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Show jnkins at the Poor Appalachia - - did it fail ? i By John Zeh ' College Press Service o "The Other America, the " America of poverty, is 1 hidden today in a way that t it never was before. -Mic- hael Harrington, 1962 1 WASHINGTON (CPS)-Eight veats ago John F. Kennedy ,1 tamed how poverty was hidden I Appalachia-campaigning I through the grimey mining towns, promising that with his , administration the federal government would help the vast l mountain region. The war on poverty he launched has poured nearly eight million dollars into the area encompassing parts of 12 states from southern New York to central Alabama. Appalachia came to symbolize the most pressing i'em on the nation's social agenda short of urban troubles. Visionary federal and private programs were seen as its hope. Uncompleted Trip John Kennedy had planned to return in December 1963 to gauge the effect of the poverty program's promises. He went to Coal mines have been either closed or mechanized. Men who knew no other work go jobless or, if lucky, are placed in government make-work projects that allow them barely to eke out an existence or train them for jobs that don't exist. 3 D's Disunity, delay and duplications are hampering efforts to help the war. Courthouse gangs hold the purse strings on federal money and attempt to run out the handful of dedicated people like the Appalachian Volunteers and VISTA workers who have helped restore hope to the people. The average adult has not completed the seventh grade. Three-fourths of the children who start school drop out before graduation. Low salaries cannot attract competent instructors. One-room schoolhouses still abound. Appalachia is a beautiful land rich in natural resources, -bttr ironically the area's beauty and wealth have contributed to its paralysis. Absentee mine owners extract the minerals and the profits. Forest land goes unrestored. Streams are polluted; rivers become torrents after rain erodes the earth scarred by strip-mining. Landslides imperil people living on the mountainsides. "The inventory of ravished earth is growing daily," says Caudill. Benefits in Appalachia Anyone who visits Appalachia now can see-or will be shown-the benefits of the private and public benevolence heaped on the area since 1960. New schools and highways are under construction or already in use. Efforts are being made to improve school systems. Medical facilities are more accessible. Food stamps allow the poor to purchase more food than their welfare checks would allow. The dropout rate has declined. But existing programs and visible benefits serve only to make the misery even more invisible. Mass hunger and violence are gone, but the peace that has been restored is an uneasy one. The rest of the nation has thus far failed to bring to "the other America" a decent share of the affluence it takes for granted. Dallas first, and the trip was never made. Last February, Robert Kennedy took up his late brother's task, tramping up the hollows of Eastern Kentucky to get a first-hand look at rural poverty. In the battered Fleming-Neon High School gym, he saw students hold , a banner reading "Don't give us any more promises. We can't eat 1 your failcy promises." That was the substance of what Kennedy learned from the whole tour. The nation's economic boom has in large measure passed Appalachia by. The culture of dependency on welfare is more firmly entrenched than ever, despite President Johnson's 1965 declaration that "the dole is dead." |