Senator CLARK. Mr. Rosenbluth, the bill presently provides, and I am reading section 9 (a) (1), line 8, page 7:

The base compensation of an enrollee shall be a rate equal to that provided by law or compensation at the lowest rank of enlisted personnel in the Army.

Is that not right?

Mr. ROSENBLUTH. That is what I said. It puts it on a par with the Army. We think, say, $60 a month with some increment in pay for more training and more incentive would be better. I am going to submit a bill with our suggested amendments, so I do not need to go into that.

Senator CLARK. We would be happy to receive it.
Mr. ROSENBLUTH. Just one more thing.

My most recent experience with camp work was when I went out. to California in connection with some other work, and in California they had the longest and most successful experience with youth camps in terms of county honor camps and State youth authority and the department of correction camps.

The head of the State youth authority in California, Mr. Henean G. Stark-a letter from Mr. Stark is in the appendix-was in charge of all the CCC camps in California. He also emphasizes the need for this Federal program of prevention.

A number of the States have fine youth authorities and fine programs for the convicted. This Federal proposal is not for convicted youth. This is for youth before conviction but where the youths will drift inevitably into conviction. They cannot help it under the conditions.

Now what is the cost of the juvenile delinquent?

A conservative estimate is $25,000 during their juvenile career and too many of them graduate into adult costs.

Now, who can compare the costs of juvenile delinquency at $25,000 with youth work, particularly where the work they do will more than pay for itself.

One other point and I am through: Senator Randolph referred to the letter you received from Mr. Burgess this morning. Mr. Burgess concluded that there is enough body of information already available, ready to be put to work and that should come first or certainly not in conflict with just further experiments. He, like everybody else, is for more experimentation, and, in your bill. Senator, $5 million for experiments is fine. It is not nearly enough; it should be a lot more, but again—not in conflict with a larger program of work as in the YCC.

But what we need most, are more resources to deal with these problems that we are already aware of, and which YCC will serve. For the rich, there are resources which I will not go into with the time limitation, but for the average person and the poor there is no resources that we have at hand. We have to create them, as the YCC would do.

Now, scuttlebutt and rumor has it, and you had from the Secretary of the Interior yesterday an outright opposition at this time-scuttlebutt has it that that is what the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare wants, this $5 million for 5 years for more experiments.

Now, they should not be in conflict. We need the experimentation, but mostly we need the additional resource of YCC.

And now I just want to say that for my own experience the CCC did reduce juvenile delinquency, and the only other thing that reduced juvenile delinquency was World War II.

Do we need World War III to reduce it again or can we have the Youth Conservation Corps?

I thank you.

Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Rosenbluth. You have been very helpful to us.

Mr. John Mahan, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

STATEMENT OF JOHN W. MAHAN, NATIONAL COMMANDER; ACCOMPANIED BY FRANCIS W. STOVER, ASSISTANT LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR; AND EDMUND ZABEL, ASSISTANT LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS

Mr. MAHAN. Senator, I am accompanied by Mr. Francis Stover, assistant director of our national legislative service and Mr. Ed Zabel, assistant legislative representative.

Mr. STOVER. Mr. Chairman, time being of the essence, may I state briefly it is my distinct honor and privilege to present the commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, John Mahan from Helena, Mont.

Mr. MAHAN. I will summarize my statement.

Senator CLARK. We are very happy to have you here.

Your statement will be printed in the record in full at this point. (The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF JOHN W. MAHAN, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES, WITH RESPECT TO PENDING LEGISLATION TO CREATE A YOUTH CONSERVATION CORPS

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I deeply appreciate the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee to present the viewpoint of the more than 1,300,000 members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars with respect to the legislation under consideration today.

Generally speaking, the legislative efforts of the Veterans of Foreign Wars are controlled by the resolutions adopted at our most recent annual national convention. It is most pleasing to note the subject of juvenile delinquency and a constructive program for the youth of our Nation was considered by our delegates at our 59th annual national convention held in New York City, August 1722, 1958. Their views are embodied in our national mandate identified as Resolution 155, which reads as follows:

"Whereas juvenile delinquency is one of the major problems of society in the United States of America today; and

"Whereas most authorities on the subject today agree that one of the best preventive measures is to keep our youth busy at healthy, constructive occupations; and

"Whereas unemployment of family heads being a more pressing problem for many families, minors find it almost impossible to find employment; and "Whereas during the great depression the problem was at least temporarily solved to a great degree by the activation of the Civilian Conservation Corps under the control of the Secretary of War; and

"Whereas the Civilian Conservation Corps proved profitable to our economy in many other ways including monetary consideration: Now, therefore, be it "Resolved by the 59th National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, That Congress and the President of the United States of America enact the necessary legislation and activate at the earliest possible moment a Civilian Conservation Corps under control of the Defense Department, to provide employment for all minors willing to accept such employment and

to utilize as trainers or leaders for such occupations skilled elder veterans employed for such purpose only."

In my capacity as commander in chief I have had the privilege of traveling in practically every State in the United States. Over and over again wherever I have gone the subject of juvenile delinquency has come to my attention. Whenever discussing this subject, invariably, some of our senior members of the VFW have told me of the wonderful and beneficial results of the Civilian Conservation Corps program that was established during the depression.

Not only did the CCC program take a large number of our idle youth off the streets but these same youths helped carry out badly needed conservation programs, as well as cleaning up some of our forests. I might add, some of the CCC boys were later to join the Armed Forces where so many of them served with considerable honor and distinction during World War II.

Today we are plagued with a problem similar to the juvenile situation which existed during the 1930's-specifically what to do with our older boys and young men. These boys are finished with their formal schooling, yet desperately need assistance to help prepare them for an honorable position in our society. Where the depression youths were generally without money, the youths of today seem to have little difficulty obtaining adequate cash and equipment to carry out their schemes. I think most of us can agree that in the last 20 years our society has drastically changed with respect to many aspects of our family life. Whatever the reasons, there are today relatively large groups of young men in our cities and larger urban communities who have nothing to do-too old to be compelled to go to school and too young to go to work and no one at home to care for them. It is no wonder some of these boys have turned to antisocial and criminal behavior to escape from what they no doubt consider to be “a boring world."

The legislation being considered today would help correct this defect in our society by placing many of these idle boys and young men in gainful, productive, and a constructive way of life. It would prevent many from learning criminal patterns of behavior from which some never recover. At the same time, this legislation would give an immense "shot in the arm" to our grossly neglected conservation program and help revitalize our forests and natural resources.

It is my firm belief that if a Youth Conservation Corps is established, it will not only help to alleviate considerable youthful misery but will, at the same time, be an acknowledgment by our Government that we believe in these boys and have faith that they will and should be useful law-abiding citizens.

May I make this final observation-there will be no immediate visible return on money spent on the youth program proposed in these bills. I submit, however, the eventual return will be invaluable as these boys mature into men and become useful, productive members of our society. If we are only able to just eliminate the shocking waste of youth as evidenced by the time and money spent by our courts, police and law enforcement agencies, we will soon realize we are wisely investing in the future of America and we will be rewarded tenfold for the money wisely spent carrying out such a program. May I again express my deep appreciation in behalf of all the members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and strongly urge this subcommittee to report this legislation so urgently needed by the youth of our Nation.

Senator CLARK. Mr. Mahan, I would like to have you summarize it very briefly. I am very sorry to have kept you waiting so long. Mr. MAHAN. I have enjoyed listening to the testimony.

I am the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and also an attorney from Helena, Mont. Montana is one of the few States which has many hundreds of thousands of acres of Federal forests coupled with distinction of having the sites of two of our great national parks.

Senator CLARK. Not to mention two of our finest Senators.

Mr. MAHAN. Thank you. We think the same, and are proud of their service and reputation to our State and Nation.

It is our opinion, that although our resolution which was passed in New York City last year calls for a CCC program to be administered by the military, we have no quarrel with the bill presently before this

committee. We believe this bill will carry out the intent of our mandate and we are endorsing it 100 percent.

Senator CLARK. We are delighted to hear that, and I see you have a resolution pretty much to that effect in your testimony.

Mr. MAHAN. That is right-the resolution is cited in its entiretyalthough the bill would have the program administered by HEW, we wanted you to be aware that we feel that this bill accomplishes the broad principles of youth and forest conservation.

The background and history of the youth and conservation problem have been pretty well described already this morning. However, I would like to make this observation. Children of many years ago had to work to help support their families and lived on farms, particularly when we were an agrarian society. Then came the depression, and out of this sad experience the CCC camps were created to help cope with the problems at that time.

We then had World War II which ended the CCC. However, World War II and Korea were to keep the boys off the streets until

recent years.

Today the draft is far from total, with the total in the armed services diminishing. Even the Marine Corps, which is composed only of volunteers, and the Navy as well, have reduced their total manpower. Since the Armed Forces are taking less draftees and volunteers we have a surplus of young men. This bill provides one solution for some of this surplus by taking some of them off the streets. Senator CLARK. We have a lot more boys than we used to have, too. Mr. MAHAN. That is right, and it is going to become increasingly more difficult to channel the energies of some of these boys into productive, moral pursuits.

We feel as was expressed here earlier today that the 150,000 should be just a starter. It is just a drop in the bucket compared to the total number of young boys that could be helped in the forests.

We feel, too, that will have favorable results with respect to the welfare situation. As a former assistant attorney general of our State-my experience and conviction is that about 90 percent of all the juvenile delinquents come from families that are on welfare, where the mother or father, or both are in institutions or the family unit has broken down. And because they have failed to hold the family together and properly cared for these young boys and young girls so that they grow up to be useful citizens, we have many who "lose the way." I feel that the social case workers should immediately, when they see a young boy heading toward a life of crime or delinquency, recommend that boy should be immediately given the opportunity to go in a camp as provided in this bill.

Senator CLARK. Mr. Mahan, what do you think is the reaction of your organization and of the people of Montana, as you know them, to the suggestion that this is the sort of thing that is a boondoggle and waste of the taxpayer's money, that we have serious budgetary problems and we should not be appropriating Federal moneys for this kind of a program this year.

Mr. MAHAN. I feel that people in my State felt that CCC was a most worthwhile program. As I traveled throughout the United States in most of our posts, I have met people who were in CCC

camps. These men are today respected and good citizens and had exemplary records during the war.

The CCC's helped to build the mankind of this generation and a similar program will help to strengthen our society in the future. Idleness, we feel, even though some say it builds the culture of the world-idleness also gives an impetus to crime, particularly if the boys are kept on the streets.

We feel we should turn them loose in our mountains in places like Montana, and our parks. I feel the proposal expressed by you, Mr. Chairman, this morning, and by previous witnesses that this program should be a joint venture with the State is a fair and equitable suggestion.

Senator CLARK. Do you think that we could consider this as an investment in the national well-being that would pay off in dollars and cents in the course of a relatively small number of years?

Mr. MAHAN. That is right. It would keep well trained and in physical condition many young men that would be needed in the event of a war. Immediate results would not be evident. But the long range dividends would be tremendous.

Senator CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Mahan.

Mr. MAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CLARK. Senator Murray has sent word asking me to convey to you his regrets that he could not be here to present you and giving you his warm regards.

Mr. MAHAN. Thank you, sir.

Senator CLARK. Our last witness this morning will be Mr. Olson. Is Mr. Clarence H. Olson from the American Legion present? We have a letter from Miles D. Kennedy, the legislative representative of the American Legion, which will appear in the record at this point.

(The letter referred to follows:)

Hon. JENNINGS RANDOLPH,

THE AMERICAN LEGION, Washington, D.C., May 11, 1959.

Chairman, Special Subcommittee on Youth Conservation Corps,
Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,

Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: We have considered the principles and purposes of S. 812 in the light of long standing policies of the American Legion and are glad to inform you and the members of your subcommittee that we favor this type of legislation.

Throughout the years the American Legion has demonstrated a very active interest in the spiritual, mental, and physical well-being of the youth of our country, with particular emphasis on the indoctrination of patriotism and fundamental Americanism. Indigency and lack of direction and purpose militate against the molding of these desirable assets and traits. It is our thought that implementation of the proposed corps would provide a fine opportunity for young men to participate in useful enterprise during a crucial period in their lives when the mold of future manhood is being set.

While we have continuously striven to provide for the development of youth through our programs such as junior baseball, Boy Scout work, Boys' States, oratorical contests and many other activities, our capabilities have limitations, particularly in the age area where youth passes to young manhood, at which time there is still a continuing need for opportunity and proper guidance into productive and constructive channels.

Aside from the moral, physical, and spiritual potentials of the proposed corps, there would also be the economic values accruing from the operation of the corps in the preservation and enhancement of our natural resources.