(The memorandum referred to is as follows:)

MEMORANDUM BY HOWARD A. DAWSON

The National Education Association of the United States, the national professional organization of teachers, principals, and superintendents of schools, with a membership of approximately 200,000 persons, desires to be placed on record as enthusiastically supporting the pending bill, S. 1313.

This association has a long and consistent record of favoring Federal cooperation with the States in the financial support of public education. In the early days of the association-organized in 1857-it supported the policy of land grants to the States for educational purposes. Later the policy of money grants was approved. The association has supported through its resolutions the Federal appropriations for the land-grant colleges and for vocational education. Since the days of the War between the States the association has repeatedly favored Federal grants to the States for the purpose of equalizing educational opportunities. The resolution, unanimously adopted by the representative assembly of the association, meeting in New York City in June 1938, is as follows:

"The National Education Association recommends increased Federal participation in the support of public education without Federal control of educational policies."

Although the National Education Association has a long and consistent record in favor of Federal assitance to the States for the support of public education, our association does not believe that such a policy is of primary interest to teachers and school administrators alone. Public education affects the welfare of a vast majority of American families. It is a matter of primary concern to the parents and the children of this Nation. While there are, less than 1,000,000 teachers employed in the schools, there are over 26,000,000 boys and girls attending them. What the Congress, the State legislatures, and the local school districts do about public schools is of vastly more importance to the families of the United States than it is to the teachers. Federal aid for public education is, therefore, & matter of first importance to the children of the United States and their parents.

We direct the attention of the committee to the fact that financial support of public education is not a matter of partisan politics. The schools are almost entirely divorced from partisan political control throughout the Nation. Νο political party can claim exclusive championship of the cause of public education. Those who would support the cause of educational opportunity must do so for the sake of the cause itself and not for partisan advantage. Certainly the question of Federal aid for education is a nonpartisan issue. The future of America's children is considered by no group of American statesmen to be a matter of partisan manipulation. Here the American people are united.

We call to the attention of the committee the fact that the need for Federal aid for education has been repeatedly pointed out by both official and nonofficial organizations that have investigated the need for such aid. In 1929 President Hoover appointed the Advisory Council on Education to study the question of Federal relations to public education. In 1932 that council, composed of many outstanding laymen and educators, reached the practically unanimous conclusion that Federal appropriations to the States for assistance in the support of public education is necessary to the maintenance of adequate educational opportunities throughout the Nation. The Advisory Committee on Education appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt has carefully investigated the same subject and has reached a similar conclusion as to the need for such policy. More recently the American Youth Commission, sponsored by the American Council on Education, and the Educational Policies Commission, sponsored by the National Education Association, and the American Association of School Administrators have reached similar conclusions.

We are convinced that any deliberative committee that analyzes the facts involved and accepts the proposition that the means of public education are to be promoted by the Government as a matter of first importance cannot fairly and logically escape the conclusion that Federal assistance to the States for the support of public education is a matter of inevitable necessity.

During the Seventy-fifth Congress we actively supported S. 419, introduced by Senators Harrison and Black. Extensive hearings were held before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, and we made an extensive presentation of all the essential data involved in this question. We respectfully call the attention of the committee to the volume of hearings entitled "Assistance to the States and Territories in Providing Programs of Public Education," hearings before the

Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, Seventy-fifth Congress, first session, on S. 419-a bill to promote the general welfare through the appropriation of funds to assist the States and Territories in providing more effective programs of public education-February 9, 10, 11, and 15, 1937.

We also supported a similar bill, H. R. 5962, introduced by Congressman Brooks Fletcher, of Ohio. At the hearings held before the House Committee on Education we again presented the whole case for Federal aid based upon facts and researches which have never been successfully refuted. We would also like to direct the attention of the committee to the House hearings entitled "Federal Aid to the States for the Support of Public Schools," hearings before the Committee on Education, House of Representatives, Seventy-fifth Congress, first session, on H. R. 5962-to promote the general welfare through the appropriation of funds to assist the States and Territories in providing more effective programs of public education-March 30, and 31, April 1, 2, 6, 8, and 13, 1937.

When the Harrison-Black-Fletcher bill was under consideration it was approved by the education associations of 47 of the 48 States. It had the almost unanimous support of the national organization of State Superintendents of Public Instruction and Commissioners of Education.

We were very much gratified that the original Harrison-Black bill received the unanimous approval of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. While this bill was pending before the House Committee on Education the President of the United States appointed the Advisory Committee on Education, with instructions to study the whole question of Federal relations to State and local conduct of education, and requested that the consideration of bills involving expenditures not included in the regular budgetary estimates be postponed.

Accordingly, no further effort was made at that time to secure the enactment of the Harrison-Fletcher bill. Our association gave fullest cooperation to the President's Advisory Committee on Education. We endorsed the general conclusions of the Advisory Committee and assisted in drafting a bill based on the findings and recommendations of the Advisory Committee's report. The bill, S. 1305, introduced by Senator Thomas and Senator Harrison was actively supported by our association. Hearings were held on the bill March 2, 3, 10, 1939. The bill was favorably reported by the Senate Committee on Education and Labor on April 3, 1939, Report No. 244. At the adjournment of the Seventysixth Congress, the bill was still pending on the Senate Calendar.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS NECESSITATING FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION

In addition to the long-standing need for Federal assistance to the States to equalize educational opportunities among and within the States there has arisen within recent months at least two situations that make immediate grants to the States for aid in the support of public education an absolute necessity. The first of these situations has to do with the need for school facilities in areas to which there has been a large influx of population because of defense activities and industries. The second of these situations has to do with the need for Federal assistance to the States maintaining separate schools for separate races to enable them substantially to equalize educational opportunities for Negroes. Although the need for increased financial support for Negro schools is a matter of long standing, the Federal courts, through recent decisions interpreting the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States as effecting equal rights to educational opportunities, have made increased expenditures for Negro schools immediately imperative. That is, if the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States is to be more than a mere scrap of paper.

Two other conditions should also be ameliorated through Federal appropriations to the States: the need for educational facilities for children residing on Federal reservations and properties and for the children of migratory workers largely engaged in agricultural pursuits.

The best qualified experts available will appear before the committee to present the factual data and the technical details connected with each of the problems I have just enumerated. With respect to the need for educational facilities in defense areas you will have evidence presented to you by the following wellqualified persons: Col. Frank McSherry, assistant to the Federal Security Administrator; Dr. Frederick Osborn, chairman, Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation; Charles P. Taft, Assistant Coordinator of Health and Welfare in the Defense Program; Dr. John W. Studebaker, United States Commissioner of Education, and one or more of his assistants; and Congressman Earl Wilson, of Indiana.

With respect to the special needs for financial assistance to the States and the support of improved educational facilities for Negroes you will receive testimony from Charles H. Houston, general counsel, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Dr. W. W. Alexander, assistant to the Federal Security Administrator.

With respect to the need for educational facilities for the children of migratory workers you will receive testimony from Congressman John J. Sparkman, of Alabama, a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens. Dr. W. W. Alexander will also offer evidence in this connection.

As to needs for educational facilities of children residing on Federal reservations and properties evidence will be presented by some of the experts testifying on educational needs in defense areas and also by other witnesses who will offer testimony as to the need for Federal aid for education for general equalization.

Respecting the need for Federal assistance to the States to equalize educational opportunities among and within them you will have testimony from Dr. Floyd W. Reeves, chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Education, and director of the American Youth Commission; Dr. Sidney B. Hall, State superintendent of public instruction, Virginia, and chairman of the legislative commission of the National Education Association; Dr. John K. Norton, professor of education, Teachers College, Columbia University; and Dr. Willis A. Sutton, superintendent of schools, Atlanta, Ga.

In addition to the persons enumerated above other well-known persons who are to appear in support of the pending bill, S. 1313, are the Hon. Paul V. McNutt, Federal Security Administrator and Coordinator of Health and Welfare in the Defense Program; Mr. Henry I. Harriman, vice chairman, American Youth Commission, former chairman of the board, New England Power Association, and former president of the United States Chamber of Commerce; and the official representatives of leading educational, agricultural, and labor organizations.

Without going into detailed evidence concerning the needs for Federal aid for the purposes I have enumerated I would like to give an overview of the principal evidence supporting the arguments in favor of S. 1313 for these five specific purposes:

I. It is a well-known fact that thousands of families are being transferred into defense areas. There are two types of situations, one in which the children affected reside on Federal reservations, and the other in which the children reside on private property in connection with defense industries. In the first case, children are from families connected with military or naval reservations or bases. In the second case, children are from families employed in defense industries privately owned. In most cases Federal housing programs are under way to accommodate the families affected. In brief, it is known that there is, or will be prior to September 1, 1941, at least 264,400 children for whom school facilities must be provided, and the cost of new school facilities including capital outlay for current expenses will be approximately $115,000,000 of which about $85,000,000 will be needed for capital outlays for sites, buildings, and equipment and pupil transportation. There is indisputable evidence that the education of these children affected is primarily a Federal obligation. Furthermore, there is no doubt whatever that neither the local school districts nor the States in many instances are able to take care of the financial exigencies of these situations. If the Federal Government really believes that it is essential not only to keep the doors of opportunity open to the children of the workers in essential national-defense activities, but to maintain a high morale among the parents, it certainly must know that this morale cannot be maintained it parents do not have school facilities for their children.

II. The Federal Government reserves throughout the Nation considerable territory from State and local government control. Many families with children of school age reside legally on such reservations. Since the reservations are federally controlled, the Government property, the property of individuals, and the local incomes of residents thereon are not subject to State and local taxation. The Federal Government has no general policy regarding educational provisions for children on these reservations. For some, Congress makes excellent provision; for some, the use of Federal funds is authorized, while for others, absolutely no provision is made by the Federal Government. As a result the responsibility for educating thousands of children living on such reservations falls on the parents or is transferred by them to the adjacent State public schools. The taxpayers of school districts adjacent to reservations provide schooling for such children at a cost exceeding a million dollars annually. In many instances school facilities are entirely lacking for children whose parents reside on property under the control of the United States Government.

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.

The

IV. The fourth current problem has to do with schools for Negroes. 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 1 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. rendering its decision the Court dismissed the cases for want of jurisdiction and through Mr. Justice Sutherland made the following significant statements:

In

"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. * * *

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"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

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"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).