29.7 percent 3 or more years. Of the pupils coming from the junior high schools during 4 terms, 1,456 in all, 453.31 percent were retarded 2 years or more.

I won't burden you with more figures. But here we have real, accurate knowledge of conditions. That is the important thing, and the more important thing is we have had this knolwedge for years and have done little about it. So I say the significance of these figures lies not merely in the fact that these pupils retarded 2 or more years in reading will find it almost impossible to do the work of the year to which they have been admitted, but in the fact that no systematic citywide campaign has been organized to remedy these deficiencies in the lower schools although the facts have been known for years and for the past 3 years, at least, we have known that these deficiencies can in nearly every case be remedied in whole or in part.

Reading conditions are probably no worse in New York City than in many other school districts in this State, not worse than in the country generally. Deficient reading ability is a national disease. Since it is probably a State-wide disease, it seems to me that it is incumbent upon the State education department to recognize the fact, study the disease, make recommendations for its remedy and insist as a condition of receiving State aid that adequate measures be taken to remedy the condition in every school district.

Now, I have picked out reading. I might pick out something else. Now, what does this indicate? To my mind, it indicates that we ought to stop drifting and indulging in haphazard education. We have a commissioner of education with unlimited powers, in the State education department. Is it not the responsibility of that department to really get seriously to work and remedy conditions in the entire State of New York, when the commissioner has power over every dollar spent by every school district in this State?

Mr. HART. Part of the cause of this I believe to be too much educational machinery. The schools are trying to do too much. In many cases they are not doing essential things well. We hear that from schoolmen themselves. Only a few years ago the principal of one of the leading high schools in New York said, "We are trying to do so much we are not doing anything well. We are trying to teach from 75 to 100 different subjects in the high school and we are not even making 'Jacks,'" he said, "of any of the things we are teaching the students."

The machinery could be simplified with money saved and with better education to the child.

The remedy is certainly not the setting up of still more machinery. The remedy is not to set up Federal control.

I think, sir, that this bill should be forgotten and that this Congress should make no further efforts to bring about Federal control of public education.

Senator ELLENDER. What is the New York State Economic Council? What is its membership?

Mr. HART. The New York State Economic Council is an organization that has some 1,200 or 1,400 members, that includes mostly individuals, some corporations. It has two objectives: One is to try to keep down the mounting cost of government, keep it within reason, and the other is to try to strengthen and preserve and protect private enterprise.

Senator ELLENDER. How is it maintained? By private subscriptions?

Mr. HART. By membership subscriptions; yes.

Senator ELLENDER. I suppose that it appears before the various boards in New York City and also in Albany?

Mr. HART. In Albany; yes, sir; not much in New York City.
Senator ELLENDER. To prevent high appropriations?

Mr. HART. To prevent high appropriations, or anything pertaining to the cost of the government.

Senator ELLENDER. Of course, that affects schools and everything

else?

Mr. HART. Yes, sir.

Senator ELLENDER. Is that all?

Mr. HART. That is all. Thank you very much indeed, Senator. Senator ELLENDER. We will be in recess until 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at the hour of 12:30 p. m., a recess was taken until 2 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

(The hearing was resumed at 2 p. m., pursuant to recess.) The CHAIRMAN. The committee will resume.

Mr. Marsh, please.

STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN C. MARSH, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, PEOPLE'S LOBBY

Mr. MARSH. My name is Benjamin C. Marsh, executive secretary, the People's Lobby, with offices here in Washington.

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the introducers of this bill and the committee upon recognizing the fact that conflicts abroad do not settle all economic problems in America, and to express the hope that this bill will be enacted, with two amendments which we want to suggest, which are by no means, I am sure, inconsistent with the purposes of the introducers of the bill.

In the first place we want to suggest that the amount appropriated be the same amount which we have urged before this committee or similar committees for 4 years, I think it is, half a billion dollars, $500,000,000.

If my mathematics are any good and recent budgetary difficulties have raised a question in my mind on that point I think $500,000,000 will mean about 5 percent of what we are probably going to spend a year for the armament program, and it does not seem to us that it is an excessive amount.

Second, we want to suggest that "public schools," as used in this bill, be defined to mean schools supported chiefly by taxation.

I am not going into any harrowing details because it would be of no use, and I am going to be very concise today, but I want to point out to you that the November 1940 meeting of the department of superintendents of the National Catholic Education Association recommended that Catholic school authorities "continue their efforts to secure for Catholic school pupils a just share of the funds which are annually expended by the Federal Government and the individual States and subdivisions thereof for the support of education in the United States."

What the intent of that is, I am not quite sure, but in order to make sure that we confine such appropriations as this bill carries, to public schools, we suggest that the words "public schools" be defined to mean schools supported chiefly, or, if you want to put it, entirely, by taxation.

We very much hope this bill will pass.

Only dictators fear general education, and only short-sighted democracies fail to provide for it.

"Horse and buggy" day education was largely concerned with the three R's, but in the present mechanized era large stress in education must be put upon vocational and occupational training, since Satan hasn't given up his prerogative of finding mischief for idle hands to do, and untrained hands and minds are most apt to be idle.

You are going to have difficulty, I concede, in getting this bill passed by Congress, and we would like to stress this fact, as our judgment, that a nation may have a fleet second to none, but it is little stronger in justice and efficiency than the least trained segment of its people.

Also we would like to make the suggestion-I am not asking to redraft the bill and I don't know where you would want to incorporate it but we would like to make the suggestion that part of these funds might be specifically allotted for health work.

Now I rather hesitate to make that suggestion for this reason, that it seems to me that this bill gives to the Board extremely wide latitude in determining what money is to be given to what State, subject to two or three provisions on page 7, but if it could be emphasized, at least in the hearings, that part of it should be used for health work so as to justify the Board-I might put it on that ground—if they want to do it, I think it will be very helpful.

If I may revert to a third of a century ago, I was secretary of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Pennsylvania, with headquarters in Philadelphia, and I think one of the most helpful things we were able to do, with the corps of assistants I had, was to give physical examinations in the public schools of Philadelphia, and to provide for medical care.

The CHAIRMAN. Health work in elementary schools would be such things as paying a school nurse, and physical examinations for children?

Mr. MARSH. Yes; and providing the care which they need, because I think it is relatively easy to tell folks what ails them, but you know, with the economic status of many of our people it is extremely difficult for the parents to provide for the children what is necessary to end those ills.

I received the other day, Chairman Thomas, a carbon of a letter written to you by Mr. H. L. Mitchell, secretary of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, with headquarters in Memphis, Tenn., who is very much interested in this bill and is giving the support of their organization to it. Maybe you have planned, Mr. Chairman, to put Mr. Mitchell's letter of endorsement in this record, but if not, might I ask that this carbon copy be inserted?

The CHAIRMAN. I think it might be well to have the carbon copy inserted in the record, in case we do not have the original.

(The letter referred to follows:)

Senator ELMER D. THOMAS,

SOUTHERN TENANT FARMERS UNION,
Memphis, Tenn., April 29, 1941.

Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor,

United States Senate.

DEAR SENATOR THOMAS: I understand that hearings are now being held on the Federal aid to education bill, S. 1313, recently introduced by you and Senator Harrison, of Mississippi.

On behalf of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, an organization of some 40,000 tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and farm laborers, here in the mid-South, I wish to urge the immediate enactment of this constructive legislation. No

group of people are more in need of adequate educational opportunities than are those in our organization.

We note that provision is made for the expenditure of a proportionate share of these funds for the education of minority races and also that provision is made to care for the educational needs of the children of the migratory laborers.

Here in the Southern States several hundred thousand farm families have been forced to leave the farms due to factors such as increased mechanization and changing methods of farm operation. Only a few of these dispossessed farm families have had the means or the inclination to seek employment as migrant workers. The vast majority of these people remain within a few miles of their former homes and are living crowded up in the slum sections of small towns and cities depending largely on seasonal employment on the nearby farms and plantations. Under the present system of farm operation there is no hope of these people being reestablished on the land. There are thousands of others who in the next few years will also find it impossible to remain on the land.

In view of this situation would it not be possible for this providing funds for education to be changed or amended to set aside a portion of these funds for training these rural people both adults and youth in trades and occupations which will enable them to earn a living.

Sincerely yours,

H. L. MITCHELL, Secretary.

Mr. MARSH. As Mr. Mitchell points out, they have some 40,000 members in the Southern States where probably, under the very careful provisions you have made, in the general principles, for allocation of funds, a good deal of this money will be spent, and most advantageously; and he has asked me to mention the fact, in addition to the letter he sent you, that they endorse it very thoroughly. We sincerely hope the bill will pass.

Again let me repeat my congratulations to this committee on their courage in recognizing the home front as well as the foreign front, by the introduction of this bill and the hearings you are holding; and we express the hope that it will pass.

I might say that the People's Lobby is in a position to urge Federal legislation because we are one of the few organizations which, year after year and we shall this year-appear before committees of Congress and request higher income taxes which, in my judgment, will make our members pay anywhere from 15 to 50 percent more taxes than they are paying today. I take it for granted that Congress is not overwhelmed with requests from organizations whose members will pay more taxes, and we will do all we can to help put this bill through.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Marsh.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Wilkerson. Dr. Wilkerson, your name please, and for the record, what you represent?

STATEMENT OF DR. DOXEY A. WILKERSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, HOWARD UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Dr. WILKERSON. My name is Doxey A. Wilkerson, associate professor of education, Howard University.

I appear here as a representative of the National Coordinating Committee for Equitable Distribution of Federal Aid to Education for the purpose of urging your approval, in its present form, of S. 1313, the educational finance bill of 1941.

The National Coordinating Committee, which I represent, is a federation of 27 national and 4 local organizations, comprising an aggregate of approximately 3,000,000 members in all of the States of

the Union and the District of Columbia. We were organized in 1937 for the specific purpose of coordinating the efforts of a number of organizations then seeking amendments to the original HarrisonBlack-Fletcher bill.

Representatives of the committee appeared that spring before this committee and before the House Committee on Education, requesting that the proposed Federal-aid-to-education measures, S. 419 and H. R. 5962, be so amended as to guarantee equity in the division of Federal education funds between white and Negro schools in States with segregated systems of schools. Subsequently, to this same end, we conferred with the President's Advisory Committee on Education. In March 1939, we again came before this committee, this time to record our support for S. 1305 which, following the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Education, incorporated precisely the types of safeguards for separate Negro schools that our organization considered essential. We are pleased to note that S. 1313 likewise incorporates those necessary safeguards.

It would be erroneous-even though we are primarily concerned with Negro schools-to assume that our organization's sole interest in this Federal-aid-to-education measure lies in its implications for Negro education. On the contrary, knowing full well that the disgracefully inadequate facilities for the education of millions of children of all races exist in many parts of the Nation, and realizing that any substantial change in these conditions is dependent upon a much enlarged program of Federal educational subsidies, we are in fundamental agreement with the general purposes and program of this bill. It represents, we think, the only effective approach to the solution of a long-standing problem of our society, one which the present social crisis raises to a new level of significance.

In the light of certain testimony presented here this morning, I should like to emphasize that in our opinion the present national emergency calls, not for less education but for more education, not for less regard for civil liberties but for greater protection for civil liberties. It is not through the curtailment of democracy but rather through its extension and strengthening, that the effective defense of democracy is to be found.

We think that during these times, and those which the immediate future probably holds in store, our traditional democratic institutions can no longer rest secure upon the faulty educational foundations which we have been content, this far, to tolerate. If we are now to maintain a free society in America, then quickly we must provide vastly more education for the American people. This, certainly, is an imperative of "total defense". It is from this basic premise that our general support for the present measure stems.

Even more specifically do we support S. 1313 because it assures a just and equitable division between separate white and Negro schools, of the proposed Federal funds for basic elementary and secondary education. It thus represents an important step toward equalizing the educational opportunities of white and Negro citizens in States and communities with segregated schools. We wish to record here a few select facts and principles which show the need for Federal aid to education as a means toward correcting the gross inadequacies and inequalities which characterize Negro public schools and which tend