of economically administering a fund divided among many groups. Moreover, this controversy showed the people of New York State that separation of church and state was impossible where the State was taxing itself to promote religious indoctrination under the guise of providing civic education for the poor. The Public School Society, which controlled the largest number of schools in the city, became alarmed at the growing tendency to fractionalize the school system. It recognized the value of a school system which would not divide citizens but which would bring them together. It also recognized the greater economy of a unified system which would prevent the erection at public expense of competing schools in the same neighborhood. Why should the public finance wasteful competition or duplication? The society opposed every attempt of denominations to further divide control over schools financed in part by State aid. In the struggles which followed, the society held to the following principles: * * * "What are common schools?" They "are so-called because they are commonthat is, open to all, and those branches of education, and those only, ought to be taught in them, which tend to prepare a child for the ordinary business of life. "The best interests of all will be alike promoted by having their children mingle with ours in the public seminaries of learning. "Taxation for church support would unhesitatingly be declared an infringement of the Constitution. Your committee cannot, however, perceive any marked difference in principles whether the fund be raised for the support of a particular church or whether it be raised for the support of a school in which the doctrines of that church are taught. "The theory and practice of our happy and equal form of government is to protect every religious persuasion, and support none." In order to establish truly common schools to which any parent might send his child, be he Mohammedan, Jewish, or Buddhist, the society attempted to eliminate all sectarian teaching from its schools. In so doing, it set the pattern for common-school education throughout the Siate as illustrated by this quotation from the superintendent of common schools: "However desirable it may be to lay the foundation of common-school education in religious instruction, the multiplicity of sects in this State would render the accomplishment of such an object a work of great difficulty." Many events were taking place which were destined to bring about the extension of the common-school principles to New York City: (1) The constitution of 1821 provided that the common-school fund should be appropriated solely for common schools. This provision gave support to the movement to extend the common schools system to New York City. (2) The constitution of 1821 extended the right of suffrage by removing many of the property qualifications for voting. The laboring man had no liking for the charity concept of education. The New York Workingman's Advocate in 1829 asked for a system of education "open to all as in a real republic it should be." Labor wanted an "equal, universal, and republican system of education.” (3) The passage of a law in 1836 changing the name of the Free School Society to the Public School Society and making it the duty of the society to provide facilities for the education of all children not otherwise taken care of "whether such children were objects of gratuitous instruction or not, and without regard to the religious sect or denomination to which such children or their parents belong," enabled the society to expand considerably its common schools in cities. (4) The hostility of Europe to liberalism and democracy after the Congress of Vienna, had profound effects upon American politics. The plotting of the Austrian-dominated Holy Alliance to restore monarchy and suppress liberalism and democracy, intensified nationalism and sentiment against monarchy and taxsupported churches in the United States. When the alliance threatened to restore the Spanish monarchy in the South American Republics the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed in 1823. The use of strict control over the press, censorship, and clerical control over education to prevent the spread of liberalism and democracy, caused many American patriots to become alarmed. This alarm and the increase in immigration made nativism a force in American politics. Nationalism and nativism caused most American churches to give up the demand for publicly financed denominational schools and created a widespread demand for civil common schools educating for citizenship in the American democratic state. (5) The increase in immigration from Europe became so great about 1840 that the problem of assimilation became crucial. Although political nativism would have kept foreigners from enjoying the full privileges of citizenship and although some of the churches would have preferred to preserve foreign languages and culture, the majority of citizens favored educating immigrants and their children for citizenship in American democracy. For this purpose the common school was admirably fitted. * * (6) There was a growing sentiment among taxpayers that “* the school fund is purely of a civil character and should not be allowed to pass into the hands of any corporation not answerable to the people." The New York State Legislature in 1842 passed a law extending the common school system to the city. From henceforth no public support was to be given to any school in the city which was under denominational control or in which any denominational tenets were taught. Nationalism and democracy had made common schools a State responsibility; diversity of religious beliefs and separation of church and state made civic education nonsectarian. NATION-WIDE FEELING AGAINST STATE AID FOR PRIVATE AND DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS The hostility toward public support of sectarian institutions in New York State at that time, it should be noted, was but a reflection of national feeling. Between 1844 and 1894, 34 States adopted constitutional provisions prohibiting public support for sectarian schools. In 1876 both major political parties had planks favoring public schools and separation of church and state. THE OUTCOME Public preference for public high schools, the constitution of 1894, and the unification of the State education department in 1904 put an end to the conflict. State responsibility for common school education, both elementary and secondary, under democratic civil control, and no public support for schools under denominational control had become established policies in New York State. In my opinion, the sectarian and other reactionary forces in the American Federation of Teachers, an organization normally alert to dangers to our free institutions, have done a signal disservice to labor, one of the great political forces of America, by helping to make it the alleged whole-hearted sponsor of the S. 717, for it has precipitated a fight that will be carried into every section of this country, if this bill is favorably reported or a compromise bill is reported, carrying Federal aid for sectarian schools. Then labor, which helped so effectually in the fight to free education from sectarianism and private control, will learn that it has trusted some of its present leaders not wisely but too well. The wording of what has been called an ingenious device to get around the provisions of the State constitutions against State aid to sectarian schools provides, in part, that the National Board of Apportionment "shall take into consideration the extent to which the burden of the educational needs of the State are borne by nonpublic schools." As the acknowledged bulwark of our liberties, the tax-supported, free public school systems of the several States are able and willing to provide the fundamental educational needs of all pupils, leaving the teaching of religion to the parents and churches. The sectarian schools, being purely voluntary institutions, are maintained as sources of propagation of religious faith by the denomination that creates and maintains them. It is, therefore, a wanton and gratuitous assumption for these school interests to ask for aid from funds raised out of public taxes, paid, as above stated, "by persons of all creeds and faiths or of no faith," on the ground of relieving their self-imposed burdens. Nevertheless, these self-imposed burdens have given rise to many crocodile tears over "the poor child," on the presumption that his best interests are not provided for by the public schools. As a corollary to the complaint that sectarian schools bear a burden. that should be met out of public funds, we find that in this hearing many of the witnesses place great emphasis upon the child's welfare in connection with the right of the parent to send his child to the school of his choice. The emotion-stirring words of these witnesses would incline the casual listener to believe that this right was being denied the parents by the laws in the several States or in S. 181 or in some other pending legislation. Of course, the proponents of S. 717 who raise this question and shed the most tears about "the poor child" know that such is not true. What they urge is an educational situation in which their religion, the catechism of their churches, is taught at the expense of the public. They want this, and they are here demanding it regardless of the fact that a dual system of sectarian and secular education in which both are supported by public taxation, would conflict with the basic principle of freedom of religion, a principle which grew out of a pernicious experience in our own country and the experiences of other countries where sectarian interests are supported from funds raised from public taxation. Our experience of over 150 years of growth of freedom and expansion in all walks of life under the principles of the first amendment and provisions in State constitutions prohibiting aid to sectarian schools, prove that the people should be taxed to support only public schools unfettered by denominational influences, competitive or otherwise. In contrast to the evil effects upon governmental and social progress of dual systems of education where one is sectarian and both supported by public taxation, or where a single system of education is maintained, the curriculum of which is marked by religious teaching, experience has proven that the public school, free from the teaching of religious dogmas, has been a tower of strength and support to the growth of the democratic concept of government. I submit that in the light of these facts neither the church nor any quasireligious interests should ever be permitted to control or influence the secular process of our tax-supported, free public-school systems, nor should sectarian schools for the same reasons be aided in any way from public funds. This leads me to venture the suggestion that all who love and cherish our free institutions should heed the lessons of history, remembering that the democracies of the past failed largely because they lacked the homogeneous, unifying values of an educational system free from religious dogmas or theocratic ideas of government. While I hold to the right of the parent to send his child to the school of his choice, though that school be sectarian, I am of the opinion that too many parents exercise this right in total ignorance of the value of our public schools in relation to the maintenance of the Bill of Rights and the actual efficacy of the public schools over the sectarian schools, while others do so from a subtle mental coercion or from the slurring remarks of some of their religious leaders such as, "The public schools are godless," or "They are the sinks of pollution and the agents of hell," and so forth. However, despite the criticism, over 2,500,000 Roman Catholic children attend the public schools. Early in my remarks I stated that the S. 717 raises the whole question as to the relative efficacy of sectarian schools and public schools in lessening crime and instilling moral lessons in the pupils' minds. Aside from the destructive effect on free governments in aiding sectarian education from public funds, the relative social values of sectarian and nonsectarian education challenge the closest scrutiny of Congress in considering S. 717. In his encyclical above mentioned, Pope Pius XI also said: In general, not only for youth but for all ages and conditions of man, it is the task of the state and civil society to impart that education which may be called civic, which consists in publicly presenting to individuals collectively such subjects of reasonable knowledge of imagination and of the senses as induce them toward honesty and lead them to it as a moral necessity. * * * This civic education, which is so ample as to absorb almost the whole action of the state for the common good, must on the one hand be attuned to rules of rectitude and on the other must not contradict the doctrine of the church which is the divinely constituted mistress of such rules. The church places at the disposal of families its ministry as teacher and educator. Families rush to profit, thereby giving to the church their children in hundreds and, indeed, thousands. These two facts proclaim a great truth most important from the moral and social viewpoint. They say that the educative mission belongs before all and above all in the first place to the church and the family. Compared with the efficacy of the public schools, the question is: How successfully has the Roman Catholic Church, which would likely receive five-sixths of the money here appropriated to nonpublic schools, kept the faith in "its ministry as teacher and educator" to the families who have rushed their children to its care? In other words: (1) Has the teaching of religion in Catholic schools lessened crime among their pupils compared with pupils taught in public schools? (2) Is all religious teaching productive of correct ethical conduct? Mr. Chairman, let me say with a feeling of sadness and regret for human failures in so important a matter, the answer to both questions, according to Roman Catholic authorities, is "No." In support of this negative answer I quote from the article entitled "Catholic Education and Crime," by the former Roman Catholic bishop, Dr. L. H. Lehmann, published in the Converted Catholic Magazine of January 1945, of which I submit a copy for the record. This magazine is edited by former Roman Catholic priests. It is published at 229 West Forty-eighth Street, New York, N. Y. In his article. Dr. Lehmann substantiates his position by data taken from Roman Catholic authorities. He says under the subtitle "Catholic Crime Statistics": If New York City be taken as a sample of wartime juvenile delinquency, the Roman Catholic Church must take the largest share of responsibility. Father George B. Ford, Roman Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, an authority on social matters, is on record as admitting that more than three-fifths of the juvenile delinquents arrested in New York City in the early part of 1943 were Roman Catholics. As quoted in the newspaper PM of February 29, 1944, he (Father Ford) declared: "During the first 4 months of 1943, 64 percent of the juvenile delinquents in children's court were Catholic. That means the Catholic Church has something to be greatly concerned about." Continuing, Dr. Lehmann stated: How grave an indictment of the Roman Catholic Church this is may be judged from the fact that only about one-fifth of the total population of New York City is Roman Catholic. The same amazing percentage of Roman Catholics is to be found among the most hardened adult criminals in jails and penitentiaries. A sample of this may be seen at Clinton Prison, Dannemora, N. Y., which is called the Siberia of America, both because of its frigid climate and the high percentage of longterms and lifers. In a feature article in the New York Daily Mirror of March 12, 1941, lauding efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to reform the many Catholics there, it is revealed that of the total prison population of 1,989 at Dannemora, 1,200 are Roman Catholics. Reporting the results of a religious survey of all the jails of Connecticut, the Catholic Commonweal magazine for October 9, 1942, says: "Catholics far outnumber Protestants in Connecticut jails, possibly by four to one." Continuing, Dr. Lehmann states it is— * well-known and provable fact that an abnormally high proportion of our prison population is the product of the Roman Catholic Church and its educational system where religion, the Roman Catholic religion, is the most important subject in the curriculum. In order to confirm and explain this fact, the writer of this article personally interviewed Mr. R. C. Kane, the chief observer in the criminal courts for * * Committee on the Control of Crime. Mr. Kane's frank opinion was that the teaching of religion in the public schools would provide no deterrent to crime, since Roman Catholics numerically top all crime lists and the Catholic Church exceeds all others in teaching religion in schools. Continuing, Dr. Lehmann says: The statistics below fully bear out this conclusion. They are not taken from anti-Catholic sources, not even from the cold, impartial figures supplied by Government bureaus. In order to be scrupulously fair, I have taken them from official Catholic sources, from the published results of a lengthy and careful survey made by the Fr. Leo Kalmer, Order of Friars Minor, chaplain at Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet, Ill., from 1917 to 1936, the year of publication. His facts and figures were supplied to him by 36 Roman Catholic prison chaplains throughout the country. There can, therefore, be no possibility that the figures have been unfairly made up by us to overstress the greater prevalence of crime among Catholics. On page 54, table II, are shown the following percentages of Catholics in the prisons named: Florence, Ariz.. State Penitentiary, San Quentin, Calif. State Penitentiary, Wethersfield, Conn.... Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet__ Louisiana State Penitentiary, Baton Rouge_ State Prison, Charleston, Mass. State Prison, Jackson, Mich. State Penitentiary, Jefferson City, Mo State Penitentiary, Lincoln, Nebr_-- State Prison, Trenton, N. J-- State Penitentiary, Santa Fe, N. Mex. Auburn Prison, Auburn, N. Y. Ohio Penitentiary, Columbus Oregon State Penitentiary, Salem. Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pa. State Penitentiary, Huntsville, Tex State Prison, Salt Lake City, Utah.. Wisconsin State Prison, Waupon State Penitentiary, Rawlins, Wyo. United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, Ga. Percent 53.33 46.92 63. 64 48.50 16 22 21 91 53.29 10.00 22.03 27.69 47.61 66.67 57.31 54.77 25.01 15.01 36.15 12.20 32.79 43.53 28 85 21.20 United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, Kans 23. 44 In judging these percentages it must be remembered that Catholics, according to their church's own estimates, form only about 16 percent of the total population of the United States. On page 76 of Father Kalmer's book, table III shows that |