Mr. ALVES. The practice has been-with two exceptions that I know of, and there may be others, that quite often on a Federal reservation there is a school building built generally out of contributions by the personnel. The teachers are employed by a school committee appointed from the personnel, and the salaries are collected in the form of tuition from the parents. Now where children living on reservations are not taught that way, we find that local school districts have just taken them in generally without any charge. There are two exceptions that I know of. At Indianhead, Md., where the Navy powder plant is located, the county board of education of Charles County has, for a number of years, operated the school on the reservation. By contract the county board receives annually approximately $8,000, but the county board of education, by agreement, has the educational authority to operate those schools, and it brings even children from the farms around there to the schools located on the reservation. As you withdraw that educational jurisdiction of the county board there is generally no possibility to allow public funds to flow in there. The other exception that I know of is Quantico, where there is a school on the reservation. Mr. STUDEBAKER. Mr. Alves, who pays the $8,000 over there in Maryland? Mr. ALVES. As I understand it, the Navy Department does. Mr. STUDEBAKER. The Navy Department and not the enlisted men pay the tuition? Mr. ÅLVES. No; it is an appropriation of money. Senator ELLENDER. That will be all. Mr. STUDEBAKER. Thank you. Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Merwin K. Hart. STATEMENT OF MERWIN K. HART, PRESIDENT, NEW YORK STATE ECONOMIC COUNCIL Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Hart, will you kindly give your name in full, and such other descriptive matter as you care to give to identify yourself? Mr. HART. My name is Merwin K. Hart. I am president of the New York State Economic Council with offices in New York and Utica. I appear here on behalf of that organization. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this bill because I believe it would result in undesirable Federal control over education; because it would add by just so much to the bureaucratic burdens already borne by the people; because its cost, which is $300,000,000 a year, at the start, would be wholly unwarranted at any time, and particularly at the present time when all national effort is supposed to be devoted to building up the public defense; because it would add substantially to the number of Federal employees, which has grown to roughly 1,200,000; and because American education, due to the fact that there is already too much educational machinery, is not nearly as good as it ought to be considering the money spent on it. Dr. Studebaker has just commented on the fact, and obviously he is shocked, that in some of the camps classes of men to learn to read and write have had to be formed. Senator, in the city of New York, a few years ago, a canvass showed that 20 percent of all of the pupils admitted to the high schools of New York City had not been taught to read well enough so they could use the ordinary textbooks in the high schools; and in order to meet the situation-although as Dr. Studebaker said, the per pupil course of education is upwards of $140 per pupil in New York City-men had to be brought in from W. P. A., taught to teach reading, and put to work trying to teach these pupils to read. Senator ELLENDER. I did not quite get your inference there. You say men who entered the high schools could not read? Mr. HART. Graduates from the grammar schools entering the high schools of New York City. Senator ELLENDER. They were not able to read? Mr. HART. They had not learned to read, to the number of 20 percent of all the graduates admitted to the high schools. Senator ELLENDER. You mean to say that they went through the elementary grades and were promoted to the high schools and did not learn how to read? Mr. HART. Did not learn how to read well enough to use the ordinary high-school text books. I can tell you when and where that was stated. Senator ELLENDER. Do you attribute that to the method of teaching, or just what? Mr. HART. I attribute it, sir, to poor teaching, to the poor method of teaching. Let me say, sir, this was stated by a former associate superintendent of schools of New York City, Dr. John L. Tildsley, at a public meeting in the city of Albany, February 1940. He was telling of a survey made in one of the high schools where that was the result, and he went on to add that, in his opinion, the same proportion would apply elsewhere. Senator ELLENDER. Of course, I do not mean to deny your statement, Mr. Hart, but it sounds incredible. Mr. HART. It has been published before. Promotion is by the calendar that is the trouble-and not by merit. The passage of this bill would weaken the cause of private enterprise and capitalism, which are known quantities on which our whole economy is based, and would tend by just so much to get us deeper into the morass of collectivism which is an unknown quantity. Let me take up these objections seriatim: Even though section 2 declares there is to be no "Federal control over the educational policies of States and localities," and even though this same section says: The provisions of this act shall be so construed as to maintain local and State initiative and responsibility in the conduct of education and to reserve explicitly to the States and their local subdivisions the organization and administration of schools, the control over the processes of education, the control and determination of curricula of the schools, the methods of instruction to be employed in them, and the selection of personnel employed by the State and its agencies and local school jurisdictions yet I am convinced that from a fair weighing of all the provisions of the bill, in the light of the experience of the people with public administrative machinery, it is practically certain, in spite of section 2, that Federal control of education would be accomplished by this bill. This bill, of course, is merely the latest form. The bill has been before this committee, I believe, or before Congress, some 20 years. Thus, discretion is lodged in the Board of Apportionment by section 4 (c), where it is provided that On the basis of its findings, the Board shall allot to the respective States before the beginning of each fiscal year, or as soon thereafter as possible, such amount for that year as may have been appropriated by Congress under this act. * * The Board of Apportionment, which section 4 provides is to be created in the Federal Security Agency, is charged with a tremendous amount of work. To this Board are assigned, among others, the following tasks: 1. To estimate the financial ability of the respective States, to support reasonable standards of free public elementary and secondary school facilities according to a uniform procedure applied to all the States in such way as to determine the amount of revenues which could be raised from a uniform tax plan applied to all the States. And also 2. To determine * * * the financial need of the respective States for Federal grants-in-aid for the support of public elementary and secondary schools in such amounts as will most effectively equalize educational opportunities. These tasks, whether done with the great expense of time and labor that would seem necessary in order to do them well, or in a hasty and makeshift manner, would most certainly require the use of discretion. That discretion presumably no court would go behind. Employing this discretion the board would make findings and on the basis of these findings would allot the moneys. It would not require a very great degree of prejudice on the part of any commissioner for him to be swayed in reaching his decisions, not by the intricate facts and figures which the Commissioner is supposed to consider, but by extraneous considerations. It is not an unfair assumption that money could be given or withheld to a State in accordance with philosophical or ideological theories held by the Commission. And if it worked out that way, no relief would be open either to the taxpayer or to education. Similarly, section 11 (b), which reads: The Commissioner shall, so far as feasible, lend such advice and counsel as the States may request in working out legislative and administrative plans for expenditures of funds received through this act so as most effectively to lessen qualities of educational opportunities within the States- provides another way for the subtle hand of Federal bureaucracy to dictate policies within the State, to dictate them without seeming to do so. For a common trait of human nature is that when advice is asked of anybody and then not followed, resentment rises in the bosom of him who has given the advice. Similarly, too, we find in section 13 (a) that familiar provision which reads: The Commissioner, subject to the approval of the Federal Security Administrator, is authorized to make such rules and regulations, not in conflict with the provisions of this act, as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this act. It is true there is no provision here specifying that these rules and regulations as such shall have the effect of law. But either that effect might be implied under the terms of the present bill or would be supplied by subsequent amendment. And I do not think anyone familiar in the least with the ways of bureaucracy can doubt that Federal control would be facilitated, if not insured, by this section. Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Hart, you heard Dr. Studebaker testify a little while ago, did you not? Mr. HART. I heard a good deal of what he was saying. Senator ELLENDER. You heard his answer to my question as to whether the Federal Government tried to exercise control over the schools in the administration of the vocational training? Mr. HART. Yes. Senator ELLENDER. And his answer was in the negative, and that this bill went much further than did the vocational training bill in providing that the Federal Government would not have control over the schools. Mr. HART. Well, Senator, does not the hand that furnishes the money have the directing control? Senator ELLENDER. Well, to some extent, especially in seeing that the money is properly spent, and I believe that would be in line with what you are arguing for now. Mr. HART. But there is discretion. What about the discretion of the localities? Senator ELLENDER. Very little. Mr. HART. What about the localities and the States? Senator ELLENDER. Very little, because the States would have to provide, by legislative enactment, certain plans before they become amenable to any of this money. Certainly, if the Federal Government, or in fact any other agency furnishes money, be it a State government or philanthropists, they would want to see that the money is expended for the purposes for which it is dedicated. Mr. HART. I will touch that in just a moment, Senator. Mr. HART. The New York Times of November 27, 1940, in a special article on page 1 by Frank L. Kluckhohn, stated that President Roosevelt had said that nonmilitary projects were to be eliminated so far as possible from the next budget. The President was reported to have told a press conference that under this new rule the Government would shelve many types of programs which had consumed large parts of the Federal Budget; river and harbor improvements, highway construction, public land acquisitions, additions to national forests, and other projects of a similar nature. It is true the article does not state that economy is to be introduced into education. Nevertheless I think that this utterance of the President and other circumstances have given the public the impression that all new projects not actually and vitally necessary to defense would be avoided. Certainly the public was led to believe that no new projects would be inaugurated that would cost $300,000,000 a year particularly in view of the fact that the field of public education has throughout most of our history been regarded as the province of the States. And I insist, sir, that there is no constitutional authority whatsoever for the Federal Government to step into the educational field and, as I believe would be the case, assume control of that education, which has always been deemed the function of localities and States jointly. If education can be taken over by the Federal Government, then no State boundaries remain. Senator ELLENDER. In that connection, I do not believe it was intended by our forefathers for people living in New York, people living in Chicago to own the State of Texas. You have in the State of Texas at present the largest oil fields in the world, or some of them at any rate; the largest gas fields, and some of the largest public utilities. Who owns them? Citizens of New York and those of other rich States. Where are the taxes paid? A few local taxes are paid in Texas, but the majority of taxes on huge incomes are paid by people living in New York and other States, and for that reason New York and other wealthy localities are well able to pay to their teachers much more money than Texas, where they get their incomes from. By the same token you have here in North Carolina, where most of the cigarettes are made a like situation. Certainly if the manufacturers of cigarettes in North Carolina depended on the people living in that State to buy their cigarettes they could not survive. Cigarette users from other States help to pay the taxes imposed by North Carolina for the education of her children. Our Federal system of Government has been so administered that the natural resources of the Southern States have been, in a measure, exploited by the rich from the North and the East, and it has made the people in such States poor, and today it has caused them to have to come to the Federal Government for aid in education, so as to give to their children the same advantages as those in your State. Why, during the last Presidential campaign I happened to go, I think it was in some city in Wisconsin. As I was riding through the city the driver said, "Senator, you see these fine buildings over here located along the avenue?" I said "Yes." "Well, that is an estate that is owned by Mr.-I forget his name now," and he said, "Before dying he created a trust to establish a school for the indigent of this locality." They were beautiful buildings, fine surroundings. "Well," I said, "where did that man make his money?" "Why," he said, "in your State. He was a big lumberman." Now, if you were to go down in my State and see what is left there you would feel as I do, and as many others do. We have had there. thousands upon thousands of acres of the finest pine, cypress, oak, and other trees, that existed in the country. Today all that our people have left as a heritage is a bunch of charred stumps. After the trees were cut down and sawed into lumber this gentleman went to the North and spent his money, rather than try to help the people in the locality where he made his fortune. I will say that that same things exists not only in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the South, but in quite a few Western States. That condition has given rise to the demand that is now being made on the Federal Government. That is the cause of it, the reason for it. Mr. HART. Senator, I am glad you brought that up. It gives me a chance to say something. Senator ELLENDER. Fine. I wish you would answer it. I wish you could answer it to my satisfaction and to the satisfaction of a lot of us who live in the South. In my own State, you take the Standard Oil, the Texas Co., where are they located? Where are their domiciles? Since the advent of Huey Long, we did put some taxes on them, to make them pay their just proportion of taxation, but before that they were permitted to come in the State and take our oil, take our gas, take our natural resources and pay no more taxes than the average 317387-41-20 |