Guns or Butter

by Bernstein, Irving;

  The most important book in the American discovery of poverty, Michael Harrington’s The Other America, was published in 1962. While not immediately popular, it eventually worked its way up to the best-seller list and became a minor American classic of the stature of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harrington wrote that the poor “needed an American Dickens to record the smell and texture and quality of their lives.” He readily admitted that “I am not that novelist.” But he did very well in describing “the faces behind the statistics.” A product of the Catholic labor movement, a devoted idealist deeply committed to democracy and socialism, Harrington poured passion and compassion into his book about the poor.

  He borrowed Disraeli’s image of two nations: affluent America and “the other America.” While he did not challenge Lampman’s estimate of 32 million poor directly, his travels among those in poverty persuaded him that there were many others who slipped through the statistical cracks and he thought the number was between 40 and 50 million.

  Harrington’s basic finding, which Lewis had also stressed, was that the poor were invisible. “Here is a great mass of people, yet it takes an effort of the intellect and the will even to see them.” One could drive the inter-states in Pennsylvania and miss the gutted coal towns of the Appalachians and skip over the people in the mountain valleys. One could live in the affluent suburbs of the metropolis and avoid the slums of the inner city. One could no longer identify the poor by their clothes. “America has the best-dressed poverty the world has ever known.” Many, particularly the elderly and children, could not be seen because they stayed close to home. Perhaps most important, “the poor are politically invisible. … They have no face; they have no voice.”

  Borrowing loosely from Oscar Lewis, he found many cultures of poverty. There were the “rejects,” workers in “the economic underworld” of the cities. They either had no skills or the wrong skills for available jobs. Some were jobless, others had work of low skill at very low wages without protection from either unions or the minimum wage. There were marginal farmers and farm workers. There were the inhabitants of the black urban ghettoes. There were the intellectuals and artists who had opted out of the system, the alcoholics on skid row, and the urban hillbillies who had not made it. There were the aged. And there were those with mental troubles.

  Harrington urged “a basic attack on poverty” to destroy “the pessimism and fatalism that flourish in the other America.” He pointed particularly to housing and medical care. Since the cities were incapable of dealing with their poor, he felt that there must be a massive federal program. He closed typically on a note of optimism: “The means are at hand to fulfill the age-old dream: poverty can now be abolished.”

  On January 19, 1963, The New Yorker published an article by Dwight MacDonald, the literary critic, entitled “Our Invisible Poor,” which, like Harrington’s book, had a broad impact. He wrote,

  In the last year we seem to have suddenly awakened, rubbing our eyes like Rip Van Winkle, to the fact that mass poverty persists, that it is one of our two gravest social problems. (The other is related: While only eleven per cent of our population is non-white, twenty-five per cent of our poor are.)3

  President Kennedy seems to have read The Affluent Society, The Other America, MacDonald’s New Yorker article, and, perhaps, Keyserling’s analysis. He was amazed that the poor were not angrier. “In England,” he said, “the unemployment rate goes up two percent, and they march on Parliament. Here it moves up toward six, and no one seems to mind.” Kennedy, of course, accepted the inequity argument and was much concerned that the poor would get no benefit from the tax cut. By the spring of 1963, Arthur Schlesinger wrote, “he was reaching the conclusion that tax reduction required a comprehensive structural counterpart, taking the form, not of piecemeal programs, but of a broad war against poverty itself.” JFK’s New Frontier program had originated in the Democratic Congress of the late fifties and others had written it into the 1960 Democratic platform. Now Kennedy wanted something that he had initiated.

  Walter Heller of the Council of Economic Advisers shouldered the burden of devising such a program. He brought Robert Lampman to the Council during the spring and summer of 1963 to update his 1957 numbers on poverty. On May 1 Heller sent the President the results with a covering memorandum entitled Progress and Poverty. When Lampman varied the analysis by family size—from one person to seven or more—the number of people in poverty in 1961 was 33 million, 18.2 percent of the population. More “distressing” to Heller—“one more demonstration of the costs of economic slack”—was the historic performance of the economy in moving people out of poverty. Between 1947 and 1956 the number of families with annual incomes in 1961 dollars of less than $3000 had declined by 10 points, from 33 to 23 percent. But between 1956 and 1961 the drop was only 2 points, from 23 to 21 percent.

  Before he returned to Madison for the fall term Lampman also wrote “The Problem of Poverty in America,” which would become chapter 2 of the Economic Report published in January 1964. In that form it served two purposes—as the most comprehensive and authoritative statistical analysis of poverty in the U.S. made to that time and as the foundation for Lyndon Johnson’s simultaneous call for a war on poverty in his State of the Union address.

  Both the definition and the measurement of poverty, Lampman stressed, were imprecise. His general definition of the poor was “those who are not now maintaining a decent standard of living—those whose basic needs exceed their means to satisfy them.” He accepted the Social Security Administration’s 1962 “low-cost” budgets for a nonfarm family of four—$3,955—and “economy-plan” budget—$3,165. This led him to select conservatively an income below $3,000 in 1962 as the poverty line. For unrelated individuals, a more complicated statistical problem, he used both $1,500 and $1,000. Of the 47 million families in the U.S. in 1962, 9.3 million, over 30 million people, lived in poverty. Of unrelated individuals, 5 million had incomes below $1,500 and more than 3 million fell under $1,000. “Thus, by the measures used here, 33 to 35 million Americans were living at or below the boundaries of poverty in 1962—nearly one-fifth of our Nation.”

  Poverty was not homogeneous; it clustered in particular sectors. Some 22 percent of the population were nonwhite, but nearly half of all non-whites lived in poverty. A majority of the heads of poor families were not well educated; high school and college provided escape hatches from poverty. One-third of the poor were children. There was also a high incidence of poverty among the elderly. The poor were geographically everywhere—in cities, in rural nonfarm areas, and on the farm. There were many poor people in agriculture, particularly nonwhites. The South was the region which had the highest incidence of poverty by a wide margin. Nearly half the families headed by women were poor. When a family combined these disadvantages, for example, a nonwhite female family head with a limited education, 94 percent lived in poverty.

  Most distressing was the fact, as Oscar Lewis had noted, that “poverty breeds poverty.” It passed on from one generation to the next. Low incomes stacked the cards against the poor—high risks of illness, limited education, lack of motivation, hope, and incentive.

  Lampman was convinced that an attack on poverty would be a formidable undertaking:

  Poverty … has many faces. It is found in the North and in the South; in the East and the West; on the farm and in the city. It is found among the young and among the old, among the employed and the unemployed. Its roots are many and its causes complex. … No single program can embrace all who are poor, and no single program can strike at all the sources of today’s and tomorrow’s poverty.4

  During the summer of 1963 Heller assigned William Capron, formerly an economics professor at Stanford and a senior member of the CEA staff, to work on the poverty program, along with three junior economists. As Capron put it, he became Heller’s “chief honcho.” With Lampman, he set up a Saturday morning club with an interagency group, mainly economists, from Health, Education, and Welfare; Labor; and the Housing and Ho
me Finance Agency. After Lampman pointed out the groups that were poor, Capron asked the economists what the government could do. HEW and Labor had a number of suggestions, but, as Capron said, they were “categorical program ideas warmed over.” He drew a blank from HHFA. Capron thought he had made no progress.

  In anticipation of the administration’s 1964 legislative program, in September 1963 Sorensen handed out assignments and CEA received poverty. Now Capron moved his canvass up from staff to subcabinet and cabinet levels in the departments. This exposed sharp interagency differences. Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz wanted a big program for jobs with his department in charge. Assistant Secretary of HEW Wilbur Cohen urged expansion of his department’s health and education programs. HHFA seemed to have no ideas. Kermit Gordon, the Director of the Budget, set up a parallel group to CEA’s under William B. Cannon to work with Capron.

  On November 5, 1963, Heller addressed the “domestic cabinet”—the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, HEW, the Director of the Budget, and the Administrator of HHFA—on the topic of “widening participation in prosperity.” For a man with a high reputation for clarity, brevity, and precision of expression, this essay in befuddlement must have been the worst document to which Heller ever affixed his signature. The “widening” title was dreadful and he implored the recipients to help find a better one. He also urged them to make suggestions by reexamining their existing programs and by proposing “imaginative new programs.”

  The Council was overwhelmed by the replies, more than 100 specific proposals. The Labor Department alone submitted a 150-page document. Each department pushed its own interests: Labor suggested jobs and training; HEW, income maintenance, health, and education; Agriculture, assistance to poor farmers; and HHFA, which seems to have awakened, public housing. Capron called these suggestions “garbage.” They “went into their file drawers and pulled out old programs that they had been floating around … , a lot of which had already been explicitly rejected by the Budget Bureau.” CEA sent them to Budget and its team began the tedious job of evaluation. Both Cannon and Gordon concluded that they were “awful.”

  Heller worried that this unforeseen delay would cause the poverty bill to miss the January presidential deadlines. He went to see the President on November 19. Heller told him, “We were having great trouble getting a program together because of the bureaucratic infighting that was going on among his cabinet officers.” Heller then asked whether poverty would be part of the 1964 legislative agenda. While Kennedy had expressed some concern about also doing something for the people in the suburbs, he responded affirmatively and asked to see the proposals in a couple of weeks.

  Three days later, November 22, 1963, Heller and Wirtz were on the Tokyo-bound flight of cabinet officers when they learned of the assassination. Heller met with President Johnson at 7:40 p.m. on November 23. He reviewed the work of the Council, devoting particular attention to “the attack on poverty.” They had been trying to develop “a good program,” but had not yet worked it out. He informed Johnson of his last conversation with Kennedy, who, while concerned about middle-income people, “strongly urged me to move ahead on the poverty theme in the hope that we can make it an important part of the 1964 program.” He then asked the new President “point blank” whether he should continue this work.

  Johnson swung around in his chair and looked into Heller’s eyes. This, he said, is “my kind of undertaking. I’m interested. I’m sympathetic. Go ahead. Give it the highest priority. Push ahead full tilt.”

  This response was in character. Lyndon Johnson’s hard early years in the hill country of Texas had taught him that one paid a high price for being poor, an unpardonable price in a rich country like the U.S. As Charles Schultze put it, “He sincerely, deeply, fundamentally believed in—how do I say this?—the basic concept of providing opportunities.” In addition, Johnson agreed with Kennedy that it was unfair to the poor to give them nothing while those better off got lower taxes. Finally, he became convinced that a poverty program shaped to get through Congress would help get him elected President in 1964.

  But the President’s commitment on November 23 put Heller in a jam. His people had gotten nowhere in setting up a poverty program and he needed one fast. Though he had not written to the Attorney General on November 5, he had received an interesting proposal from David Hackett in Justice. There were no substantive ideas, but Hackett urged an “approach,” a “process.” The President should establish five demonstration projects—for depressed areas, urban slums, Indians, migratory labor, and persons in institutions. These experiments would then form the basis for creating a new national poverty policy.

  During December 1963 the Bureau of the Budget assumed the main responsibility for shaping the program and inherited the Hackett memorandum. A line item of $500 million was stuck into the fiscal 1965 budget, but there was no explanation of what it would be spent on. Cannon began looking seriously at Hackett’s idea and became enamoured. He expanded it from 5 to 10 demonstration areas and proposed that a development corporation be responsible for each. This would leapfrog the infighting between federal departments and would pass the seemingly insoluble problem of selecting among competing programs to the new corporations. A fifth of the budget, $100 million, would be assigned to this project. Schultze endorsed Cannon’s proposal, suggesting only that a new name be found for “development corporation.” Hackett had also used the phrase “action program,” and “community” was stuck in front of it. Thus, “community action” was born.

  But Kermit Gordon was skeptical, in large part because he did not think his people or Capron knew anything about poverty. As Capron later admitted, “we didn’t.” More experienced advice was needed. Ylvisaker and his clients from New Haven, New York, and North Carolina descended on Washington. “Ylvisaker,” Capron said, “was at his most persuasive.” Hackett and Boone worked over Heller. At Hickory Hill, the Attorney General’s estate in the Virginia countryside, Capron said, “Bobby pulled Walter aside … and made some very encouraging noises.” By mid-December 1963 the council and the bureau were firmly behind community action and the whole $500 million was assigned to that program. Other projects would have to depend upon additional appropriations.

  Gordon said later that he now had “a clear notion of what we were trying to do.” There were many federal categorical and grant programs in education, public assistance, housing, and so on. Each was narrow in scope and independent of the others. “They did not treat the person in trouble as a person.” They should, therefore, be consolidated. Poverty was “highly complex” and differed from one community to the next. “The monkey ought to be put on the back of the city itself to … diagnose … its own poverty problem … and to design a concerted … attack … with federal assistance.” Gordon visualized local government leading with the support of private groups in the community. While he “had his doubts” whether this would work, he saw no better alternative. He thought the cities should use the first year exclusively for organizing and planning, holding back action until they knew what they wanted to do.

  Budget and the Council, as James L. Sundquist put it, discovered community action “suddenly, fortuitously, and almost too late.” One of its attractions was that it seemed simple but, in fact, was complicated. According to Peter Marris, it came in “three distinct and conflicting” strategies. The Ford Foundation projects were based on coordinated planning and worked through established institutions—local governments, the school system, and social agencies. This took time and required one to butt his head against local bureaucracies. Mobilization for Youth bypassed the town “power structure” to organize the poor themselves to assert their own interests. But institutions with power would not cede it without a battle. The Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime planned so comprehensively that it seemed to take forever to reach the action phase.

  Cannon, nevertheless, patched together a memorandum with assistance from Capron and Hackett on December 14, 1963, proposing
“a comprehensive community action program.” Heller, Gordon, and Sorensen approved it and it was inserted into a sheaf of documents that would accompany the President to his ranch over the Christmas holiday. When Heller and Gordon got to Texas, Johnson greeted them with the news that he would not accept community action. By the next day, however, they had persuaded him to change his mind. According to his autobiography, he was now enthusiastic about community action and was recounting his own similar experiences with the Texas National Youth Administration in the thirties.

  Johnson sat Heller, Gordon, Bill Moyers, and Jack Valenti down at the kitchen table in the guest house and ordered them to draft a program. The President said that there were not enough demonstration project cities and that he could not get a limited program through Congress. “It had to be big and bold and hit the whole nation with real impact.” He ordered Gordon to double the budget.

  Johnson wanted a fitting title. Since he wished “to rally the nation, to sound a call to arms which would stir people,” he liked “The War on Poverty.” But Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, the president of Notre Dame, told him that “it’s just a terrible title. … You’re looking down at people and calling them poor.” Johnson called a meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House of “his most trusted advisers,” including Fortas, Clifford, several cabinet members, Larry O’Brien, and the author of the account, Gordon. This “high-powered talent” devoted “an interminable amount of time thinking up euphemisms for … poverty.” That word was poison because it would offend the poor and would make the rich U.S. look bad abroad by admitting that it had a poverty problem. Since everything else sounded silly, they stuck with the War on Poverty.