Mrs. WILSON. Then why don't you join the SAR?

Mr. SMITH. Probably I am not eligible.

Mrs. WILSON. That is the Sons of the American Revolution. It takes the same eligibility.

Mr. SMITH. I subscribe to your principles.

Now, I suppose, Mrs. Wilson, that you have discovered within the last few years that we do not go in through the front door any more. We go through the kitchen door, the back door, on our approach to all this social legislation.

Mrs. WILSON. Yes.

Mr. SMITH. And remember that they are always coming around and getting in back of us. And I think that is where the DAR sees the danger. It is coming in from the back door and not in from the front door.

Mrs. WILSON. Gentlemen, when I took this chairmanship 2 years ago, I was really one of those uneducated people from Kentucky. I did not go to a litle district school that had 150 in it; but I want to tell you this. My mother went to a school out in the country, and she had to walk about 12 miles to get there. That was a long time ago, you know. She had to walk unless they hitched up the old mare and drove the children all over. But they had the time of their lives. They gathered as they went along, and they gathered with their neighbor children, and all. And I want to say this, that my mother could put me in the background any time she wanted to when it came towhat do you do? You decline an adjective and you parse a verb, and you do this, and you do that. She really knew what she knew, and she knew it correctly. And it is the spirit of the thing behind the education; it is the spirit of the thing behind the school teacher.

I was talking with a teacher who had just returned from Mississippi. She said, "I am not making what I am making here, but I am telling you, those children were taught the right kind of things."

She made that very statement, that it is the spirit of the thing behind both the schooling and the teachers.

Mr. SMITH. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Kearns?

Mr. KEARNS. The lady has one point that is very important, and one that I think all America is concerned about today. She is not afraid of Federal aid to education, if you want to call it that, if the Representatives of the congressional districts have anything to say about it. But we do not have anything to say about it.

Mrs. WILSON. If you gentlemen were going to be the czars of education, there would be no fear. But how do we know who is going to be the czar of education?

Mr. KEARNS. What the lady is telling us today is that the power of Government is in appointed people, and not in elected people. That is how it is administered today.

Mrs. WILSON. Yes.

Mr. KEARNS. And the voters of America have surrendered their rights of government to appointed people, and not to their elected representatives. This committee, or the Congress, has no assurance that once we pass this, or any kind of Federal legislation, that this is not just going out of our hands entirely.

Mrs. WILSON. Absolutely none. And we have had examples of that. Sometimes I wish you would let me come back and make you

a real talk, sometime when I could sit here for about an hour, and then we would have a round-table discussion, because I have been studying this communistic infiltration, and I advise every one of you gentlemen, if you have not this little set of books, to write to the national defense committee, Daughters of the American Revolution, and ask them to send you the things. There are five of them: 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the United States; 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in the Government; 100 Things You Should Know About Communism in Education; In Religion-and what is the other one, Mr. Leetch?

Mrs. LEETCH. They know those books.

A VOICE. Labor.

Mrs. WILSON. Labor. And it is in concise form. Please let me come back. Let me come back when I do not have to catch a plane. I am sure the next speaker would not be allowed to come on if I did not have to leave.

Mr. BARDEN. Mrs. Wilson, before you get on the plane-
Mrs. WILSON. I do not think you want me to go home.

Mr. BARDEN. You are very delightful.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you. Would you mind putting that down in writing?

Mr. BARDEN. It is already in writing.

Mrs. WILSON. Did you get what he said?

(The reporter answered in the affirmative.)

Mr. BARDEN. It is already in writing.

You are the only one who have been talking on the record.

Mrs. WILSON. I cannot stick to it.

Mr. BARDEN. You made some mention of the fact about the amount of money that the District of Columbia would get. If you have read H. R. 4643, the bill that I introduced, you would find that the District of Columbia does not get any money in that.

Mrs. WILSON. You mean that has been cut out?
Mr. BARDEN. It never was put in.

Now, with reference to the power in the Commissioner, I do not think you will find one particle of power vested in the Commissioner. He could do nothing more than transmit to Congress the reports put in his hands, of such recommendations as he sees fit to make. And you have the same privilege of making any recommendations you want to make. He has not a single power that anybody else does not have with reference to his recommendations. We also have the right of petition.

If you will look at that bill that I introduced, you will also find that any citizen, you or anyone else, has a right to go into the Federal court at the first sign of misuse of the money. And that is the first time I have ever seen that written into an educational bill.

So there is more power placed in the private citizen to appeal to the Federal courts. And we all trust our Federal courts, even though once in a while we may find one of them that is not just what some of us would have it to be. Nevertheless, the private citizen has a right to appeal.

Sincerely, if you could find any objectionable control in the bill, I would help you remove it.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Chairman, if you could be that Commissioner of Education, I would not be here this afternoon. Or, at least, I would not come back. But I am exactly like the old man and the old

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woman who were arguing whether it was scissors or whether it was shears, and finally they fell in the water, they argued so hard, and as one of them went down she held up her hand and made the motion of scissors. So I shall state in parting that Federal aid means Federal control, and, as Senator Byrd said, show him any Federal subsidy that is not Federal control, and you cannot get around it.

I do not care how good the bills are.

Mr. BARDEN. Let me say here that I was not trying to change your mind. I am a married man.

Mrs. WILSON. Now, as for your other point, that the District of Columbia gets nothing, I am going to leave that in the hands of General Fries, because it is from his paper that I quoted. So he will straighten you out on that.

Mr. BARDEN. Let me say this, Mrs. Wilson, that he probably had reference to the Senate bill and not to the House bill. There is quite a difference, and I noticed several times in your comments it related to a matter in the Senate bill and not in the House bill. We tried to prepare one on the House side that would really pass the Pure Food and Drug Act, if you know what I mean.

Mrs. WILSON. Mr. Morton was kind enough to send me your bill. which I have studied most religiously.

Mr. BARDEN. Thank you very much. And I hope that you will have a happy landing.

Mrs. WILSON. Thank you so much. And I assure you, if I have missed the plane, I will be right back up here, and I will make that talk on communism.

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Morton would be glad to buy you another ticket.
Mrs. WILSON. And charge it to Mr. Barden?

Mr. BARDEN. As long as you charge it, it would be all right.
General Fries.

General, will you identify yourself for the reporter?
General FRIES. Yes, sir.

TESTIMONY OF AMOS A. FRIES, MAJOR GENERAL, UNITED STATES
ARMY, RETIRED, VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF THE
FRIENDS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF AMERICA, AND EDITOR
OF THE BULLETIN, FRIENDS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

General FRIES. Mr. Chairman and other gentlemen of this committee, my name is Amos A. Fries, major general, United States Army, retired, vice president and director of the Friends of the Public Schools of America. I am also editor of the bulletin Friends of the Public Schools, published by the organization.

I am appearing in opposition to H. R. 4643, and incidentally to S. 246 as it passed the Senate, and which I understand you are considering along with H. R. 4643.

The Friends of the Public Schools of America is an organization with headquarters in Chicago, Ill., operating on a national program for improving, protecting, and preserving the tax-supported free public schools.

They oppose the use of public funds for private schools of any kind, whether based on religion, business, politics, race, or creed.

They believe that the United States public-school policy should be shaped by persons who believe in and who understand the public

schools, persons who are patriotic and who are actively supporting the Constitution of the United States, while at the same time they are actively opposing any alien or subversive propaganda in the schools.

While H. R. 4643 is the least objectionable of any bill considered by either House of Congress in the last 11 years, still it contains the germ of the greatest danger to the public schools today, and I might say the Nation, considering the long-range view, which is centralization of education, whether in a self-appointed group or in the Government itself.

H. R. 4643 provides that the money appropriated shall be for taxsupported free public elementary and secondary schools and shall be paid directly to the States. Also, after it is paid to the State, it shall become the money of the State, to be used as the State sees fit, limited only by the statement that it must be used for the free tax-supported public elementary and secondary schools.

It then provides that the State shall make annual reports of all moneys received during the fiscal year for which the report is made, and for any money not spent from previous years, together with a statement of the purposes for which the money was used during such

year.

It then states that these reports from the States are required to be made before November 1 of the current fiscal year, to the Federal Commissioner of Education.

Then follows the statement that these reports must be forwarded by the Federal Commissioner of Education to Congress on its opening day, "together with such recommendations and comments as in his judgment the Congress should consider."

This gives the Commissioner of Education great authority and importance in passing judgment on what each State is doing in education and what recommendations or changes in the law he considers necessary. And that is the place where centralization of control over education can be either greatly facilitated or stopped, if the wrong or right man fills the job.

Of course, I need not remind this committee that one Congress cannot bind another Congress, but for the sake of the record and for the knowledge of the general public, I call attention to this fact.

As I stated before, the great danger is the centralization or control of education by any group, whether political, religious, educational or some other private agency. The National Education Association has been seeking power politically and seeking to indoctrinate publicschool children of the United States for the past 14 years. There lies your great danger, and that is the main reason for my protest.

Before I go further in that, however, I want to say that while this bill eliminates the question of separation of church and state, by not leaving any loophole for diversion of any of the funds it appropriates for sectarian church schools or private schools of any nature, it further limits the use of this money to current expenses only.

It then specifies that under "current expenses" the following are excluded: expenditures for transportation or for interest, day services, or capital outlay, and also that it does not include "expenditures for health services for the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of physical or mental defects or conditions."

Those things have been or can be provided for in other bills. That is, Congress can provide for public tax money to be used to help support

sectarian church schools and private schools in separate bills, under various titles.

We believe as stated in the objects for which the Friends of the Public Schools was organized that no public funds should be used for private schools of any kind, whether based on religion, business, politics, race, or creed.

Since the Roman Catholic Church is about the only organization supporting schools that is asking for tax-raised public funds for transportation, welfare, books, and so forth, it applies most directly to the demands of the Roman Catholic Church.

Encyclicals of two Popes refer particularly to schools: that of Pope Leo XIII of 1884, in which he discussed the public schools, and the encyclical of Pope Pius XI, devoted almost entirely to the school question, issued under date of December 31, 1929.

In those encyclicals they claimed the "God-given" right to supervise all education everywhere, and prescribed that Catholic children should not be permitted to go to schools of a mixed kind, and especially those controlled by the public or any other power or organization other than the Roman Catholic Church. It seems to the Friends of the Public Schools-and I say it for myself particularly-that any public money which goes to the parochial schools of the Roman Catholic Church is a violation of the first amendment and/or of the fourteenth amendment, and against the 8-to-1 decision of the Supreme Court in the McCollum v. School Board case in Champaign, Ill.

I suggested above that the National Education Association is seeking complete control of education, not alone in elementary and secondary schools, but of all persons up to 60 years of age.

They have continuously, from the first of these bills drawn 11 years ago, provided for adult education. This adult education is to be carried out by forums over the radio and the like and can be a tremendous means of spreading propaganda.

In their most recent utterances, they say that the teaching of world citizenship must be made continuous in every grade and school from the kindergarten to the college, and then that it should be carried on through adult education by various means. They are reaching out for control of the thoughts of children by publishing textbooks themselves. They published 22 pamphlets a year ago for the use of teachers only. One was written by two foreigners who had come to the United States, one in 1933 and the other in 1939. Both became citizens. They were a Mr. Lange and a Mr. Lerner.

As soon as the war was over, Mr. Lange went back to his native country, Poland or Czechoslovakia, and is now one of the top Communist members controlling those two unhappy countries. The other is a teacher in some college in the United States at the present time. The title of the series of 22 books was The American Way of Life, and Bulletin No. 20 particularly was entitled "The American Way of Business." The description of the American Way of Business resembles the American way as a watermelon resembles a peach. It describes a new Socialist way of business.

The question naturally arises, Why did the NEA, through the two committees, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Council for the Social Studies, write or have written those two books for American school teachers?