Catholics as to Protestants. But the Sovereign Pontiff enacts positive law prohibiting Roman Catholics from attending them. Then the Pontiff through his hierarchy demands that we pay the extra bus fare of children thus forced into the alien parochial schools.

The Popes and their agents and propagandists call their canons the Divine Law, or God's Law. So do they hold it paramount to American law as God is paramount to man. That is the situation in a nutshell. In his Practical Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, published with imprimatur of the late Cardinal Hayes of New York, Woywod gives this authorized translation of Canon 1374 of the Code:

"Catholic children shall not attend non-Catholic or undenominational schools, nor schools that are mixed (that is to say, open also to non-Catholics). The bishop of the diocese alone has the right, in harmony with the instructions of the Holy See, to decide under what circumstances, and with what safeguards against perversion, the attendance of such schools may be tolerated."

But where is the discretion of parents? Their ecclesiastical masters make the decision. Parents have power only to obey. The instructions of the Holy See mentioned were issued to the hierarchy here November 24, 1875. Like instruction went to Britain, Canada, and Ireland. The international sovereignty of the See of Rome was speaking to its legal subjects in distant lands.

August 29, 1929, a Boston dispatch in the News, of Washington, D. C., said Cardinal O'Connell was ordering his priests to refuse absolution to Roman Catholic parents whose children are in the public schools. The Jesuit magazine called America said editorially July 14, 1923, that such parents are debarred from the sacraments. So the pretense that parents have any choice is wantonly and deliberately false. Shall papal or American sovereignty run our schools?

I now resume my original statement.

Further in this connection I wish to emphasize the fact that much matter is being sent to me from all over the country, which shows conclusively that great effort is being made to break down the taxsupported free public-school systems by certain ecclesiastical interests, and gain control through State and Federal aid. Permit me to cite one graphic bit of evidence of this activity.

The Institute of Educational Research of the Fordham University, a Jesuit school of New York, disclosed in its Bulletin No. 1 of 1936 that direct appropriations of public money to the Roman Catholic schools would be legal in more than half of the States of the Union and a similar result might be obtained in most of the other States by a simple subterfuge.

The last phrase, "by a simple subterfuge," reminds me of a famous expression of Edmond Burke concerning an infamous act when he said "By a miserable subterfuge they hope to render this proposition safe by rendering it nugatory." I may add that Webster's dictionary uses this remark to illustrate the meaning of "subterfuge."

Gentlemen of this committee, our supreme council has given much thought to the provisions of the various State constitutions against giving aid to sectarian schools, and I am of the opinion that the bulletin above quoted is overconfident in getting its hands on public funds, despite the recent decision of the Supreme Court in the now famous New Jersey school bus case.

An old phrase was applied to the effect of this celebrated case on State and Federal aid to sectarian schools by a commentator who said that "Liberty had lost a battle but had won a war against those forces which would destroy the first amendment." The interpretation by some is that the people will see in the decision reasons to become aroused as they did in the Dred Scott decision of 1857; and by others that the Supreme Court and those four Justices dissenting so defined the first amendment that States may go no further than providing a safety program where parochial school pupils are concerned, that is,

that no appropriations may be made to sectarian schools in money or things nor to the pupils in the way of books as is being done in Louisiana.

Whether or not other Supreme Court decisions will sustain this view it is my judgment that, although opposing Federal aid to education, if any bill is favorably reported the one so reported should, in the spirit of the first amendment, specifically provide that the funds appropriated therein be allocated only to the use of tax-supported free public schools.

Mr. Chairman, I close the main part of my statement with quoted matter from the minority views of "Mr. Taft (for himself, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Wherry, and Mr. Ball)" on the question of "Federal assistance to the States in more adequately financing public education" raised at the hearing on S. 637 in the Seventy-eighth Congress. That position of Mr. Taft is as sound today as it was in 1943.

Mr. Taft stated in part:

We cannot give our support to the bill (S. 637) to authorize the appropriation of funds to assist the States and Territories in more adequately financing their systems of public education during emergency, and in reducing the inequalities of educational opportunities through public elementary and secondary schools, which has been reported by the Committee on Education and Labor, and we are submitting this statement of our views as to this legislation and of the reasons why, in our judgment, it is both unwise and inexpedient for it to pass. Education is not a Federal function.

Taking both parts of this bill together, it is a proposal to establish a Federal subsidy for common-school and high-school education, a function of the State governments and local governments for the last 150 years. There can be no doubt that common-school and high-school education is the obligation of the States and their local subdivisions under our constitutional system and that it is not an obligation of the Federal Government. There is nothing whatever in the Constitution which delegates to the Federal Governmnt power to deal with questions of education.

We should not now commit the Federal Government to any new type of expense.

The Federal Government faces after the war a tremendously serious financial problem. The annual charge for interest alone will amount to $5,000,000,000. At least $5,000,000,000 will be necessary for the armed forces. At least $5,000,000,000 will be required for existing services, with some moderate increase in expenditures for social-security purposes. Many other new items of expense will be clamoring for consideration. We do not know where the point is, but there is a point at which the burden of government will become so great that it will choke all incentive, initiative, and enterprise. At some point we can kill the goose that lays the golden egg, and force the entire country into a socialistic strait-jacket. Federal subsidy would destroy local self-government in education. There is an even more important question. Can Federal subsidies to the publicschool system be maintained without ultimately bringing about a nationalization of our educational facilities and federalized bureaucratic control? This is an eventuality which the proponents of the present bill insist is not intended and which they maintain can be avoided. They contend that by the provisions of section 1 the danger is removed. We seriously question this conclusion. We believe that in the complexity of reports, of plans, of State legislation to conform to Federal policies, of counsel and advice and joint participation of the Federal Government and the States, and all of the other manifold details of the operation of the contemplated program of Federal subsidies, our public-school-systems would be gradually, but no less inevitably, drawn more and more under the thumb of a Federal bureaucracy.

CONCLUSION

We do not subscribe to the doctrine that because our public schools and our educational facilities are a vital element in our national welfare they thereby become the proper concern and implied responsibility of the National Government. Our schools are one of the few remaining bulwarks of local self-government

and community enterprise. They should so remain. They have on the whole been well managed and generously supported. We have today too much centralization of control over the affairs of our citizens in a Federal bureaucracy. We should not add to it by this new excursion into the field of education.

In my opinion Senator Taft-for himself and the other three Senators has stated very clearly why the Federal Government should not assist the States and Territories in more adequately financing their systems of public education. We may concede that the conditions are worse than they were in 1943 when the above views were expressed, but the principle still obtains with respect to the functions of the States and the Federal Government in financing education.

Moreover, as stated in the early part of my remarks, the Federal Government has a bonded debt of around $262,000,000,000, and the total indebtedness of the States and municipalities is around $14,000,000,000. As noted above, this is one of the reasons Senator Taft assigned for not subsidizing education.

What the supreme council favors:

1. The American public school, nonpartisan, nonsectarian, efficient, democratic, for all of the children of all of the people.

2. The inculcation of' patriotism, respect for law and order, and undying loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America. 3. The compulsory use of English as the language of instruction in the grammar grades of our public schools.

4. Adequate provision in the American public schools for the education of the alien populations in the principles of American institutions and ideals of citizenship.

5. The entire separation of church and state, and opposition to every attempt to appropriate public moneys-Federal, State, or localdirectly or indirectly, for the support of sectarian or private institutions.

STATEMENT OF ELMER E. ROGERS, ASSISTANT TO THE SOVEREIGN GRAND COMMANDER, SUPREME COUNCIL, THIRTY-THIRD DEGREE, ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE OF FREEMASONRY, SOUTHERN JURISDICTION, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Mr. ROGERS. That concludes the statement of Colonel Cowles. Mine supplements his.

In addition to calling further attention to the evil effects of Federal aid to nonpublic schools on our public-school systems and the progress of our Republic, I will touch upon the following subjects: The constant and insistent demands of the Roman Catholic Church for financial aid from our Nation, State, and municipal governments; the vicious attacks of the Roman Catholic Church against our public schools as shown by the quoted expressions of its prelates and its press; the rise of our public schools out of the social confusion and turmoil caused by the demands of nonpublic schools for tax funds and to which condition the whole Nation will retrograde if these schools receive Federal aid; the accentuation of a destructive social cleavage, already felt in our social structure, caused by the nearly 13,000 nonpublic schools; and the relative efficacy of Roman Catholic schools.and public schools of elementary and secondary levels, in inculcating morals and thus lessening crime.

According to a survey made by the Office of Education in 1940-41, 12,727 nonpublic schools of elementary and secondary levels were reported for the United States. Of this number 1,102 were nonsectarian, 1,576 were Protestant, and 10,049 were Roman Catholic. The total enrollment was 2,611,047, of which 2,396,305 were Roman Catholic pupils and 214,742 Protestant. Nearly five-sixths of the schools were Roman Catholic and there were 11 times as many Roman Catholic pupils as there were non-Roman-Catholic pupils.

Under title II of H. R. 3220 provisions are made to reimburse nonpublic tax-exempt schools and school systems of secondary grade or less for not to exceed 60 percent of their actual expenses incurred under three items. These items are (a) necessary transportation of pupils; (b) school health examinations and related school health services, and (c) purchase of nonreligious instructional supplies and equipment including books.

There is authorized to be appropriated for nonpublic school $60,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1948, and annually thereafter. The money is an outright gift with no requirements to increase the efficiency of the schools by the addition of the money from the Federal Government as required by the States under title I of H. R. 3220 for the public schools. The money is to be disbursed by the States where permitted to do by law. Where it is not so permitted the Secretary of the Treasury makes the distribution direct to the schools upon certification of the United States Commissioner of Education.

According to the number of nonpublic schools reported in 1940–41, over $48,000,000 would go annually to the Roman Catholic schools and about $12,000,000 to the nonsectarian and Protestant schools.

With respect to the provisions for "school health examinations and related school health services" there is no provision authorizing these services to be performed by the State public health authorities as a part of their like duties for the public-school pupils. On the contrary the measure provides that the services be performed by "similar health-service personnel employed by the school authorities" with the public footing the bill and having no responsibilities as to the health of the pupils in these schools. This, I submit is going quite far in extending authority to the will and wishes of a foreign state, a sovereign ecclesiastical power, operating within our bounderies which, so far, is not required to comply with our Foreign Agent's Registration Act, and whose whole history and expressed political philosophy contains seeds of subversion as I will presently show from declarations of Pope Leo XIII and other prelates of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact aid of any kind to sectarian institutions would be in violation of the principles of the first amendment and provisions in nearly all the State constitutions of the several States. This was the opinion of the Supreme Court and that of the four Justices who dissented in the New Jersey School Bus case handed down February 10, 1947.

Space does not permit of my discussing at length the subversive doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church as applied to our form of government. I present here only a little undeniable evidence available on this subject. It is from the highest authority of this ancient temporal and ecclesiastical power which in the Vatical Council of

1870 declared itself infallible, and ipsojure above reproach even by its most powerful prelates, and perforce of circumstances must continue to declare itself predominant over every realm and activity of man. To yield its dogmatic position is to deny its alleged authority from God. Hence to mouth its adherence to democracy, as it has so frequently done of late, is as witless and as deceptive as the utterances of the Kremlin as to its democracy.

The matter I quote is from (a) the famous encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, issued April 20, 1884, entitled Humanum Genus; (b) the work of John A. Ryan, D. D., and Morehouse F. X. Miller, S. J., entitled "The Church and State," which was republished in 1940 under the title of "Catholic Principles in Politics," and Dr. L. H. Lehmann, former Roman Catholic priest, who was for a time at the Vatican and who himself quotes Pope Leo XIII and is now the editor of the Converted Catholic Magazine with several former priests in New York City assisting him.

In announcing his subversive position against our political institutions and the thinking of such outstanding fathers of our Government as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, the Lees of Virginia and Patrick Henry, Pope Leo declared in part:

* Naturalists teach that men have all the same rights and are perfectly equal in condition; that every man is naturally independent; that no one has a right to command others; that it is tyranny to keep men subject to any other authority than that which eminates from themselves. Hence, the people are sovereign, those who rule have no authority but by the commission and concession of the people; so that they can be deposed, willingly or unwillingly, according to the wishes of the people. The origin of all rights and civil duties is in the people or in the state, which is ruled according to the new principles of liberty. The state must be godless; no reason why one religion ought to be preferred to another; all to be held in the same esteem.

All of the above principles which are the basis of the Bill of Rights are opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, and by some Popes they have been anathemized.

I now quote from the Converted Catholic Magazine of June 1944, which is edited at 229 West Eighteenth Street, New York 19, N. Y, by Dr. L. H. Lehmann. Dr. Lehmann says:

In his encyclicals, particularly Humanum Genus, Leo XIII declared war on the basic principles of democracy. He condemned the doctrines that are the foundation of our American Government: Sovereignty of the people; the right to overthrow unworthy rulers; separation of church and state; confinement of the church to its spiritual functions; freedom of religion; freedom of speech and the press and the right of the state to regulate marriage.

Continuing, the former priest and frequenter of the Vatican in that role states:

The following quotation from Humanum Genus illustrates the way in which the sovereignty of the people is denied as well as their right to overthrow a tyrant or dictator:

"Whence it is understood that he who has power to rule, whoever he may be, is God's minister. ** * And it is absolutely false to say that the people have a right to withdraw their obedience whenever they see fit."

(The shades of Hitler and Mussolini!!)

In his encyclical, Libertas Humana, Leo XIII declared:

It is absolutely unlawful to demand, to defend or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, of writing, of worship.