Dean Emeritus, Oregon State College, and Organization Consultant, Corvallis, Oreg.; C. Leigh Stevens, Architectural Engineer and Management Consultant, Yemasee, S. C.

STATEMENT OF RT. REV. MSGR. L. G. LIGUTTI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CATHOLIC RURAL LIFE CONFERENCE

Monsignor LIGUTTI. My name is Monsignor L. G. Ligutti. I am executive director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference with offices in Des Moines, Iowa.

I happen to be one of the consultants, as Dr. Miller mentioned. I also happen to be the observer for the Holy See, with the Food and Agricultural Organization.

Naturally I do not represent the Holy See at this particular hearing. I do represent the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and also my own personal reactions and feelings in the matter of the technical assistance program.

That is sufficient.

Mr. SMITH. Have you had an opportunity to observe the technical assistance program in operation and if so, where, and give us your views.

Monsignor LAGUITTI. I have had an opportunity of observing it— well, first of all in the Middle East. I traveled at the same time Dr. Bennett was traveling with his group. I just did not happen to be on the same plane when poor Dr. Bennett was killed but I was waiting for him at the airport in Teheran.

I covered Greece, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, Israeli.

That was the coverage a year ago last December, January and Feb

ruary.

Since that time, I have covered the whole of Latin America, all of the Central American Republics and all of South America.

Last January, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference sponsored a Latin American Congress on rural life problems and it was held at Manizales from January 11, to January 18.

It was participated in by 23 countries by appointed representatives. All of the Latin American countries, including some of the islands and possessions were represented with the exception of Guatemala and Paraguay.

Over 600 people participated and a large number of clergymen, 24 bishops and archbishops from all over Latin America. They discussed questions and problems concerning rural life during the whole week. We drew up conclusions and they have just been published, both in Spanish and English.

One of the commissions discussed particularly the programs of technical assistance. It was extremely revealing to see how interested these people in Latin America are in the technical assistance pro

grams.

All of the discussions were off the record and we wanted to get their opinions and their impressions. We got them.

We were able to find out just how much they trusted us from the United States and how well or badly they mistrusted us. We did find out.

Immediately after the conference I took a trip all the way down one side and across Paraguay, Bolivia, and covered all the countries with the exception of Uraguay. I visited not only activities of the technical assistance program in general, but I also inquired as to the usefulness or the uselessness of the programs, and as to the personality of the people engaged in this program of technical assistance.

I also looked into the reactions of the native people and the various influences, both lay and ecclesiastical.

From that experience I think, Mr. Smith, I can perhaps give some suggestions or at least give my reactions to the best of my ability.

I would like to, if I may, take this report or presentation of this group of consultants and perhaps go over hurriedly each and every point and give my reactions to each point as it is presented.

No. 1: We believe that there should be independence and integrity in any technical assistance program. It should be, in other words, sufficiently independent-I do not mean independent from a general policy system of the United States, because after all, all of the official work of the United States should be gaged and should be measured and should be coordinated but there should be an independence, in our opinion, first of all from the military. This is not a military program. It has a much greater purpose and greater effectiveness. At least in my humble estimation, I do not think we will ever win cold wars or hot wars or the war for freedom of the world except through a program that really and truly affects the lives of people favorably. We would like to see this program independent of the military. We would also like to see this program as it is pointed out in No. 7, independent of big appropriations for capital projects. I think particularly Dr. Bennett insisted on that and he was right. It is not a big-money affair. It is much more than a big-money affair. It is something that requires human intelligence, a human being with a feeling, dealing with other human beings with a feeling and with intelligence. That cannot be measured in money terms. It is much more than money-much more than anything which is material.

Also it should be separate from any relief program. Keep in mind that a relief program is only for an emergency. I think that the people in the United States are going to lose and are losing both friend and foe, and even the ones we want to help if we merely look upon people and say, "Well, we are going to give you a handout."

It is necessary for people who are hungry to feed them, but it is by far better and nobler for us and for the recipient to have them help themselves. I have found this out.

I have heard many say: "Well, yes, we will take eleemosynary charity and relief, but we would prefer to have something with which to help ourselves."

Remember that when you continue relief and continue it on and on, you are actually debasing human beings and nations. I think it is a complete waste of money, a complete waste of effort to go on and on and on. Hand to a poor man a cup of coffee and a doughnut, but for heaven's sake, do not keep him that way all the time. Make him able to earn that cup of coffee and that doughnut. If he is sick or if he is unable to do it, of course, we are going to help him out. Big grantsin-aid for great big things should be separate from the program of technical assistance and also relief programs and the military.

Those are some of the things that I think I believe in and that we believe in.

Then No. 8, to make appropriations serve the objectives of helping people to help themselves. That is very important. That is the objective: Help people to help themselves. We are not going in there to produce things for them. We are there to sit on the sidelines and say how wonderful it is that you people are able to help yourselves. They are very, very pleased with that. I can recount experience after experience all over the Middle East and Latin America. People are pleased when they are able to produce something for themselves.

I shall never forget when I went into a rural home in a little village in Greece. They were very poor people. They learned how to butcher a hog and to put the lard so that it would keep. They showed us the lard. They showed us the pork as it was salted away.

Well, heavens alive, that is a tremendous help to people. They were pleased. The old grandmother was there. She was so pleased with the results of her own work. The teacher was there, the home economics expert was there. She had taught the dear old lady and the younger woman, the children, how to do it, and they enjoying that because it was the fruit of their own effort.

That, I believe, should be our effort, in helping people to help themselves.

Again, No. 1, keep in mind of course. It cannot be bought or bargained for. It is useless to try to bribe people into becoming friends of the United States. It is just completely useless. You are actually paying them to become enemies. That is what you are doing.

Now, No. 2: We must envisage a long-time program. This business should not be on a yearly basis.

Now I have one suggestion which I wish to make very strongly to you ladies and gentlemen: Plan it for a long time. Plan it for a long time.

Every year we have to come up-we who have to see you people and to be invited to come here, but for heaven's sake, make an appropriation and make it possible to continue the program so you can go on from year to year.

Otherwise, in the first 6 months they employ the time in figuring out. the way of doing things. The next 6 months is used up in how to get next year's money. I do not think it needs so much money, but what is needed is a long-term program.

Keep in mind that if you plan it to be a long-term program, you will actually enable people to accomplish more and pull out of it. If you plan it from year to year, you never will get any place and you may have to stay in until you get completely disgusted.

The majority of the schools in the United States have 8 years of work in the elementary grades, and you have 4 years of high school, then 4 years of college and professional work besides.

Well, why do you not plan on stopping it at the end of the first year or the fourth year, or whatnot? It is a long-term educational process, and it has to be that way.

Then, No. 3, administration.

Well, I certainly am not an expert on administration. My desk is worse, I think, than this desk.

I would refer all administrators and the ones who are going to make the plans for administration to a book by Dickens: "Little Dorrit."

I do not know how many of you have read it. It is an extremely interesting book. Not very literary, perhaps, no plot to it, but look up chapter 10 of "Little Dorrit" and the chapter is entitled "The Circumlocution Office," the talking-around office, where Dickens says in so many words that if they have found the powder under the House of Parliament, before removing the powder from under the House of Parliament, before it blew up, they would have to make a report, a complete report to everybody all along the line, and a lot of ungrammatical correspondence, and then perhaps find the House of Parliament blown up by the powder that was not removed.

Read that, "the circumlocution office." I think every administrator in Government ought to have that some place in his office.

There are recommendations made in the consultant's report, but I leave that to you. I think that fundamentally I would avoid the circumlocution office. There is an end to be pursued, there are means at hand. Just go to it.

No. 4, the program emphasis on Agriculture and more food: Yes, of course, that should be the emphasis. But keep in mind, of course, that the production of more food will not be the only result. That which is the greater result to be achieved will be the ennobling of human beings, the ennobling of human personalities.

It is not enough to say, "Well, we will produce so many more bushels of rice or of wheat," but rather, "we will do all of that and besides all of that, we are going to improve human beings, we are going to make him a better human being, and best of all we are going to improve the living conditions of a family."

In this regard, I would say there is something there on page 3, the third paragraph:

Make the need of the nations concerned our first consideration in developing country programs.

I think one of the first things we ought to do is to teach the people whom we help to help themselves, how to analyze their needs. Very often we say, "Well, you ask for what you want and we will get it for you."

Frequently they do not know what to ask for. If an analysis of their needs is made, and consistently followed through, you will find that they will find out for themselves that the needs which they thought were more important are actually very unimportant.

I remember a very fine priest during the conference in Manizales, in Colombia. In his own village in Colombia he has done a fine job in elevating the position of his people. They would say, "We need a building; we need this; we need that."

He would say, "No; you need better men to serve the people. You don't need a building. You actually do not even need a church building. It is a nice thing to have, but you can have religious services without a church. You can worship under the open vault of the sky if necessary, but if you have a human being who gets to other human beings, in a real Christian way, then anything can be accomplished."

It was very interesting because the majority of the other people who were at the conference were saying, "Well, why don't you send us books for a library," and so on.

But Monsignor Guiterrez, who had done a magnificent piece of work, dismissed all that. He said, "When you improve human beings, the human beings will put up the buildings by themselves."

No. 5, civil-service and overseas appointments: I visited many of those people who are in the service in technical assistance or in foreign agriculture or whatever you have outside of the United States.

I always say to them, "Ladies and gentlemen, you people are doing a piece of missionary work. It is not perhaps teaching the Gospel of Christ directly, but it is actually putting the Gospel of Christ into practice in a very, very direct fashion. If you help people to help themselves, you are actually helping them to become better human beings."

And unless the people who serve have that type of a spirit, well, their work will be practically useless.

I would make a point here for the administrators and I would say that we must not make our technical-assistance program an old-folks' home. I admire tremendously the people working in the field, but very often they are older than I am and that makes them very ancient and how can they stand going out in the field and walking around and getting over mountains and what not or on horseback or in a jeep.

Well, the older persons says, "Well, I can look at that from over here, and we would not go there."

But believe me, if you get out and walk up there, you find out what's what.

If a man is in his sixties or seventies you cannot expect him to go on horseback or donkeyback and come back home to his wife alive. It is not possible.

I would pay some attention to that, ladies and gentlemen.

Then, No. 6, make more use of our United States land-grant institutions and private agencies.

I think we have to use all of the channels possible in this country for the training and we ought to use all the institutions and private agencies in the field.

I was in Amman and I was walking by a Moslem seminary where they prepared their own ministers. I said to one of the technical assistance people, "There is a place where you have to go and talk. That is the place where you ought to try to prepare some of these fellows who are going out into the small villages as religious leaders."

I did the same thing when I was in Greece. I told some of those technical assistance people, "You ought to contact the orthodox patriarch and get the seminary where they prepare these priests for the orthodox church in the villages."

We have Catholic institutions, Protestant institutions that have been there for many, many years, and have been serving the people. We ought to try to use all of those channels.

After all, if there is a channel already there, what is the use of digging a new channel for an irrigation system? Use it to the best of your ability, save money and do not waste an awful lot of time.

They had some difficulty some years ago in putting across hybrid corn in Mexico. Well, here is what we did:

I went down and I said I had some money that somebody had given me, $6,500, and I said, "Take the $6,500 and use half of it for hybrid