passage of |