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I think, Mr. Chairman, that for 25 years bills to provide Federal aid for education have been pending in Congress. I think Congress at this time, and this committee has a great opportunity to at long last report out and pass a measure to establish the beginning of Federal aid for education.

I have never seen anything like the turn in national sentiment toward this idea. Even the most conservative newspapers throughout the Nation, as you well know, have been carrying editorials and asking for the passage of a Federal aid for education bill.

The other day some members of the committee asked-and, of course, it was a good question-where are we going to get the money and how are we going to economize if we keep on appropriating money for purposes of this kind?

I think the best answer to that is-and no one knows it better than you, Mr. Chairman-that if we can spend a dollar and produce 5 or 10 dollars it is an awfully good investment, and that, in my opinion, is the kind of investment, from purely a monetary viewpoint, to say nothing of the other benefits and advantages the Nation would receive from assistance through the Federal Government to education. Mr. McCOWEN. Does that conclude your statement?

Mr. KEFAUVER. Yes.

Mr. McCOWEN. The gentleman is aware of the fact, I think, that in the so-called wealthier States there are large areas where they are financially unable to take care of the school situation. So, would the gentleman support any one of these other bills that provide aid for all States?

Mr. KEFAUVER. Yes. I know your bill, Mr. Chairman, has some assistance to all States. I certainly would be happy to support your bill. I hope that your bill may be the one that is passed, because it grants more aid than the Taft bill or these other bills which have been filed, and which I filed. I do think that the important thing is to get some kind of a program started, even if it is a minimum program. Mr. McCowEN. For equalization.

Mr. KEFAUVER. Yes.

Mr. McCowEN. Thank you for that.

Any questions, Mr. Lesinski?

Mr. LESINSKI. Just a question. Have you a law in Tennessee for compulsory attendance?

Mr. KEFAUVER. We do.

Mr. LESINSKI. You have that. Many States do not have that law. That is the reason I am asking that question.

Mr. Kefauver, do you not believe, though, that the Government first should make a survey and handle the underprivileged districts first before it steps in generally in all the States?

Mr. KEFAUVER. I do not think any further survey is needed, Mr. Lesinski.

Kr. LESINSKI. Does the gentleman know there never has been one made, nor has there been any State educational organization that has brought any to this committee as yet-and I have been here 10 yearson what is necessary for that particular State for its underprivileged sections? I think most of us are more interested in the underprivileged sections than in sections that can well afford to handle their own teaching staffs and pay their salaries.

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Mr. KEFAUVER. Well, that information certainly should be available. I am sure it is available for Tennessee. In every State they know what their teachers are paid, they know how many months of schooling they have.

Mr. LESINSKI. Also the question of taxation comes up. How much taxes do the individuals pay for education as against other sections? We in Michigan pay about $9 for education. It depends on the city. One city has $11. We can well afford to do that and yet help out other underprivileged sections. How much taxation do other States get for that particular purpose?

Mr. KEFAUVER. I should think that that information is available, Mr. Lesinski. I have seen figures to show how much of the income of various States goes to education. I am sure the other witnesses either have or will give you those statistics.

Mr. LESINSKI. It is not a question of the income; it is a question of the amount the individual pays in taxation.

Mr. KEFAUVER. In Tennessee, in addition to our appropriation already made for education, in the last legislature we passed a 2-percent sales tax, with 70 percent of the first $20,000,000 earmarked for schools. But even that is not anything like sufficient for our needs.

Mr. LESINSKI. I might surprise the gentleman by saying that just last winter I found out that on the place that I have, in our territory in Michigan, I pay around $400 for education. The same place in Miami, Fla., pays only $11. If you compare the two amounts, where I have to pay the larger amount, why should I pay for the underprivileged where Florida does not tax the people! You have the same thing in Mississippi. Nobody pays taxes up to $5,000.

Mr. KEFAUVER. I feel that every State ought to do the most it can, but when that is done you still have a lot of States that cannot offer the educational advantages the children are entitled to.

Mr. LESINSKI. I agree with you that it is up to the Government then.

Mr. KEFAUVER. I certainly hope this committee will make history and report and secure passage of a bill in this Congress.

Mr. McCOWEN. I might conclude with this observation: It has been the Chair's observation generally that the districts of least wealth pay the largest school tax. They vote to the limit extra taxes on themselves, and even then the best they can do is ridiculously poor, and I think the formula in your bill pretty well takes care of the argument my distinguished colleague made a minute ago about differences in taxation, inasmuch as it is based largely on income-tax payments in the States. That equalizes the thing, and that is the purpose of that formula, isn't it?

Mr. KEFAUVER. Yes.

Mr. McCowEN. We thank you very much for your appearance. Mr. KEFAUVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McCoWEN. Congressman Brooks Hays.

STATEMENT OF HON. BROOKS HAYS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS

Mr. HAYS. I am Brooks Hays, representing the Fifth District of Arkansas. I appreciate the privilege of making this informal statement to the committee, and apologize for not having a written statement to submit.

If, however, the committee will permit me to proceed informally, I would like to make a statement on this bill and on the subject of Federal aid to education generally.

Mr. McCOWEN. Would 10 minutes be sufficient?
Mr. HAYS. That is fine; thank you very much, sir.

I am not an expert in the field, but I taught school for 3 months in Pope County, Ark., just 30 years ago this summer. I had 82 pupils enrolled, and they paid me $50 a month. Someone said it was mighty poor pay, but I conceded it was mighty poor teaching.

Mr. Chairman, I doubt if the pay for that particular district has increased very much. I have not seen the figures lately, but it is one of the poorer districts, and I think typical of many districts, not only in Arkansas, but throughout the South.

I can refer to the South without bringing in sectional factors, because the South's interests, educationally, are tied to the interests of this Nation. We are a national community, and I am pleased more by what certain businessmen of the North are saying about their stake in improving educational standards in the South than anything that has been said on this whole subject.

It is more significant that the leadership in business and politics is concerned about building standards in the elementary and secondary school systems of this Nation.

So, may I speak in general terms about the significance of this whole idea, which now has such a strong ferment in the Nation of giving some additional aid to the elementary system?

It is a magnificent opportunity that they have in Congress this year to help perfect an educational policy and it follows history. It is an interesting fact that most of the measures that we have had were born out of the stress and strain of war. The Morrill Act of the Civil War, the Smith-Hughes Act of the First World War, and the GI bill of rights of World War II, but all of these measures have been devoted to either vocational aid or to higher education. The Federal Government, because of false reasoning, has consistently refrained from helping the public-school system generally. We cannot continue along this line.

Something is going to happen. Some great disaster is going to happen to our public-school system, which has been the strength of our democratic system, if the Congress does not do something about it. My purpose in coming, then, was to commend the committee for the vigorous efforts that you are making now to find the answer.

I prefer the equalization principle. I think that that is necessary, because of the great disparities of school revenues, and if you go according to the other formula, Mr. Chairman, while I submit there are strong arguments in its favor, you will have the very great difficulty of finding a formula that will prevent further disparities within the States, to be sure, in other words, that the Federal money that flows into the States does not accentuate existing disparities.

While I would no oppose such a measure, I feel that the first step should be on the equalization principle, and I have confidence in this committee to work out scientifically the safeguards that are necessary to be sure that the States that will profit by such a measure, do not permit their own efforts to be diminished at all. They must continue, and I think you can work out a sound formula.

Now, I spoke of the South. These figures are somewhat old, but they dramatize the situation. I got them from George Peabody College for Teachers, and I do not believe the developments of the war years have changed the relationships.

Take the poorest sections of America, which are those districts in the rural South. Compare them with the most favored industrial regions of the North and East, the urban Northeast, and you find a disparity of 10 to 1. The rural South has 2 percent of the national income. It has 17 percent of the children.

The more favored region has 35 percent of the children, a little better than 2 to 1, but 40 percent of the national income. I offer these figures not because we feel that the favored peoples of this country should take care of the local interests of education. It is because of this other principle that the economic interests of New York would be served by creating corrective measures for these extreme disparities. That is the reason I would plead for some assistance for the poorer sections of the South. At the same time, look what the South is doing to sustain the population of this Nation. I got these figures from the Bureau of Agricultural Economics the other day in connection with a bill I am sponsoring to promote rural industries in the South, because I think it would be unpardonable for Congress to do more than to appropriate money for education and leave unattended the task of equalizing economic opportunities.

If a thousand births are necessary to sustain a population, the cities of the North and the East, favored economically-the group I referred to a moment ago-have a factor of only a little over 800, while the rural South has over 2,000.

That means that the South, with limited rural opportunities, can absorb only three young men out of five, and two of them must go elsewhere.

That is the reason we have such a tremendous movement of people in this country. We do not have 48 States any more, we have 46 States, and we have the population of two average American States on the road. The gypsy has gotten into us, because of the lessened opportunities for people in the South. One of our former colleagues said one time that the stork and the wolf always did pal around together.

I want to be clearly understood on that point. I do not think the South is poor because it has a high birth rate. If I were talking to two parents who had the same family income, and one had six children and one had two, the per capita income of one is double the per capita income of the other, but ask the father of the larger number, which child makes him a poor man, and it will not fit into economic formula, and I say the South is rich, because we have children, and we are not undertaking to reduce to a level the economic advantages, or the social influences of this Nation.

It is not that at all. What I am pointing to is this one simple thing, which I think must be at the heart of every proposal: The Nation must assume some responsibility for its educational system, preserving complete local controls, but recognizing that national security and national well-being. I talked to Butcher, from your State, and he tells me that he studies the eating habits of the people of Kentucky, in order to plan his retail meat program for a year, and the reason for it obviously is because the people of eastern Kentucky have flowed into

Ohio. They have flowed out of Arkansas into California, and into the great Northwest often.

I feel that the country's well-being would be served by our arresting, through sound economic measures, such accentuated movement, and along with them establish the greater attractions for our people, so that they will be anchored to their localities, through that magnet, which is far more important sometimes, than economic opportunity, and I refer to stabilized and well-supported educational systems, for parents want to live where the schools are good schools.

Arkansas is doing its part, Mr. Chairman, and I think Arkansas is typical of the States of the South, in using its resources for the support of its schools. The national average is about 12 percent of the income, devoted to school purposes, but Arkansas' percentage is double that, and if that is a little better than the average of the South, at least it is fair to say that the poorer Southern States that would profit most, though not the ones to profit exclusively by this legislation, are doing their part to use their meager resources to show that they believe in the public-school system.

These have been generalizations. I have spoken with some feeling about it. It is the first opportunity I have had to speak, in the 5 years I have been here, on this tremendously important subject, and I thank you for hearing me in this informal presentation of what I regard as one of the primary problems of the Congress.

Mr. McCOWEN. Are there any questions?

Mr. LESINSKI. I believe the gentleman has made a fair statement. I personally believe the foundation of education should start with elementary schools, and that is what this Government should do first, before it reaches into other branches, and I think the gentleman has made a fair statement on that subject.

Mr. HAYS. Thank you, sir. That is where I believe, Mr. Lesinski, the emphasis ought to be placed in this particular period. As the gentleman knows, we are pouring out the millions for higher education through our GI bill, and leaving neglected this tremendous problem here of elementary systems.

Mr. LESINSKI. Of course, a lot of that money is wasted also, because a lot of the boys who took up that course did not go through with it, because they eventually find good jobs and quit.

Mr. McCOWEN. The chairman would like to conclude with this observation. In the so-called wealthy States, there are large areas that vote all the levies they can when they vote, and put up all the money they can, and they still can do but little. So there are large areas and poor areas spotted here and there over those States, and a certain amount of money put into these wealthy States-which contribute so much-to be expended according to their own laws, the way they expend their own funds, certainly ought to help equalize educational opportunities in the wealthier States, which is much needed, as well as to raise the standards.

I want to thank you for your statement, and for your appearance here.

Mr. HAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thoroughly subscribe to your last comment.

Mr. McCOWEN. Mr. Cooley, for the purpose of the record will you state your name and your position?

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