In 1967 Congress allocated funding for the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but due to the Vietnam War, by 1969 they were looking to re-allocate budget from broadcasting to bullets. Fred Rogers was invited to speak, and had written up a “Philosophical Statement” which he had planned to read. However, he read the room, as Senator Pastore had complained that people were just reading their statements, and instead spoke from the heart.

You’ve likely seen a recording of this congressional appearance in documentaries about Fred, or elsewhere online. I have been looking for decades for the Philosophical Statement itself. I found it during COVID in the congressional archives. I really wanted to understand more about this pivotal moment for a foundational national network supporting local programming for, what was then, a new emerging technology.

As you read through Fred’s Philosophical Statement, imagine what it might look like for our neighbourhoods to have a rebooted remix of the concepts of PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but programs focused on the emerging technology of today while maintaining the heart and soul of Fred McFeely Roger’s. Together let’s Reboot The Neighborhood and Reboot Education for Public Access to programs beyond television on our local infrastructure, in our neighborhoods, classrooms, and businesses.

Mr. Gunn Hartford (Manager WBGH Boston) Now, Mr. Rogers is certainly one of the best things that has ever happened to public, and his Peabody Award can testify to that fact. We in public television are proud of Fred Rogers and I am proud to present Mr. Rogers to you now.
Senator Pastore. Alright Rogers, you've got the floor.
Mr. Rogers. Senator Pastore, this is a philisophical statement and will take about 10 minutes to read. So, I will not do that. One of the first things that a child learns in a healthy family in trust, and I trust that, what you have said, that you will read this. It is very important to me. I care deeply about children. My first childrens...
Senator Pastore.* Will it make you happy if you read it?
Mr. Rogers. I would just like to talk about it if that's alright...

Appendix A

Two seasons ago the Milwaukee station ran out of subscription funds and annonced on air that "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" would have to be discontinued. The station immediately recieved letters with donations : many postmarked from the core areas of town with pennised and nickels, pressed flowers and even a swatch of hair from a favorite toy dog ; all to help a friend contiuen visiting on television. Formal block parties were organized by groups of mothers, and when all the proceeds were finally counted, Milwaukee had raised $6300 -- enough for 63 more weeks of neighoborhood visits!

Appendix B

I would like to see the establishment of an Institute For Family Broadcasting headed by the people who have for the past nine years, as my program consultants, helped me to discover not only a fuller understanding of my own potential but a continuing and deepening respect for the positive strivings of children. Long term work in such an institute by program personnel from all networks could very well lead to significant changes within our industry. As creators of family programs work closely with children and their families, they will hopefully re-discover what the real drama of childhood is all about and be able to leave their own distortions behind. A government's suggestion for work in such an institute could never be considered censorship, it is merely appropriate educational training for highly important work.

Appendix C

I LIKE YOU AS YOU ARE

I like you as you are
Exactly and precisely I think you turned out nicely
And I like you as you are.

I like you as you are
Without a doubt or question
Or even a suggestion
Cause I like you as you are.

I like your disposition
Your facial composition
And with your kind permission
I'll shout it to a star.

I like you as you are
I wouldn't want to change you
Or even rearrange you, not by far.
I like you, "I" "L" "I" "K" "E" "Y" "O" "U"
I like you yes I do
I like you, "Y" "O" "U"
Like you, like you, as you are.

Everybody's Fancy

EVERYBODY'S FANCY Some are fancy on the outside,
Some are fancy on the inside,
Everybody's fancy.
Everybody's fine.
Your body's fancy and so is mine.

Boys are boys from the beginning.
Girls are girls right from the start.
Everybody's fancy.
Everybody's fine.
Your body is fancy and so is mine.

Only girls can be the mummies.
Only boys can be the daddies.
Everybody's fancy.
Everybody's fine.
Your body's fancy and so is mine.

I think you're special person
And I like your ins and outsides.
Everybody's fancy
Everybody's fine
Your body is fancy and so is mine.

Each person in the world is a unique human being, and each has unique human potential. One of the important tasks of growing up is the discovery of this uniqueness; the discovery of who I am in each of us — of who I am in relationship to all those whom I meet. It is the people, who first feed us, hold us, play with us, and talk with us who help us to begin to understand who we are and how we may become. A child’s very birth cries out for acceptance and care. Without these, he cannot survive.

Each one of us develops from one phase of growing to another; from lying still to turning over, from crawling and toddling, to walking and talking. Our emotional phases are just as well defined. These phases of human growth and development are processes no one of which can be skipped over. It is my understanding of the importance of these processes joined with my belief that man can begin to realize his own potential for constructive living which governs the creation and production of my children’s programming for public television.

Fifteen years ago, I helped launch this country’s first community television station in Pittsburgh. My first children’s program had a budget of $30. With the help of scores of volunteers, and some large but many small contributions, we have been able to keep our station serving as the community facility for which ist was intended. Now, with the support of National Education Television and the Sears Roebuck Foundation, as well as all the affiliated stations who carry our series, our daily program is seen by millions of children and now has a budget of close to $6000. From $30 to $6000 per program. But, in an industry in which $6000 buys less than 2 minutes of cartoons and $156k is budgeted for one Saturday morning show, audience expectations are high. It is still by the good graces of many gifted people who care, that our programs attain the kind of quality which affords them a Peabody Prize as well as the highest rating in a test city such as Boston (all commercial programs included).

A word of explanation about the present funding of our program : Any educational television station which desires it and can afford it subscribes to the NET children’s packages. This subscription costs $100 per week and NET in turn provides 45 minutes of children’s television each weekday. (Some stations have used part of their grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help pay for this subscription.) I believe this arrangement for funding is unique in public television, a network, a foundation as well as all participating stations support together what each separately feels is a valuable expression of care for children and their families. (See appendix A.) I hope to see more cooperative ventures such as our emanating from different stations throughout the country. With time and adequate funds, each station should have the chance to develop its own unique expression rather than being forced to spend the greatest percentage of its energies meeting its monthly payroll. Perhaps there is someone in Denver who communicates especially well with the elderly ; maybe someone in Hawaii who could produce and new interest for teenagers. There might be someone in Atlanta who could really relate to sports minded fans, and someone in Main who might bring poetry alive. Public television must find the means to discover, build and support it’s own personalities. Maybe there’s someone here in Washington who could help make Government procedures comprehensible to the layman — in a personal way.

Those of us who are already closely identified with educational television plus all the others who should grow with it will be the ones who can provide the real network of communication with the public ; a network of interpersonal relationships which treats the viewers with the dignity they deserve. In whatever we produce we must communicate the feeling that we really care about our audience. No matter whether we present a soap opera or an automobile repair show, whether we develop preschool instruction or teach flower arranging, our aim must be building of self-esteem and greater self-understanding in or viewers. It is our viewers who are the public. It is they who have invited us into t heir homes. If we can accept the invitation with mutual pleasure, then we should accept. If, on the other hand, we want only to superimpose our own unexplored prejudices upon our hosts, then we should regret.

It is no secret that commercial children’s television has reached an all time low. Unfortunately for our children’s sakes, this outlanding fare is being created by people who are obviously dipping into their own unresolved childhood fantasies and, without appropriate thought for their young audience or control for their own inner needs, they are spewing an unbelievable amounts of trash onto our children. At best most of these programs are a waste of time, at worst, some of them encourage pathology.

There are mild overtures of change, the Saturday morning syndrome is being analyzed once again. But these overtures come as a result of outside pressures, seldom as a result of deep conviction. Since people grow from within — and that right slowly — unless. Some long-range education is offered to everyone charged with producing children’s programming (no matter the network) there will be no permanent change. (See appendix B.) It is an utter emergency to think of the effects of television on our society. Television is consistently an intimate part of practically every family in which children are growing up all over this country. If we care about what our people are becoming, we cannot disregard it, because, as we are seeing, what is potentially a positive influence for self-realization can just as well be used destructively.

My chief identity is that of a man who has chosen to work with children. My aim in programming is to establish an atmosphere in which children can grow in a healthy way. Each week day on television I welcome and express my acceptance of the viewing child : exactly as he or she might be feeling. Although through television I cannot see the children, my meetings with them all over the country as well as our correspondence from them and their parents have made me acutely aware not only of their particular needs but m ore especially of their great diversity. There is diversity in family traditions and in colors of skin. There are boys and there are girls. Some are affluent and others much less so; nevertheless all have privations of some kind, and all have special fulfillments. Each one brings a unique variation to the general themes of childhood. Through original songs, clearly defined fantasy and very straightforward age-appropriate dialog, I encrourage the discovery that feelings about yourself and others are mentionable as well as manageable.

Along with such these as “I Like You As You Are” and “Everybody’s Fancy” (See appendix C) sometimes I sing:

What do you do with the mad that you feel?

What do you do with the mad that you feel
When you feel so mad you could bite?
When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong
And nothing you do seems very right?
What do you do?
Do you punch and pag?
Do you pound some clay or some dough?
Do you round up friends for a hame of tag
Or see how fast you go?
It's great to be able to stop
When you planned a thing that's wrong
And be able to do something else instead
And think this song :
I can stop when I want to
I can stop when I wish
Can stop, stop, stop any time
And what a good feeling to feel like this
And know that the feeling is really mine
Know that there's something deep inside
That helps us become what we can
For a girl can be some day a lady
And a boy can be some day a man.

That is all about “the good feeling of control” which each well person has. One of the aims of public television must be to help people recognize this good feeling and develop it from within. The commercial cartoon approach to the same issue seems to be : when you’re angry with someone, do away with him rather than trying to understand him : know him down, flatten him out, and you won’t have the problem any more. But, if you should feel too guilty about it, you just wish him back, he reappears and everything’s all right. Doesn’t this sound like what some of our young people are saying to us now : that solutions are pat and easy, that there is one answer and there shouldn’t be any problem finding it. Everyone in these halls knows that this is not so. The real world cannot obliterate its problems with one sweeping magic wand. It must deal with them one by one, using the control which is uniquely human to solve them. It is staggering yet wonderful to think of the creative energy which is going into various deliberations all through this building right at this very moment : and that’s what democracy is all about : people living together in mutual respect.

Television is an accessory of family education. Unless children are told otherwise, they believe that their parents condone everything that they see on television. Programming thus becomes an intimate part of the family tradition.

If programmers consistently present human life as something of little value ; the authority as someone to be feared ; the rich as people to steal from; and children as little adults whose main objective in life is to outwit their parents, then all this becomes part of our American family tradition.

I’m sure you are beginning to see why I feel that our job in public television is so crucial. We need the Government‘s support to produce and promote through every imaginable channel our country’s healthy tradition, a tradition of honest people interacting with each other in an honest way, a tradition that shows that two men struggling hard to work out their anger with each other is far more dramatic than gunfire, that peoples feelings are mentionable, and that each human being does have value: an amazing unique value with great potential for constructive living. I trust that you will find it possible to continue to encourage and support the work of public television.