Senator HILL. Dr. Johnson, we will be delighted to have you proceed in your own way, sir.

Your prepared statement may be made a part of the record at this point.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT BY MORDECAI W. JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, HOWARD UNIVERSITY A. THE NATURE OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY AND ITS PLACE IN AMERICAN HIGHER

EDUCATION

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: 1. Howard University was chartered by act of Congress on March 2, 1867. It was the purpose of the founders to admit students of both sexes, and of every race, creed, color, and national origin. But it was one of the major purposes of the founders to admit Negro youth, among others, to all of its educational offerings. The institution has pioneered in the offering of professional training to Negro youth in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, architecture, law, music, and social work, as well as in the teaching profession and religion.

2. During the period of 8 years between 1867 and 1955 Howard University has been the only university of public support in the Southern States which freely and substantially admitted Negro youth to any approximation of the wide scope of undergraduate, graduate and professional opportunities characteristic of the American State university.

3. During the entire 88 years of its history Howard University has graduated a larger body of Negro physicians, dentists, pharmacists, engineers, architects, musicians, lawyers, and social workers than all other universities of public support combined, in all the Southern States.

4. From the beginning of its work until the end of 1954, Howard University has graduated a total of 18,195 persons. By far the large majority of these graduates have been Negroes. These graduates are at work in 42 States and 24 foreign countries. In every population center in the United States they constitute a cross-section of the leadership of the Negro people. Together they constitute the largest and most diversified group of trained Negro public servants related to any single institution in the world.

5. Since 1948 public institutions in 12 Southern States, hitherto closed to Negroes, have little by little, opened their doors to Negro youth; but in the year 1954 Howard University still enrolled a larger number of Negro students in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, music, engineering, architecture, and social work than in all other public universities and colleges together in the entire area of the Southern States.

6. That national importance of Howard University as a trainer of Negro professional students is nowhere better illustrated than by reference to medicine and dentistry. If Meharry Medical College at Nashville, Tenn., alone be excluded, the enrollment of medical and dental students at Howard University in 1954 exceeded enrollment of Negro students in all the other medical and dental schools in the United States. Howard University and Meharry Medical College have been the responsible pioneers in the development of medical education among Negroes and, today, they constitute, by far, the major source of Negro physicians, surgeons, and dentists in America and in the world.

7. From the beginning of our work in 1867, the founders invited to the faculties of the university learned and ab'e men and women, on the basis of their ability and character as individuals and without discrimination as to sex, race, creed, color or national origin. But it was a major purpose of the founders of Howard University to employ Negro teachers, among others, on every faculty. Today the Negro members of the professional faculties of Howard University, exclusive of the school of religion, constitute together a group of Negro professional teachers larger by far than all the Negroes so employed in all other American universities combined. The existence of this group of Negro university teachers at Howard University has been a standing inspiration to the Negro people for more than three-quarters of a century, and membership on one of these faculties has been the first employment of many of the most outstanding Negroes in the public life of America. From them came the founder and operator of the first blood plasma bank in the world, the most distinguished Negro industrial chemist in America, the first Negro governor of an American possession, the first Negro in the Secretariat of the United Nations (Nobel prize winner), the first Negro member of the bench of the United States Court of Appeals, the first Negro cultural attaché in the diplomatic service of the United States to a major European nation.

8. Service to foreign students and in foreign countries. -Howard University has developed a far-reaching service to foreign students. Foreign students are now enrolled from more than 30 foreign countries. It ranks third among American universities in the percentage of foreign students enrolled.

9. Howard University students and teachers have associated daily with teachers and students representative of every race and color and many of the creeds of the world. They have learned by experience that the common country of the trustable human heart crosses and transcends all these boundaries of external difference, and they are habituated to a friendly interest in human beings everywhere. In recent years many of these teachers and students, as individuals and in groups, have traveled on missions to many countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Wherever they have gone, they have imparted good will and friendship and they have found good will and friendship in return.

10. Again and again the responsible leaders of Government and the friends of our country have acknowledged their services as being of the highest value to their country and to the cause of democracy in the world.

11. One of these expressions was published by the Department of State in the Record under date of March-April 1950, regarding the visit of the Howard University players to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. Said the editor of the Record, "Reports from all who came in contact with the Howard University players during their tour indicate that they reflected great credit on their university and on their country. Typical of the glowing tributes paid them by Europeans who were closely associated with them in this undertaking was that contained in a letter which Mr. Carl Hegor, director of the Alle Scene Theater in Copenhagen, wrote to the American Ambassador there:

"I should be extremely pleased if you would tell your Government that the visit by the Negro students to this country was a great success also in the sense of international relationship. The private hosts among whom are leading men in Danish art and science have to me expressed their delight at the visit.

""These students and their leaders gave us such an admirable impression of the United States that I cannot think of any young representatives who could better act as a living propaganda for your people and country and its democracy. "I sincerely hope that a similar arrangement can again be made.""

B. THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP ON THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO HOWARD UNIVERSTIY

1. Howard University was chartered by an act of Congress on March 2, 1867. Funds of the Federal Government available through the Freedmen's Bureau, were contributed toward the purchase of the first land and the erection of the first building.

2. Almost immediately the institution became associated with the hospital work which the Federal Government was undertaking to do for the emancipated slaves at Freedmen's Hospital and has continued that relationship until this day. The present Freedmen's Hospital stands on valuable grounds owned by Howard University and leased to the Federal Government at the rate of $1 per year. Howard University renders all professional services in this hospital, and the combined work of Howard University and the Freedmen's Hospital constitute the most valuable training facilities for the substantial medical eduction of Negro physicians and surgeons to be found anywhere in the world.

3. On March 3, 1879, the Congress made the first Government appropriation for the support of the university in the amount of $10,000. Since that time the Congress has made continuous and increasing appropriations to the university, year by year being more and more confirmed in the conviction that it was thereby rendering a greatly needed service to the colored people in ways not otherwise provided for. Until the year 1928 these appropriations were made in the form of voted gratuities, without the support of a substantive law. During this preiod of 49 years, from March 3, 1879, to December 13, 1928, the current annual appropriations from the Congress to Howard University rose from $10,000 to $218,000, enabling the university to survive as the only one of many heroic endeavors which began in this field after the emancipation.

4. Under date of March 15, 1928, the United States Office of Education called nationwide attention to the necessity of making Howard University into a firstclass institution, showing that the possibility of a first-class university available substantially to the Negro people did not exist anywhere else in the United States. At that time there was nowhere in existence in the Southern States a single approximation of a State university available to Negroes, and there was nowhere manifest a vigorous will to give adequate support to such an undertaking, either in private philanthropy or in government.

5. On December 13, 1928, both Houses of Congress passed and the President of the United States signed a bill amending the act incorporating Howard University, so as to provide substantive law for annual appropriations thereto, in the following language:

"SEC. 8. Annual appropriations are hereby authorized to aid in the construction, development, improvement and maintenance of the university, no part of which shall be used for religious instruction." (45 Stat. 1021, approved December 13, 1928.)

6. The passage of this substantive law in 1928 was followed by a conference called by Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Roy O. West, on February 11, 1929, and attended by representatives of all divisions of the Government including the Bureau of the Budget, the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, the Finance Committee of the Senate, the Department of Interior, and the United States Bureau of Education, together with leaders of philanthropy and the trustees of Howard University. At the conference it was unanimously agreed that the time had come to establish Howard University on a first-class basis and the United States Office of Education was authorized to study and to prepare a plan for the development of the university along these lines.

7. Following this important conference, a study of all aspects of the educational program of Howard University was made by the officers thereof, under the supervision of the Office of Education. As a result of this study a definite program to establish Howard University on a first-class basis was worked out in every detail and a formula of financial support based upon the experience of State and Federal Governments with land-grant colleges and universities, was established and agreed upon by the educational leaders in the Office of Education, by the United States Commissioner of Education, by the Secretary of the Interior (Hon. Ray Lyman Wilbur), and by the Subcommittee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, dealing with the Interior bill, under the leadership of Hon. Louis C. Cramton. This bill was commended to the Congress by the action of the entire Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives.

8. The Congress swiftly and vigorously supported the agreed-upon program. By successive steps it raised the current appropriation from $218,000 in 1928 to $675,000 in 1932, and made substantial appropriations for buildings and physical plant improvements. Then came the depression years which halted the growth in current appropriations and brought the building program to a stop.

9. Increased appropriations for current support began again, however, after 1941 and steadily rose to $1,115,701 in 1946; thence to $1,588,635 in 1947 and to a peak of $2,819,759 in 1950.

10. Physical plant: The 71st Congress which prepared the first 20-year program for the development of Howard University recognized that the university was in distressing need of a new plant and equipment for the important work which it was undertaking to do. In the 20-year program of development which it approved, therefore, it provided for a rapid development of the physical plant of the university including the acquisition of nearly 460,000 additional square feet of land and more than 30 new buildings, within a period of 10 years. The Congress in sessions between May 7, 1929, and March 4, 1933, appropriated $3,264,000 toward the construction of 8 of these building projects as follows: (1), (2), (3), 3 dormitories for women, (4) an educational classroom building, (5) a heat, light and powerplant, (6) a tunnel for the transmission of heat, light, and power, (7) a chemistry building, (8) a general library building. These buildings were all constructed thereafter and further appropriations of $1,397,700 were made for a ninth building project—a group of men's dormitories-and for landscaping and repair of buildings. The needed land for all these projects was acquired through the gifts of private foundations.

11. After the beginning of the year 1936, however, the appropriations for funds for buildings ceased until after the United States had ended the Second World War.

12. Over 2,600 returning soldiers from this war, being deeply impressed by the advantages which Howard University offered, flooded the 10 schools and colleges and overflowed its buildings to the extent that the Government provided Howard University with 13 temporary wooden buildings and turned over for their use 2 permanent dormitory buildings, originally acquired for the housing of Government employees. During this period the physical plant of the university was placed under the utmost strain; its current budget for maintenance of the plant was exhausted to provide foundations, water, electric and heating services for the temporary wooden buildings; and the current maintenance of the plant was so far reduced in efficiency that heavy deterioration set in and accumulated rapidly.

13. The Members of Congress were so greatly impressed by the distressing inadequacy of the plant of Howard University in 1946-48, that they determined to give the matter of an adequate plant their most thorough consideration. On June 14, 1948, therefore, they appropriated a sum of $50,000 to provide for a careful restudy of the 20-year plan of 1930 and a considered readaptation of that plan by the Public Buildings Administration to meet the present-day needs of the university. As this study proceeded the Congress made one appropriation after another, designed to bring about an adequate plant at the earliest possible time. Between June 14, 1948, and August 31, 1951, the Congress thus appropriated and authorized funds for 12 major building projects at an authorized cost of $18,439,221 and authorized further the funds for the planning of a new preclinical medical building. This was the first sustained movement toward the provision of an adequate plant for the university since the initial series of appropriations by the Members of Congress in the years 1927 and 1933, immediately succeeding upon their determination upon the 20-year program to make Howard University a first-class institution.

14. To this group Congress last year added an appropriation of $4,436,000 for the construction of this preclinical medical building.

C. PRESENT STATUS OF THE UNIVERSITY

1. These decisions of the committee and of the Congress of the United States have been the most creative and inspiring acts ever to be taken by the voted will of the people of the United States in relation to the higher education of the Negro people. They have brought every one of the 10 schools and colleges of Howard University to national accreditment. They have brought about the qualitative recognition of our work by all other American universities and the establishment in our midst of the national honor society of Phi Beta Kappa. They have brought us within striking distance of the ability to crown the university organization with a first-class graduate school; and they have brought us more than half way toward an adequate physical plant for the first comprehensive university service ever to come into existence in the United States, with both a substantial attendance of Negro youth and a substantial representation of Negro scholars on its faculties. 2. I ask that the members of the Committee will allow me to express the hope that the Congress will not falter in the great purpose which it has thus far so inspiringly pursued regarding Howard University, but that the Congress will go on until it has crowned the university organization with a first-class graduate school and until they have built for it a physical plant that will house its work in a thoroughly competent fashion.

3. The State universities in 12 Southern States have of late, and little by little, opened their doors to Negro students. This is a great beginning, of high significance to the Negro people and to our Nation. In the course of time it will come to have quantitative significance in the training of high-grade professional and graduate leadership for the Negro people; and after the expiration of many years, it will, I am sure, come to have the crowning inspiration of a substantial number of Negro scholars, working in the faculties of these universities, side by side with their brothers of the majority.

4. Until that time comes, however, there is one place in this Nation where the people of the United States have come near to an unequivocal and substantial expression of their highest will toward the Negro minority-that is in the comprehensive undergraduate, graduate, and professional program of Howard University and in the substantial representation of Negro personnel on the faculties of that university.

5. Every unfinished element in the life of this project which leaves it short of first-class resourcefulness and functioning should be rapidly overcome without hesitancy in order that the Negro people themselves, the citizens of our country from every State, and the diplomatic and cultural representatives of all the peoples of the world may see here on this spot in the National Capital an expression of our American and democratic purpose toward race, color, and minority status, so clear, so substantial, and so adequate as to be inspiring beyond question. The hour is late, and the world needs this inspiration more than it needs bread.

ADDENDUM TO STATEMENT BY MORDECAI W. JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF HOWARD UNIVERSITY

SALARIES AND EXPENSES, HOWARD UNIVERSITY

1. It is respectfully requested that the reduction of $234,000 in the appropriation of Howard University for salaries and expenses, approved by the House of Representatives be restored to allow the full 1956 estimate of $3 million, recommended in the budget by the President of the United States.

2. The reduction of $234,000 in the 1956 estimates eliminates the following specific items of increase requested.

(a) Eight teachers in medicine _ _ _

(c) Repairs and renovation of physical plant.

(b) Operation and maintenance of 3 new buildings and 1 newly renovated building----.

$59, 400

74, 754

100, 000

234, 154

Less: Allowance in excess of budget estimates for salary increases.

154

Total__

234, 000

The drastic reductions thus made in the current budget of Howard University cannot fail to be gravely injurious to the program for the development of the university.

The action denying increased teachers in medicine operates to veto the effective use of millions of dollars already invested by the Government in an effort to double the output of physicians and dentists at Howard University.

The action denying the special appropriation for repairs and renovations, dangerously delays the work of removing the heavily accumulated deterioration in the university plant. This deterioration still endangers the life of students. This deterioration increases in degree and in extensity of decay with every delay. This deterioration cannot be removed at all except by the kind of special attention which is here sought and denied.

This action denies also any help whatsoever for the proper maintenance of three new buildings, at a time when the university is struggling, with inadequate resources, to overcome the heavy accumulation of deterioration in the plant brought over from the past. Under such circumstances it is certain that the new buildings cannot be maintained adequately, and that they will soon themselves be involved in rapid deterioration.

3. Restoration of estimate of 8 teachers in medicine, $59,400, is earnestly requested. (a) The 1956 estimates provide for the addition of teachers in medicine in the following categories: