handling difficult situations which the police officials, themselves, had witnessed.

At that meeting, city officials asked WYEAC to assist them the following Monday, April 8, when the city's schools were to be closed to allow students to participate in a memorial service in Rodney Square in downtown Wilmington. That Monday, the WYEAC staff members were active in the downtown area helping to disperse crowds of young militants who were gathering along the main streets of the business district.

When Wilmington experienced some degree of civil disorder the following day, and some homes were burned and a section of the city cordoned off, WYEAC workers gathered food and, with the approval of city officials, used its van to transport and distribute food to families in need in the affected area. This was carried out as part of a program conducted by several respected agencies in Wilmington.

We believe there are other programs and instances of positive effects in which WYEAC has played a major, if not a unique, role, and if this subcommittee wishes to obtain a complete and objective description of the WYEAC project, it could obtain additional facts from such Wilmington organizations as the YMCA, the Council of Churches, the Inner City Department of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, and the Community Services Council.

Despite these accomplishments listed above, we must point out that the WYEAC organization has been subjected to an unusual degree of harassment from many quarters during its existence, has gone through critical and lengthy periods of uncertainty about its funding, and has had to deal with various tensions in the community. These situations are sufficient to tax even a sophisticated, professional organization, let alone an organization such as WYEAC. Also, as we are certain you understand, the WYEAC project was regarded by everyone, from the beginning, as a social experiment. Experiments of this nature, indeed experiments of any nature, do not produce overnight miracles. The experimentation requires a great deal of time. As our committee stated on page 11 of its April report, we believe that "innovative steps must be taken in an effort to reclaim the alienated youth of our community and to make them productive participants in today's society. The committee believes WYEAC represents an imaginative experiment worthy of community support, financial and otherwise. Furthermore, we suggest that such support should not be undertaken as a short-term project since it will take several years to prove its worth. The current funding is recommended with the hope that WYEAC will become a permanent organization in the community, responsible in direction and productive in results."

In other words, as we indicated in our report last April, it is much too early in the development and implementation of the WYEAC program to provide a definite evaluation. However, we are encouraged by the progress WYEAC has made to date. When the most recent controversy developed during the Labor Day weekend, the joint GWDC-YMCA Advisory Committee was in the process of discussing a number of adjustments which might be made in the WYEAC project. Some of these changes involve the provision of full-time professional assistance on the WYEAC staff to help define needs and de

velop programs in a more effective manner, improved planning of its activities, and increased coordination with other organizations and agencies in our community. Consideration of such adjustments are not unusual in any experiment and certainly not unusual in an experiment of this nature.

Before turning our attention to some of the previous testimony in these hearings, there is the matter of a news release issued under the name of this subcommittee on Monday morning-the day before these hearings began officially. That news release contained a sentence which reads as follows:

Among the allegations received by the Subcommittee is that Federal funds were paid as tribute to the four principal street gangs in Wilmington for the purpose of "buying peace" in the city.

We are dismayed to learn that this subcommittee has given credence to such a charge by publishing it along with a number of other charges of a sensational nature. This subcommittee could not possibly believe that a few gangs in the ghetto could intimidate an organization of the stature of the Greater Wilmington Development Council. We should like to call to your attention the first paragraph on page 11 of the report issued by our ad hoc committee last April. It reads as follows:

When the committee initiated its work, it was not unaware of the allegations in some quarters that one reason WYEAC had gained some financial support was because of overt or implied threats that there would be "trouble" in the community if the organization were not funded. One of the first decisions reached by the committee was that it would not be influenced by any such threats. A decision on the question of funding WYEAC must be based solely on WYEAC's value as a mechanism for dealing with the serious problems of alienated youth.

That is the end of the quotation from the ad hoc committee's report. We certainly hope that this subcommittee, upon hearing all the evidence in this matter, will act to remove the stigma it has placed on the people of Wilmington by virtue of its news release. We are sure Delaware's distinguished Members of Congress join us in this hope. We mentioned previously in our presentation that both Governor Terry and Mayor Babiarz were aware of GWDC's readiness to cut off the private funding of WYEAC in the event it became necessary to do so during the period of this experiment. Our relationships with these two important public officials in Delaware are pertinent to this hearing and deserve further explanation.

Members of our committee met with Governor Terry in the spring of 1968 after OEO had advised us that it intended to approve a $100,000 appropriation to WYEAC. The purpose of our meeting with the Governor was to explain the work of our committee and its findings, and to try to persuade him to withhold his veto of the OEO appropriation. When the OEO approval of the WYEAC proposal reached his desk, Governor Terry did not veto it during the 30 days he had to consider the matter. Obviously, the chief executive of our State did not have sufficient evidence in April to veto the OEO authorization. Otherwise, we are certain he would have had the courage and conviction to do so. More recently, following the arrest of the four WYEAC employees and the allegations concerning the Black Liberation Army, Governor Terry held a press conference in Dover on the morning of September 4, 1968. At that press conference, he pledged that he would seek to cut

off all Government funding of WYEAC, giving the clear impression that he considered the WYEAC organization responsible for the incident of that Labor Day weekend.

Only a few hours after his morning press conference, the Governor met with members of our committee for lunch in Wilmington. In view of the fact that the Governor's statements about cutting off all Government funds came after all Government funds had, in fact, been expended, we reiterated our position that we were prepared to cut off all private funding of WYEAC immediately if he had any evidence which would warrant such action. He furnished no such evidence to us and took the position that although private funding was not his concern, he had no objection to its continuation. I should note here that the head of the Delaware State police, Col. Charles Lamb, was also present at that meeting, and did not supply any evidence in this

matter.

As for Mayor Babiarz, members of our committee have met on numerous occasions with him and with key members of his administration, namely, City Solicitor O. Francis Biondi, and Public Safety Commissioner Albert A. Poppiti. During the meetings that were held between November 1967 and April 1968, prior to our decision on whether or not WYEAC should receive private funds, it was the mayor's position that while he recognized the possibility of failure in a social experiment of this nature, GWDC should provide private funding. Members of our committee met again with the mayor on September 3, following the arrest of the four WYEAC employees and the allegations about the Black Liberation Army. He told us there was no evidence to indicate that the WYEAC organization is involved in any threatening or disruptive activity and no evidence to warrant our cutting off the private funding of WYEAC. He did suggest, however, that the current WYEAC program be reevaluated to examine the need and desire to alter the program.

We relate these instances to underscore the fact that while the WYEAC organization and its projects have been the subject of allegations, rumors, and charges over the months during which GWDC was one of the funding agencies, there has never been presented to us by any responsible public official, law enforcement authority, or responsible private citizens any evidence to warrant a cessation of that funding or any suggestion that we do so.

You have heard a great deal of testimony about employees of WYEAC who have police records. There is no reason why anyone should be shocked by this. These are not choirboys from the white suburbs of Greater Wilmington. These are the alienated youth about whom we hear so much these days the young men and women who range in age from the midteens to the midtwenties, who have lost contact with society. As our committee stated on page 2 of its report:

When these youths are confined to the ghetto, rejected by or unwilling to submit to the traditional rules of the established agencies, and determined to avoid the kind of submissive lives which their parents and members of the older generation have endured, an explosive problem results.

Yes; many of the WYEAC staff members have previous records of arrest, and some even have been convicted. That is not uncommon in the black ghettos of our cities. We also realized when we decided to fund WYEAC that there was every likelihood that members of the

WYEAC staff would, from time to time, get into trouble. That is the nature of the situation with which this program is designed to deal, and we must point out that the leadership of WYEAC has dealt fairly and quickly with its employees who have gotten into legal difficulty. WYEAC employees who have been arrested and jailed for lack of bond and therefore could not work have been suspended from the payroll. If convicted of committing a crime while on the WYEAC payroll, the employee has been dismissed by the WYEAC leadership. This procedure follows explicitly the fundamental American precept that a man is innocent until proven guilty. There are also a number of instances in which the WYEAC leadership has dismissed staff members for conduct detrimental to WYEAC's purposes and programs.

If the police record information which has been developed in such detail by your staff is for the purpose of giving the members of the subcommittee greater insight into the need to work in a positive manner to alleviate the alienation of ghetto youth, it will serve a useful purpose. We are sure that the police records are not being put on display merely for the purposes of public sensationalism. To do so would be sadly lacking in trying to understand and deal constructively with the problems of our society today.

Now, gentlemen, one of your investigators, Mr. Beatson, suggested during meetings with us last week that there are a number of matters to which we should refer in our presentation. Most of those items have been covered in the foregoing. We have dealt briefly with his remaining suggestions, and we can either read those comments now or merely submit them for the record as part of our presentation.

The CHAIRMAN. You may read them, if you like.
Mr. GOETT. These comments are as follows:

GWDC's involvement with WYEAC beyond funding has been in an advisory capacity. Our ad hoc committee, limited to GWDC representatives, was expanded in May of this year to become a joint advisory committee composed of representatives of GWDC and the YMCA. This committee has continued the advisory function as an interim, temporary committee which was to have been replaced by a governing board of WYEAC.

We have not required that WYEAC prepare for us written monthly reports of the status of their programs. The GWDC ad hoc committee, and since May the joint GWDC-YMCA advisory committee, have met often with WYEAC leaders to discuss programs and other matters. One of the improvements we had under discussion with WYEAC at the time of this public controversy was a more formal reporting system.

Mr. Beatson referred to the Chevrolet vans used by the WYEAC organization. They are provided for in the WYEAC budget. There are five such vans, one assigned to the headquarters staff and one assigned to each of the four neighborhood centers. Arrangements for the leasing of these vans were made through a national commercial organization engaged in the business of leasing vehicles. We have mentioned a number of the constructive uses to which these vans have been put.

Another matter mentioned by Mr. Beatson had to do with WYEAC's relationship to other "gangs," as he put it, with emphasis on the Blackstone Rangers. Early in GWDC's association, with WYEAC, during the time we were discussing budget and salary scales

with their leaders, we suggested that they write to other youth groups across the country to obtain information about salary scales. They wrote to about 15 such organizations, one of them being the Blackstone Rangers. That is the only contact, to our knowledge, that WYEAC has had with the Blackstone Rangers directly. In addition, two WYEAC representatives attended the annual meeting of Urban America, Inc., in Detroit last July. That meeting was devoted to a discussion of such youth groups. A number of such organizationssuch as the Young Great Society, Pride, Inc., and Mission Rebelswere invited to that meeting by Urban America. To our knowledge, the Blackstone Rangers were not represented at that meeting.

The final suggestions made by Mr. Beatson was that we comment on GWDC's relationship with CAGW. During the period in which we have been involved with WYEAC, we have had a number of meetings with representatives of the CAGW executive committee to discuss the WYEAC project. Although CAGW does not normally have representatives on advisory committees of projects it finances, it did make a request to us that it have representation on the advisory committee to WYEAC. We relayed the request to the leadership of WYEAC and urged them to have CAGW represented on the advisory commit

tee.

WYEAC, however, was aware of legislation which required CAGW to reorganize its board and suggested that the reorganization take place before anyone from CAGW was suggested as a member of the advisory committee. We made CAGW aware of this and suggested further, as WYEAC had done, that CAGW discuss this matter directly with WYEAC. We do not know whether any direct conversations ever took place. Beyond this, most of our contact has been with members of the CAGW staff on such matters as payrolls, operating expenses, funding needs, and payroll and accounting records.

We believe that completes the list of subjects suggested by your investigator.

Before concluding, we would like to comment briefly on some of the testimony offered yesterday.

Mrs. Herlihy indicated that WYEAC was receiving funds while OIC, a job-training program, had run out of money. The facts, as she should know, are that OIC has received and is receiving substantial funding from the Delaware community.

The CHAIRMAN. Had they run out of Federal funds?

Mr. GOETT. They never had any Federal funds. It was financed by GWDC and a grant from the State.

The CHAIRMAN. Did they run out of State funds?

Mr. GOETT. It has not run out of State funds.

The CHAIRMAN. Had it at that time?

Mr. GOETT. It had not at that time.

The CHAIRMAN. It has not run out?

Mr. GOETT. It has not run out.

The CHAIRMAN. It is amply funded?

Mr. GOETT. It is amply funded.

The CHAIRMAN. Testimony here is in error?

Mr. GOETT. That is what I understand.

The CHAIRMAN. It is misleading?

Mr. GOETT. It is in error, Senator.