School Lunch Politics (44 page)

42. Senate Select Committee, Part 5A, 1770.

43. Ibid., Part 5A, 1771.

44. United States Congress, House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Hearings, to amend the District of Columbia Public School Food Services Act,
90th Cong., 2nd Sess., July 19, 1968 (hereafter, House Subcommittee on D.C.), 8.

45. Ibid., 30.

46. House Committee on Education and Labor, 1968, p. 352.

47. Senate Agriculture Committee, 1969, p. 185.

48. Senate Agriculture Subcommittee, 1962, p. 18. Senate, Agriculture Committee, 1969, p. 78–79; United States Congress, House Select Committee on Education, Committee on Education and Labor,
Hearings, National School Lunch Act,
89th Cong., 2nd Sess., July 21, 1966 (hereafter, House Select Committee, 1966), 6. Where, for example, in 1949 the federal contribution to the program totaled about 30% of the food expenses, by 1960 only 22% of the program expenses came from federal sources.

49. Committee on School Lunch Participation,
Their Daily Bread,
chart on pages 38–39.

50. “Fall in Surpluses Hits Pupil Lunches,” NYT, May 16, 1952. Also Senate Agriculture Committee, 1969, p. 223. Also see testimony of Howard Davis, Senate Agriculture Subcommittee, 1962, p. 11–12; and Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966, 14–16. As late as 1980 children's fees accounted for 32% of the total NSLP budget, while state and local contributions only accounted for 20%. Paarlberg,
Farm and Food Policy,
104.

51. Between 1947 and 1960 the number of children served increased from 7 to 14 million, and the number of schools participating increased from 34,000 to 64,000. Accurate statistics on the National School Lunch Program are difficult to compile. Districts and states had widely differing measures of participation rates and different financial structures, so the reported numbers often are not comparable. I have used a variety of sources to estimate trends and approximate rates of participation and funding. Paarlberg,
American Farm Policy,
278; Senate Agriculture Subcommittee, 1962, 18; Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966, p. 12; House Select Committee, 1966, 6; and Mayer, Final Report, White House Conference 260–63.

52. The Georgia Attorney General ruled in 1932 that state funds could not be used to support school lunches. See Josephine Martin to William F. Griffeth, March 1,1967, Richard Russell Collection, Series IX B Box 10, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens. Also see Committee on School Lunch Participation,
Their Daily Bread,
38–39.

53. Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966, pp. 13–14.

54. Senate Agriculture Subcommittee, 1962, p. 25. The report noted that some areas ran lunch programs outside the federal program. Cleveland, for example, ran its own lunch program in 34 out of its 130 elementary schools.

55. Gilbert Y. Steiner,
The Children's Cause
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1976), 181.

56. Committee on School Lunch Participation,
Their Daily Bread,
42, also 79.

57. Senate Select Committee, Part 11, p. 3512.

58. “School Lunches Aid 14 Million Children,” NYT, December 27, 1961.

59. House Select Committee, 1966, p. 6. The report estimated that at least nine million children nationwide attended schools with no food service at all.

60. Ibid.

61. Committee on School Lunch Participation,
Their Daily Bread,
114.

62.
Ibid.,
117.

C
HAPTER
6. N
O
F
REE
L
UNCH

1. Department of Agriculture Administrative History, ch. 4, “Growing Nations and a World without Hunger,” p. 3, LBJ Library. Most notable were school lunch programs in Japan.

2. United States Congress, Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, 90th Cong., 1st and 2nd Sess., 1968–69 (hereafter Senate Select Committee), Part 1, “Problems and Prospects,” December 17–19, 1968, p. 161.

3. Carl Brauer, “Kennedy, Johnson, and the War on Poverty,”
Journal of American History
69, no. 1 (January 1982): 98–119, 101; and Nicholas Leamann,
The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America
(New York: Vintage Books, 1991).

4. See, e.g., Peter K. Eisinger,
Toward an End to Hunger in America
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), 12.

5. Orville Freeman, “Malthus, Marx, and the North American Bread Basket,” in Vernon W. Ruttan, Arlen D. Waldo, and James P. Houck, eds.,
Agricultural Policy in an Affluent Society: An Introduction to a Current Issue of Public Policy
(New York: Norton, 1969), 282. The article originally appeared in the July 1967 issue of
Foreign Affairs.

6. See, e.g., Earl O. Heady, “Consumer Gains and Nutrition under Agriculture Policy of the United States,” in Donald S. McLaren, ed.,
Nutrition in the Community: A Critical Look at Nutrition Policy, Planning, and Programmes,
2nd ed. (Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 1983), 208.

7. Orville L. Freeman, “Malthus, Marx, and the North American Breadbasket,” 291.

8. Memorandum for the President from Richard W. Reuter, July 27, 1965, EX HE 1–1, HE2, Food and Nutrition, White House Central Files, Box 13, LBJ Library.

9. United States Congress, House Committee on Education and Labor,
Hearings on Malnutrition and Federal Food Service Programs,
90th Cong., 2nd Sess., May 21–June 3, 1968 (hereafter, House Committee on Education and Labor 1968), 212.

10. “Severe Hunger Found in Mississippi,”
New York Times
(hereafter, NYT) June 17, 1967.

11. “Physician Tells of Malnutrition among Carolina Negro Children,” NYT November 10, 1967.

12. United States Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare,
Hearings, to Establish a Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs,
90th Cong., 2nd Sess., May 23–June 13, 1968 (hereafter, Senate Employment Subcommittee), 109.

13. Senate Select Committee, Part 11, July 9–11, 1969, p. 3571.

14. Alvin L. Schorr, note to Mr. Califano and attachment, “Effects of Malnutrition on Physical and Mental Growth,” November 30, 1967, p. 3, 1968 Interagency Task Force on Nutrition and Adequate Diets, LBJ Library.

15. Michael Harrington,
The Other America: Poverty in the United States
(New York: Macmillan, 1962), and Dwight MacDonald, “Our Invisible Poor,”
The New Yorker
38/48 (January 19, 1963), 82–132.

16. On the War on Poverty, see James T. Patterson,
Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); John Morton Blum,
Years of Discord: American Politics and Society, 1961–1974
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991); and William H. Chafe,
The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

17. Dan Olson, “Remembering Orville Freeman,” National Public Radio, February 21, 2003,
http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/02/01
.

18. See James N. Giglio, “New Frontier Agricultural Policy: The Commodity Side, 1961–1963,”
Agricultural History
61 no. 3 (Summer 1987): 53–70.

19. United States Congress, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry,
Hearings, School Milk and Breakfast Programs,
89th Cong., 2nd Sess., June 21, 1966 (hereafter, Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966), 17.

20. “Legislation with Civil Rights Implications,” 11; Legislative Proposals, December 8, 1965, Office Files of Harry McPherson, Civil Rights—1965, Box 21, LBJ Library.

21. Senate Hearings, Agriculture Committee, 1966, p. 17.

22. “Legislation with Civil Rights Implications,” 11, Legislative Proposals, December 8, 1965, Office Files of Harry McPherson. This report admitted, “There appears to exist an unfortunate correlation between the presence of large numbers of abysmally low income families and grossly inadequate statewide welfare services. Thus, in the States of the South in which Negro poverty is most concentrated, the kinds of programs available for assistance are much more restricted than in other States” (10).

23. Memorandum for Orville Freedman from Harry C. McPherson, Jr., September 28, 1965, Box 21, Office Files of Harry McPherson.

24. House Committee on Education and Labor, 1968, p. 311.

25. The school lunch funds came from Title 1 of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary School Act.

26. Memorandum, Phillip Hughes to Mr. Califano, December 10, 1965, WHCF EX LE/HE, 1–1, Box 59, LBJ Library.

27. Legislative Proposals, December 8, 1965, V. Legislation with Civil Rights Implications, Box 21, Office Files of Harry McPherson.

28. Senate Select Committee, Part 1, December 17–19, 1968, p. 48. Also see “Legislation with Civil Rights Implications,” Legislative Proposals, December 8, 1965, p. 10, Office Files of Harry McPherson. This memo proposed that the school lunch and school milk programs “be removed to the Welfare Administration.”

29. Maurice MacDonald,
Food Stamps and Income Maintenance
(New York: Academic Press, 1977); Leamann,
Promised Land;
and Brauer, “Kennedy, Johnson and the War on Poverty.”

30. Committee on School Lunch Participation,
Their Daily Bread
(Atlanta, Ga.: McNelley-Rudd, 1968), 89–91.

31. Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966, p. 23.

32. Ibid., 1966, p. 10.

33. John A. Schnittker to Joseph Califano, Jr., November 19, 1965, LBJ Library, WHCF EX LE/HE 1–1, Box 59. Also see memo from Phillip Hughes to Califano, “Child Feeding Programs,” December 10, 1965. Hughes recommends leaving school lunches in the Department of Agriculture.

34. Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966, p. 11.

35. United States Congress, Senate Subcommittee on Agriculture and Forestry,
Hearings, National School Lunch Act,
87th Cong., 2nd Sess., June 19,1962 (hereafter, Senate Agriculture Committee, 1962), 12. While the program amendments directly addressed domestic poverty, much of the senators' attention went to a provision that would extend the program to American Samoa. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands were already covered, but American Samoa had been left out of the original legislation. Some senators opposed sending food aid to Puerto Rico. North Carolina's Everett Jordan said that “they cannot even speak English.” He thought that “if they are going to receive aid from the United States, they ought to be able to speak English and say, ‘I would like to have a little bread,' instead of calling it something other than bread” (31).

36. Senate Agriculture Committee, 1966, p. 17.

37. Ibid., 1966, p. 18–19.

38. Administrative History, Department of Agriculture, vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 61, LBJ Library.

39. Memo from John A. Schnittker to Harry McPherson, November 16, 1966, Papers of Harry McPherson, Box 50, Folder: Joe Califano, LBJ Library.

40. Senate Agriculture Subcommittee, 1962, p. 23; memorandum to the President from Orville Freeman, November 5, 1965. Freeman admits that “many schools, especially older ones in many urban centers cannot meet the needs for free lunches, when up to 50 percent of the pupils may be unable to pay their share.” White House Central Files, EX AG 7, AG 7–2, School Lunch Program, Box 10, LBJ Library.

41. “Position of the American School Food Service Association on the Proposed Repeal of Existing Child Nutrition Legislation,” n.d. (probably October 4, 1975), Washington, D.C., Office, Box 285, Children—Nutrition, 1975–76, National Council of Jewish Women Papers, Library of Congress.

42. House Subcommittee on D.C., p. 8. Washington, D.C., school cafeteria wages were below the national norm and below minimum wage (31).

43. Committee on School Lunch Participation,
Their Daily Bread,
49.

44. Ibid., 449–50.

45. Ibid.

46. See, e.g., Robert C. Lieberman,
Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State
(Cambridge, Mass.: Havard University Press, 1998), 161 and 167–68; and Sheldon Danziger, “Welfare Reform Policy From Nixon to Clinton: What Role for Social Science?” paper prepared for conference, “The Social Sciences and Policy Making,” Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, March 13–14, 1998.

47. See Gordon W. Gunderson, “The National School Lunch Program Background and Development,” Food and Nutrition Service, 63, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1971.

48. Senate Employment Subcommittee, 1968, p. 70.

49. See Brauer, “Kennedy, Johnson”; Lieberman,
Shifting the Color Line;
Alex Waddan,
The Politics ofSocial Welfare: The Collapse ofthe Centre and the Rise of the Right
(Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1977). He argues that the War on Poverty was not, in fact, a war on inequality (55).

50. Senate Select Committee, Part 4, February 18–20, 1969, p. 1246.

51. Senate Employment Subcommittee, 1968, p. 213.

52. United States Congress, House Select Subcommittee on Education, Committee on Education and Labor,
Hearings to Amend the National School Lunch
Act, 89th Cong., 2nd Sess., July 28, 1968 (hereafter, House Subcommittee on Education, 1968), 8.

53. Senate Employment Subcommittee, 1968, p. 213.

54. United States Congress, House Subcommittee on the District of Columbia,
Hearings to Amend the District ofColumbia Public School Food Service Act,
90th Cong., 2nd Sess., July 19, 1968 (hereafter, House Subcommittee on D.C.), 8.

55. Senate Select Committee, Part 11, July 9–11, 1969, p. 3413. See also Lee G. Burchinal and Hilda Schiff, “Rural Poverty,” in Louis A. Ferman, Joyce L. Kornbluh, Alan Harber, eds.,
Poverty in America: A Book of Readings
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965), 104. “To some extent, poverty is a relative concept, reflecting societal standards of living. Shades of gray obscure any fine line between being ‘really poor,' being ‘deprived,' or simply being less well off than most. Still, there are absolute limits below which it is difficult or impossible to maintain or foster human health, growth, and dignity.”