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?
General FRIES. Yes.

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 California. 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

propriation as I understand the bill, is to be an extra appropriation. The CHAIRMAN. It is to be extra?

General FRIES. It is to be a separate appropriation.

The CHAIRMAN. It would allow, then, $303,000,000, would it? General FRIES. Yes. Now, I was a school teacher for 4 years before I went to West Point. During those 4 years I taught a total of nearly 3 years' school, some 22 months. I have the utmost sympathy for the school teachers. I decided in those days I was not going to be a school teacher any longer, because all I got was $35 a month. However, that has been very thoroughly remedied in most cases. That is all I have to submit.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, General Fries.

Did Dr. Alexander come in?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Sparkman of Alabama?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Charles H. Houston, general counsel, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Jere A. Wells, county superintendent of schools, Fulton County, Ga.?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. W. P. King, executive secretary, Kentucky Education Association?

Mr. KING. Mr. Chairman, I have no prepared statement. Our State Department of education has prepared and will file with the committee a statement which covers the points which they desire to make in connection with this legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. We will be glad to have it, Mr. King, and it will be included in the record if it gets here in 2 or 3 days.

Mr. KING. All right.

(The statement referred to follows:)

Hon. ELBERT D. THOMAS,

KENTUCKY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, INC.,

Louisville, Ky., May 2, 1941.

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR THOMAS: I am enclosing here for insertion in the records of the hearing of the subcommittee of the Senate Education and Labor Committee on S. 1313 a statement from our State Department of Education. I should like to add to that statement the following observation:

One of the greatest dangers of the inequality of educational opportunity in our State lies in the fact that certain localities have been highly underprivileged for several generations and there has grown up in those communities on the part of a great many of the citizens the idea that the more fortunate parts of the State are arrayed against them. Thus they interpret the failure of the State to provide adequate educational facilities as just another means of "keeping them down." They have come to look upon themselves as "underdogs" and to feel that the hand of authority in the State is set against them.

This state of public opinion in any large area affords fertile ground for the sowing of the seeds of dissension and for the encouragement of dissatisfaction with the Government. It is in just such areas as these that the Communists and other groups seek to establish their ideologies. Having for generations been deprived of adequate training these communities become twisted in their processes of thinking and become good material for those who would undermine our democracy.

While in Washington recently I heard it said time and time again that no appropriation should be made ahead of that which would lead to the production of materials for defense.

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America is going to need appropriations for defense for democracy within its own gates in the years which are not far ahead and a wise statesmanship, it seems to me, can easily see that the education of citizenry in all these spots where they unquestionably have been neglected is one of the most important factors in our whole defense program.

Federal aid to education is Federal aid to the strengthening of the bulwarks of democracy. This country is no stronger than these weak spots permit it to be. These unfortunate sectors of our Nation need a rallying point and that rallying point may well be the privilege of a culture which will lift them from a consciousness of inferiority to a realization of the importance and dignity of their own personalities.

Cordially,

STATEMENT FROM KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

April 26, 1941.

There is urgently needed in the Commonwealth of Kentucky $6,971,930 annually to eliminate educational inequalities in the elementary and secondary schools of the State: $92,488 to increase the salaries for Negro teachers made necessary through recent Federal court decisions, and $529,400 annually to provide educational facilities and additional teachers in industrial and military defense areas.

Local tax sources have been exhausted in the majority of the school districts in this State and the only salvation is Federal aid.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Alexander, please.

STATEMENT OF DR. WILL W. ALEXANDER, ASSISTANT TO THE FEDERAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL SECURITY AGENCY

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Alexander, for the record, will you state your name?

Dr. ALEXANDER. I am Will W. Alexander.

The CHAIRMAN. Your address and title, please.

Dr. ALEXANDER. I am the vice president of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, with offices at 4901 Ellis Avenue, Chicago.

The CHAIRMAN. Please proceed, Doctor.

Dr. ALEXANDER. I am not quite clear as to what new light I can throw on this subject, Senator Thomas. I suspect you have the figures and statistics on these various groups that are involved. However, I will say a word about the general educational system in the South.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Doctor. For your benefit, we have heard such persons as Dr. Reeves, who has, of course, handled the problem in a big way, and I think that the committee has received the statistical information from the departments of Government which would be interested in this question.

Dr. ALEXANDER. The general situation in the South is that we are producing the surplus children for the Nation, and those children are being born and reared in those areas where available resources for their education, for the protection of their health and welfare, are the most meager. The resources are the most meager and the population is largest.

There has been, for a number of years, whenever opportunity presented, a large migration from that area. When the automobile industry developed in Detroit, thousands of these people migrated to Detroit. We will probably come to a time in the national-defense effort when