War On Poverty Meets Criticism

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30396, 21 March 1964, Page 14

War On Poverty Meets Criticism

{Specialty written N.Z.P.A. b« FRANK OLIVERI WASHINGTON, . ' "f" March 19. • . President Johnson-. • hgs .declared war'.on ; ■ poverty and’ there • is reported to’ be less than tremendous . enthusiasm .for it .in hisown ; official family and a good- deal , of .criticism of it in other quarters. - ' A. survey of comment on the programme indicates that there -is a. suspicion that somehow this amounts to “socialism” and “paternaF ism," both of .which are widely regarded as thitags that simply have no good in, them. One is wicked because it is supposed to be dangerously close to communism, while the other somehow seems th infringe -states? rights and is therefore politically immoral. : Not everyone is against this very new thing in national affairs, but the critical majority does drown out the en-

thusiastic minority, The enthusiasts have. none of . the catchwords that" come td the moufhs ■ of the: crimes * so. naturally. »•• •’ • • • The , critics - of thte " prbgrdmine write. and speak. as if goodly, measure of poverty were an essential part of'tee- body politic, andthe body economic.. Some 'newspapers state flatly the Presifldnt’s aim of total victory, in a national 'war on-poverty is • simply., demagoguery and in support of that - position they smugly quote- Jesus; The poor always ye . have with you.* .* "... However/.a newspaper here and there has other things "to say. such as the “Washing-, ton Post,” Which toys that “to strike; at the roots of poverty, .tee vicious qrcte which runs from low income to inadequate education -to ecoflomic incapacity must be broken." " A concentration on

youth- offers ten’best pros? pect of breaking the cycle and halting the .transmission of defeatism And despair from one generation to'another, it siys Poverty in America finally: became visible because of the Negro revolt against the conditions under which many

Negroes five—th 6 . impossi- : bility of-finding the-financial ! means ■' -for bright Negro ►. children to get adequate edu- . cation" ’And therefore being - forefld to continue jn poverty- ! regardless of - their /mental ' potentialities.-' This was : shown, by inquiries into urn ( employment and Its. causes, - and such inquiries alsp - showed that. lots of whites '. W?re tn the same unhappy position; I ; . As the president said in a i recent a fifth of the . people . still earn less than, i 3000 dollart a yefr. and. a lot of people are at the .destii tutidh level Of 2QOO a year. He said his programme was nbt atf- extremely comprehensive obe/btrf-at least-it.was • xtarV He knows what he : is talkipg.-about because 30 > years' ago ’Lyndon'- Johnson 1 was m regional; administrator : in the. National. Youth Ad- : ministration" created by President Roflsctelt " < » .'The;- “Washington Post” teys it 14 to • the everlasting credit of the? President that he makes no extravagant claims for his programme. : which it calls modest, but sensible. -' - Some facts which recently have emerged in Washington

serve only 'to underline the necessity- of tackling the 1 poverty problem at the level of children and youths. It: recently has .been, discovered that, many thousands of-pupils in, Washington elementary schools canqot read There is a tide of 12-year-olds who, - After six years of expensive schooling, Cannot read well enough to meet the most rudimentary requirements of the world in which they must live. A. commentator in a local paper says the standard techniques of elementary education simply do not work for children from the slums. Public schools, be says, are organised to serve the middle classes and assume that their pupils eome from literate homes. .The programme is so farmodest, but'it is. also* ambitious. and those wflo support it hope that modest success will lead ,to ever greater expenditures which, they argue, must eome back to the Administration and the nation in the form of a happier and wealthier populace, less unemployment and a gross national product not even dreamed of in this prosperous age.