Nevertheless, surplus commodities have not been used in California either for recipients of public assistance or for other low income persons. During the 6-month period ending in June 1959, a monthly average of 41,600 persons in families received surplus commodities, of which 14,400 persons were recipients of public assistance. School lunch and assistance to institutions are not included. During this period, the average monthly number of recipients of public assistance was about 620,000.

Various reasons have been advanced for this disparity between the actual number of recipients of surplus commodities and the number of persons in families who might be eligible whether receiving public assistance or not.

The difficulties and expense of storage and distribution, the limited variety, and the uncertainty of supply are the discouraging elements which have been mentioned in past years and which still apply.

Building and maintaining a statewide system for the distribution of actual commodities to families would be expensive, not only in respect to the ordering, storage, packaging, and distribution of the commodities themselves, but also because of the paperwork which must go along with it in respect to recipients. Thus, recipients must be certified, provided with identification for the time during which they are eligible, controls must be established to prevent duplication of issuance, receipts must be obtained and accounted for in relation to regulations, reports must be prepared. These jobs can be done, but only an operation well and steadily supplied and utilized in volume and variety would justify the cost of maintaining facilities and of the paperwork overhead.

Further, in our typical manner of living, food buying is a matter of relatively small purchases once a week or oftener at convenient locations. The necessity for the recipient to travel to one large outlet for a restricted variety, and to make his way home with fairly large quantities discourages utilization.

As an example of the force of the above points, during the 6 months ending in June 1959, only butter, dry milk, cornmeal, flour, and rice were distributed to needy families. These items are neither the main elements of cost to the recipient nor the main elements of his diet. Instead of buying flour, for example, the housewife buys bread and various prepared flour mixes.

I understand that in the school lunch program, this problem has to some extent been met by authorization to purchase items not in surplus. This provides an acceptable variety. A local welfare commissary operation for assistance to needy persons would reach a similar result, since the commissary could purchase from its own funds the products, which with the surplus products, would offer a more attractive and tenable situation.

It would be almost certain, however, that such a commissary operation would in fact nullify the surplus removal purpose of the program. The offering of a balanced list of foods and buying from local funds those items which the surpluses did not contribute would not meet the added consumer requirement of surplus removal.

Further, the commissary system directly conflicts with the cash payment practice which represents a soundly and widely held principle of public assistance policy.

It is possible to express some principles which should govern the way of disposing of surplus foods to needy persons.

1. Any such program should be geared to agricultural need in determining extent and scope rather than welfare need.

2. Any surpluses coming within the scope of such a program should be put to use as directly as possible and not merely accumulated.

3. There should be as little diversion as possible from the normal channels of trade. The accumulation of surpluses in Government hands tends to be wasteful and costly by the mere fact of accumulation itself. In this respect, the food stamp program or some variation of it could be most helpful.

4. The system for the distribution of these benefits should be so constructed that such benefits are added to the provisions for the maintenance of the recipients, whether such provisions are made by income maintenance agencies or by the recipients themselves.

There is nothing new in these principles; they have been long established. My purpose in reiterating them is to affirm they still form the framework within which a constructive and useful program must operate.

Very sincerely yours,

J. M. WEDEMEYER,

Director.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, COMMISSION ON ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE, Boston, April 22, 1959.

Hon. LEVERETT SALTONSTALL,
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR SENATOR SALTON STALL: Thank you for your letter of April 17th in answer to mine regarding H.R. 652, a bill amending the Agricultural Act of 1956 (70 Stat. 202) to provide donations of surplus food commodities to State and local penal institutions.

We understand that it has been a practice in some places to pay correction officers a stipend for feeding prison inmates, and that this was the reason for excluding the departments of correction from receiving the benefits of the surplus food commodities. In this State, all inmates in the Department of Correction are fed entirely from an appropriation of State funds. They have the same status, so far as cost to the State is concerned, as inmates in any of our other departments now receiving such surplus foods.

With the very high cost of food items at this time, it would be of great assistance to our correctional institutions in their efforts to keep their prisoners properly fed and at the same time keep within their food budgets, to have the benefit of surplus foods to supplement their purchases. There seems to be no reason for not allowing them to participate in the program along with other departments now eligible, and this would help alleviate the tax problem in this Commonwealth.

Sincerely yours,

BERNARD SOLOMON, Commissioner and Purchasing Agent.

NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF PUBLIC WELFARE,
Raleigh, August 5, 1959.

Hon. HAROLD D. COOLEY,

U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. COOLEY: I greatly appreciate your writing us about current proposals with regard to the distribution of surplus foods. This is a matter that comes up periodically with regard to individual counties.

During the biennial period ending June 30, 1958, surplus foods were distributed in five counties, each of which had some type of natural disaster. At least as many counties carefully reviewed the current policies for surplus foods and decided not to request them.

In reviewing the statement by Mrs. Sullivan, one actually finds the chief reasons this program has not had greater use. In the first place, to distribute the food apparently costs more for the county, which must bear the expense in our State, than it is worth in meeting the needs of the people. There are the costs for transportation from central depositories to the county. The food in some instances must be repackaged into smaller amounts. There must be personnel available to distribute the food. The time devoted to investigating and certifying persons without provision for additional staff makes an unjustifiable drain upon the welfare department. And then the food itself has been so limited in terms of items that people had to have money grants to obtain anything near an adequate diet.

Leaders in public welfare across the country have long thought that the only truly workable plan for use of surplus foods for needy people in our own country would be through a food stamp program. There have of course been a number of bills introduced and one of the better ones was that of Senator Kerr, of Oklahoma, which you might like to review again in comparison with Mrs. Sullivan's bill, H.R. 1359.

In terms of administration of a food stamp plan we certainly believe that the stamps should be redeemable for specified types of food in the ordinary commercial channels. We do not think that there can be food stamps for different kinds of surpluses but rather there would have to be one overall stamp system with the foods which could be purchased posted and changed as necessary. Under section 2(5), I would suggest that instead of having the Secretary of Agriculture consult with the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Secretary of Labor in establishing standards for eligibility for surplus food that the bill should simply provide that the standards for eligibility would

be established by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. This is his area of responsibility and to involve the other two departments would simply be administratively cumbersome and probably quite difficult for the States. With respect to section 4, this matter has to be tied down very, very carefully. There will undoubtedly be pressures in many of the poorer States where food is needed most to cut the public assistance payments unless the act specifically prohibits any reduction in the money payment as a result of the availability of surplus food. The fact that the foods will change from month to month in both quantity and type could mean a disastrous effect upon individuals, especially children, unless we are exceedingly careful.

I am somewhat concerned that throughout the bill there is reference to the welfare department or equivalent agency. Actually there is no equivalent agency and it will be much better from the point of view of administration if the bill relates directly to the welfare department as the responsible agency for the administration of the food stamps, based upon eligibility requirements as determined in the individual States within the standards established by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

I note section 7 and am of the opinion that if the distribution applies too broadly there will not be enough food to make the program worthwhile in terms of any individuals or families and the problem of certification of eligibility will be tremendously complicated.

I am also a little concerned about section 6 as I believe a better definition of a needy person could be arrived at. Actually persons who need assistance but do not receive it are not ineligible because of State or local laws but because of lack of State or local appropriations. Perhaps that section could have an addition after the word "law" which would read something like the following: "or, because of inadequate State or local appropriations for financial assistance." I hope that I have been clear as to major reasons why we have not considered the present plan workable but rather too expensive on several counts and why H.R. 1359 really needs careful restudy and redrafting in order to be the best possible bill. I am sure that there would be widespread support from public welfare people across the country for a very simple carefully drawn bill setting up a food stamp plan which would be supplementary to the receipt of public assistance or other types of welfare aid, for persons certified as eligible by the State or local departments of public welfare. If you would like further comments at any time, please let me know.

Sincerely,

ELLEN WINSTON,
Commissioner.

(Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Friday, July 31, 1959.)

45044-598

FOOD STAMP PLANS

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1959

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
Washington, D.C.

The committee met at 10:20 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 1310, New House Office Building, Washington, D.C., Hon. Harold D. Cooley, chairman, presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be in order.

Our first witness will be Mr. Howard P. Davis of the Department of Agriculture.

Before we commence with Mr. Davis, however, I have received two telegrams pertaining to this legislation which I would like to offer for the record.

The first is a telegram from Phillip Burton of the California Legislature supporting the bill; the second is from the Catholic Rural Life of California, signed by Rev. Donald McDonell, director, suggesting favorable action on the food stamp plan.

(The telegrams referred to are as follows:)

HON. HAROLD COOLEY,

SAN JOSE, CALIF., July 29, 1959.

Chairman, Agriculture Committee, New House Office Building,

Washington D.C.

DEAR SIR: Suggest favorable action on food stamp plan as effective use of surplus foods and aid to needy people.

CATHOLIC RURAL LIFE OF CALIFORNIA,
REV. DONALD MCDONELL, Director.
LES GRUBE, Secretary.

REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD D. COOLEY,
House of Representatives,

Washington, D.C.:

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF., July 29, 1959.

The California Legislature recently adopted a resolution memorializing Congress to enact a national food allotment stamp plan and as chairman of the social welfare committee, I strongly urge the passage of said bill.

PHILLIP BURTON, Assemblyman 20th District.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, will you come forward, please, Mr. Davis, and your associates?