recommends and which the Congress provides, truly it will have assumed all the powers of dictatorship, which we must not permit.

The situation has now reached such a stage that I fear for the public school system. As so frequently happens, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit at least has gone much further than the Supreme Court ever went. They have required the closing of school buildings and other acts to force full amalgamation; and certain district judges, I understand, are toying with the idea of complete integration with a separation of the students by sex-all of which comes back to the fact that the courts and HEW have completely usurped the rights of the people's branch of Government, the legislative branch.

I respectfully urge that this committee again include in its appropriation bill the language which the House adopted last year, as follows:

SEC.. No part of the funds contained in this Act may be used to force busing of students, abolishment of any school, or to force any student attending any elementary or secondary school to attend a particular school against the choice of his or her parents or parent.

SEC. —. No part of the funds contained in this Act shall be used to force busing of students, the abolishment of any school or the attendance of students at a particular school as a condition precedent to obtaining Federal funds otherwise available to any State, school district, or school.

I believe it necessary if we are to save our educational system. I know it is necessary if we are to retain fully our place as representatives of the people and as the people's branch-the branch which must originate and say what apprpiraitions are for; a branch that has within its hands the means of seeing that the educational system which has worked so well in this country is not destroyed. Again, I am referring throughout this statement to schools that are completedly desegregated-which are open to all comers, regardless of race, creed, or color.

Much of what is happening in this area now, as I say, the Court does not have this power under the Constitution; but as we know as lawyers, if you let a fellow cut across a corner of your lot and use it as his own for 10 years, in my State, and various years in others, and act as though it is his own, it becomes his. So if we can take it as a Congress that whatever you do with your appropriations and whatever you write in it, if you are going to let the executive or judiciary department say it cannot be used except upon their terms, we have surrendered not merely the power of the Congress but of the people, for this is the people's branch; and if you let them get by with it for 2 or 3 years, it will be accepted by the people as the Court's right. Remember there appears nowhere any statement that the Supreme Court shall be the sole interpretor of the Constitution. If that were true, it would be a dictatorship, which it is rapidly becoming because we stand by and let it be. We need a standing Committee on the Constitution to take issue with the Court's interpretation when deemed necessary.

I have just returned from my section of the country. We know how to live together in harmony and peace, but if funds are withheld or if parents are forced to send their children to a particular school against the wishes of members of all races, I am fearful we will not have a public school system, and remember if you let it happen there, it will spread over the rest of the country, to your sections, just as

sit-ins did, just as riots and burning did, just as college campus takeovers have. I say we must stop this use of unauthorized force now. Courts and HEW do not bother in some cases to say certain actions are unconstitutional. They merely say, "We will not tolerate" a situation which they don't like. Aren't those the words of a dictator or of dictators?

In my State we have problems with integration where forced. We have other problems, but we are meeting them; and as youngsters get their economic situation improved somewhat and then kind of catch up somewhat, we are finding more and more transferring to what was formerly an all-white school.

We are working hard trying to give special training to teachers and I would like to make a plea here for our colleague, Mrs. Green's efforts to help train teachers. We have made allowances for the underprivileged, those who have not applied themselves, so long that it is reflected in the fact that the teachers in many cases are not too well qualified. So unless this committee insists on language similar to what we had last year and sticks to it-and may I say this language would work, but the qualifications they wrote into it on the other side-and you remember we lost by eight votes on one and by 11 on the other— have been used to avoid our language.

I am pleading with you and my colleagues with whom I serve on the Appropriations Committee. Let's restore the right of Congress to see that education proceeds, and I am talking about schools open to everybody under the sun, desegregated as that term is defined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, section 401, subsection (b).

So this is a plea to keep our public school system from going the way of law enforcement; it is a plea to restore to the Congress of the United States the appropriating process. It is a plea to keep our children getting all the education our system has provided plus more if possible. We are talking again about schools for everyone, anybody who wants to go there. We are talking about schools where they have sent notice after notice after notice to the parents, "send your child wherever you want him or her to go."

And we are talking about an area where in many instances the school that is preponderantly colored is usually the newest school with the most modern equipment. But can you imagine them going to-as I am told, in one of our big cities in my adjoining State of Tennessee they are closing a $1 million school, new school building, just closing the doors and making them double up in the remaining school building just so that the Court can have something it can tolerate. When did it get the right to tolerate or not tolerate what Congress had done? I could go on and on.

The whole purpose of the Department of Education is education, as is the whole purpose of appropriations for education. It is bad enough for the Federal courts to usurp the rights of the general public and turn criminals loose on an innocent public where you cannot even go out at night, that is tearing up the public generally, but when they hold up your appropriated money and deprive people of all races of education, they have taken over the last bit of influence or power that we as a Congress have, and yet we are the people's branch, we are supposed to be the ones to look after them.

I do not know that I could make any better presentation than I have, but if we lose law enforcement, as we have, if we lose public

education, as we are, it is like I said on a program yesterday in my home State, "What profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" "What if we gain a little something in Vietnam for the South Vietnamese if we lose everything we are fighting for here at home?"

Education is needed and it is within the hands of Congress to see this money goes there. While we thrash it out with the courts, do not let them deprive all children of education until they get something they are "willing to tolerate."

Mr. JONAS. When funds are cut off, they are not punishing the school board, but the schoolchildren that need an education, is that not right?

Mr. WHITTEN. It is, and every school board member I know is serving at a sacrifice in the public interest. I do not know of a single one who would not like to throw up his hands, say Mr. Congressman, come down here and take my place. Their interest is trying their best to live this out until Congress reasserts itself and looks after our people.

Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Sikes?

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT L. SIKES

Mr. SIKES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The problem which disturbs us and which is disturbing a very great many of our colleagues and our constituents throughout the Nation is the issuance of guidelines by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare which go beyond the law and which are disrupting schools and school processes, and actually tending to destroy rather than aid educational systems in many areas of the country.

This committee dealt wisely with the problem last year and wrote language into its bill, which was sound language and which would have the effect of insuring that educational processes would continue under the law and that guidelines would not require actions beyond the law. We lost that language when it was modified in the Senate and the resultant conference committee action was rejected by the House after a close vote.

Had the language as written in the House been retained, it would have gone a long way toward helping to resolve the worst features. of this problem, toward giving our schools a new lease on life, and toward protecting rather than damaging educational systems. We are urging that language which will accomplish what we sought to accomplish last year be written into your bill. We think it would be an important contribution.

Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Andrews?

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE W. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you for permitting us to appear before you. I think my colleague from Mississippi states the case as well as it could be stated. I would like to concur in all that he said.

I do not know a school in Alabama that is not integrated. I had a picture of a new school building last year and showed it to some of my colleagues, they could not believe it. There was a school that

had been a Negro school, 5 years old, practically brand new. Under the Federal Court order, that school was closed and pupils were bussed five miles to a school building that was filled to capacity and over 30 years old. That school building is there today vacant, weeds, growing up all around it, to try to comply with the guidelines issued in Washington to meet the toleration ruling of the higher Court. I think Mr. Whitten is correct, the public school system not only in the south but elsewhere is being destroyed because of the effort to overcomply with the Court directives.

I do not know of a more deplorable school situation in America than right here in the District of Columbia. When I first came to Congress 25 years ago the school system of Washington had a good reputation throughout America. Look at it today. And this District. of Columbia system was the one they were going to make a showcase of. Look at it. You have a system of segregated schools in Washington. Ninety-three percent of the school population in Washington is colored. And last year and this year, teachers have absolutely refused to teach unless they have police on certain floors of certain buildings. As I say, there is not a school in Alabama that is not integrated. Some of them have more Negro people than white and some more whites than Negro. What we are objecting to, as Mr. Whitten said, is bureaucrats. You cannot reach them. You can call down there; they will never return your call. You write down there, and they never answer your letter. And when we write we do so at the request of superintendents of education.

We appropriate money for schools; they tell you how you can use it. As Mr. Jonas said, they think they are penalizing the school officials, but as a matter of fact, they are penalizing the boys and girls.

I would like to say I endorse what my colleague from Mississippi said and I cannot impress upon you too much the seriousness of this problem, and it is not only down South. It gets worse in the East and West, anywhere else where these people can invoke their will over the will of Congress. That is what it amounts to.

We give them money, they say how it is to be spent, not Congress. I understand we have a Commissioner of Education now who is a great believer in the principle of bussing and he has been quoted as saying that unless the school is 50-50 white and colored, it is not integrated. That is his opinion. And to bring about that balance which he deems to be necessary to qualify as an integrated school, you use the bussing.

As a matter of fact, he had a nickname, Mr. "Buser." With a man like that, if you do not put some strings on him, there is no telling what he will do.

That is all I have to say, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES R. JONAS

Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Jonas.

Mr. JONAS. Mr. Chairman, I do not think anything can be added to what has already been said that would advance the purpose of the hearing. Anything I could say would be repetitious. But I would like to emphasize one thing the gentleman from Mississippi said and that is, it is only through our control over the purse that Congress can let its will be known and there will be an opportunity given to have

that will expressed through administration of the laws. If we do not take some action to express the view of Congress in this appropriation bill, I think you will continue to have all sorts of different ideas about what the law is on this subject, depending on the point of view of some administrator or some judge who is trying a case.

It is not only the decisions and the interpretations made by the Department that is involved, but some of the courts at least are beginning to assume more and more power over determining what a school board should do.

So I believe the only way Congress can let its views be known in certain terms is to put a limitation on the use of funds and stop the closing down of schools that are modern and efficient and then just arbitrarily carrying the children across town or across the county outside of their neighborhood where they have been going to school. I do not see how we can do it without limiting the use of the funds. Mr. FLOOD. Mr. Michel.

Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Chairman, may I commend our colleagues for their statements here this morning.

Incidentally, the reason I was late for your initial testimony, Mr. Whitten, was because we were having a breakfast with the president of our big university out in Illinois, and I cannot help but make reference to several comments he made relative to some of the unrest prevailing on our college campuses today, and the reference you made with respect to the courts and the fact that college administrators, while being criticized, he feels very unfairly in many respects, are hampered by the very fact that, having identified those who were in violation of the law locally, they cannot seem to get the courts to move expeditiously to get the cases resolved.

As a matter of fact, there is this interval and period of time here where their hands are tied and there is no disposition of those cases. Mr. WHITTEN. Not to belabor the issue, but in case you might not have gotten the other point I made, and I am not going to repeat it at length, it is my firm belief-and we appreciate the fact we serve on a subcommittee together and enjoy a close relationship through the years but beginning with television showing of kicking local law officers around, which the new generation has been raised to see, makes you wonder how much of it might have been a development among the students that goes back over 10 or 15 years. I mean the generation gap. I do not think it affected all. You see all law enforcement is local, we do not have Federal authority. And when the courts belabor and belittle local officers and then they show such occurrences on television and just make the cops out to be dirty guys and all of that kind of thing, we have to realize we have a bunch of youngsters that grew up in an atmosphere where that is what they saw, read and heard, and when you compound that with the fact that the courts do not move nor let the police move, you make a bad situation.

My plea on law enforcement I have made many times. We need to get busy before it deteriorates further. It is already bad in education, but we need to stop it before it deteriorates completely. That is about what it amounts to.

Mr. MICHEL. Yesterday we had the last Government witness before the subcommittee, on the general provisions, asking us to delete a number of sections including 409 and 410, both of those sections to which you have referred in your testimony.