But the trouble in the United States as a whole, and this is true of all welfare programs, too much thinking is done by specialists and not enough by the people themselves.

I want to thank you, Senator, for the opportunity of appearing before your committee, and I know that you will do a good job and you will bring all these points of view to the attention of the American people.

Thank you very much.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you very much, Monsignor. You can be sure we appreciate very much your testimony and what you term this new approach.

I am sure that it will be given real consideration. As far as contacting these people directly, we have plans to do that.

Now, you make a great point of responsibility of the family in developing the family unit in this area. Certainly this is a good approach and we are all for it.

But we find so many of the aged living in slums, and you have a great deal of experience in these studies, and other studies that you have conducted, particularly in the Chicago area. Don't you find too many of these people 65 and older that are housed in the poorest, most dilapidated housing in these big cities?

Monsignor O'GRADY. I agree on that.

Senator MCNAMARA. How does the family unit tie into that circumstance?

Monsignor O'GRADY. I think that in many areas, for instance, we are studying a project now, a public housing project in Chicago, that has been criticized as demoralizing and it is. These things that I have testified to, I am a pioneer in this public housing. We have decided to approach this from the standpoint of what the people in these projects can do for themselves. I think the same would be true in all areas.

One time I made a very short study of a very depressed area in Chicago, but I found great elements of strength in that area. Of course, the way we are operating this urban renewal, we are helping to develop more slums in locations. We are spreading more slums.

I think there are strengths in these places more than we realize. That is what I believe, in strengthening, giving them a chance.

I have seen what has happened in my Lackawanna project in New York. It is amazing to me the strength that the people have shown. We have taken the housing project there, and it was demoralizing and demoralized; and the Federal Government had to take it away from the local community on two occasions, but we went after the people themselves, stirred them up, stimulated them.

In a period of 6 months that was a new project with a new point of view and new life in the people themselves. So I believe in this all around.

I have seen it and I have had a project in the new State of Ghana. I have seen what has happened in other countries. When you give them a chance of helping themselves it is amazing. Of course our specialists in this country do not want it. They just do not. There is this resistance at every point.

I suppose maybe it is a challenge to them, maybe it is a challenge to lots of the people who are working along other lines, but I feel that there are strengths everywhere. They ought to be used, and I think an awful lot depends on your approach. You can demoralize people. I think they are being demoralized by a considerable part of the welfare we have. I would like to see a new front.

That does not mean I want to cut out all the funds involved in it. That is not the point.

But I am going to put a new front on it if I can. I am going to keep on and I am getting some supporters more and more. People will come along when you have patience enough to sit down and explain it to them.

I have seen that even in my African experiments, and I want to try some European projects before I pass out, too. I am going to try some of those. I have some of the resources in sight right now.

One of the troubles that we would have immediately if we were to proceed to make the type of studies that I am suggesting is personnel. We have very few people who are qualified to undertake this type of research and we have few people who can take this community approach in the disorganized neighborhoods of our cities.

What social implements do we have, for instance, for dealing with Detroit, Chicago, New York? What social implements do we have? We have no other social implement except the people themselves, and that is my challenge to you.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thanks very much, Monsignor.

The hearing is adjourned until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. (Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, August 6, 1959.)

NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN THE FIELD OF AGING

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1959

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PROBLEMS OF THE AGED AND AGING

OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Pat McNamara (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Prsent: Senators McNamara (presiding), Clark, and Yarborough Subcommittee staff members present: Sidney Spector, staff director, and Dr. Harold Sheppard, research director.

Committee staff member present: Stewart E. McClure, chief clerk; and Raymond D. Hurley, minority professional staff member. Senator MCNAMARA. The hearing will be in order.

STATEMENT OF MRS. KATHERINE ELLICKSON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SECURITY, AFL-CIO

Senator MCNAMARA. This morning we would like to hear, first, from the AFL-CIO Social Security Research Department, Mrs. Katherine Ellickson, assistant director.

Mrs. Ellickson, I see you have a statement. Would you like to file the statement for the record and summarize it, or how would you like to proceed?

Mrs. ELLICKSON. I would like to read from the statement insofar as time permits.

Senator MCNAMARA. Go right ahead.

Mrs. ELLICKSON. I am appearing today on behalf of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations to present our general recommendations for action by your committee. Earlier, on June 11, Mr. Cruikshank, director of our department, and I presented to your committee materials dealing specifically with social security and pensions for older workers.

If I have to skip some of my statement, I hope the whole thing can be placed in the record, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MCNAMARA. The complete statement will be placed in the record.

(The prepared statement of Mrs. Ellickson follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT BY MRS. KATHERINE ELLICKSON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SECURITY, AFL-CIO

LABOR'S BASIC APPROACH TO PROBLEMS OF THE AGING

My name is Mrs. Katherine Pollak Ellickson and I am assistant director of the Department of Social Security of the AFL-CIO. I am appearing today on behalf of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organ

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izations to present our general recommendations for action by your committee. Earlier, on June 11, Mr. Nelson H. Cruikshank, director of the AFL-CIO Department of Social Security, and I presented to your committee material on social security and pensions for older workers.

Never has effective leadership by the Government been more essential than today. We sincerely hope that your committee in its conclusions will speak out clearly and strongly, first, on the need for Federal action to assist the aged and the aging; second, on the possibility of effective action through measures that will promote an expanding economy; and, third, on specific forms of Federal action that will prove effective today and in the future.

We stress the Federal role because of your responsibility for national legislation. We do not mean to imply that local and State activities are not also required.

Unions and the aged

Our organizations are concerned with the problems of the aged at many levels. The foundation of our AFL-CIO movement lies in the tens of thousands of local unions which function throughout the Nation. These locals have been formed by working men and women to grapple with their everyday problems at work and in the broader community. Through their unions, all types of workers, including many over 65, come together and decide how to protect themselves from overwork and accidents, how to help John Jones keep his job, how to protect the bodies and spirits of men and women from being damaged in the impatient rush to turn out more goods and services.

These day-by-day activities to protect health and human dignity are of equal importance with the more widely known efforts to raise wages and win other monetary gains, including insurance and pensions.

The members of each of our unions decide their own policies in regard to securing improvements in the shop or other work place. The policies are adapted to the special needs of the men and women involved. They are influenced by prevailing conditions in each industry, such as job opportunities, employment practices, and competition among employers.

Many unions have adopted suitable policies to enable older people to continue work if they want. Such policies may include helping carry part of the workload of older workers, making special arrangements for their transfer, securing recognition of seniority rights, protecting both old and young against firing without reasonable cause, bargaining successfully against hard and fast retirement rules, and helping establish fair practices in hiring.

Our organizations often participate in community activities for older citizens. Many local unions have their own committees on problems of retired members. Often they provide social centers for the aged, include older people in their regular educational activities, and support counseling programs before and after retirement. Some unions have for decades financed their own special pension plans and homes for retired members.

Further discussion of their own activities is contained in the statements which some of our affiliated organizations are presenting to your committee.

All these types of union action are of great assistance to older workers and the aged. When unions are destroyed or rendered weak and ineffective, older people are left without a form of protection essential to preservation of their dignity and physical well-being. A blow at democratic unionism is thus a blow at progress for the aged.

The Federal Government, through continuing and improving its policies for protecting the rights of workers to self-organization, can substantially advance the capacity of workers to protect their aging members.

The need for Federal action

It is clear that today the efforts of voluntary groups like our own and of State and local governments are not adequately meeting the problems of the aged. We hope your committee can speak with the vigor of the prophets of old in denouncing the shocking neglect to which so many of our older citizens are subject.

You have the overall statistics on low incomes, on slums, on substandard nursing homes, and outdated mental institutions. You know the individual cases too: the lonely woman living on the fourth floor of a tenement with toilet facilities down three flights of stairs; the half-blind old man without money for a cataract operation; the frail couple cutting their slim food purchases to meet $305 worth of medical bills. You have seen in popular magazines many haunting pictures revealing needless suffering.