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it would take 1 15, 40 Smathers We present at this time an informal discussion with Senator George Smathers from the nation's capital. Now, here is the first question Senator, I think is our audience can see you're looking pretty shipshape. But just how do you feel since you've come back?

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Well, I feel, I think. All right, Bob, The reports were not too bad for a man of my advancing years. And I hope that things stay in shape. Well, Senator, you came back to quite a lot of problems, very bringing problems first. What about this Selma situation?

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Well, of course, the Selma situation was very unfortunate. It would have been so much better if it seems to me had the governor of Alabama. I've said to the civil rights marches, Of course you can march. All you have to do is not blocked highways. I had I been the governor, and as a matter of fact, Farris Bryant, when he was governor, did very much the same thing said, Sure, you can do this and you're going to have police protection if you want to walk from Selma to Montgomery.

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Fine. If you want to walk in from Montgomery to Birmingham. That'll be fine, too. You have a right to walk on the highways of this nation and just let them walk. In that event, it would have been some respects to pull the teeth of those who wanted to start an altercation.

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And when Wallace and the sheriff there began to fight with them, that's exactly what some of them wanted, because that way they build up in flame, the sensibilities of the whole nation, and then they want to pass additional laws which aren't necessarily needed. But this is what happens.

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I'm hopeful that, and it appears now that the reason and better leadership were taking over on both sides. And as a matter of fact, Dr King in some respects, has a hard time controlling some of the more inflammatory people in his group. And so the point is to try to keep the sensible people in charge.

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Well, basically, this is an effort to try and force the Congress and taking some civil rights legislation question about it. It's an effort to force the president's hand with respect to the intervention of federal troops, and it's an effort to bring about additional legislation even over and above the civil rights bill, which we passed last year, Uh, an effort to pass even more.

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Now, the fact the matter is that we don't need it all that would have to happen if the attorney general's office, the United States attorney. I used to be one of those, and I understand it. All they have to do is to file an indictment against some of these registrars and convict some of them for not letting people register and vote, and you'd solve the problem just that simple.

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And it can be done simply, but they would prefer to do it the hard way because it gets much more publicity That way, Senator, most of the Florida delegation is getting a lot of male relative to worries they're having about harvesting the Citrus crop and the vegetable crop and so forth.

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Are you able to do anything about this migrant labor problem? This is a real problem. We we have not yet been what you would call very successful. We have gotten upwards of 300 offshore laborers to help us with our crops, but the fact that matter is that we don't have enough the fact that matter is that Secretary of Labor Words talks about that he has.

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There's there is an over abundance of agricultural workers up in Tennessee and Kentucky and around, and we bring them down there, as a matter of fact, but they don't want to work. These are the people who in many respects are growing welfare checks, and they'd rather continue to draw those.

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Well, Fred checks and they come down there and pick grapefruit or potatoes or whatever it is with the result that while his statistics show that there is an abundance, an over abundance of labor, nevertheless, it's labor that will not work. Therefore, are Citrus people are fresh fruit and vegetable.

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People are suffering because we can't get this problem solved now. Eventually, we're going to have to have this solved by the president of the United States, which was what we had to do two years ago. And finally, President Kennedy overrode, uh, works and his own brother, who was in the Attorney General on this matter and gave us, uh, men to work.

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No. Is there any possibility of a change of the stopping of this so called Brazil? A law which We don't believe that we'll be able to change the law. I think what we're going to have to do is to have the president of the United States say this is an emergent situation.

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The law provides for an emergency and that we need these additional labors in order to harvest the crops in Florida and elsewhere. Thank you very much. Senator Smathers Senators matters from time to time You've reported to the people of Florida on what's going on to help the elderly.

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Now, have you introduced any new bills recently that we haven't discussed in detail? Well, yes. As you know, I've already introduced three bills that are specifically calculated to be of benefit to the elderly citizen. Now, recently, I've introduced a bill which would provide the one that's most interesting, which would provide that Social Security beneficiary that is the wife of a Social Security beneficiary when she's left as a as a widow that she can still draw the full amount of her husband's Social Security.

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Of course, what unfortunately has resulted in some few instances is that when the head of the household a designation which is the man when he passes away then the balance of the money the money that usually goes to the surviving spouse is not quite as much.

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So we find that surviving spouses, in order to keep that additional amount of money, will become enchanted with will say, a a widower. And in order to keep the money, the maximum amount of money coming to both of them, they just sort of move in together and share an apartment and all that sort of thing, and they don't do it with benefit of clergy.

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But they do it at a great benefit to themselves. Financially, we don't want to encourage this sort of thing in any event. So we think the better way to handle it is to make it permissible at the surviving widow that she can maintain the status of the head of household and thereby yet, and the amount of the full amount of money which your husband was originally getting that way.

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If then, if she decides that she likes somebody and go ahead and get married, so that's that's one of the bills the other bill was had to do with mhm. Uh, all right, cut it. Yeah, I forget what they are. The second bill, of course, has to do with the trying to eliminate some of the discrimination against the aged in with respect to employment.

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We had the so called civil rights bill up last year and passed it. I offered an amendment at that time that would be illegal, to discriminate against a person with respect to employment because of their age, because the facts of the matter and on controverted statistics show.

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And if a fella gets to be about 42 or 43 years old or a woman gets to be that all, she has a very difficult time getting a new job. And there are several reasons for it. And the private companies they've already got a pension programs set up, which is actually figured on a person working there, will say, for 25 or 30 years and making X numbers of dollars in contributions and so on, so that when they retire, they have at least contributed 20 or 30% to their own retirement fund.

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Whereas if they hire somebody who's 45 or 50 who still got 10 years to go or 15 years ago or even longer to go it sort of messes them up on their pension program and with the result that we're finding in the areas of unemployment with respect to age groups, that it's really not those who are very young because actually any young person who wants to work and get a job.

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But there are large numbers of middle aged people and upper middle aged people who would like very much to work who are very talented but who because of the system which we have now been adopted, they cannot any longer get a job. So I think that we've got to do something in order to stop this discrimination against people who are in their early forties are in their late forties or even in their fifties who have talent.

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But just because of a system of a pension program, they can't be hired. And actually, the government is one of the worst offenders not only the federal government, but city governments and state governments because they don't want to hire anybody in those middle brackets because it upsets their pension programs.

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So I think that we ought to had the law, which in some respects that and even let him ask him. You can't ask a man any longer in the civil rights bill what his religion is or what is colour is or what his background is. I don't know whether you ought to be able to ask him how old he is.

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Well, that age affects the insurance programs they have. The two doesn't exactly. It affects the insurance programs. And because of these other long range things, they don't want to hire them with the result that the greatest discrimination and we've seen a day that's actually occurring in these United States is the discrimination against the middle age and older people who no longer can get positions.

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Thank you, Senator Smathers. I return you now to your station announcer. Yeah.