salaries by voluntary arrangement. I should like to say, so far as tactics are concerned, that our procedure has always been to let the counties reach the matter of equalization by what you might call such graduated steps as might be easy for the county or for the local board of education, and any other measures which the local board of education and the citizens of the community themselves could accept gracefully and willingly.

For example, the Alston case, which was cited by Senator Thomas in his introductory speech, terminated in this way, that once having reached the principle of a declaration of equality of teachers' salaries as a constitutional requirement by a consent decree, the Board of Education was given 3 years within which to attain equalization of salaries, one-third the first year, another third the year following, and full equality the third year. The proposition is that if a local community voluntarily facilitates the process of raising educational standards, it leaves a better community effect than if it was involuntarily forced to do it; I mean to say unwillingly through the courts. Our position has always been, as far as possible, once the principle of no differentials in salary based solely on race, has been recognized, to let the local community work equalization out in its own way, as long as there was a conscientious approach toward reaching the actual equality as far as possible and practical.

In Virginia I mention again the suit in Norfolk. In Kentucky there is a suit in Louisville, Abingdon v. Board of Education. In Chattanooga, Tenn., there is a petition pending now before the local school board. In New Orleans there is a petition now pending before the local school board for equalization of salaries. In Birmingham, Ala., Columbia, S. C., Atlanta, Ga., Fort Worth, Tex., Oklahoma City, Okla., there are all petitions, and other steps have already been taken which are concerned with Negro teachers' contention for equalization of salaries for the same certificate, same qualification and same work.

Likewise, so far as university cases are concerned, there are six cases now pending in the Chancery Court in Knoxville, Tenn., affecting the University of Tennessee. There are applications, at least there were recently applications pending before the University of South Carolina. There is the Bluford case which is now pending before the Missouri State Supreme Court in the State of Missouri. So that all along you do not have just isolated instances of Negroes coming up for an increase of educational opportunities, but you are having a dynamic, ever growing movement.

In that respect, I should like to call the attention of the committee to the argument made in the Gaines case, that the country is really in just about the fourth generation of Negro education. The first generation of Negro education was probably the freed slaves who were limited to the task, after reaching maturity, of learning their A B C's. The second generation of Negro education probably came with the children who were born right after the Civil War, who went through the elementary school, and high school. At that time, even in my own father's time, you had many Negro teachers who had nothing more than a high-school education teaching in high school. In my own time, which might be called the third generation, the average top level of Negro education was an A. B. degree. The Negro in those days was considered an educated man when he had a

college degree, but at the present time, in the fourth generation, the level is much higher. For example, in the Washington public schools, no Negro teacher is appointed in the public high schools in Washington without a master's degree. So that you have here a gradual swell and an increasing demand, a markedly increasing demand on the part of Negro citizens for greater educational advantages which certainly must be met, and if the only way to meet it is by aid from the Federal Government then, in order to get started we will have the Federal Government institute the last step.

Finally may I point out something which is very vital to us. I think it is fundamental to our thinking on this bill, add to the whole picture as to the type of society we want to produce, and that is this: We are profoundly disturbed by the development of Western Hemisphere defense and the general international situation. We are particularly disturbed with the question, I might say, as to the status of the British West Indies and whether the people there are going to be reduced to a still more subordinate status.

Likewise I might say that the people of the Western Hemisphere, Central and South America, are very much concerned as to whether the United States is engaged upon a policy of Yankee imperialism. Perhaps the best way to ally the fears, both internally and externally, is to make sure that the Nation extends the fullest measure of democracy at home.

We believe that democracy rests fundamentally upon the education and intelligence of the citizenship, and for that reason we support this bill as the necessary first step toward what we believe and hope will be the final and ultimately complete program of equality, both as to State funds and as to all local Federal funds which go into the public education of the citizens.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Houston.
Mr. Howard D. Woodson, please.

STATEMENT OF HOWARD D. WOODSON, CHAIRMAN, FAR NORTHEAST COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Woodson, I believe that you have something to add in regard to the District of Columbia schools. Is that right? Mr. WOODSON. I have; yes, sir. I thank you for the opportunity of appearing. My name is Howard D. Woodson. I am chairman of the Far Northeast Council of the District of Columbia, which represents that area east of the Anacostia River and the District of Columbia. We have five citizens' associations, three parent-teachers' associations in that area, which is largely, oh, probably about 95 percent colored.

In the past the colored citizens have not been getting their full share, that is the proportionate share of the appropriations, and as was stated by the assistant superintendent in a broadcast very recently, there is an accumulation of deficiencies of about $1,000,000 in the last 10 years. That brings us up to this national emergency with congested schools for our colored children. They have a far greater overload of pupils per teacher than the whites have. They have an average of close on to 50 pupils per teacher. The schools are crowded.

For instance, as to the high schools, we only have three senior high schools at the present time in the District of Columbia, and there is an overload. That is, the capacity is a deficiency of probably 1,200 over the enrollment, and there are now before the Appropriations Committee in the House recommendations for a central high school at Twenty-fourth and Bennings Road to partially relieve that situation. There is a high school that teaches trades. There are 1,700 pupils in a school with the capacity of only 900, exclusive of four portable wooden buildings that are now there, and they are the only portable buildings for senior high schools in the District of Columbia. That is at Armstrong Technical High School.

In the far northeast we have 3 schools, elementary schools. There is a housing project under way for approximately 3,000 families on Kenilworth Avenue near the old race track, where they are demolishing now for an F. H. A. project for 500 families, and immediately to the north there will be an Alley Dwelling Authority housing project for 500 families, and plans are now being prepared on Kenilworth Avenue, just immediately to the east of the power plant there, for Alley Dwelling Authority housing project for about 300 families. On a tract of land that is bounded by Sheriff road and Division Avenue, Forty-ninth Street, and Hayes Street, there are now under construction projects for over 200 families, and that 63 acres in that tract will be ultimately developed for over 1,000 families.

The Board of Education has recommended to the Commissioners, and the Commissioners have recommended to the Congress for deficiency appropriations for a school at Forty-ninth and Hayes Street to partially relieve that situation, which is in that same area as this housing project. But in addition to that, we will have to have schools on Kenilworth Avenue to take care of about 1,300 pupils that will come there, I mean 1,300 families that will come there from the projected housing there, and out on Central Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-third Streets, in the new subdivision, out there we will have to have another school. That is in accordance with the recommendations that we have talked about with the school officials.

On Central Avenue and Bennings Road, there is a firm there that has been building houses, about 100 every year, and now they have increased their rate of building, and so we figure that in the next couple of years there will be at least provision made for 3,000 additional families.

There are nearly 600 children from this far northeast that are now attending Brown Junior High School near Twenty-fourth and Bennings Road. They have to walk from 3 to 5 miles every day. That is a very great hardship. That school has nearly 1,500 pupils, in a school of the capacity of only 900. The Board of Education and Commissioners have recommended to this same committee for deficiency appropriations in Congress for a junior high school at the corner of Forty-ninth Street and Washington Place.

Senator ELLENDER. How long has that condition existed?

Mr. WOODSON. Well, we have been asking for appropriations for this school for the last several years, probably 5 years.

Senator ELLENDER. Has it been aggravated in the last 4 or 5 months?

Mr. WOODSON. Yes, sir; it is getting worse constantly. The principal of the school at Smothers School, which is in our area, says

he is getting new pupils into his school every day, because the larger housing project is in that area.

This junior high school at Twenty-fourth and Bennings Road has been recommended by the Commissioners to the Appropriations Committee in the House for deficiency appropriations to take care of this defense housing. And there we are asking for a junior high school, for three elementary schools, and only one of those is in this bill, and that is the one at Forty-ninth and Hayes Streets.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Woodson, may I say here that these requests for particular schools in the District of Columbia are of course problems which do not face this committee, thank goodness. Our problems are quite big enough without going into the problems of a given city, in regard to the District of Columbia appropriations by Congress for schoolhouses. I am wondering if it would not be better for you to generalize and merely say, since this need is so acute here, right where the Federal Government has been responsible for the schools, that likely the need would be greater in other parts where the Federal Government has not had its hands on it.

Mr. WOODSON. That is very true. I want to say I am also representing the National Builders Association and National Technical Association, and we are especially interested in vocational education, and the vocational education for our group throughout the country is very deficient. It is partially due to the condition that Negroes should only be educated for those trades from which they can secure employment. The cost of vocational education is far greater than that of academic education, and we know that our schools are ill kept with machinery and other facilities for vocational education, and we hope that that will be properly taken care of. I thank you. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Robnett.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE W. ROBNETT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, THE CHURCH LEAGUE OF AMERICA

The CHAIRMAN. Will you state, in addition to your name, whom you represent, Mr. Robnett?

Mr. ROBNETT. My name is George W. Robnett. I represent the Church League of America. I am here representing the Church League of America.

The CHAIRMAN. Just what is the Church League of America?
Mr. ROBNETT. I am going to explain that, if I may, in my state-
I am from Chicago, I live in Evanston.

ment.

I appear before this committee to testify in opposition to S. 1313 as an individual citizen and taxpayer and also as the executive secretary of the Church League of America. This is a voluntary organization, organized over 4 years ago, which has committeeship rather thanmembership. In other words, we have three committees a committee of clergy which consists of about 300 clergymen distributed in all parts of the country, a committee of church laymen consisting of individuals who are prominent and active in church work, and an executive committee consisting of the chairmen and vice chairmen of the other committees, as well as an executive secretary and a general chairman who happens to be Mr. Frank J. Loesch, eulogized editorially last year by both Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily News as Chicago's "First Citizen.' The occasion was his selection by the

Rotary Club to receive its annual award as an outstanding American citizen. He is a widely known constitutional lawyer, now 89 years young and still as vigorous as the average man of 60.

Our work is to carry on an educational program with the clergy of the Nation, whose voices and opinions reach millions each week. I appear here with the approval of the executive committee-and as a private citizen and taxpayer who is very much concerned and alarmed over the rapid trend toward centralized government in this country. That is why I am here.

Before I discuss this bill S. 1313, called the Educational Finance Act of 1941, and venture some views in connection with it, I should like to refer briefly to the pathway that has led up to the introduction of this particular bill.

In 1932 there came into power in this country a leadership which used every means at its command to accomplish legislative changes that would greatly increase the power of the executive branch of our Federal Government. Along with this increased power and the attempt to prime the pump of a national economy by opening the sluice gates of the Federal Treasury there came into existence naturally a vast bureaucracy. The spirit and purpose of our bureaucratic leadership coupled with the tempo of the times created a general search for ways in which to spend Federal money

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). You mean Federal aid to education had its beginning in 1932?

Mr. ROBNETT. The next sentence will come to that. This is a prelude to that. I think it is necessary, in order to establish the fact in the next statement I am going to make. The spirit and purpose of our bureaucratic leadership coupled with the tempo of the times created a general search for ways in which to spend Federal money-particularly in experimental purposes leading toward social reforms that accorded with the new ideological tidal wave. I want to get that statment in there before I make this one, because it seems to be built upon it.

The CHAIRMAN. Surely you do not want to imply that Federal aid to education was in any way related to any of the pump-priming projects?

Mr. ROBNETT. Yes, I do.

The CHAIRMAN. How can you do that and be historically correct? Mr. ROBNETT. If the Senator will permit me, I think I can make that clear in my statement.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you assume the things which Mr. Hoover did were done after 1932? Do you assume that the other Federal-aid-toeducation bills have all been done after 1932?

Mr. ROBNETT. Are there any other educational bills that compare with this one, Senator?

The CHAIRMAN. This has been spoken of as an evolution, since 1861 or 1862.

Mr. ROBNETT. Those bills you refer to as grants, and that sort of thing. Do you mean Federal land grants?

The CHAIRMAN. And Federal-aid-to-education bills have been before Congress for many years before 1932.

Mr. ROBNETT. They have been before Congress. Were they passed?
The CHAIRMAN. They have been before Congress.
Mr. ROBNETT. That is what I mean.