CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE

Mr. FOGARTY. Mr. Chairman, I

speak onee again before my colleagues.

in the House, as I have done numerous
times before, on behalf of proposed legis-
lation in which I believe with the ut-
most conviction. I refer to my bill, H.R.
9579, to provide for the establishment of
the National Foundation on the Arts
and the Humanities.

In this instance, I am pleased to take
special note of the many Members of
the House who have joined with me and
the distinguished Representative from
New Jersey [Mr. Tuompson]-in the joint
sponsorship of this important legisla-
tion. And let me point out that I. use
the word. “important” with great care,
and that I take no risk at overemphasis
. in so doing. This proposed legislation
is of deep importance to the national
welfare—an importance not to be meas-
ured solely in terms of the moneys au-
thorized. Its importance is to be meas-
ured rather by the fact that, for the first
time, the Federal Government of : this
Nation would be creating an organiza-
tion which would give support and. visi-
bility to all aspects of the arts and the
humanities.in our national life.

It is not my purpose here to delve into
the many compelling reasons why such
Federal support and recognition of the
arts and humanities is as necessary as
our wide-ranging support of the sciences.
These have been amply described in the
past by me and by like-minded colleagues
in both House and Senate. I wish in-
stead to point to several features of the
proposed legislation which seem to me

September 15, 1965

either to lend special urgency fo passage
by the House at this time, or which lay
to rest any doubts or reservations con-
cerning the inherent wisdom of the prin-
cipal provisions of the bill.

The first of these provisions I call to
your attention concerns the authoriza-
tion, in section 13, of teacher training
institutes arranged by the Commissioner
of Education with institutions of higher
education, to, “strengthen the teaching
of the humanities and the arts in ele-
mentary and secondary schools,” Over-
looked in other legislation designed to
improve the training of teachers, the
extension and improvement of teaching
of these areas of the curriculum is a
must if we would raise the involvement
of students with the arts and the hu-
Mmanities as. major forces in shaping
their lives.

The next provision I would single out
authorizes, in section 12, limited pay-
ments to each State educational agency
for the “acquisition of equipment—suit-
able for use in providing education in the
humanities and the arts—and for minor
remodeling.’ While the funds proposed
are relatively modest, State educational
agencies would be assisted for the first
time in obtaining long needed equip-
ment to enable teachers to present more
effectively the arts and the humanities.
With this nominal Federal support as
an initial impetus, the States could be
expected to move ahead on their own to
improve the equipment and facilities
available for their arts and humanities
programs.

This leads me to point out the follow-
ing in answer to those who hold that
Federal assistance to the arts and the
humanities. would reduce private and
foundation support. First, the authori-
zation of matching Federal funds in
section 11 of the bill would actually in-
crease support from the private sector.
In addition, we could reasonably expect
that Federal support in these areas
would elicit: the same increase in non-
Government spending in their behalf-as
has been found to be the case in those
States providing seed moneys for arts
and humanities programs. In some in-
stances the Federal-private ratio has
been as high as 1 to 8. Surely this is
eloquent answer to those who fear a
lessening of private initiative.

With regard to the timeliness of the
proposed bill, passage now would pro-
vide a most effective complement to the
recently enacted Hlementary and Sec-
ondary Education Act of 1965-—Public
Law 89-10:..This act. will provide, among
other things, improved library resources
and textbooks;. supplementary centers ~
and services with broad implications for
arts and humanities programs and per-
sons; expanded research and research
training programs, including those in
arts and humanities; and, finally, assist-
ance to. State educational agencies in
strengthening their overall effectiveness,
including employment of needed per-
sonnel such as State directors of pro-
erams in the areas of the arts and the

“humanities. By providing badly needed
assistance to the institutions of the arts
and the humanities and to their indi-
vidual practitioners, the proposed Na-
tional Foundation would enable them to
September 15,-1965

serve better the needs of the educational
corimunity in these, areas, as well as to
be better served by it.

My fellow legislators are aware that
the Senate has. already passed this meas-
ure now before us, due in large part to
the enlightened leadership of my most
able colleague from Rhode Island, Sena-
tor Penn. The funds proposed in the
legislation are. modest indeed in com-
parison to the undoubted benefits which
will acerue to our arts and humanities
programs at all levels throughout the
country. We have already established
the National Council on the Aris. Now
we must also create a National Council
on the Humanities and we must provide
the organizational framework and the
means by which the programs proposed
by these two Councils can be imple-
mented. We dare not delay further in
taking this modest but vital step. I re-
spectfully urge each of you to join me
and our many colleagues who have spon-
sored the proposed. legislation, in order
that its enactment may be assured at
this time. /

Wir. RHODES of Arizona, Mr. Chair-
man, T would like te place in the Recorp
at this point the statement of policy
which was adopted by the House Repub-
lican policy committee regarding HR.
9460, the Arts and Humanities Act of
1965: ,

This bill was reported by the Committee
on Education and Labor after only 15 min-
utes of consideration. It reflects the hasty
and inadequate consideration that it re-
ceived.

T% refers to a National Foundation on the
Arts and Humanities which will consist
of a Federal Council on the Arts and the
Humanities which will coordinate the ac-
tivities of the National Endowment for the
Arts, the National Council on the Arts, the
National Endowment for the Humanities,
and the National Council on the Humanities.
All but one of these, the National Council
of the Arts, are created by. this bill.

It is no wonder that the majority of the
Republican members of the Education and,
Labor Committee felt obliged to state that
the bill is so full of ambiguities “as to puzzle
the mind, paralyze the faculties, and numb
the imagination.”

Last year the National Council on the
Arts was created by the Congress to study
and analyze the state of the arts in this Na-
tion and to make recommendations concern-
ing methods to encourage and improve the
arts.

This bill, however, is not based upon any
such study. or recommendations. As a mat-
ter of fact, the members of the Council were
not. even appointed by the President until
after the subcommittee hearings on this bill
wore underway: As far as is known, the
Council has never even met, or carried out
any of the duties and functions of the sta-
tute which created it. .

Aside from the unseemly haste which has~

attended the advent of this legislation from
committee, the idea of federally dominated
endeavors in the arts and humanities
threatens the very foundation of our Nation’s
cultural activities,

State domination of the arts in the Soviet
Union should be sufficient warning against
experiments of this nature in this country.
Moreover, the prospect. of political interfer-
ence with the arts should be repugnant to all
Americans. :

The arts and humanities are thriving to-
day, and will continue to thrive so long as
the deadening hand of the Federal bureauc-

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE .

racy is kept from the palette, the chisel, and
the pen: - ‘
The Republican policy committee opposes

| ALR. 9460,

Mr. RONCALIO. Mr. Chairman, T am
proud to support H.R. 9460, to establish
9, National Foundation on the Arts and
Humanities. This long-needed action
will correct the inequality which has ex-
isted because of Federal support for sci-
enee, through the National Science
Foundation, and health, through the Na-
tional Institutes of Health, without any
federal support of the arts and humani-
ties.

The bill recognizes that aiding the arts
and humanities is primarily a matter of
private and local concern but that it is
appropriate for the Federal Government
to assist programs supported by local,
State, regional, and private organiza-
tions.

The National Endowment for the Arts
would provide grants to cover from 50
to 100 percent of the cost of projects to
encourage artists and develop apprecia-
tion of the arts, such as commissioning
works of art, developing artistic talent,
educating the public through museums
and other organizations, constructing
facilities, and acquiring equipment.

The Humanities Endowment would
promote research and training in the arts
and humanities at the graduate school
level through assistance to students,
State or lecal public agencies, and pri-
vate nonprofit organizations. The En-
dowment could also support publication
of scholarly works, projects to improve
public understanding, the interchange of
information by such means as assisting
universities in providing for visting lec-
turers, and @ university theater or or-~
chestra.

The bill would also initiate a program
of grants to State educational agencies
and loans to nonprofit private schools to
purchase equipment for instruction in
the arts and humanities and to provide
for minor construction to accommodate
the new equipment. The Commissioner
of Education could also arrange, by
grants or contracts with institutions of
higher. edueation, for special programs
for elementary. and secondary school
teachers and student-teachers to im-~-
prove teaching of the arts and humani-
ties in elementary and secondary
schools.

Congressional legislation has long been
concerned with civil rights, health, hous-
ing, and economic development, to pro-
vide a more comfortable and affiuent life
for our people, but we have neglected the
arts and humanities, which will bring
meaning and understanding to our Great
Society. This bill will bring the fruits
of participation in arts and humanities
to many people who live in relatively iso-
lated areas and are not. now able to en-
joy these programs. The gains made
through our social and econemic pro-
grams will take on greater meaning as
our people develop common bonds
through sharing experiences in the arts
and humanities.

Mr. YATES. Mr. Chairman, in our

brief visit yesterday with Astronauts

Conrad and Cooper, the House honored

23109

its pathfinders of space. Today we have
before us legislation to encourage men
and women who can be pathfinders for
Avaerica’s imagination. and understand~
ine. : , ,

Lam a cosponsor of the bill tc establish
a National Arts and Humanities Foun-
dation. In its essence, this bill seeks to
advance the humanities and I am mind-
ful of the statement of my good friend,
formerly editor of the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch, Irving Dilliard, who said:

When we advance the humanities we
yance man himself. For the state of the
humanities, high, mediocre, and low, is the
state of man—where be has been, where he
is now, what in prospect he will be, what he
nolds dear, what, he believes, what he seeks,
and what he achieves of enduring worth.

Thexe is a recognition in this bill that
the Federal Government has long testi~
fied to the development of science and
technology in this Nation but that it has
largely ignored corresponding inspira~-
tions to the arts and humanities. It
would be well if this were as much a
humanist age as it is an age of science,
where science marches ahead on all
fronts.

The scientific method is being applied
to nearly all sectors of human life. Po-
litical scientists use the method te pre-
dict elections. Social scientists use it to
explain social phenomena we once
thought were purely random occurrences.
Economists use it to order the market-
place and to reduce the real world to a
series of abstract graphs and pictures.
Politically, socially, and economically the
world is becoming increasingly analytical,
increasingly abstract, where the irra-
tional and the emotional and the spirit-
ual have less place. It is no surprise,
then, that the arts have not received the
attention they merit. ‘The Committee
on Education and Labor posed the dilem~
ma bluntly:

There is a financial crisis facing the arts
in the United States.

ad-

The committee also cited a “serious
imbalance between Federal support for
the natural or pure sciences and for hu-
manistic research and studies.”

t do not demean the importance of
science or. the huge sums we have appro-
priated in this Congress for their applica-
tion. No one will deny that scientific dis-
covery has played a major role in revolu-
ticnizing cur society. It is natural that
in this revolution that we should look to
the scientist as a kind of leader. He has
created a better material world for us
and he has shown us that a still better
physical environment awaits us, if only
we will follow him. But this better life—
and this longer life—is not an end or @
goal in itself; it is what we make of the
opportunities which improved living
standards provide us with that is im-
portant. Do we live for the purpose of
living better, or do we seek to live better
for some higher purpose?

I believe the real reason for scientific
advance lies in the second query. And it
is here that our society requires the hu-
manist. For as the scientist is concerned
with improving life, so the humanist is
concerned with the meaning of that life.
Archibald MacLeish. reminds us of the
23119

dangers of stumbling blindly ahead into
some scientific brave new world without
human meaning when he writes:

We know more about the planet and the
galaxy and the universe in which. it drifts—
about the substance of the earth and the uses
of that substance—than men ever knew be-
fore. But. who we are in this vast outward-
bound of stars and constellations we do not
know—or have forgotten.

The bill to create a National Founda-
tion on the Arts.and the Humanities is a
relatively small, but necessary redress of
the imperfect attention given to those
who seek this larger meaning for our
lives.

it is apparent that this inattention
cannet be. resclved by the private sec-
tor alone. In 1963 slightly over half of
the corporations in the United States
made contributions in the area of the
arts. Of all corporate contributions in
that year, only about 4 percent went to
the arts. This amounted to a sum of be-
tween $16 and $21 million. This does not
approach the full 5-percent tax exemp-
tion that corporations are allowed to
make on net corporate income for con-
tributions to charitable and educational
organizations. According to the Rocke-
feller panel report on the future of thea-
ter, dance, and music:

It has been the practice of American corpo-
rations in recent years to use only a little over
one-fifth of their taxable income. At pres-
ent only a handful of business firms use the
full 5-percent tax exemption.

Thus, lHberal allowances for tax ‘ex-
emptions do not seem to alleviate the
current financial starvation of the arts.
Nor ¢an private individuals be depended
upon to provide impetus for achievement
in this area. Individual citizens today
use only a small fraction of the 30-per-
cent tax deduction permitted by the
Government for philanthropic purposes.
Many cultural institutions are unable to
exist on their own receipts. One good
example is the New York Metropolitan
Opera, which in 1963 was able to cover
only 73 percent of its total. expenses
through box office receipts. |

Of course, H.R. 9460 will not serve as
a panacea for the ills troubling the arts
today. But this legislation will serve as
a ‘catalyst to encourage more gifted
people toward a profession in the arts
and it will encourage the public to take
a@ greater interest in the arts and to con-
tribute more to their support. And cer-
tainly it will emphasize the importance
of the arts to our Civilization. Iam in
agreement with the committee finding
that:

The Foundation would have a profound
impact on the burgeoning desire on the part
of our citizens for greater exposure to cul-
tural excellence. This desire is manifestly
related to. the increasing availability of iei-
sure time in an era of growing prosperity.

Under this bill, the National Endow-
ment for the Arts will provide matching
grants to groups and individual engaged
in the creative and performing arts, with
special grants for States with organiza-
tions performing similar. functions and
one-time grants to States without aris
councils. or similar.groups. The Na=-
tional Endowment for the Humanities
will provide nonmatching grants and

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE

loans for-research, award fellowships and
grants to institutional or individuals in
training, support publications of schol-
arly work, and provide for an exchange
of information. The work of both en-
dowments will be coordinated by a Fed-
eral Council on the Arts and Humanities.
To those who are concerned about ex-
cessive Federai control of the arts, I
point to: section 4(c) of the bill which
states:

In the administration of this act no de-
partment, agency, officer, or employee of the
United States shall exercise. any direction,
supervision, or control over the policy deter-
mination, personnel, or curriculum, or. the
administration or operation of any school
or other non-Federal agency, institution, or-
ganization or association.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to
recall the humanistic conviction of the
proverbs of Solomon, verse 18 of chap-
ter SCAT of the Book of Proverbs:

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

i support this legislation as the Amer-
ican” recognition of that imperative.
This bill is worthy of that vision, and I
urge its passage.

Mr. HELSTOSKI. Mr. Chairman, I
rise at this time to urge this House to
pass H.R. 9460, to provide for the estab-
lishment of a National Foundation on
the Arts and Humanities.

The legislation now before us, would
establish an independent agency. in the
executive branch of the Governnient, to
encourage excellence in the arts and give
recognition and emphasis to the values of
humanities.

This bill contains the recommenda-
tions of President Johnson, who in his
state of the Union message said:

We must also recognize and encourage
those who can be pathfinders for the Nation’s
imagination and understanding.

This bill will give encouragement to
those who would give impetus to what
President Johnson described .as “the
frontiers of understanding in the arts
and in humanistic studies.”

On March 10 the President made a
statement on this legislation in which he
said:

This Congress will consider many ‘programs
which will isave an enduring mark on Ameri-
can life, But it may well be that passage
of this legislation, modest as it is, will help
secure for this Congress a sure and honored
place in the story of the advance cf our
civilization.

Asa cosponsor of this legislation, my
bill being H.R. 9741, I have been grati-
fied that it has received such widespread
endorsement, not only by leading artists,
scholars, and educators, but also by busi-
ness and influential business leaders and
many well-known civic leaders.

Through the enactment of this legis-
lation, we will be making a commitment
on the part of the Federal Government
to work in cooperation with public agen-
cies, institutions of higher learning, mu-
seums, and other nonprofit. groups, and
numerous individuals, toward the ad-
vancement of the arts and humanities
throughout our Nation.

I am quite confident that this legisla~
tion will pass this House today, to indi-

ate that American culture is not stand-

September 15, 1965

ing still, but is pushing forward toward
creating a golden.age for all Americans.

This bill will provide a vitally needed
stimulus for all the segments of the arts
and humanities in. every locality of the
United States.. Under the provisions of
the bill providing for direct grants and
loans to cerforming groups, as well as to
students of the various humanistic dis-
ciplines, we shall see an inspiring up-
surge in activity and creativity.

In today’s world our society has be-
come more and more science conscious.
It is because of this fact that the Fed-
eral Government and the public support
the sciences in the manner they do.
However, when the growth of man’s un-
derstanding of technology is greater
than the understanding of his fellow
man, it is of utmost importance that we
turn our attention te the humanities—
to that which is human and common te
all peoples.

Tn the past there has been.a tendency
to bring culture and art to persons in the
higher income group, and it is up to us
to take the initial step toward bringing
artistic productions to the grasp of more
of our American people.

But the concept of Federal aid to the
arts and humanities has been slow in
evolving, and this legislation would be a
great step in providing such Federal aid.
However, in the past, such Federal aid
has been opposed by many who fear that
there will be Federal interference in their
work of the performing arts.

This is not so. We have had critics
opposing our aid to education programs,
to our urban renewal legislation, and in
many other fields.. We have shown these
critics that there can be Federal aid
without Federal control. In this legis-
lation we propose to do the same thing.
The Federal Government will supply the
money, but. the artists and their organi-
zations will.suggest the proposals, select
the performances which are to be pro-
duced and de all the planning. The Fed-
eral Government will be the means, but
the end product will be the sole respon-
sibility of the performing artists.

Again, let me go back and repeat that
we have made great strides in atomic
energy, space exploration, in automation,
in the sciences. But it will be an unbai-
anced society in which we will live if,
among these wonders we do not expand
the human mind and spirit.

This legislation wili supplement the
efforts now being made by the public,
foundations, and corporations so ‘that
the people in the artistic field will obtain
the widest range of support in their
endeavors.

This Congress, can fulfill the dreams
of the American people to make available
the fruits of culture to all of our citi-
zens—just as we have been making eco-
nomic abundance available to them.

We can make great strides forward to-
day in the field of culture by passing the
legislation now before us.’ H.R. 9460 will
meet the needs and fulfill our objectives.

Mr. THOMPSON of New Jersey. Mr.
Chairman, I have no further requests for
time.

Mr. CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, I renew
my point of oraet that-a quorum is not
present..