vide needed transportation to the corpsmen through its tribal police. The tribe would make every effort to supply tools, equipment, and other materials which would be necessary to the corpsmen in carrying out these programs. For example, the tribe would purchase balls, records, and other recreational equipment necessary for a teenage recreational program. The San Carlos Apache Tribe feels that the proposed National Service Corps presents a unique opportunity to improve the reservation. This kind of assistance has not been provided in sufficient quantity by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribe feels that if a program were initiated by the National Service Corps it could be continued under tribal auspices. UNITED NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSES OF NEW YORK, INC., Hon. HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr., Chairman, Subcommittee on the National Service Corps, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: We welcome the opportunity to state our support for the National Service Corps bill (S. 1321) which is now before your committee. United Neighborhood Houses is the federation of 36 settlement houses operat ing 53 centers in New York City. Ever since the creation of a National Service Corps patterned after the oversea Peace Corps came under public discussion, United Neighborhood Houses and its member settlements have viewed it with enthusiasm. We believe that such a Corps could do much to establish the concept of volunteer service by idealistic young people and able persons of retirement age as a permanent fixture in our national life. We believe it could stimulate volunteer service generally. Above all, we are interested in the actual service that the volnuteers in such a Corps could perform in areas of need. Obviously such service cannot substitute for urgent legislative needs in such fields as employment, housing, discrimination, and health, but we believe that National Service Corps men could help ameliorate aggravated conditions. In the deprived urban areas where the work of our settlements is concentrated, we can see corpsmen dealing with certain aspects of juvenile delinquency, organizing self-help programs for the aged, guiding bewildered newcomers to the community resources designed to help them, assisting families displaced by urban renewal to find suitable housing, bringing handicapped children into "normal" contacts, serving as school dropout counselors, schoolwork helpers, roving recreation workers, family service aids, consumer and homemaker helpers, and the like. We had occasion to see youthful volunteers effectively perform such functions when, in October 1962, 10 settlements in New York City participated in training a group of recruits to the oversea Peace Corps who were scheduled for urban assignment in Colombia, South America. Certainly volunteers of similar caliber assigned to city and social agencies for a full year could accomplish much more. And their service, very likely. would extend beyond their tour of duty. Some would find a vocation in social welfare work. All would become valuable interpreters of urban social problems to their friends and neighbors and home communities. Through them an ever-widening circle of intelligent and able persons would, we believe, learn to know our urban problems and to act on them, perhaps not as volunteers but as informed citizens. These are some of the values we see in a National Service Corps. How well they will be realized will depend on several factors, in our opinion. First, standards of selection and training of corpsmen must be high. The pattern of screening and training developed by the Peace Corps provides an admirable guide and should be adhered to. Second, qualified supervision must be assured. We urge that financial provision be made for such supervisory functions, so that agencies such as our own, to whom corpsmen may be assigned, are not forced to spread supervision thin or make the difficult choice of neglecting a supervisory function in some other area of program in order to fulfill supervisory responsibility to the corpsmen. Third, the selection of projects to be undertaken by the National Service Corps must be made with the greatest care to reflect both urgency of need and the capacity of the corpsmen. We recommend that the projected Advisory Council be intimately involved in selecting projects and in developing standards and policies for the entire program. Looking beyond the immediate service rendered by the National Service Corps, it seems worth while to us to plan ahead for the maximum utilization of the skills acquired by corpsmen during their tour of volunteer duty. Those who decide to make social welfare work their career should be aided to find employment and advanced educational opportunities. The provision of scholarships for the latter purpose would be a wise investment. In conclusion, we should like to cite New York City's experience with the arrival of Peace Corps trainees as an indication of the kind of response which the National Service Corps would be likely to receive in urban communities to which corpsmen are assigned. Last fall, when it was first announced that the Peace Corps would be sending volunteers into New York City to train for their oversea work, the initial newspaper reaction was to take this as a slap at conditions here. But, by the time the volunteers had completed their monthlong training, two newspapers of widely different policitical persuasion, the World-Telegram and the Post, called editorially for the establishment of a Domestic Peace Corps, and the Times took the same position in a Sunday magazine article. If the National Service Corps is administered with the same intelligence and dedication as the Peace Corps we believe it will make a valuable contribution to a healthier society. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, HELEN M. HARRIS, Executive Director. Senator HARRISON A. WILLIAMS, Jr., THE WORKMEN'S CIRCLE, Chairman, Subcommittee on the National Service Corps, DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: We are aware of the objectives of S. 1321 on the establishment of a National Service Corps. May we say that we regard the program set forth in this bill as one that offers rich promise of carrying out the Peace Corps concept among our own citizens in this country in the various communities and institutions in which skills, experience, and good will can be applied to ameliorate difficulties and solve problems. We feel that this is a most creative form of social legislation which should be passed and implemented for the common good. We therefore respectively urge such passage, speaking as we do in behalf of the 65,000 members of our national fraternal organization. Chairman, Subcommittee, on the National Service Corps, DEAR SENATOR WILLIAMS: Last December the headquarters staff of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society reviewed the proposals for legislation designed to establish a National Service Corps and gave hearty endorsement to the plan. We understand that S. 1321, calilng for such an enactment, now is before your subcommittee for hearings and we would like to restate our support of this proposed legislation. Our country is in need of a rebirth of the volunteer spirit which motivated its founders and which caused the establishment of national voluntary health and welfare associations supported by public contributions and personal participation. We favor the National Service Corps idea because we feel that it will foster this rebirth of voluntaryism. Sincerely yours, SYLVIA LAWRY, Executive Director. APPENDIX INFORMATION ON A PROPOSED NATIONAL SERVICE PROGRAM Prepared By: THE PRESIDENT'S STUDY GROUP on a NATIONAL SERVICE PROGRAM The Attorney General, Chairman The Secretary of Agriculture The Secretary of the Interior The Secretary of Commerce The Secretary of Labor The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare The Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency The Chairman of the Civil Service Commission The Director of the Bureau of the Budget* * Members of the Study Group during the feasibility study, November 1962 to January 1963 I. INTRODUCTION On November 17, 1962, the President established a Cabinet-level Study Group under the chairmanship of the Attorney General, and requested it "to study the feasibility of a national service program patterned after the Peace Corps." The President named these other officials to the committee: The Secretary of the Interior The Secretary of Labor The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare The Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency The Director of the Bureau of the Budget The Director of the Peace Corps Later, others were added: The Secretary of Agriculture The Secretary of Commerce The Director of the Veterans Administration The Chairman of the Civil Service Commission The President asked the Study Group to consider all aspects of a National Service Program: areas in which the program could be most useful; probable volunteer response; the relationship of the program to public and private agencies at the Federal, State, and local levels; the relationship to related programs being considered by the Federal Government; the size and composition of a volunteer corps; training requirements; and estimated costs. (A copy of the White House statement of November 17, 1962, announcing the appointment of the Group is attached as Appendix A.) The Study Group worked during the remainder of the fall and into early winter, and on January 14, 1963, it sent its report to the President, strongly recommending the creation of a national service program. In his State of the Union Message on January 15, 1963, President Kennedy declared: "The overseas success of our Peace Corps volunteers...suggests On February 14th, in A Message from the President of the United States Relative to Our Nation's Youth, he added: |