church held the reins. There came a period when the power was in the national state and in the political group. Wells prophesied, and I agree with him in the prophesy, that eventually we should come not to the military or religious or political state, but to the educational state. The question we should ask is not who has got the power, not who can win, but what is best and what is right. We should generate through education among the masses of the people a desire for what is right and what is best so that the quest for truth and justice rather than the use of force or political strategy would give us our government and our control of human affairs. Perhaps that is a counsel of perfection, but it is a counsel we should keep in mind. The unused talent now going to waste among persons who think they are on the shelf could win world peace, mitigate racial tensions, help less advanced peoples to gain the advantages of technical progress, and give a new sense of adventure and hope to life throughout the earth. ORIGINS OF SENIOR CITIZENS OF AMERICA Our older citizens have the time to read and study; they have the experience and the perspective; they have time to lead and act. Let us use that talent for community betterment. That is the main purpose of Senior Citizens of America. It is to adult education what the National Congress of Parents and Teachers is to youth education. As explained earlier, I founded Senior Citizens of America as a result of my long experience in organization work and because I wanted to serve during the rest of my life the greatest need I could find. I was scheduled to retire from my NEA service at age 65 on December 1, 1954, and planned to open a new office the next day. Dr. Willard E. Givens, recently retired secretary of the National Education Association, and I brought together a group of outstanding men and women to form a corporation under the laws of the District of Columbia known as Senior Citizens of America. This organization was incorporated on October 12, 1954-the anniversary of the date on which Columbus discovered America. We selected that date deliberately in the hope that Senior Citizens of America would be able to help our people to discover a new America. SCA is a nonprofit civic, educational, and scientific organization of the National Geographic type. It derives its funds from membership fees, which are $5 per year for individuals and $10 per year for affiliates; from the sale of its publications; and from gifts. The work of SCA is based on the following convictions: (1) That the second half of life should be richer and happier for most people than it now is. (2) That preparation and planning for the later years should begin not later than age 40. (3) That there should be a popular clearinghouse for the growing body of knowledge and experience in gerontology and geriatrics. (4) That many older people now put up with infirmities and handicaps which can be corrected. (5) That better provision should be made for the care of senior citizens who are not able to take care of themselves. (6) That man's greatest need is to learn; that this need increases as one grows older; that older people can learn what they want and need to know. (7) That everyone should be encouraged to make the most of himself as long as life lasts. (8) That the senior citizen should keep reasonably active physically, mentally, and spiritually. (9) That there is a vast reservoir of unused talent among men and women in all walks of life who have been retired that should be used for the public good. (10) That among some 60 million citizens over 40, including 15 million who are over 65, there are many who will gladly support a nonprofit enterprise in this field with their money, talent, and service. SCA operates under a board of trustees composed of men and women well known for their civic leadership and public service as follows: Joy Elmer Morgan, president, well-known author and lecturer, was director of publications and editor of the Journal of the National Education Association, 1920-54. Willard E. Givens, chairman of the board of trustees, is director of education for the Scottish Rite Masons, southern jurisdiction, was formerly superintendent of schools in Hawaii and in San Diego and Oakland, Calif. From 1935 to 1952 he was executive secretary of the National Education Association. Ruth G. Myer, secretary, is business manager of Civic Education Service, publisher of the American Observer and other publications, Washington, D.C. Hilda Maehling, treasurer, is assistant secretary of the National Education Association, in charge of professional development and welfare. She is an outstanding classroom teacher leader. Hurst R. Anderson is president of the American University, noted educational, religious, and civic leader, Washington, D.C. Walter M. Bastian, is circuit judge, U.S. court of appeals, Washington, D.C., a well-known civic and religious leader. Luther W. Youngdahl, formerly Governor of Minnesota, is Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, recognized national leader in legal, civic, and religious fields. The SCA plan of growth and development includes provision for State branches and the affiliation of local groups of senior citizens throughout the country. To date one State branch has been organized and there are some 30 local affiliated groups. The State branch is in South Carolina. SCA has State directors at work in most of the States and suitable persons are being sought to lead in the other States. The present list is as follows: Alabama: Mr. Robert C. Johnston, 2300 23d Avenue South, Birmingham. Arkansas: Dr. C. C. Smith, executive assistant to president, A.A. & M.C., College Heights. California: Mr. J. Holmes Ford, SC Service Center, 306 West Third St., Los Angeles. Delaware: Dr. H. V. Holloway, 10 Kings Highway, Dover. District of Columbia: Miss Sibyl Baker, 1661 Crescent Place NW., Washington. Georgia: Dr. Edmund C. Peters, 2901 Rockingham Drive NW., Atlanta. Illinois: Mr. Frank Balthis, field assistant, IEA, 109 North Dearborn Street, Indiana: Dr. George E. Davis, director DAE, Purdue University, Lafayette. Louisiana: Mrs. Madge S. Kennedy, room 210, Welfare Building, Baton Rouge. Maryland: Dr. Francis M. Froelicher, 2418 St. Paul Street, Baltimore. Montana: Dr. Charles D. Haynes, county superintendent of schools, Ravalli Nebraska: Mr. Frank C. Heinisch, 927 City National Bank Building, Omaha. New Jersey: Miss Mildred Lackey, 116 Church Street, Keyport. New Mexico: Mr. Otis Mallory, principal, Springer High School, Springer. Oklahoma: Mr. G. C. Adams, president, DRT, Oklahoma Editorial Association, Box 1014, Ardmore. Oregon Mrs. Rita Holmes, Camp White. Oregon: Miss Lesta Hoel, 2138 Northeast 18th Street, Portland. Puerto Rico: Mr. Diego I. Hernandez, executive secretary PRRS, Apartado 4423, San Juan. South Carolina: Miss Wil Lou Gray, 1851 Devine Street, Columbia. South Dakota: Mr. John Henry Jensen, 802 Eighth Avenue SE, Aberdeen. Texas: Mr. Ray Erlandson, chairman DBA, Trinity University, 715 Stadium Drive, San Antonio. Texas: Mrs. Alison T. Hogle, UCCC. Post Office Box 471, Texas City. Utah: Mr. Harry W. Taylor, Post Office Box 104, Sandy. Vermont: Dr. A. L. Threlkeld, Jamaica. Virginia: Mr. Curtis L. Miller, care of News-Virginian, Waynesboro. Wyoming: Mr. Andrew S. Jessup, 217 East First Avenue, Cheyenne. All officers and most staff members give their time and talent without pay. SCA ACTIVITIES Here are some of the things that SCA has done during the 5 years of its operation. It has published, without advertising, 57 issues of Senior Citizen magazine, bringing together the greatest body of material so far assembled in this field, along with a wealth of material on philosophy, history, literature, and current affairs. These are in libraries throughout the world. It has established and led the nationwide observance of Senior Citizens Month during 1957, 1958, and 1959. It has supplied newspapers, radio, and TV with material to be used in interpreting the achievements and needs of our older citizens. It has given employment to many persons who needed help to complete the requirements of earning their social security. It has distributed thousands of copies of "The American Citizens Handbook." It has published and widely distributed SCA manuals on preretirement, employment, and health. It has distributed over a million copies of personal growth leaflets including such titles as "So You're Over 40," "A New Kind of Revolution," "Planning Your Retirement," "Poems To Live By," "Selections From Abraham Lincoln." It has served local groups with a special bulletin known as "Senior Citizens News." It has answered thousands of requests from persons throughout the country for help in their preparation for retirement. It has given personal counsel by letter, by phone, in special groups, and in addresses throughout the country. The problems of our older citizens are many and there are no simple or easy or quick solutions; but the opportunities are also many and they are greater than the problems. We all live in a wonderful country which we cherish and love. Our generation needs desperately to keep ever in mind one central fact, namely: That the very survival of our Western civilization with all its freedom and glory-with all its personal rights, political liberties, and representative institutions depends upon awakening among our citizens generally a loyalty to something higher than their mere comfort, desires, and selfish interests. This is no time to put on the shelf the experience, perspective wisdom, and skill of men and women who have lived through the most amazing and portentous period in the history of man. We in SCA have deliberately chosen not to take the easy course. Not to make the quick appeals so often used to build a membership around promises of financial advantage or pie in the sky, but rather to put the emphasis on constructive citizenship for the common good-on what senior citizens can give even more than on what they can get. What satisfaction shall we have if we live in the growing consciousness that our generation will be the last to enjoy the fruits of our plenty and luxury? We have only to read the headlines to know that we need all the talent, all the insight, all the experience, maturity, judgment, and perspective our Nation can mobilize to carry it through the crucial decades that are ahead of us. Our great task is peace and survival. If we fail in that, whatever we do about the lesser issues will matter little. May I close with the famous words of Abraham Lincoln to the Congress on December 1, 1862, which are truer today than when they were first spoken: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall Ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We even we here-hold the power and bear the responsibility. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth." Dr. MORGAN. I want to begin by congratulating this subcommittee and expressing our appreciation. The statement with which the hearing was opened this morning seems to me to express wonderfully the situation as it exists. I would like to point out two things: That this complex situation in which we find ourselves is not the result of any purpose or intention on the part of anyone. It is the inescapable consequence of the nature of our evolution into an industrial civilization and it will tend to get worse before it gets better. The other point I want to stress is that it is not basically a discouraging situation. It is a situation that should give rise to optimism because it arises out of superabundance. We have this tendency to disemploy older people because our economy has reached a level of efficiency where it is apparently possible to get along without older people in our wage-earning occupations. I gave Now, my personal background has been in organization. 34 years of my life to the National Education Association, as head of its publications and as founder and editor of its journal and helped with many other organizations during the first half of this century. As I approached retirement myself in 1954, I wanted to find the greatest need in America and give the rest of my life to working on that task without pay. After a survey of the situation, I concluded that the greatest need and the greatest opportunity in our country existed among this growing body of older men and women. So a group of us got together in 1954 and established Senior Citizens of America, which is incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia. I brought these four volumes here and a part of a fifth volume because I wanted you to see the outcome of those 5 years of effort. We have been able to bring together with the help of many people the finest body of material that exists in this field and are beginning to get some grasp of the problems that it involves. We have a national organization. Our material is in libraries throughout the country. We serve a unique place in that we cut across all the other specialized groups. The welfare people are working in this field; the educational people are working in it; the church people are working in it; the libraries are working in it; the schools are working in it; labor is working in it. Senior Citizens of America cuts across all those groups and brings together in one cohesive national organization a clearinghouse that can help to serve and to vitalize all of them. We now have a fairly strong national organization, in its beginnings, it is true. We have Štate directors in most of the States. We have one State branch in South Carolina and are moving forward with the organization of branches in other States. We have some 30 affiliated local groups and the local affiliations are growing steadily. It is our purpose to continue the process of building and, in doing that, the emphasis is not on what we can get. The emphasis is on what we can give. We may have in this country a superabundance of labor in the economy. We shall never have a superabundance of service in citizenship. There will always be plenty of problems, plenty of tasks, plenty of things that need to be done in the community, in the State, in the Nation, and in the larger world of which we are a part to use all the talent and all the perspective and all the vision, and courage, that our older people can supply. Senator MCNAMARA. Let me interrupt for just a minute at this point, Doctor. I am sure you want to know that we have a visiting delegation here this morning under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of International Labor Affairs. We are very happy to have with us in the room a group of Tunisian Trade Union leaders who are here on a tour. Is somebody from the Labor Department with them? What is your name, sir? The INTERPRETER. I am just an interpreter, sir. There is no representative of the Department of Labor here. We are just translating what is going on in this room. Senator MCNAMARA. We would be happy to have you introduce them and, if you care to rise, we can recognize them all at once. We are so glad you are here. We will furnish the names of the visitors to the recorder and see that they appear at this point. Thank you very much. We are glad to have you here. (The list referred to follows:) TUNISIA TRADE UNION LEADERSHIP TRAINING PIO 64-41-023-1-90037— BIOGRAPHICAL DATA Almed Ben Chedli Amara, UGTT, 29 Place M'hamed Ali, Tunis, Tunisia; age 25; general secretary, trade union section, concession services, Sousse. Elalai Hassouna Ben Tahar, UGTT, 29 Place M'hamed Ali, Tunis, Tunisia; age 44; general secretary, Federation of Mine Workers of Tunisia. Abdelazia Herelli, Rue d'Alsace, Hamman-Lif, Tunisia; age 40; general secretary, Federation of Railway Workers. Khamais (Chadli) Ben Abderrehman Jebbari, UGTT, 29 Place M'hamed Ali, Tunis, Tunisia; age 36; general secretary, Federation of Workers in Food Industry. Alderraouf Mekki. Houcine Bouselini Ouaness, UGTT, 29 Place M'hamed Ali, Tunis, Tunisia; age 33; general secretary, regional trade union of mine workers at Bizerte; employed at the mine at Dhouahria. Dr. MORGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to know that these people are here. We have a considerable contact around the world. People come to our office from the various countries. The president of a similar organization in Japan was in the other day. The problem is more difficult there than here. Another gentleman was in from Malaya and I was interested to find that their retirement age was not 65 but 55, their lifespan being shorter than ours is in this country. CHANGE IN ATTITUDES TOWARD THE AGED We have been working intensively for 5 years on this problem. It is the most difficult thing I have ever given myself to and the most rewarding because we see older people, who had thought they were on the shelf, begin to come to life. We see communities that were asleep |