Three million dollars a year would permit the Commissioner of Education to do a lot of surveying and administering. There is also a proviso in this section that Such allocations shall be made by joint agreement between the Commissioner and the chief State educational authority. And then follows, under subparagraph (b) this: The Commissioner shall, so far as feasible, lend such advice and counsel as the States may request in working out legislative or administrative plans for expenditure of funds. * * * Everyone knows that the man who controls the money sits at the head of the table, and that control of an average for each State of $60,000 per year in this one item alone, to say nothing of the $120,000 previously referred to, would be a powerful argument in support of the ideas of the Commissioner. Then we find under "Reporting," section 12: The Commissioner shall publish annually a full and complete report showing accurately the status of education in the United States. And then follows the further statement that * * Each such report shall include an analysis and summary of the legislative and administrative provisions adopted by each State * and also statistical information showing the degree to which each of the States has accomplished the improvement and equalization of educational opportunity in comparison with previous years. * * * In this and in many other similar provisos previously mentioned, the Commissioner of Education, through reports, control of funds, advice, and expenditure of money, and in tenure of office of the employees of State boards of education that must depend more or less upon Federal money for positions, the Commissioner has the power to more or less regiment the schools of all States in regard to the improvement of those schools, textbooks, teachers, and curricula. As to further showing the power that will be in the Office of the Commissioner, we find under "Miscellaneous," section 13 (a) this— The Commissioner, subject to the approval of the Federal Security Administrator, is authorized to make such rules and regulations, not in conflict with the provisions of this act, as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this act. In a very large way the Commissioner of Education will be his own authority when deciding whether the rules or regulations he promulgated are in conflict with the provisions of this act. Of course, the Federal Security Administrator may disapprove of what the Commissioner proposes and an appeal to Congress or the courts might change other things. Likewise, it may be said that similar authority is exercised by many heads of departments, so such authority does not sound unusual, but this bill is a "general" financial-aid-to-education bill, or as many consider it, a Federal-control-of-education bill in which there are no precedents to go on and where general rules and regulations must be built up affecting all the children of the Nation. There is no suggestion in these remarks that the present Commissioner of Education would try to seize control or carry out political propaganda, but we submit that the power to do so would be there and that such power should not be made possible for any individual to wield. UNIFORM TAX PLAN FOR ALL STATES This bill, as before stated, has been shortened and polished very much since S. 1305 was written and introduced in the Senate in February 1940, but it is the same old bill in nearly all essentials. S. 1305 set forth in large detail first how the Commissioner of Education with the Secretary of the Treasury and others should estimate the ability of the States to provide proper educational facilities in accordance with a "uniform tax plan" to be worked out, taking into account not only the property taxed now in each State, but to include all other items which "revenue experts" may decide as taxable, such as estimated resources in oil, coal, timber, agriculture, and so forth, not forgetting the number of automobiles in each State. The present bill, S. 1313, provides that this shall be done by a Board composed of not more than two permanent employees of the Federal Government probably from the Commissioner's office, and three part-time appointees who shall develop a "uniform tax plan" to take into consideration the various possibilities of producing revenue in each State according to this uniform plan of taxation and then to decide what States are entitled to Federal aid and to how much under the bill. This would probably upset the tax program of many States. For instance Mississippi exempts $5,000 or a 160-acre farm from all school taxes. This takes away all local control of taxable property so far as ability to get Federal money for schools is concerned. Now, we come to a dangerous "class legislation" feature The Congress of the United States, during the last session, passed the Hatch Act which provided in general terms that no Federal employee, outside of certain exempted ones who are elected to Congress and the like, should take an active part in any political campaign. But under this bill, S. 1313, all teachers in every State who receive "any financial benefit" would be protected in any and all kinds of political activity-possibly even that of teaching and practicing Marxian communism. I refer to "(b)" under "Miscellaneous," section 13, which reads No political or civil rights or activities of any teacher or school administrators shall be restricted or affected in any way because of any financial benefit accruing to such teacher or administrator from funds appropriated pursuant to this Act. References have been made heretofore to political activities of the National Education Association, and we again call attention to the report of the executive secretary of the National Education Association for the year 1937 (p. 946) wherein he states During the latter half of the year the major part of the director's time (this refers to Mr. Howard Dawson, director of rural education of the N. E. A.) has been devoted to carrying on the work of the legislative commission of the N. E. A. in behalf of the Harrison-Black-Fletcher bill. Activities of the director in behalf of this bill are as follows: Conducted negotiations for sponsorshp and introduction of the bill in both Houses; through executive secretaries of State education associations and State chairmen of the legislative commission arranged for controlling candidates for Congress, for the United States Senate, and for Governor in a majority of the States. This clause certainly, if enacted into law, would encourage teachers to engage in any kind of propaganda and political activity that they should see fit to engage in. The exemption in this proviso is so bad that we do not believe those who wrote it could have understood the possibilities contained therein. As I say, I am in utmost sympathy with the Hatch Act as it applies to the civil-service employees or to an Army officer on active duty. This, however, would exempt from the Hatch Act, school teachers and professors and permit them to indulge in any political or other activities that they desired, even if they were receiving only a small part of their compensation from this bill and if there were State laws against political or radical activities, you would have a conflict between the State law and the national law. The CHAIRMAN. General, your point is, if I understand you correctly, that this provision in S. 1313 would exempt the teacher from the provision of the Hatch Act? General FRIES. That is what I understand. The CHAIRMAN. That is what you are taking it to mean? The CHAIRMAN. Now, does the Hatch Act cover such things as school elections in local communities? General FRIES. I do not think so, but this proviso in S. 1313 is very broad. It says "no political or civil rights or activities." It is as broad as I think you can make it. It says none of the political or civil rights or activities— of any teacher or school administrator shall be restricted or affected in any way because of any financial benefit accruing to such teacher or administrator. The CHAIRMAN. You think that the teacher should be restricted as the employees of the Federal Government are restricted under the Hatch Act? General FRIES. Yes. They are public employees paid from public funds. The CHAIRMAN. I think I get your point. General FRIES. The same as all the rest of those in the Government services. They are public servants to the extent that they are carrying out the will of the people, or should be, and receive their money from them. I do not see why the teachers should be exempted from that any more than anyone else. As a final word, if this bill were really intended to meet "emergencies" and "exigencies" as stated in the beginning, it would contain some such statement as the "appropriations shall be made from year to year and only when and where emergencies are shown to exist." But, as before stated, no place is specified in any of these bills where 'emergencies" or "exigencies" now make an appropriation necessary. As we have said at other times there may be places where Federal aid is needed, but if so, that need should be submitted to Congress the same as the need for building dams for flood control or water power, for irrigation, for rivers and harbors or for public buildings. Then when the need is demonstrated to the satisfaction of Congress, Congress could appropriate for the specific locality and specific need exactly as it does in the other cases just referred to. The American Nation has grown in arts, science, literature and manufacturing and development along every line far in excess of any Nation in history with the public schools under the control of local school boards, the majority of which, in the 150 years since the Constitution was adopted, have been small school districts although later extended to counties and cities, and now in many cases, to the entire State. Even the centralization of education inside the States is being objected to as being too great a regimentation of the thinking of children. The American school system has grown great because of the deep interest of the parents and taxpayers whose children and neighbors children attended those schools. Whenever the parents' interest is lost, the great independence and democratic spirit of the American people, as developed in the past, will vanish and the Nation eventually go into some system of national control of education with the certainty that it will be used as a great propaganda agency which in the hands of the wrong person might well destroy the Republic of the United States as we know it and love it. In conclusion, a very great effort was made in the National Education Association's legislative committee when drafting this bill to avoid the criticism that was leveled at S. 1305 where the Commissioner of Education could influence greatly the allotting of money. This bill, S. 1313, changed the allotting of money to a board where the two dominant members on that board can be, and probably would be, from the Commissioner's office, or certainly from the office of the Federal Security Administrator. The difference, if any, in making allotments, is one of theory and not of fact. The adopting of a uniform tax plan for Federal aid to schools would be a long step toward Federal control of all taxation, itself a dangerous trend. But these are minor considerations. The grave danger is full Federal control of all education in the United States by a political appointee. Senator ELLENDER. General, do you know of any State that permits public funds to be used to pay school teachers in parochial schools? You mentioned Catholics in particular. General FRIES. There have been cases, and there are cases now. I think Iowa has one where the parochial-school teachers get some help. I can furnish you information on several of those cases. Senator ELLENDER. I think the information was produced here when we had hearings last year, or the year before, that all State constitutions specifically prevented the use of public funds to pay for teachers in parochial schools and in private schools. General FRIES. Yes; there are such constitutional provisions in nearly all States, but that does not have any effect in preventing the diversion or the attempt to divert in a growing number of cases. That is the trouble. Practically all the State constitutions have provisos which, when I read them, I think would make it absolutely certain that they cannot divert the money, and yet legislatures are passing laws every year, perhaps one or two, providing that free bus transportation shall be furnished, or schoolbooks. There is a case here in Mississippi about the schoolbooks now going into the courts. Senator ELLENDER. That is for schoolbooks to be furnished to the children, not to the schools. General FRIES. Yes, sir. Senator ELLENDER. The supreme court so held-it made that distinction. What I had particular reference to was to maintain the teaching staff. General FRIES. Well, there is the case in Missouri where they really combined the parochial school and another school and called it a public school, and where they paid the Catholic Sisters, whatever they were called, and those Sisters conducted the school. They had prayers that were prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church, and so forth, and there I think the court finally held that that was absolutely thrown out by the constitution. But those things are happening all over the country. Now, New York State finally passed a constitutional amendment permitting that diversion of money. There has been a constitutional amendment proposed recently in Čalifornia. I do not think it will get anywhere, but there are perhaps five or six controversies now going on throughout the United States in that same connection exactly. But to go back to inequalities in education, we might say that you cannot absolutely reduce inequalities of educational opportunities, because if you consider the proposition that certain boys and girls, even in the same family, cannot have the same amount of education, then you are faced with that situation, but inequalities of educational opportunities depend more, I think, on the individual than they do on the schools. My experience and I attended for my first 7 years a one-room wooden country school where they heated the school in that northwest part of Missouri with a wood-burning stove, and I think the children there learned as well or better than in a great many of the schools right in the District of Columbia today, with the little facilities they had. It is more in the teaching than it is in the surroundings. Now, in this same connection it says "local school jurisdictions." Of course, where they have the parochial schools or the Lutheran schools they have a local school jurisdiction. Now, in this bill there is $9,000,000 available to the Commissioner of Education, for him to handle as he sees fit, with just very slight limitations. There is $6,000,000 provided under section 4, which comes from the statement "not to exceed 2 percent of such amount of appropriation shall be used for the expenses of the State department of education"—that is, it will be allotted to the various State departments of education in the States to run them-that is, to pay this permanent personnel that I spoke of awhile ago. If you take 50 States and Territories-that amounts to $120,000 a year. Then, added to that is another $3,000,000. That is under section 11 (a), a separate appropriation for administration and research. As the bill reads, this 1 percent is to be appropriated in addition to the $300,000,000. It reads: * * * for each fiscal year an amount equal to 1 per centum of the total amount authorized to be appropriated for each fiscal year under the provisions of section 3 of this Act And for the making of necessary surveys and other studies in connection with the best utilization of the grants to the States authorized. That would be $3,000,000 to the office of the Commissioner of Education to carry surveys and to allow for research as he felt necessary. That makes a total of $9,000,000 directly under the Commissioner, which is money, even today. The CHAIRMAN. You mean by that, that the bill actually authorizes the appropriation of $309,000,000? General FRIES. No, sir. The $6,000,000, 2 percent of whatever is appropriated, while the 1 percent-that is, 1 percent of the total ap |