Since Lyndon Johnson declared his war on
poverty in 1964, the program has stirred a steady drumfire of criticism
that amounts to a war within a war.
Last week some of the stoutest supporters of the antipoverty campaign
engaged in a corrosive crossfire that could only further damage the
Administration's prospects of getting its preshrunk, $2.06 billion
request for the program through a critical Congress. New York's Senator Robert F. Kennedy opened the exchange in Manhattan
with a withering attack on welfare as a system that “broke down 30
years ago” and is no longer of any real use in the fight to erase
poverty. “We have created a welfare system which aids only a fourth of
those who are poor, which forces men to leave their families so that
public assistance can be obtained, which has created a dependence on
their fellow citizens that is degrading and distasteful to giver and
receiver alike,” said Bobby. “We have created a system of handouts, a
second-rate set of social services which damages and demeans its
recipients and destroys any semblance of human dignity that they have
managed to retain through their adversity.” Unless the U.S. achieves “a
virtual revolution in the organization of our social services,” he
warned, “the result could be the ripping asunder of the already thin
fabric of American life.” Intemperate Reaction. In voicing such criticism, and in repeating it
during a two-day hearing held in Manhattan by Pennsylvania Democrat
Joseph Clark's Senate poverty subcommittee, Kennedy was only echoing
objections that have been raised frequently in recent years. Even so,
as New York's Republican Senator Jacob Javits, another member of
Clark's subcommittee, pointed out, such scattershot attacks are bound
to hearten those who want to gut the whole antipoverty program. Thus, when New York City Welfare Commissioner Mitchell I. Ginsberg
emphatically endorsed Kennedy's position by telling the subcommittee
that the present welfare system should be “thrown out,” Javits retorted
angrily: “You'd better not be in too much of a hurry to talk that way,
or you may get it thrown out right now. There are many in Congress who
want just that.” New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller seconded
Javits. “It's easy to criticize,” he said of Bobby. “But Congress sets
the standards. Why doesn't he suggest some new legislation?” In reply,
Bobby loftily declared that he “regretted the Governor's intemperate
reaction.” Disease v. Cure. It was by no means the only strong reaction. In
Washington, Lyndon Johnson took advantage of an address before 400
officials of women's organizations to answer the critics of his
domestic programs—not only Bobby, but also Martin Luther King, as well
as conservatives who want to reduce spending. “To those who believe
that we are backing off, I say, no, we are staying for the long pull,”
said the President. As proof, he noted that the amount of federal funds
helping the poor through all social programs now totals $22 billion,
nearly 21 times the 1960 sum.
