Hunger in Seattle

The sky was slate gray. Snow, which had fallen a few nights before, had turned to slush. About 50 people, some with small children, waited patiently for more than an hour in front of a former supermarket at 23rd and Madison in Seattle's shabby central area. When the doors opened at 10 a.m., the people entered quickly and filled shopping carts with free surplus food--dry beans, scrambled-egg mix and a score of other items. Hundreds of other Seattle residents followed, collecting an allotment of 40 Ibs. per person. In less than a week, workers at the store distributed 125,000 Ibs. of food. Two weeks later, 220,000 lbs. of food had been given away.

Thus the first of three free-food distribution centers in the Seattle area opened just before the New Year; five more will be opened later. The food was supplied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after more than five months of pressure from Washington Senators Warren Magnuson and Henry ("Scoop") Jackson, who had urged that federal food surpluses be sent to Seattle to feed the city's hungry. People on welfare, those collecting Social Security benefits and most of the 30,500 who exhausted their unemployment benefits are eligible for free food under the new program.

Hunger became a problem in Seattle almost two years ago, when the city's economy began to falter because of the layoff of 63,000 workers at Boeing, Seattle's largest employer. An ailing forest-products industry added to the problem, and the result was an unemployment rate of about 12% at the start of 1972. Of the 1,400,000 people living in the three-county area in and around Seattle, 72,500 were out of work.

Until the Federal Government came tardily to the rescue, Seattle's jobless relied mainly on an impressive, volunteer, church and community effort called Neighbors in Need, started in November 1970 to mobilize Seattle's haves to aid its havenots. By December 1971, the group had given out nearly 500,000 bags of food, and its 1,500 volunteer workers had put in 400,000 man-hours feeding an average of 15,000 people per week. The food came from door-to-door collections and other individual donations. Washington farmers gave tons of apples, pears, potatoes and wheat; one package contained two live chickens.

Help from Kobe. The Seattle Totems professional hockey team collected 1,000 donations of food for Neighbors at one of its games. The Seattle SuperSonics professional basketball team drew 900 paying customers --at $1 a head--to a practice session. The proceeds, and food donated by another 600 fans in lieu of cash admissions, went to the Neighbors' hunger program. Help also came from Kobe, Japan, Seattle's "sister city," which had received shipments of food and supplies from Seattle residents after World War II. Last week Actress Katharine Cornell sent a $500 check.

When he told the Senate of the Japanese gifts, Magnuson declared: "I have never felt disgraced by my Government. But today I stand here on the floor of the greatest deliberative body in the world in total humiliation." Magnuson was angry because he, Jackson and others had repeatedly requested that surplus food in warehouses and granaries around the country be sent to Seattle. Agriculture and Administration officials, though sympathetic, thought that they were hamstrung by federal regulations.

Space Shuttle. But in November, the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs issued a report contending that the Agriculture Department was violating the intent of the laws by withholding the surplus food. A federal district court agreed. Three weeks later, Magnuson asked his fellow Senators to approve a resolution that would prevent the department from appealing the court decision; it passed. By mid-December, 4,000,000 Ibs. of surplus food --enough to feed 100,000 people for a month--began arriving in Seattle. The shipments will continue as long as needed.

Seattle will need more than free food. While much of the rest of the country is beginning to feel the end of the recession, and unemployment is leveling off in many areas, Seattle has not yet shared in this trend. Some 90,000 in the state may get 13 more weeks of aid through the Extension of Unemployment Benefits Act signed by President Nixon in December. Nixon's approval of the space-shuttle development project (TIME, Jan. 17) also could improve the city's employment outlook if Boeing gets a healthy portion of the contracts to be awarded this summer. The 38,000 workers still at Boeing were somewhat upset when the Pay Board rejected a proposed 12% pay increase for aerospace workers and then voted to limit the first year raise to 8.3%. Although some Boeing employees fired off protest letters and telegrams to the President, most admitted that they were happy they still had jobs to go to. In Seattle, that is all that matters.

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