"The contention of the prelates of the Vatican State that they save the several States millions of dollars annually in maintaining their own educational institutions is not only to beg the question but to beg the States for funds. As a world theocratic sovereignty, its aim is universal control of the world mind through universal control of education. The Roman Catholic hierocracy lives on the fat of the lands wherever it functions. In one breath it asserts that it saves the taxpayers by maintaining its own institutions and in another it begs or demands alms from the funds of the taxpayers, or at least it demands that the taxes paid by its ecclesiastical communicants into the public treasury be turned over to it. "When a foreign sovereignty is permitted to masquerade as a church in a democracy, assistance of any kind should never be given to it from the public treasury. Nor should there ever be any division of the taxes paid by its adherents given to its institutions. A reasonable expense for maintaining the public school system, free from such influences, should never be regarded high, for thus only may liberty be perpetuated." Very truly yours, ELMER E. ROGERS, Aide to the Grand Commander and Associate Editor of the Scottish Rite Mr. KENNEDY. In another part of your brief you quote a paper as saying that any Catholic parent who does not send their child to a parochial school is excommunicated. Is that correct? Mr. ROGERS. I do not know how reliable the paper was that made the statement, but the gentleman who wrote what I read, Dr. Gilbert O. Nations, is a most reliable commentator, and I have no doubt that he quoted the statement correctly. It was in the Jesuit Magazine of July 14, 1923. Mr. KENNEDY. I never went to a parochial school. I am a Catholic and yet my parents were never debarred from the sacrament, so the statement is wrong. Mr. ROGERS. You are pretty prominent people up there in Massachusetts. I know something of the prominence of your father, and the bishops are pretty diplomatic and have good judgment about such things. Mr. KENNEDY. But the statement is wrong because you have one living example. I do not want to get in an argument about Catholic theology, but you do not want to make statements that are inaccurate. You say the Pope, in issuing statements to people all over the world, is addressing his "legal subjects." You made that statement at the end of reading one of the Pope's statements. You said, "and that is the way the Pope addressed his legal subjects." Now you don't mean the Catholics in America are legal subjects of the Pope? I am not a legal subject of the Pope. Mr. ROGERS. I am speaking, please, of the canon itself, sir. Mr. KENNEDY. Do you believe as a lawyer that I am the legal subject of the Pope; that I have a dual nationality? Mr. ROGERS. I don't like to think so, but I am looking at your canon laws on the subject. Mr. KENNEDY. Do you think I am a legal subject of the Vatican? Mr. ROGERS. I think that each and every devout Catholic bears a dual allegiance-one to the United States and one to the Vatican State.. Mr. KENNEDY. Legal allegiance? Mr. ROGERS. A dual allegiance. Mr. KENNEDY. Do you think I am a legal subject? 61040-47-vol. 1-24 Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. Mr. ROGERS. I am not able to say whether you are or are not. I am stating there is a dual allegiance which to most Catholics is expressed in the canon law coming first, and the Vatican State comes first. Mr. KENNEDY. I do not see any sense in your making statements that you cannot substantiate. You have stated that there are communities where the parochial school children could go to the public schools with no extra expense for the public schools, and yet you do not know what these communities are. You state that if a Catholic child does not go to a parochial school, his parents are denied the sacrament, and you have been furnished evidence that this is not true. You state that Catholics are "legal subjects" of the Pope, according to canon law, and then later you say, "I am not able to say whether you are or not." I think that when you make such serious statements and charges, you should know what you are talking about and not take up the time of this committee with misstatements of fact. Mr. ROGERS. Do you mean to say that when I make a statement that ought to be my position with respect to it? Mr. KENNEDY. Yes. Mr. ROGERS. Even though I read it from the canon law? Mr. KENNEDY. You interpreted the canon law. Mr. ROGERS. No, I didn't. Mr. KENNEDY. I would like to get the record on that. Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I believe I can supply it. He read the statement that was someone's interpretation of the canon law, which of course would make it his own interpretation. He read someone's interpretation of it. Mr. ROGERS. It was Reverend Woywod's authorized translation of canon 1374 of the Code with the imprimatur of the late Cardinal Hayes. I am perfectly willing to take his interpretation of it. Mr. KENNEDY. Would you give me that section of the canon law which makes you believe that I am a legal subject of the Vatican? Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Kennedy, I am not able to say whether or not you are or would be legally-certainly not according to the jurisprudence of the United States, you wouldn't be; but since the Vatican is a state, a sovereignty, and since you are a devout Catholic, it would appear to me, as it does to commentators on the subject, who know something about that, that you have a dual allegiance. The canon, however, is No. 13 in a work by the Reverend Stanislaus Woywod, with the imprimatur of the late Cardinal Farley, archbishop of New York, May 19, 1918. It reads: The general laws of the church bind all persons for whom they are issued anywhere in the world. Laws issued for a particular territory, e. g., a diocese or a nation, bind those persons who have a domicile or quasi domicile in that territory and actually live there. On pages 64 to 68 of volume 1 in a commentary of eight volumes on the canon law by Rev. P. Charles Augustine, professor of canon law, is the Constitution Providentissima (a bulletin) by Pope Benedict XV, promulgating the new code. The closing four paragraphs, save one, are as follows: Therefore, having invoked the aid of Divine Grace and relying upon the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, of our own accord and with certain knowledge and fullness of apostolic power with which we are invested by this, our constitution, which we wish to be valid for all time, we promulgate, decree, and order that the present code, just as it is compiled, shall have from this time forth the power of law for the universal church, and we confide it to your custody and vigilance. * Notwithstanding all contrary regulations, constitutions, privileges, and even those of special individual mention, and notwithstanding contrary customs, even though they are immemorial or whatever else may run counter to this constitution. For no one, therefore, is it lawful willingly to contradict or rashly to disobey in any way this, our constitution, limitation, suppression, or derogation. If any should dare to do so let him know that he will incur the wrath of God and the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. Mr. KENNEDY. There is an old saying in Boston that, "We get our religion from Rome and our politics at home," and that is the way that most Catholics feel about it. But the basic issue we are discussing here is Federal aid to education. You do not believe in Federal aid to education and particularly you do not believe that if there is aid to education it should be given to nonpublic schools. How do you feel about aid to students attending Catholic colleges under the GI bill of rights? Do you disagree with that? Mr. ROGERS. Yes. Mr. KENNEDY. You do not think that should be done? Mr. ROGERS. No, sir. Mr. McCOWEN. The time of the gentleman has expired. We thank you for your appearance, Mr. Rogers. Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, sir. (The witness was excused.) Mr. McCowEN. The next witness is Mr. George J. Hecht, publisher of Parents' Magazine, New York City. STATEMENT OF GEORGE J. HECHT, PUBLISHER, PARENTS MAGAZINE AND SCHOOL MANAGEMENT, NEW YORK, N. Y. Mr. HECHT. Mr. Chairman, my name is George J. Hecht. I am president of the Parents' Institute, which publishes Parents' Magazine and School Management. The forgotten child is the shame of the United States today. The educational expenditure of nearly bankrupt Great Britain is about 3 percent of its income; Russia spends more than 7 percent of its income on education; and yet the wealthiest country in the world, the United States, is spending only 12 percent of its income on education. If children were cattle they would be getting a much squarer deal from Unele Sam. The Federal Government appropriates many times as much money for the welfare of cattle, hogs, and other farm animals as it does for the education of children. Furthermore, while the Federal Government appropriates nothing toward the salaries and training of teachers, it votes annually many, many millions for the education of farmers and for agricultural extension workers to be sent to every State in the Union to teach farmers how to care for their cattle. For more than 20 years I have been publishing America's leading magazine for mothers and fathers on the rearing of children. Parents' Magazine is read every month in more than a million homes where there are more than 2,000,000 children. For 15 years I have also been publishing School Management, the largest circulation magazine for school administrators. And so I know whereof I speak. Total funds appropriated and available for the United States Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year of 1946 were $2,300,000,000. Total funds appropriated and available for the United States Office of Education for the fiscal year of 1946 was a little over one and a half million dollars, which is about one-fourteenth of 1 percent of the Department of Agriculture appropriation. For research activities of the Bureau of Animal Industry alone, more than $10,000,000 was appropriated in the Department of Agriculture as compared to the total appropriation for the Office of Education of $1,600,000. And then the Department of Agriculture also gets $25,000,000 for the Extension Service throughout the 48 States and about $5,000,000 for Agricultural Economics, $91,000,000 for the Forest Service, and $39,000,000 for Soil Conservation. Nations can rightfully be judged by the care and education they give their children. The future of the United States is being shaped in the schoolrooms of today. How can America continue its leadership in world affairs if the next generation grows up badly educated, all because too little money was appropriated in many of our less wealthy States, where they have more children than money? For our Nation to survive and prosper, adequate schools must be maintained and living wages must be paid to teachers-wages sufficiently high to attract and keep well-qualified and trained people for the vitally important job of teaching future generations. Within the past 5 years 350,000 qualified teachers have left their profession. Roughly, this amounts to one out of every four teachers in the public school system of America. In 1945 only 7 percent of college students were enrolled as future teachers, compared with 17 percent in 1930. Former teachers returning from retirement and teachers holding "emergency" permits fill only a fraction of the gap. Why have so many teachers left the field? Low salaries are the chief reason. The national average of pay for teachers, principals and supervisors in 1945 was only $1,786. În 1944 half the teachers in the country were being paid less than $31.25 per week. This for men and women, professionally trained, to whom we entrust the all-important task of educating our children.. Much more money is needed in the educational field primarily to pay teachers, so that there are enough teachers, so that they get a living wage and so that qualified young people do go into the teaching profession and get adequate training. But money is also needed for other educational purposes. Many of our school buildings are a disgrace. There are still more than a hundred thousand one-room schoolhouses in which the proper teaching of children of varying ages is virtually impossible. There is need for safe school busses to transport the children. And need for adequate text books, maps and other necessary school supplies. And why not use in our schools the successful methods of teaching that were developed by our Army and Navy during the past war? By means of sound motion pictures and slide films our armed forces training programs found that learning time could be shortened between 35 and 55 percent with a corresponding increase in the length of time the material was remembered. Naturally every school should have a generous supply of the best textbooks, but every school should also have access to teaching films and a sound motion-picture projector and a slide film projector. The use of teaching films is actually an economy. Children learn faster and remember more. The Federal Government should aid the States in acquiring teaching films and projectors to give our Nation's children the benefit of the same modern methods as were used so successfully among the men and women in our armed forces. Simply because a State doesn't have any big industries in it; or hasn't wealthy people who pay large taxes, a share of which go toward local school support, is no reason why essential activities such as schools should be underfinanced. When this happens in other fields, the Federal Government steps in and provides money so that vitally important activities can be continued. The Federal Government provides virtually all the money needed to fight forest fires throughout the country. If we depended upon State appropriations for forest-fire prevention there would hardly be any forests left and large areas of our country would be burned over and arid. Unbelievable dust storms would sweep from the poorer States that didn't provide forest-fire protection over onto the wealthier States which did. And so, the Federal Government appropriates ample money to all the States to provide for adequate forest-fire protection. Uncle Sam seems also to be more interested in trees than in children. In some States as much as $6,000 per year is spent for the education, per school classroom; in other States less than $100 per year is spent per classroom. More than $6,000 in some States-less than $100 in other States. Is this fair? Federal aid to education is nothing new for the United States Government. In the history of the United States, well over a hundred Federal aid-to-education bills have been passed. But there has never been any Federal aid to education where it is needed most; namely, aid to the elementary school. There is Federal aid for agricultural colleges and for home economics and other vocational courses. The Federal Government also provides for school lunches and yet there is no aid to education where it is needed most; namely, for young children. Thousands upon thousands of children in the Southern States are not going to school at all because there are no teachers. Either there isn't any money to pay the teachers or the amount of money is so small that no teachers will take the job. The situation is a national scandal. These conditions cannot be permitted to continue. The forgotten child is the shame of the United States. While I know this is a hearing on Federal aid-to-education legislation, may I put in a 1-minute plug here for a related legislative matter; namely, the Federal school-lunch appropriation. Children cannot profit to the maximum from education given them if they are undernourished. Innumerable surveys made during the past 15 years show that a shockingly large portion of our children are not properly nourished, either because their families haven't the economic means or they lack the nutrition knowledge to feed them properly. Consequently, may I urge an adequate appropriation for the continuance of the Federal school-lunch program which has been carried on so successfully and advantageously for the last 4 years or 5 years. |