CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE
February 17, 1967
Page 3771
URBAN PROBLEMS
Mr. SPARKMAN. Mr. President, on February 1 of this year, our colleague, the Honorable EDMUND MUSKIE, the Senator from Maine, delivered a speech to the conference of Governors representatives on urban problems at Airlie House, Warrenton, Va.
I ask unanimous consent to have his speech printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
REMARKS BY U.S. SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE, OF MAINE, TO THE CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS REPRESENTATIVES ON URBAN PROBLEMS, AIRLIE HOUSE, WARRENTON, VA., WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1967
I was honored and pleased by Secretary Weaver's invitation to be with you, today. As an alumnus of the Governors' conference I am glad to have a gubernatorial staff for a captive audience once again. In addition, I was intrigued by the opportunity to come to a meeting in this bucolic setting where the lions and the lambs of our federal system have been brought together -- I won't venture to suggest which of you is which.
In a sense, your endeavor is a new venture in intergovernmental cooperation. In another sense, your task is as old as our Republic, that is, making our democratic government work as an instrument of freedom and opportunity.
The underlying assumption of the Founding Fathers was that our society would achieve fulfillment as society made it possible for the individual to achieve fulfillment.
Today, then. when we speak of the Great Society, we really have in mind a continuation of the work which was begun over 180 years ago.
When we speak of a creative federalism. we are concerned, as were the founders, that the means by which we organize our common efforts will adapt to the new and larger challenges which we face.
We must acknowledge that the Constitution of 1786 has been a remarkable success, surviving national and international crises for over 175 years. It has met the test of a civil war.
It has accommodated great territorial expansion. It has provided a governmental environment for unparalleled economic growth and social advance.
It has enabled us to assemble a great potential force for good in the affairs of man -- here and abroad.
And yet, its future potential is challenged.
Why? Because apart from the obvious question as to our capacity to use this force wisely, there is the question whether we are organized to use it effectively.
We all know that one of the most serious tests we face is whether this Nation has the will and the stamina to rescue, to preserve, and to improve the quality of life in our cities.
For nearly a century, we have been a nation in transition -- from an agricultural society to an urban society. And today, nearly three-fourths of our population lives in urban areas.
Some have come there out of choice. and some out of necessity. But all of them have come because the city remains man's best invention for satisfying his needs for employment, commerce, education, housing, cultural enrichment, amusement and entertainment.
And yet, the blessings of our cities are not unmixed. In every part of the Nation, our urban areas have grown so large and so fast that they now find themselves unable to cope with the staggering burdens that have been placed upon them. Theirs is the struggle with growing concentrations of poverty and unemployment in their midst, with traffic strangling the streets, with houses decaying at the cores or sprawling aimlessly at the fringes, with smog and fog fouling the air, with waste and pollution soiling the waters.
They must struggle to provide basic facilities such as water and sewer systems for populations growing and shifting faster than these facilities can be built. They must have the foresight to provide the open spaces, the parks and the playgrounds that cities must have to be habitable. And some of them must overcome the cruel fact that invariably the largest and oldest city centers have the oldest schools, the fewest parks and open spaces, and the most festering poverty.
It is not surprising that where many men cannot find work, where many children do not receive adequate education, where many families are confined and restricted to living in blighted ghettos, violence and disorder will emerge from despair.
In short, the number of people in our country, their concentration in urban centers, and the influence of rapid technological change have created problems which sometimes appear too great for us to solve.
In a recent speech to the National Industrial Conference board symposium on "The Challenge of Technology." Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner put it this way: "There is a frightening suspicion that man becomes increasingly helpless to control his destiny as his power to control nature grows and society becomes increasingly complex:"
And this fact has serious implications for our democracy.
In 1835, the French observer Alexis de Tocqueville observed that our "federal system was created with the intention of combining the different advantages which result from the magnitude and the littleness of nations." He also wrote that "great wealth and extreme poverty, capital cities of large size, a lax morality, selfishness and antagonisms of interests are the dangers which almost invariably arise from the magnitude of states."
When De Tocqueville examined the American federal system, it was still working well. I wonder what he would say today?
The question which troubles us is: Has our country grown too large, have the problems of our society grown too complex for our federal system to work?
As a general rule, the various levels of government in America today are not effectively organized by any test.
As a result, human needs are unmet and human aspirations unfulfilled, with deteriorating prospects for a brighter future.
And when this happens, in any society, under any system of government, history teaches us a lesson -- often bitterly learned -- that discontent, unrest, instability, and ultimately disorder and violence will follow. Surely we have the resources in this country to make it possible for every member of our society to develop his own potential. As a matter of fact, I think it is reasonably accurate to say that in every metropolitan area there are the resources to make this possible for every human being who is a resident of the area. But we are not effectively applying our resources to the problems of our people. We are not moving our undoubtedly great resources from where they are to where they are needed. And governmental organization has a great deal to do with it.
It was a similar frustration which led to the establishment of the federal system in the first instance.
In the first years following independence, we learned that liberty, without an effective means for working together, could be self-destructive.
We learned that self-government required the establishment of a government responsive continually to the will of the whole society and equipped with the authority to attend to the public business.
We have learned since that time that government can, indeed, be a source of good; that it can be our servant, not our master; that, indeed, it can perform a vital function in preserving and sustaining freedom itself.
And what is the public business of a free people?
We believe that government has a proper function, in partnership with private enterprise, in stimulating the pace of economic activity.
We believe that our success in achieving this goal is basic to the expansion of our capacity to provide needed public services.
We believe that the conservation and the intelligent use of our natural resources calls for enlightened measures designed to preserve them for the long years and the generations ahead.
We believe that our future, as well as that of our young people, depends upon our equipping them, by education and training, to realize to the full their potential in material, intellectual and spiritual satisfactions.
We believe that the unfortunate among us, institutionalized and otherwise, who because of economic, physical, moral or mental disabilities, cannot advance themselves from their own resources, have a legitimate claim upon our compassion.
We believe that the machinery of government should be so designed and so organized as to be readily responsive to the will of our people and to render the services required of it sufficiently, effectively, and economically.
And so we have, up to this point, made freedom work. "We have demonstrated on this continent," in the words of Jefferson, "that a government so constituted as to rest continually upon the will of the whole society is a practicable government."
The great question which faces us now is whether we are so organized as to continue that demonstration into the future.
The great challenge to that organization is the concentration of great masses of people in circumstances which place them beyond the capacity of existing governmental institutions to serve their essential public needs effectively.
There are those who say that the federal system is outmoded; that state and local governments are obsolete; that their administrative departments are non-professional and weak; that their legislatures and councils are irresponsible, unresponsive and parochial; that their resources are inadequate; and that their constitutions and charters are irrelevant relics of a distant past.
There is some truth in these criticisms; and they cannot be brushed aside if the system is to work.
They reflect real obstacles to achievement of the following objectives in our governmental structure:
1. Preservation of liberty by avoiding overconcentration of authority;
2. Maximum participation of a free people in their own government by maintaining viable, policy-making governments at the state and local levels;
3. Responsiveness to the emerging needs of a changing society; and
4. Effective allocation of our great national resources to meet those needs.
From the middle of the 19th century, the Federal Government has supplemented the unequal resources of the different States in an attempt to move our resources from where they are to where they are needed. One of the most significant techniques devised to do this task, and one which has helped make it work effectively thus far, is the Federal grant-in-aid.
This device, under hundreds of programs, has supplemented State and local resources in education, highways, hospitals, health, economic development, pollution control, and welfare, among others. These have been major pressure areas of need.
These programs will grow, because the need is growing.
But their growth itself has posed a challenge to all three levels of the Federal system. The number of programs has risen from 70 to 220 since 1958, administered by 21 Federal departments and agencies and serving the needs of 50 State governments and 91,000 local units of government.
During the past 3 years, the States and local governments have received about $40 billion in grants-in-aid.
In 1967 alone, 70 percent of all Federal expenditures for domestic programs will be distributed to State and local governments.
These Federal grant-in-aid programs have succeeded in supplementing State and local resources.
But as they have grown, we have tended to overlook the organizational morass which was developing.
And so a device which has been useful in providing essential flexibility to the Federal system is itself becoming inflexible and ineffective.
If we are to renew the flexibility and effectiveness of the Federal Government to meet the urgent needs of State and local governments, we must act now.
If we are to succeed in preventing a crisis in our Federal system, we must take the following steps:
1. Make it easier for State and local governments to use and apply Federal programs. This includes broadening grant categories and criteria in order to give State and local administrators more discretion.
2. Supplement the tools available to State and local governments. We should consider increased technical assistance, better personnel training and management, and more comprehensive and coordinated information on Federal assistance.
3. Encourage State and local governments to modernize and improve their own governmental institutions, including State constitutions, fiscal structures, and the quality of personnel.
4. Continue to supplement State and local fiscal resources.
The Federal Government has already taken several steps to give greater flexibility to grant-in-aid programs and to encourage greater coordination of State and local activity to meet areawide needs. One step was the enactment of the comprehensive health planning and public health services amendments of 1966. This act broadened the application of health grants to give States more discretion in using them to meet their own needs.
Another step was the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966, which you are exploring during this conference.
Beyond this, there is also a need to restructure the National Government to insure that our aims at increasing the flexibility and maximum effectiveness of Federal programs are carried out. In doing so, we will need to consider and use one or more of the following approaches:
1. Rationalizing and combining the overlapping and duplicating grant-in-aid programs by legislative action;
2. Reducing the number of departments and agencies involved in particular program fields, by the reorganization of departments and agencies; and
3. Establishing a coordinating mechanism, preferably, in my judgment, in the Executive Office of the President.
Last week I reintroduced three bills which are designed to meet these aims. They are the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act, the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, and an act to establish a National Intergovernmental Affairs Council in the Executive Office of the President. The Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations is currently holding hearings on the legislation.
We hope our labors will result in substantial improvements in the National Government.
The great organizational and improvement challenge, however, rests at the State and local levels.
Many State and executive leaders recognize the challenge. Many public and private local leaders recognize the need for action -- as I am sure you do. You know that if the States and local governments do not take up the challenge of urban blight, metropolitan sprawl, social unrest and riots, pollution and smog, State and local governments can claim only a junior partnership in our Federal system.
The answer to this problem does not lie in the words and ideas of government scholars and critics.The answer rests with the voters.
They have the ultimate power to reorganize State and local government machinery, to modernize public management and manpower, and to seek more productive ways to finance their development.
They can also make their voices heard in Congress, to seek a streamlining of Federal aid and a more effective coordination of Federal programs. It is the apathy of the American voter -- an apathy born perhaps more of bewilderment than indifference -- that can destroy the search for a new and creative federalism.
But where does the voter start on his quest for better government?
He can start where the problems of federalism are the most severe -- with his own local and State governments, their structure, their manpower competence, their ability to tap all available resources, and their effective application of revenues to meet real needs.
You occupy a strategic position in this quest -- by government reform and by encouragement of more imagination in State and local programs. This will require courage, courage to assess problems and courage to offer solutions.
From time to time you may wonder whether you are making a dent in the problem. Your own contribution may seem a small fragment.
But as Dr. Rene Dubos has written: "Concern for the future is the mark and the glory of the human condition. Men come and go, but however limited their individual strength, small their contribution, and short their lifespan, their efforts are never in vain because, like the runners in a race, they hand on the torch of life."