and their information and contracts on a cooperative basis to see if they could not dig up jobs for themselves and for each other.

Mr. A might dig up a job not suited for Mr. A but sounding good for Mr. B, and Mr. B might find something which would interest Mr. A or Mr. C.

This was a purely voluntary grassroots effort to meet this problem. The movement was very successful in Boston and the New England area generally and spread very rapidly to New York, and I believe to something like 25 or 30 of the major cities of the United States. This was before the war.

The war with its demands on manpower both for military service and war production quite literally put more than half of these 40-plus clubs out of business. It just sucked up all their members.

At the end of the war, in the late forties and early fifties, there were only eight of them left. That was Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. These were joined in 1953 by Washington, which has a very active and successful 40-plus club, and since then, two more clubs have been formed, one in Denver and one in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Unfortunately, the Detroit club and Buffalo club have had to go out of business. Apparently the impact of the 40-year rule, particularly in highly industrialized sections, is such that these just could not place their members.

In the other cities, it is a queer thing to say but they are suffering a little bit on account of the present boom of employment and of prosperity but, if that lets up for a second, the clubs will spring back into very much more active existence than they are at present.

Our experience and the record seems to show that when things slacken down a bit, the first men to be let go are the men over 40 and the last to be taken back are also the men over 40.

We, in this country, as other speakers have mentioned this morning, are running into a new phenomenon in the growth of population. The population of the people over 40 is increasing dramatically. I hesitate to quote any statistics but I think I have seen Labor Department statistics which will show that by 1965 a good third of the population will be over 45 or 50. I am subject to correction on that, but I give it as indicative of the present trend.

As Mr. Cowan said, what are we going to do with these older people who are able bodied, capable, and in many cases highly qualified to work? Are we going to put them on old-age relief? If so, we are going to have one-third of the Nation on old-age relief as sure as shooting. The more drastic expedients available to our friends in Russia, unfortunatly, or fortunately, are not available to us.

The 40 plus clubs have gotten along on their own. They have financed themselves by membership dues, initiation fees, separation contributions, and some local contributions. Primarily, though, they have existed on the good will of the communities in which they live. Usually they have an advisory committee of leading businessmen and professional men who act as their certificate of respectability, so to speak, and who, through their contacts, assist them in finding suitable positions for the membership.

I do not think it would be advisable for either State or Federal legislation to attempt to subsidize such a movement. I think a grass

roots movement such as this would suffer rather than be helped if they were to become dependent upon anybody but their own efforts for their own salvation. That is where they made their success, and that is where I think their success must lie in the future.

However, there are a number of fields in which Federal and State Governments may be able to be of indirect assistance in dealing with this general problem not only as it affects 40-plus membership but all workers over 40. They can take care that their own civil service, the U.S. Civil Service, the State civil service, and the city civil service do all they can to do away with the age barrier in their employment and promotional policies and I think it is fair to say that they have already done quite a good deal. The Department of Labor has done extraordinary work in setting up older worker and professional services and establishing branch offices in many of the larger cities. However, the biggest employer of labor in this country is private industry and, when you get into the field of private industry, you find a field that is swayed by a great many superstitions such as "a man over 40 is no good or he would not be out of work." I think that most of us here have heard that statement directly or indirectly. I think that is not true.

A more specific area and one to which I think this committee and other committees might well turn their attention is the effect of the so-called pension and retirement plans upon the reemployment of men over 40 or 45. It is extremely difficult, and I have been told this by honest men friendly to the 40-plus movement, that it is almost impossible for them to put men over 40 or 45 on their payrolls on account of the requirements of their pension systems. Pension systems look primarily to having a low average age preferably around 28 or 30 and, when you put in a man 45 or 50 or 55, he raises that age level and the premiums increase accordingly.

Furthermore, even when men are willing to forgo in salary the expense of those excess premiums, they often find themselves confronted by a statement that the insurance companies will not waive that or the employers will not waive that. This is a field in which I have no answers, but I think this subcommittee could find a few. Ask a few large employers, a few large insurance companies, how and why their pension plans should work that way. Must they work that way? Must they exclude a large and ever-growing body of the best men of America?

Thank you.

Senator MCNAMARA. How much would it cost to change that? That would be an important factor. It would be more expensive? Mr. CARTER. It would be more expensive.

Senator MCNAMARA. That would be something that the subcommittee ought to inquire into and we will do that.

As I understood your statement, you recommend that professional groups should be exempt from Federal regulation?

Mr. CARTER. I did not say exempt from Federal regulation but from subsidy.

Senator MCNAMARA. From Federal subsidy?

Mr. CARTER. Yes.

Senator MCNAMARA. They should not be included in any group plan as industrial workers or others. You think that the professional

group should be treated as a thing apart in this problem, from your experience?

Mr. CARTER. I think that they are not unlike a trade union of professional men, if I may put it that way. They have certain characteristics, habits of thought. They are accustomed to responsibility. They are sort of a guild in their own right.

I do not suggest that they or any other body should be exempt from Federal regulation.

Senator MCNAMARA. I said "Federal regulation," but I meant Federal assistance in this area.

Mr. CARTER. I do not think they would welcome the Federal assistance in a direct form, but I think in the indirect form, of finding out what makes these pension plans tick, they would be very grateful.

Senator MCNAMARA. Does this imply that you are satisfied with the work in this area now?

Mr. CARTER. Well, it is like trying to bail out at sea with a sieve, Senator. It depends on grassroots efforts in the individual cities and we have more cities interested but, as I say, prosperity is dulling the need. Whether we will always have prosperity is another question. Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you very much.

We have a representative from the American Library Association. Since the NEA people are waiting to hear from this witness, I would like to call on Germaine Krettek, from the American Library Association.

I know you have an important part to play in the program and we are glad to have you.

STATEMENT OF MISS GERMAINE KRETTEK, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON OFFICE, AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Miss KRETTEK. My name is Germaine Krettek. I am director of the Washington office of the American Library Association, a nonprofit, professional association of more than 23,000 members, consisting of librarians, trustees, and friends of libraries interested in the development, extension, and improvement of libraries as essential factors in the educational program of the Nation.

Libraries are no strangers to the service of old people. They have lent books to elderly persons for their pleasure and profit; they have taken books to the shut-ins in private homes and institutions. That service goes back many years. But with the increasing awareness that the aging population is a major problem, new emphasis is being placed upon the role of the library not only as a passive cooperator, but as an active agent in this field.

Science, medicine, and other factors are giving us longer lives on the average, but they have not as yet found a solution to the problem of reduced health, lowered income, unsatisfactory housing adjustments, suitable vocational and avocational occupations, general adjustment to living, the prevention of loneliness, and the feeling of not belonging. As one specialist on aging put it, our society must strive to have the older population not merely endure the situation brought about by advancing years but also enjoy it.

The American Library Association is firmly on the side of those who feel that something can and should be done for the aging. During

its annual convention in Washington, D.C., the association held an Institute on Library Service to the Aging Population, June 22-26, 1959. The deputy director of the association has been appointed to the Advisory Committee to the White House Conference on Aging.

The American Library Association would like to illustrate how the public library can be and is an effective agency in working with our older citizens. For example:

(1) It renders direct service in meeting the informational, educational, and recreational needs of elderly persons. This group consists of:

(a) Habitual readers, with whom there is no problem, provided the right books are provided at the right time and provided the older person's eyesight is not unduly affected.

(b) Then, there is the large group which has always been too busy to read before retirement. It is a question of getting them back on the right track to catch up with previously lost opportunities.

(c) The group that never liked reading and prefers the daily round of shuffleboard, cards, checkers, et cetera. Perhaps techniques can be evolved whereby libraries may add some cultural interests to those engrossing recreational pastimes.

(d) The groups with physical defects, eyesight, muscular troubles, and others. Here, talking books have provided one answer, perhaps research can supply others.

(2) The public library can and does supply the middle age group with literature on preretirement plans, especially to the self-employed, or to those employed in small enterprises not able to carry on retirement plans. It also furnishes information to those in the middle age group who may have in their families elderly persons with housing, income, and living adjustments to make.

(3) The public library acts as a coordinating or cooperative agency on the subject of aging with community councils, churches, clubs, as well as with formal education for adult programs carried on by public school systems.

(4) The public library assists through books, films, and exhibits the personnel who work with the aging either in a professional capacity or as volunteers.

So far, only the public library has been mentioned. School, college, and university libraries also figure in the problem. School librarians, for example, can watch for, and use with teachers, children, and young adults, books and periodicals which deal constructively with the problems of the older population. Nearly all of the younger generation has some contact with elderly persons. They need to be prepared for the situation.

Likewise, with the increasing interest in college and university courses touching on geriatrics, their libraries can see to it that reading materials on the subject are made available for the faculty and students. Such libraries cooperate fully with any institutes on aging problems.

Some library activities in the interest of the senior citizens have been set forth. In addition, the American Library Association is concerned over the need for increased research in the field of geriatrics. For example, it is said that persons age mentally and physically at different rates, both in the same person and between different persons.

Libraries in dealing with the aging, should know more about this process. Further, more attention needs to be paid to the training of librarians with skills in dealing with the aging.

It is stated also that cultural and educational interests are good preventive bulwarks against mental decline. Libraries would like research to throw more light on this point.

The opinion is generally accepted that great resources of experience and skills exist in the elderly which should be salvaged. Aches, pains, and the aggravation of petty annoyances often tend to obscure these possibilities in many of the aging. Libraries want to see more study into how to utilize these attributes.

The American Library Association maintains, therefore, that libraries are a positive factor in dealing with the aging and that any recommendations made by the committee should take into consideration the full potentialities of libraries in this important activity.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to present the views of the American Library Association.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you very much for your presentation. It is certainly going to be very helpful to the committee.

Do you find generally that libraries have special sections set aside for reading material concerned with the problems of the aged and the aging?

Miss KRETTEK. It varies from library to library. Most often, I think, at intervals they put up special displays and exhibits of materials on that subject. If there is an institute or some course or some group doing special work, libraries naturally put up material dealing with that subject on all phases.

Working with the senior citizens themselves, libraries very often have special discussion groups and at that time they would set up particular displays of materials dealing with the subject under discussion. It varies in accordance with the particular local community effort and the degree of activity.

Senator MCNAMARA. Do you find an increase in the activities in this area in the demands upon your services by people in the category of the aged and aging?

Miss KRETTEK. Yes; very much. Within recent years, we have set up a special section in our adult services division of librarians who are working particularly in the area. It was because of this interest and increased demand for materials that we had this special institute on the problems of the aging in connection with our annual convention. This was very well attended in spite of the fact that it began at 8 o'clock every morning.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you very much.

We have Senator Randolph with us.

Do you have any comment or questions, Senator, at this point? Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, I have been intensely interested in the statement of Miss Krettek. The companionship of the printed word is often the most sustaining and satisfying reality that the older person has during that period in his or her life. The neighbors and associates with whom they lived are gone. But they can, by the characters portrayed in books and magazines, recapture a sense of truism and imagery. These, to them, become vibrant and alive. Often these people lose contact with personalities but they do find very real contact in the reading which they are privileged to carry