Of course, this problem is very much akin to the problem of providing public school facilities in defense areas, but many of the children residing on Government property are not necessarily in defense areas.

There are in normal times at least 25,000 children residing on Federal properties. The Advisory Committee on Education found that about 7,500 of these children in scattered areas now obtain education only through payment of tuition in public or private schools, or in schools maintained through the contributions of the Federal-employee communities.

It seems probable that at least $3,000,000 annually is required to take care of the educational facilities for children residing on Federal properties, exclusive of children in defense areas.

III. It has been known for a long time that there are several hundred thousand migratory workers engaged in seasonal occupations, chiefly the harvesting of agricultural products, that these workers have unusually large families, that these children are frequently exploited for their labor, and that their education is largely neglected. Recently, a great deal of attention has been given to the general problems of these migratory workers through the hearings conducted by the Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, House of Representatives. These hearings reveal that there are approximately 4,000,000 of these migrants, and that about one-third of them are children. The number of these children needing special provisions for educational facilities is not known, but the data collected by the select committee should give some idea as to the number involved. It is certain that there are several thousand children for whom special provision should be made and that local school districts do not, and in most cases cannot, make the provisions needed. Such a large part of the problem is interstate in character that it is evidently a problem for the Federal Government in cooperation with the States and local communities.

At least one thing is certain; the Nation cannot afford to neglect the education and welfare of a million or more children and permit many of them to grow up in a state of ignorance.

IV. The fourth current problem has to do with schools for Negroes. The facts concerning this problem have been previously read into the record. (See pp. 9 and 10.)

V. The need for Federal assistance to the States for the general equalization of elementary and secondary school opportunities may be briefly summarized under five points, on each of which testimony will be replete throughout this hearing:

(a) School and democracy: Schools and the means of public education are indispensable to a democratic government. Citizens of the States are none-theless citizens of the Nation. The public school is the only agency that can or will furnish adequate educational opportunity to all children of all the people. The Nation has a vital interest in the reduction and elimination of poverty, unemployment and relief, and the improvement of the general and cultural welfare of all inhabitants of the Nation. But none of these objectives is obtainable without public schools.

(b) Mobility of population: Nearly one-fourth of the native-born people of the United States do not now live in the State of their birth. Poor schools in any State, therefore, affect all the States.

(c) Differences of opportunity: The most appalling differences in educational opportunity exist among the States. Annual expenditures for schools range from an average of $19 per pupil in one State to $124 in another.

(d) Differences in ability and effort: The richest State is able to raise six times as much revenue per capita by taxation as the poorest State, but has less than half as many school children in proportion to adults. The poor States pay the highest taxes but have the least funds for schools.

(e) Federal versus State taxes: Recent developments in corporate ownership and control of industry and finance and the national character of wealth, income, and business have made it impossible for States to tax the greatest potential sources of revenue. Only the Federal Government can tax wealth and income where they are and spend the money where the children live.

FEDERAL AID IS CONSTITUTIONAL

Federal aid for education is within the purview of the constitutional powers granted to the Congress and has been so declared by the courts.

The first clause of section 8 of the first article of the Constitution states that Congress shall have power "To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States * * * ""

In two recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States a majority of the Court held that the Congress has the power "to promote the general welfare" through the disbursements of public moneys and the grants of aid to the States. These two cases involved the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Social Security Act.2 In holding that such grants are constitutional the Court cited previous legislation such as the Smith-Hughes and the Smith-Lever Acts. It should be noted in this connection that the Court held that such grants cannot be used for the purpose of usurping powers which are delegated to the Federal Government. That decision should be a great consolation to persons who have been very fearful that Federal aid will result in Federal control.

Earlier decisions of the Court had upheld the constitutionality of Federal-aid statutes. In 1922 the attorney general of Massachusetts held that the SheppardTowner Act (making grants to the States for maternal welfare) was unconstitutional and two cases were brought to test its constitutionality. These cases, one on behalf of a taxpayer and the other in behalf of the State of Massachusetts, were joined and brought before the Supreme Court of the United States. In rendering its decision the Court dismissed the cases for want of jurisdiction and through Mr. Justice Sutherland made the following significant statements:

"In the last analysis the complaint of the plaintiff State is brought to the naked contention that Congress has usurped the reserved powers of the several States by the mere enactment of the statute, though nothing has been done and nothing is to be done without their consent and it is plain that the question, as it is thus presented, is political and not judicial in character, and therefore is not a matter which admits the exercise of the judicial power. * * *

* *

"Probably it would be sufficient to point out that the powers of the States are not invaded, since the statute imposes no obligation, but simply extends an option which the State is free to accept or reject. But we do not rest here What burden is imposed upon the States, unequally or otherwise? Certainly there is none, unless it be the burden of taxation, and that falls upon their inhabitants, who are within the taxing power of Congress as well as that of the State where they reside. Nor does the statute require the States to do or yield anything. If Congress enacted it with the ulterior purpose of tempting them to yield, that purpose may be effectively frustrated by the simple expedient of not yielding * *

*

"The administration of any statute, likely to produce additional taxation to be imposed upon a vast number of taxpayers, * * * is essentially a matter of public and not of individual concern. If one taxpayer may champion and litigate such a cause, then every other taxpayer may do the same, not only in respect of the statute here under review but also in respect to every other appropriation act and statute whose administration requires the outlay of public money. Massachusetts v. Mellon and Frothingham v. Mellon (262 U. S. 447). The Court pointed out that the continuance of the subsidy system is a question of advisability and not of constitutionality, and is, therefore, within the purview of Congress and not of the judiciary.

The language of the Court is so clear and direct that further objection to Federal aid on the ground of constitutionality would seem virtually impossible.

MOBILITY OF POPULATION

The national character of our people is attested to by the high degree of mobility of population. People are not likely to continue their residence in the communities or even the States in which they were born, reared, and went to school. Approximately one out of each four persons in the United States is now living in a State other than that of his birth. In California 21⁄2 million of the State's 41⁄2 million population were born in other States. Of the 120,000 Negroes in Detroit, less than 17,000 were born in Michigan. A recent conference of farm leaders ine the Middle West concluded that the most prosperous agricultural States are importing illiteracy from the poverty areas of the Nation. Thus the people of all the States are effected by the education facilities in each of the other States.

FEDERAL AID NECESSARY TO REDUCE INEQUALITIES OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES Federal aid for education is necessary to the reduction of inequalities of educational opportunities. There are the most appalling differences in educational opportunity both among and within the States. These differences are not due to lack of effort on the part of the States, it being an established fact that the States

1 U. S. v. Butler (297 U. S. 1, 73-74).

2 Helvering v. Davis (301 U. S. 619-646).

having the smallest amount of funds for schools are among the States having the most diversified tax systems at the highest rates. They are due to economic conditions largely beyond the control of the States and their communities, differences in wealth, income and taxpaying ability, in the extent of absentee ownership of national resources and industries, and differences in the number of educable children in proportion to adults, the poor States and communities having the largest proportionate number of children.

INEQUALITIES OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY

The extent, character, and significance of the inequalities of educational opportunities in America are indeed appalling, as the examination of the following data will reveal:

(a) The average school term averages from 91⁄2 months in the highest State to 62 months in the lowest State. In fact, in 8 States the average number of days attended by rural pupils is less than 61⁄2 months, and there are over 1,000,000 children enrolled in schools that are in session less than 6 months per year.

(b) If high schools were universally available and attended, the maximum high-school enrollment would constitute about 33% percent of the total elementary and secondary enrollment. In the highest State the high-school enrollment is now 30.9 percent of the total enrollment, while in the lowest State it is only 10.6 percent. There are 12 States that have high-school enrollments exceeding 25 percent of their total enrollment, while there are 11 States that have less than 16 percent.

(c) In one State only 0.8 percent of the population over 10 years of age are illiterate, while in another State 14.9 percent of the population over 10 years old are illiterate. It happens that the first State has for decades spent approximately three times as much per child for public schools as the second State has spent. The differences in per capita wealth and income of these two States are about as great as the differences in public-school expenditures.

(d) Average annual expenditures per pupil for current operating costs in the highest State, $137.69, and the lowest State, $24.50. In this respect there are 13 States in which the average expenditure per pupil exceeds $85, while there are 12 States that fall below $50.

(e) The average annual salary per teacher in the highest State is $2,361, and in the lowest State, $465. In this respect there are 11 States that exceed $1,400

and 12 States that fall below $750.

(f) The value of public-school property per pupil attending school is $570 in the highest State and $62 in the lowest. There are 16 States that have school property exceeding a value of $300 per pupil, while 11 States fall below $150.

(g) The differences in the breadth of education opportunity, resulting from the differences reflected by the statistical data cited above, are correspondingly great.

EFFORT TO SUPPORT SCHOOLS

Another recent study shows that the richer the State, the less is the effort required to support the schools, and the less is the effort actually made. On the whole, the poorer States spend larger proportions of their tax resources for education than the wealthier States. Although 17 of the poorer States make more than average effort to support schools, 13 of them fall below the national average of school expenditures. Only 7 of the wealthier States make more than average effort to support schools, but 20 of them exceed the Nation's average in expenditures.

It is often said that if the States would "put their fiscal houses in order," all of them could have acceptable standards of school support. But it remains a fact that the States which, according to the standards of the best fiscal experts, have done the best jobs of modernizing their State tax systems are among the poorest States and they still have the least amount to spend for education. If some of the rich States would levy the same taxes at the same rates that some of the poorer States now levy, they would raise twice as much public revenue as they now raise.

It is a well-known fact that the Southern States are the so-called poor States. Let us look at the record of these States to see whether educational support is a matter of effort and of "putting houses in order."

In spite of the need for improvement, the best organization of local school administrative units, with but few exceptions, is to be found in the South. In 11 of these States the percentage of one-room schools falls below the similar percentage for the Nation as a whole, and 56 percent of all the consolidated schools in the United States are located in the South.

The Southern States lead the Nation in the extent to which they depend upon State support of public schools in contradistinction to local support. As to methods of distributing school funds, the majority of the Southern States compare favorably with any of the other States and far excel most of them.

At least 9 of the 14 Southern States can be classed among the States of the Union that have done the most to modernize their systems of taxation. As measured by diversity of taxes, sources utilized, and by rates levied on those sources, the Southern States rank above most of the other States. Not only do they levy death taxes, income taxes, luxury taxes, and the like, but they have the highest tax rates on gasoline, cigarettes, inheritances, and middle-class incomes. They have far outstripped the rest of the Nation in the proportion of taxes derived from nonproperty sources. In comparison with the rest of the Nation, they have with but few exceptions put their fiscal houses in order as far as taxation is concerned.

Furthermore, these States compare favorably with the rest of the Nation in their effort to support public education, effort being measured by the percentage of their potential tax resources spent for education. These 14 States all fall below the national average in tax resources per child, but 13 of them exceed the average national effort to support public education.

DIFFERENCES IN ABILITY TO PAY FOR SCHOOLS

As a Nation, we have acted as if we believed that inequality of educational opportunities has resulted from difference in the desires of communities and States to educate their children. Yet differences in educational opportunities correspond almost exactly with differences in economic power. What the respective States do for education is not a matter to be moralized about. It is a matter of dollars and cents.

In California the average expenditure per person for retail sales is $374, in Mississippi it is $71. Surely no one believes that the people of Mississippi spend only $71 each because they do not wish to spend more. Small wonder then that California spends four and one-half times as much per pupil for schools as Mississippi.

The amounts of taxes per capita which can be raised ranges from $18.39 in Mississippi to $109.33 in Nevada. Assuming that each State would spend an average of $60 per year per weighted pupil for schools, it was found that 96.5 percent of all tax resources in Mississippi would be required to maintain schools, while in Nevada only 16.5 percent of the tax resources would be required.

SOME STATES ARE COLONIAL HINTERLANDS FOR ABSENTEE LANDLORDS

Not only are the economic resources of many States comparatively low and the educational burdens great, but the people of those States in a large measure do not own nor control the economic resources of those States. These States constitute a kind of colonial hinterland for the great industrial and commercial centers. The oil, sulfur, timber, electric power, many of the plantations, and the farm mortgages are not owned nor controlled by residents of these States. One noted economist recently said, and proved his statement, that Texas is incomparably the richest foreign colony owned by Manhattan.

Furthermore, it has been estimated that as much as 70 cents out of each dollar produced in some States goes to the people of other States as the result of nonresident ownership.

These facts largely account for the lack of economic ability of these States to support public education. It seems to be a fair proposition that the Federal Government through its taxing power should return a part of the income produced in the States thus affected to help pay for the education of their children who are also citizens of the Nation.

DIFFERENCES IN NUMBER OF SCHOOL CHILDREN

On of the chief factors in the differences in educational opportunity among the States is the great differences in the number of children to be reared and educated as compared to the number of adults to provide for them. The 12 States spending the largest amount of money per pupil annually for schools have only 473 children ages 5 to 20 years for each 1,000 adults ages 21 to 65 years as compared to 740 in the 12 States spending the smallest amount per pupil. Although the 12 upper States have a burden only two-thirds as great as the 12 lower States, they have an average per capita taxpaying ability more than 21⁄2 times as great.

The nonfarm population of the Northeast section of the United States has only twice as many children of school age as the farmers of the Southeast, but they have 21 times as much income. The farmers of the Southeast have nearly 14 percent of the Nation's school children but they have only 2 percent of the national income. The farmers for the entire Nation have 31 percent of the Nation's school children but they receive only 9 percent of the national income.

The poorer the community or the State in this country, the less are the expenditures for public schools and the greater is the number of children. So long as we pursue this practice as a national policy we tend to increase both ignorance and poverty.

FEDERAL AID NECESSARY

The Advisory Committee on Education appointed by President Roosevelt has made a strong case for Federal aid to the States for the support of public education. It is quite impressive also to remember that the National Advisory Committee on Education appointed by President Hoover in 1929 also found a great need for Federal aid for education. The conclusion of President Roosevelt's

Committee is summarized in the following statement:

"The facts presented in this report indicate that no sound plan of local or State taxation can be devised and instituted that will support in every local community a school system which meets minimum acceptable standards. Unless the Federal Government participates in the financial support of the schools and related services, several millions of children in the United States will continue to be largely denied the educational opportunities that should be regarded as their birthright * * The educational services now provided for a considerable percentage of the children are below any level that should be tolerated in a civilized country."

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NEW PROBLEMS IN FINANCING NEGRO EDUCATION

Research Division, National Education Association

The adoption of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States confronted the Southern and border States with a difficult educational problem. In these States lived the bulk of the Negro population. The effect of this shift in national policy was to place on the Southern States the problem of the education of Negroes for citizenship.

For three-quarters of a century the Southern States have struggled to provide appropriate elementary, secondary, and collegiate educational opportunities for their entire populations, white and Negro. The laws in these States require separate schools for white and for Negro pupils; the Supreme Court of the United States has said that these laws meet the requirements of the Constitution, if equal privileges are provided in the two groups of schools. In practice, however, equal facilities have been furnished only rarely. The States maintaining separate schools for Negroes are, for the most part, States with the least economic ability to raise funds for public education. The schools for white pupils have been financed with great difficulty, and the schools for Negroes have been given even less support than those for white pupils. White teachers and educational leaders have deplored this situation but have lacked the funds to correct it.

The last 20 years have seen some progress toward improving the status of the Negro schools. But improvement has been so slow that leaders among the Negro race have undertaken to invoke their constitutional rights as a means of speeding up the process of reform. The years of 1938, 1939, and 1940 each produced at least one major court decision favorable to the Negro litigants-one in the field of higher education, two affecting the elementary and secondary schools.

The purpose of this memorandum is (1) to present and summarize these court decisions, (2) to call attention to some of the financial implications for school administration, (3) to review certain steps that are being taken to meet these financial problems, and (4) to call attention to the responsibility of the Federal Government for the education of Negroes.

1. Court Decisions

This memorandum quotes in full, in the appendix, the text of four recent Federal court decisions relating to the education of Negroes. The four decisions deal with controversies in three States-Missouri, Maryland, and Virginia.

The first case, State of Missouri v. Canada (59 S. Ct. 232), deals with opportunities for graduate study. The case was heard by the United States Supreme