The question I get asked most often these days goes something like this: “Mr. Shriver, how’s the War on Poverty going?” It’s a difficult question to answer, but being an optimist, I say, “Well, we’re making some progress.” I point out that two years and four months ago some people in Washington said there wasn’t any poverty at all, and therefore there wasn’t any need for an Anti-poverty Program. Yesterday, the Republicans introduced their own bill in Congress, complaining they would be able to operate the program better than we can. I think that could be called progress.
About two and a half years ago, when we introduced our legislation into Congress, we were denounced by the National Association of Manufacturers. This year they haven’t said anything. I think that’s progress. A couple of years ago, the United States Chamber of Commerce questioned us. This year they endorsed us, and that really is progress.
Two years ago, some of the people on this platform were doing the work they are doing right now, and had been doing for the last few years. There was nobody running the Youth Corps, because there wasn’t any Neighborhood Youth Corps. There was nobody running Head Start anywhere, because they had never heard of anything called Head Start anywhere.
There were no neighborhood health centers, no neighborhood legal service centers, no Community Action, no Job Corps. No one - two years ago - could have brought with him to this meeting a picture that I have standing on those two chairs to the left. No one could have held that picture up before this audience and told you that that painting was made by a 20-year-old boy from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was hanging in the lobby of our headquarters in Washington, along with eight or ten other pictures that this youngster has painted. And I was reading a little biography about him on the wall and suddenly I saw that he was from Baton Rouge. And I said, “I’m going to bring a picture along.”
The boy’s name is Saul Raymond and he lives at 220 Lane Drive, right here in town, with 12 brothers and sisters. Two years ago, Saul Haymond had dropped out of school. He was reading at the second grade level; he was doing arithmetic at the’ third grade level. He could add two and two, but he couldn’t multiply two times two. He could subtract three from six, but he couldn’t divide three into six. He was 20 pounds underweight. His teeth were full of cavities and they hurt, from abscesses. He never brushed them. His clothes didn’t fit very well. He spoke slowly. He stayed home most of the time. He had no job, very little education, no hope, no nothing. He was doomed to lead a life of poverty.
Now the tragic thing is that there are a million-and-a-half young men and women like Saul Haymond in the United States, -- right now while we’re sitting in this auditorium. But Saul Haymond from Baton Rouge, Louisiana was one of the lucky ones. He walked down the street and saw a poster about the Job Corps.
Today Saul Haymond is 20 pounds heavier than he was 18 months ago. He had to have five teeth pulled and he got them pulled. He’s had six cavities filled. He’s got a new suit and it fits him. He’s moved from the second grade in reading through the 8th grade in one year. Six grades. He’s gone from third grade arithmetic through seventh grade arithmetic -- five grades in one year. He was elected president of his dormitory by his fellow students. He has been selected by his teacher as the foreman of a workshop in design -- the design of advertisements and posters for America’s parks. He tutors and advises new youngsters when they come to the Job Corps Center. He’s been offered two jobs -- one at $2.50 and one at $2.80 an hour.
That painting is something he did in his spare time. I just happened to bump into him in the lobby, and he said this: “He’s not sure right now, but he told me he was going to take one of those two jobs. And when he does, he’s going off the welfare rolls of Louisiana. He’s going off the taxpayer’s back. He’s going off the list of unemployed. He’s going to go from a liability to an asset for his family, for his State, for his country, and for his fellow man. He’ll be out of poverty, and with the help of the AFL-CIO, he’ll get good wages forever.
Now, anybody running a Federal program could come here and give you an individual case. But let me tell you, this is not an individual, isolated, unique case. Job Corps has done for 48,000 youngsters, boys and girls, what they’ve done for Saul Haymond.
There are 35,000 additional youngsters, boys and girls, in the Job Corps right this minute. The Job Corps youngsters from Louisiana earn $50 a month – those young men can allot half of that money home, so that they end up with $25 a month.
The Job Corps youngsters from Louisiana are sending home, to their poor parents in this State,$450,000 a month in allotments.
We started that allotment program because we wanted to encourage those youngsters to have a sense of family responsibility -- responsibility for their brothers and sisters and for their mothers and dads. I never thought it would catch on. Because $50 is not a lot of money a month, and to cut it in half and leave yourself with twenty-five, and to send the twenty-five home to your mother and father -- that takes quite a bit of generosity and courage. And every cent of that $450,000 comes back to Louisiana a month. Every cent is earned. None of it is a handout. Those young men work. They work a 60-hour week, I’m ashamed to admit here -- but they do.
Four-thousand five-hundred Job Corps graduates are already in the military service. Two of them have been killed fighting in Vietnam.
Two years ago, none of them could have passed a draft board examination. But these youngsters, in the Army, Navy, and Air Force, are in jobs - some are back at school.
Yes, there’s no question Saul Haymond will get a prize for his paintings. But who deserves the prize? I think you do. Why? Because you paid for it. Not just for the prize, but for the whole Job Corps Program, for the whole Anti-poverty Program. You, and the Congressmen you send to Washington, give us government bureaucrats the authority and the money to do the job. Without you, we couldn’t do anything.
And so, first of all today, I want to thank you, on behalf of a hundred thousand young men and women like Saul Haymond, who go to the Job Corps this year -- I thank you for the chance you’re giving them.
And I’d like for you to know that you’re not alone. The AFL-CIO at this date has supported the War on Poverty from the beginning, and I express my deepest thanks to all of you.
With George Meany at the head, the AFL-CIO has been just as enthusiastic as any individual in this room. And so has Walter Reuther. So has Dave Sullivan, who has served as the chairman of our Labor Advisory Council; Miles Stanley, Lane Kirkland, both of them special assistants to George Meany.
I wonder how many of you here, for example, know that in Tennessee, at a Job Corps Center located at a place called Jacob’s’ creek, the International Union of Operating Engineers is running the program for us, under a contract with OEO. They are teaching the Job Corps enrollees at that particular center how to operate heavy equipment and road-building machinery. They not only teach the boys at the center, but the Union guarantees them a job with the Union in industry upon successful completion of the course at the Job Corps. That’s a union really at work for the benefit of their fellow man.
Last month, 60 State central body, and International Union officials from seven States visited our Job Corps Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. They spent a whole day there, and when they left, that group of union leaders guaranteed, so far as the unions could produce it -- they guaranteed a job to every successful graduate of the Job Corps Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
That’s real generosity. So far as I’m concerned, that’s putting your money where most people only put their mouth.
There have been visits like that by more than 500 union officials to Job Corps Centers around America. Coming down here I wondered, why don’t we organize a visit, like that by Louisiana union officials, a tour of Job Corps centers?
There’s a Job Corps Center for girls -- a very large one -- in St. Louis. There’s a huge center for boys over in Texas -- 2,000 boys there. Why organize such a visit? Well, I’d like you to see for yourselves what’ goes on in a program like that. But don’t take what I tell you as if it were the gospel truth.
You know they say that people up in Washington are experts at trying to pull the wool over your eyes, or trick you into thinking something that isn’t true? I’m not trying to trick you into anything. I think the programs -- not only the Job Corps but the other programs -- speak for themselves, if you only have the time to give to see them. See what goes on in a sheet-metal shop at Camp Gary. See what goes on where they’re teaching underwater welding. I think industry here in Louisiana uses some underwater welders -- they’re being trained at Camp Gary.
Look at the auto mechanics shop, at the cooking and bakery schools. Make up your mind for yourself, as you think about the program. Get the facts. Because in my experience one businessman, labor leader, religious leader, politician -comes away from a Job Corps center opposed to the program. They come away convinced.
The problem is, so few people know what the problem of poverty in America really is. Let me illustrate again, from the front page of the TIMES PICAYUNE: In a story about the investigating committee of Senators was in Jackson yesterday.
The second paragraph says that Senator George Murphy, Republican of California, was going to call on the President of the United States to declare an emergency because of the hunger in Mississippi.
He goes on to say this: “I didn’t know we were going to deal with starving children and starving people.” -- to which I reply, Thank God, he’s finally found out.
Senator Murphy himself wouldn’t believe me six months ago when I told him that we -- that is, the War Against Poverty with the Department of Agriculture -are feeding one-quarter of all of the living people in the State of Mississippi. Do you think we’re doing it because we haven’t got anything to do with the surplus food? Or because we haven’t got anything to do with the money? If you do, you’re wrong. We could use the money right here among the applicants from Louisiana, some of whom talked to me before I came in here, about the fact they needed more money in the Neighborhood Youth Corps, for the Community Action Program in Shreveport, or wherever it might be. We’re doing it because those people are hungry, and some of them are starving. Nobody believes that when you tell it to them. So, like George Murphy, people are finding out -- it’s on the front page of the TIMES PICAYUNE this morning. We didn’t know anything about it when we started this War Against Poverty.
I didn’t know either, for example, that when we opened up the Job Corps, 40 percent of all the youngsters who apply would be illiterate. Can you believe it? They can’t read or write. They’re 17 years old and they cannot read or write, and they’re right here in the United States.
A lot of people dismiss that. They say, “Well, that’s just Negroes, or it’s just Spanish-speaking people.” That’s wrong. Seventy percent of the poor people in the United States today are white. And they’re poor. And they’re hungry. And they can’t read or write. That’s what the War on Poverty is all about.
I’ve been thrilled by the cooperation we’ve gotten from the AFL-CIO.
At the University of West Virginia, the AFL-CIO from the seven States of Appalachia have brought more than a hundred union leaders, like many of you here in this room -- brought them to the University of West Virginia for special training programs at the university -- training them how to go back to their community and participate in community action -- in the Neighborhood Youth Corps, in Job Corps programs. And these trainees -- these men who were primarily union leaders or workers -- are now working actively in their home towns.
In Charleston, West Virginia, we’ve got a Job Corps Center for girls. The Labor Council of Kennewa County has adopted that center. Every time a girl leaves that center, graduated, with the capacity to earn her own living, the Labor Council of Kennewa County sends a complete resume on that girl to her hometown, wherever she’s going. They send it to the labor union leadership in that town. They ask the local labor union leadership to give this girl a helping hand. That’s what they call the program -- “Helping Hand,” so that when that young teen-ager comes back home, she or he will not flounder, not knowing how to get a job or how to go about reestablishing himself at home. Labor unions in Charleston, West Virginia, cooperate with labor unions across the country -- Project Helping Hand. The AFL-CIO in West Virginia has a contract to train 50 VISTA Volunteers.
VISTA is a domestic Peace Corps. Americans who voluntarily give up a year or two of their lives to work with the poor -- not out in India, not down in Latin America or in Africa, not with the glamour of a trip abroad -- but right here at home.
The AFL-CIO is training those workers to go to work in Appalachia. We’d like to have training programs like that going on right here. We’re trying to get one at the University of Massachusetts, to do this for New England -- we’re trying to get the University of Houston to do it for the Southwest.
There are dozens of ways in which labor can become active in this War Against Poverty. The AFL-CIO put out a booklet a year ago, called, “Labor’s Role in the War Against Poverty,” and they pointed out that space in union halls for anti-poverty programs would be a constructive contribution by labor; that labor unions could operate local neighborhood service centers. Does that surprise you? If it surprises you to think that your union could run a local neighborhood service center, what would you think if I told you that the National Association of Manufacturers agreed to run one for us in North Carolina? If they can, you certainly can.
You can run programs like this “Helping Hand Program.” You might call them “Big Brother Programs” for the kids in Louisiana who are in the Job Corps right now -- there are over a thousand of them-- a thousand young men and women will be coming back to this State, this year. They’re going to need help. Like this teen-ager needs help -- your own teen-agers need help. Who’s going to help them?
These questions illustrate, I hope, for you, one of the fundamental ideas -- one of the basic philosophies behind this program. It is this:
The War on Poverty is not a Federal Government war against poverty. It’s not a State government War on Poverty. It’s not a city government War Against Poverty. It’s not a businessman’s c4ar or labor union’s war. It’s everybody’s war. And we’re not going to lick it unless everybody is in it. And that’s why I exhort you to get in it -- personally.
And so I conclude -- I conclude by saying that, with your help, and the help of other labor union councils like this across America, we can win the war. This is one war we can win. And we’re gaining. We’re gaining in our technical creating in America, where you and I will never have the experience that I had in Arkansas just a year ago: I went to a Job Corps Center there, and I saw a boy standing on the outside of a quonset hut. He had on a cowboy hat, Texas boots; he was about six feet tall, and he really looked great. I got him in a conversation, and he seemed to be a pretty good fellow. And I went to the director of the camp and said, “What’s that fellow doing in this center?” And he said, “Well, Mr. Shriver, he can’t read or write.”
I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “He’s illiterate.” I said, “I know what that means. But how could that boy be like that?”
He said, “He’s 17 years old, from Kentucky. He can’t read or write. When he came to this camp, we gave him a little primer, and the first sentence in there said, am not an ant. And there was a picture of a little ant. And the next sentence said, ‘I am a man.’ And there was a picture of a man.”
And when that boy could read those two sentences, he started to cry, and he asked his teacher how long it would be before he could write a letter home to his folks.
We’re trying to build an America, through this War Against Poverty, where nobody will ever again be in a position where they can’t even read the sentence, “I am a man.”
