Mr. KENNEDY. So then, as you do not blame all of the people of the United States for certain abuses in certain parts of this country, you do not blame all the Catholics for abuses that may exist in Quebec. Dr. FOWLER. Absolutely not.

Mr. KENNEDY. Similarly, in Louisiana, they spend $5 for the education of a white child, and $1 for a Negro child. Would you say that encourages ignorance there?

Dr. FOWLER. I would say that was prejudice.

Mr. KENNEDY. You have given some anecdotal evidence about a traveler who told you about the Catholic Church in Spain and the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. Do you think those anecdotes lend any credence to the statements you make? Do you intend to offer them to this committee for that purpose?

Dr. FOWLER. What I offered to this committee are the statements of fact I gave in my brief, namely, that Protestants are not permitted, for instance, to publish any of their own literature in Spain, and Protestants are not permitted to be married by civil authorities, and Protestants cannot publicize their own position, all those intolerant positions that the Church of Rome has definitely taken in Spain. That is my position. That is based on fact.

Mr. KENNEDY. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McCOWEN. Dr. Fowler, you have made a very excellent statement from the standpoint of separation of church and state, but in my opinion not very much of it affects the real point in this discussion. You have touched on metaphysics and theology here, but it still does not hit center on some of these bills at least.

The main bill under discussion in the hearing is H. R. 2953, and the real point in that is that it has gone to the extreme, so far as it seemed possible, for English to express it, in preventing Federal control, and also it turns the money strictly over to the States, which permits it to go right in the same pot with its own tax money.

Then, you have the tax dollars produced by the State, plus those given by the Federal Government, all mixed up, so that you cannot say which is which.

Under the terms of this bill, H. R. 2953, it particularly emphasizes and declares that the Federal money given to a State shall be spent by that State just like it spends its own tax money. In other words, under its own laws, and that is perfect States' rights, I think.

Of course, if we had not recently had a Supreme Court decision, which you quoted, and which permits reimbursement to parents who have paid for the transportation of their children to parochial schools, if we had not had such a recent court decision, very likely we would not have had that section in this bill.

So, the entire purpose of H. R. 2953 is to have each State run its own schools, under its own laws, in its own way, so that if we do not like what a State is doing, we will perhaps have to get the State to change its own laws overnight.

That is not a matter that we are concerned about now.

I think you made the statement that if certain things weer done, the Supreme Court rules it out. You might just turn that around and say also that when certain things are done, the Supreme Court rules it in, because when the New Jersey State law said there should be reimbursement for transportation from tax money, to the parochial school,

you had that ruled in by the Supreme Court. So you see, the Supreme Court rules in as well as out.

I cannot see where there is going to be any particular struggle between Protestants and Catholics over the passage of a Federal-aid bill that is strictly without Federal control, because every effort that it seems possible to take to write a bill to keep church and state separate has been made in H. R. 2953.

I do not think a member of this committee would disagree with you at all on that point; we do want and we do intend to keep church and state separated.

Now, if your statement be correct that there is a large movement going on so that the Protestants will set up Protestant or religious schools, I wonder if that would not be just still further helping to ruin the public schools, because if the Protestants would also set up a lot of schools connected with their respective churches, and were very successful in getting the children of the Protestant people to attend, you would have a very large number taken out of the public schools. Then, who would you have left in the public schools? You would have left probably only those whose parents do not belong to any church, and it seems to me we might, by such action, have a tendency to almost ruin the public schools.

Dr. FOWLER. In other words, you would be opposed to that, the establishment of Protestant independent schools?

Mr. McCOWEN. No; no more than I would any other private or religious school. They are all in the same category, are they not? Dr. FOWLER. Yes; I think so.

Mr. McCowEN. That is not saying any of it is good. It may be so that you are just making a bad matter worse.

Dr. FOWLER. That is correct. Of course, you have to keep in mind that the majority of citizens of our country are not Christians.

Mr. McCOWEN. Now there is a crisis in education. Teachers have left the profession in great numbers. Young people entering the training schools are very few in comparison with former years before the war. So we not only now have a very, very large number of untrained teachers, teaching on irregular or emergency or temporary certificates, but the lack of increase in salaries has a strong tendency to further increase that bad situation.

This Federal aid for education proposed in H. R. 2953 does not give a lot of money, but it will help some, and if education is a matter of national concern, then the Federal Government certainly ought to come in and do more. We think it can do it without any of the troubles you mention, and if anyone can write a better bill than H. R. 2953 that will help the situation and prevent Federal control, we would like to have the bill.

On behalf of the committee, I thank you for your appearance.

Mr. BREHM. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to interpose here and say that if legislation cannot be properly drafted to prevent the dire calamity from occurring, to which Dr. Fowler refers, then we should junk all of this legislation, because I know of nothing that is needed to completely ruin this country now than a good holy war-if not, ruin the entire world.

Dr. FOWLER. Yes sir. I do not know whether you are aware of what has happened since the Supreme Court has made its decision, but it

has immediately brought out headlines, such as in the Christian Century, "Protestants awake ere it is too late." In other words, those lines are being drawn, and this would increase it, and as for the chairman's statement in connection with the keeping of States' rights, why does he not go wholly in favor of States' rights and refuse any aid to any public school at all. That would be true States' rights, I believe. Mr. McCowEN. I do not agree with you on that statement at all. Dr. FOWLER. Here is a point in connection with this law. You are speaking, are you not, for the country as a whole, and I believe the country as a whole is definitely opposed to the position taken by the Supreme Court in its late decision.

Mr. McCowEN. Of course, that too is a matter of opinion.
Now, our time has gone: I am sorry.

Dr. FOWLER. I want to thank the committee for its gracious treatment, and for the time they have accorded me. Thank you very much. Mr. McCowEN. The next witness is Rev. J. M. Dawson, executive director, Joint Committee on Public Relations, representing the southern, northern, and the national conventions, and the national Baptist conventions.

Mr. TAYLOR. I am with him on some committees, and I happen to know that he is in Atlantic City, and probably will not be filing a brief with this committee. He filed one with the Senate committee.

Mr. McCowEN. Then there is no one here to speak in his place, so far as you know?

(No response.)

Mr. McCowEN. Very well.

Is Mrs. Margaret Hopkins Worrell here?

Will you give your name and your connection?

STATEMENT OF MARGARET HOPKINS WORRELL, PRESIDENT GENERAL, THE WHEEL OF PROGRESS; PAST NATIONAL JUNIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, LADIES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

Mrs. WORRELL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as president general, I represent the Wheel of Progress and as past national junior vice president and national legislative chairman, I represent the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic. We have about 35,000 members throughout the United States. As you probably know our objects, regardless of creed or religious sentiment, is to teach loyalty to our country and give especial attention to the public schools to see that the children obtain proper education.

The Wheel of Progress is nonpartisan and nonsectarian, organized to defend the Constitution of the United States and to battle for representative government by inducing all citizens to use the elective franchise to the end that the Republic of which the founders dreamed shall at last be ratified in a "government by the people." Among our distinguished life members are numbered: Mrs. Rose Gouveneur Hoes, granddaughter of President Monroe; Col. Charles A. Lindbergh; Capt. George Fried; Senators Warren R. Austin, Joseph C. O'Mahoney, Carl A. Hatch; former Senators Hiram W. Johnson, William E. Borah, Henry F. Ashurst, Ernest W. Gibson and Frederick Van Nuys, and others.

We are opposing H. R. 2953 and all other Federal aid to education bills for the reason we believe the result would be Federal control of our public schools throughout the United States.

May I begin by saying that our organizations are heart and soul in favor of good salaries for our teachers as we believe they are the guardians of the coming generations and upon them depends the future of our Nation.

- We realize that our teachers' salaries have been too low and have not gone up with the price of other things, but teachers are not the only class to suffer; for instance, there are the 70- to 85-year-old widows of Civil War veterans living on $40 per month and thousands of the old retired employees of our Government living on less than $1,100 per

annum.

We think the great army of school teachers are a noble group of men and women and are entitled to better treatment by the so-called leaders who are supported by their membership dollars. Their reason for asking better salaries are good and we are for them, but the remedy is not Federal aid-the States can take care of that-the agitation is by the teacher organizations. Not one State has asked for Federal help. There is plenty of money in State treasuries to pay proper salaries and if all this avalanche of propaganda pressure and the money spent by these political educationalists to gain control of schoolsbecause that is undoubtedly their aim-had been directed to State legislatures, the teachers would have received better salaries long ago. It appears, however, that many States have already increased teachers' salaries greatly. All States have surpluses; over a billion-dollar surpluse is reported by the Commerce Department.

The country has just experienced dictatorships in various Government bureaus and should know that from humble beginnings in these bureaus they finally dominated our whole life-it was like a creeping disease-something like the opium habit-a little leads to more and the creeping disease of Federal aid, if brought into our schools, would end in control and a body of youth permeated with political experiences and ideas that any unsafe administration might prefer. We cannot afford to acquire that habit.

The proponents of these bills, the educationalists, cry loudly that there is to be no Federal control-that idea is sheer folly. They give, as an example, the appropriation to land-grant colleges and state that it has not resulted in Federal control. If they really believe that, it is because they have not read the rules now in force controlling these land-grant colleges. Not only is there Federal control, but such control differs as the years roll by.

The political educators who had the handling of the more than $400,000 of the NEA war and peace fund, used it with telling effect. This war fund, wrung from underpaid teachers, was not to promote the war the Government was engaged in, but a war to get Federal aid to education.

The main theme of the proponents of these bills is that teachers are leaving the service on account of poor salaries and saying that the best have left; that no man would go into teaching if he could get into any other profession and that teachers have such poor social status that they are regarded as freaks and so forth. All of which is untrue, but such propaganda has seriously lowered the morale and discouraged

and disheartened those teachers who have remained true to their profession. There are many reasons why teachers leave the service some were drafted, some were lured away by wartime wages, just as were others from every other business.

Now as to the numbers who have left the teaching profession-it is stated in the NEA Journal for December (p. 587) that 600,000 have left since 1939, but most of the propagandists seem to have agreed on the number 375,000, some say for 6 and some for 5 years, but let us accept that figure, 375,000 or 75,000 a year and you will note that both are inaccurate and misleading. There are 850,000 public-school teachers. In normal times 10 percent leave the service and this is from the best authorities, the United States Bureau, the NEA, and Benjamin Fine of the New York Times. Well, 10 percent of 850,000 is 85,000 in normal times. Now if only 75,000 have been leaving during the last 5 or 6 years, it is 10 percent less than normal.

We think the propaganda of the educationalists for the last 9 years in their continued endeavor to obtain Federal aid and eventual control of our public schools has been pretty well shown up, and we believe that the representatives of the citizens of this Nation will not change the long-time Government set-up for something easily remedied in another way. No amount of promises would keep the Federal Bureau from expanding and becoming a dictator of education subject to the political control of the administration. The remedy would be worse than the disease.

We like the State of Indiana's House Concurrent Resolution No. 2, which I desire to read:

Indiana needs no guardian and intends to have none. We Hoosiers-like the people of our sister States-were fooled for quite a spell with the magician's trick that a dollar taxed out of our pockets and sent to Washington will be bigger when it comes back to us. We have taken a good look at said dollar. We find that it lost weight on its journey to Washington and back. The political brokerage of the bureaucrats has been deducted. We have decided that there is no such thing as "Federal" aid. We know that there is no wealth to tax that is not already within the boundaries of the 48 States.

So we propose henceforward to tax ourselves and take care of ourselves. We are fed up with subsidies, doles and paternalism. We are no one's stepchild. We have grown up. We serve notice that we will resist Washington, D. C., adopting us.

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana (the Senate concurring), That we respectfully petition and urge Indiana's Congressmen and Senators to vote to fetch our county courthouse and city halls back from Pennsylvania Avenue. We want government to come home.

Resolved further, That we call upon the legislatures of our sister States and on good citizens everywhere who believe in the basic principles of Lincoln and Jefferson to join with us, and we with them to restore the American Republic and our 48 States to the foundations built by our fathers.

We are convinced that citizens of other States hold the same views as expressed by Indiana, which views were emphatically shown by the voters in the last election. They object to national socialism and parents are awakening to the danger of centralizing control of education. They are becoming aroused over the change made in educational methods in the past few years and realize that said change has been detrimental to the education of their children; that they have not been taught the fundamental principles, but a false philosophy critical of American ideals, preparatory to indoctrination of communism and a change in our system of government.