(The prepared statement of C. Emanuel Carlson follows:) STATEMENT BY C. EMANUEL CARLSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BAPTIST JOINT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS My name is C. Emanuel Carlson, I am the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, with offices here in Washington. This office is maintained by six Baptist fellowships in the United States, having 19 million members, plus our share of the children of the Nation. The six conventions cooperating in the work of the joint committee are: Southern Baptist Convention; American Baptist Convention; National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.; Baptist General Conference; North American Baptist General Conference. The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs is giving continuous study to the problems which our country now faces in seeking to perpetuate and commend our free way of life. We are deeply convinced that a significant element in our American way is the spiritual freedom afforded by the principles of government which protect the freedom of the churches and the ctitizen's freedom of religious participation based on his own convictions. The Baptist Joint Committee is encouraged with the significant interest recently demonstrated by both administrative and legislative leaders in this difficult area of church-state relations. We would commend the numerous efforts which have been made to view these issues in the context of principle, and to carefully preview the long-range consequences which follow from the courses proposed as expedient adjustments to a rapidly changing world situation. The purpose of this statement is to request a careful analysis of two features of the National Defense Education Act as enacted in 1958, and as now proposed for reenactment. Both have to do with church-state relations, an area which has been much discussed and considerably clarified since the 1958 enactment. At a meeting of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs March 6–7, 1961, the committee voted to request the elimination of all theological and religion graduate fellowships from the program established by title IV. When a National Defense Education Act undertakes to train theologians or specialists in the church-related disciples for the sake of national security, a confusion develops both as to the ultimate commitments and the appropriate means. In the thinking of the Baptist Joint Committee, theological education is beyond the proper scope of Government programing. At the present time few such fellowships are being offered. The overall graduate fellowship program would not suffer much loss if the church-state line were held firmly at this point. On the other hand, if the Government training program in this field continues it will unavoidably confuse the lines of distinction and could in due time serve as precedent for a serious effort to influence religious thought and pattern. While the instances of administrative insensitivity on church-state relations in this program have not been numerous, there have been enough such cases as to merit clarification in the legislation at two points. In our opinion programs in religious disciplines should not be approved. Neither should applications and subsidies be approved for institutions that are primarily geared to religious objectives. At this point we would remind the committee that under the Housing and Home Finance Agency housing loans are not available for chapels or for divinity schools. This policy was established after careful deliberation subsequent to the initial legislation. The Baptist Joint Committee also voted to urge that the loans to churchrelated secondary schools for science equipment and remodeling (title III) be omitted from any new legislation in this field. The joint committee holds that if Government participation in the long-term credit needs of church institutions is desirable, then such provisions should be handled as credit legislation related to the banking function and not handled as part of an educational aid program. Church-state relations show a constant tendency to erosion at the point of loans. While the institutions of society may be inadequately served by current banking law, those inadequacies should be considered in the context of bona fide credit rather than aid. The Housing and Home Finance Agency loans for dormitory projects were devised in this context, and are administered as a credit operation. Loans to non-income-producing facilities would be less desirable and more difficult to collect. The clear separation of credit relations from public aid would greatly reduce the current confusion and misunderstandings. Our information indicates that very few loans have been sought under title III of the National Defense Education Act for science equipment and facilities, in comparison with the dormitory loan demand. This development brings into clear focus the clear distinction between the self-amortizing program handled under the Housing and Home Finance Agency as a long-term credit for facilities that are income-producing, as contrasted with credit for facilities that do not produce income. Expansion of instructional facilities merely increases the operating cost of an institution and reduces rather than augments the available funds for repayment. This kind of loan, then, is more likely to develop hardship conditions and foreclosure. Government operation of the properties would not be possible for lack of authorization. In view of the proliferating of "loan" suggestions for church-related institutions, the Baptist Joint Committee believes that the future of our principles of freedom and interfaith goodwill would be best served if these credit proposals were removed from the aid context and treated as bona fide credit relations which can be administered on credit principles. This would largely avoid the complications of religious interest blocks and religious pressures for forgiveness or interest rate adjustments. The extent of the Government's involvement in the banking function need not be a church-state problem if the involvement with church institutions is simply that of "the banker" dealing equitably with all institutional interests. On the other hand, if Government undertakes to reach objectives of public policy regarding public educational needs through the expenditure of public funds to church institutions either as loans or as grants a church-state issue has arisen. Through the years Baptists have viewed free public education as a normal and necessary part of the democratic process. These schools must be seen in their relationship to the economy and the social and political skills of a free society. The admission of churches or their institutions to an interposition, standing between the public authority and the public mind, will be a serious change in the course of our Nation's history. Accordingly, we hope that the Federal Government will hold tenaciously to the policies prescribed in nearly all the States, using public funds for public institutions only. Financial A fragmentation of education can come in either of two ways. policies could be adopted which encourage churches and other private agencies to undertake elementary or secondary schools as part of their propogation of a special ideology or special interests. This might produce scores of systems of education, all weak and poor. On the other hands, support to special interests or objectives within the institution can fragment the educational process within the school while dissipating the public resources on projects which make no major contribution to public policy. We believe that the historical evidence is ample for sustaining the wisdom of the American tradition on this point. No nation has developed a strong industrial and commercial democracy without a good program of public education. On the other hand, while the strengthening of American public education is being stymied by special institutional interests, the economic totalitarian governments are moving rapidly toward leadership. Whether school support should be raised on a State or nationwide basis is not our major concern, but we are concerned that adequate educational facilities be freely available to all the people without religious differentiation and under the administration of freely elected public officials. To Baptists these issues are not matters of constitutional interpretation primarily. They are matters of public policy and of national wisdom. They are matters of freedom and voluntary religious participation for those who have genuine convictions. They are also matters of continued freedom of the churches in a free society. POSITION PAPER ON FRINGE BENEFITS IN AID TO EDUCATION (Approved March 7, 1961, by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs) The Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs has been pleased by observing a rising public discussion on the proper separation of church and state. Since these issues are inextricably interwoven with the continuation of freedom in America and with its extension in the world at large, the joint committee urges Baptists of all fellowships to give themselves to studies and discussions, and to a careful stewardship of their civic influence. The attention given to the several issues by the presidential candidates was a significant contribution to this public discussion, enabling the American voters to have a share in the formulation of Federal administrative policy on the subject of church-state relations. In the light of the political experiences of 1960 it now seems desirable that this discussion shall also include all legislators, and State and local administrators. The support for the constitutional principles of American government at the point of church-state relations, which President Kennedy has frequently expressed, are worthy of special commendation. Furthermore, his efforts to practice these principles in a legislative program are worthy of recognition. believe that the President speaks on this point for the great majority of the American people. We We especially commend President Kennedy for his frequently expressed support of the constitutional principles of American government at the point of church-state relations. We are confident that Baptists in the United States are overwhelmingly in agreement with the views of the President to the effect that aid to sectarian institutions is clearly unconstitutional. Bapists regard such aid as also unwise, undesirable, and unfavorable to our best national interests. Such aid would be a disservice to freedom and justice. It would start us on the road back into the tragic entanglement of church and state that has produced so much anguish and confusion in the course of human history. With profound gratitude we see in President Kennedy clear evidence of recognition of the basic importance of the principle of separation of church and state. As Baptists, however, our thinking must penetrate beyond the constitutional principle to the basic principles and values which underlie the Constitution. All instruments of government are living and changing instruments, constantly being made applicable to current issues, and constantly being challenged by other values and other philosophies. A thoughtful appraisal, we believe, will bring our people to a clear awareness of the importance of separation of church and state for the best interests of freedom, and of justice, as well as for the furtherance of true religion and true education. Accordingly, we urge careful study of the following considerations and lines of thought. I. Education for a free people is not a “welfare program” The rise of democracy in the United States, including the idea of popular sovereignty based on popular suffrage, required also popular education. The rights of the people to be literate, to have free access to information, and to develop civic competence in a free community that is rich with facilities for personal development, gave rise to the public school system. The public schools were never designed to monopolize the child's learning opportunities. Neither were they designed as pauper relief, nor as child welfare aid. The original vision of an informed people who can think for themselves is still a valid basis of democracy and freedom. The present-day proposals to change our educational viewpoints and to treat educational funds as aid to a person are to be regretted and to be analyzed in terms of the far-reaching dangers to free community life. The right of Federal and State Governments to provide for special categories of needy people by grants to individuals or to families is an inappropriate basis for the provision of education funds. The extension of the philosophy of the welfare state so as to provide an educational dole would lead to a wide variety of unfortunate results. Under such a program the educational fragmentation of the Nation would be unavoidable. Religious, political, economic, and fraternal groups in large numbers would normally wish to advance their particular viewpoints through instructional programs. These could be organized as schools supported at least in part by child welfare funds contributed from the Public Treasury. This would be intolerable educational chaos developed in the face of enormous educational advances by means of new public systems of instruction in other parts of the world. The American national interests would demand close regulation of all educational institutions with all the unfortunate compromises of freedom which occur whenever a government directs the thought and life of a church or a church institution. We hope that the application of the welfare concept of "aid to the person" would be judged as unconstitutional by the administration, by the lawmakers, and by the courts, as a device for distributing public educational funds. The fact that some special educational compensation was distributed to the returning GI's at the close of the war is in no wise a constitutional precedent for current legislative suggestions. On the contrary, the current suggestions are transparent devices for trying to avoid the clear constitutional principles at Federal and State levels. In order to avoid confusion of the constitutional principles we recommend that wherever child welfare benefits of any kind are provided from public funds for private or parochial students [e.g., (a) school lunches, (b) bus transportation, (c) health or dental services] these programs be administered in their proper departments [e.g., (a) welfare agency, (b) public transportation, (c) public health] and accordingly excluded from educational programs and budgets. II. A clear distinction must be made between bona fide loans and various forms of sub rosa "aid" When legislators decided that the Nation's housing needs included housing for the returning GI students and for the teachers who would instruct them, they inadvertently started a long series of developments. The latest chapter in this development is the decision of the Roman Catholic prelates to ask their people to oppose any program of Federal aid to education unless it also provides some assistance to the schools run by the bishops. The time has come for Congress to settle this question of loans on the basis of the desirable extent of the Government's participation in the banking business. To insert a loan provision into an education aid bill is to confuse two separate but important public issues. If the Government involvement in our economy includes the handling of long-term loans by Federal agencies, then this policy should be legislated with precision. The legislation should avoid discrimination, permitting all categories of institutions to be eligible. If it includes credit to religious institutions it should stipulate interest rates which protect the taxpayer from a coerced religious participation, and it should include appropriate guarantees against forgiveness and power manipulations in church-state relations. Such credit legislation does not belong in a Federal aid-to-education bill, and was properly ruled out of order when offered as an amendment during the sessions of the 86th Congress. That the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church failed to see this distinction led them to the strange inconsistency in their recent statement. Having stated their viewpoint regarding aid to the person for Roman Catholic parochial students, they used this premise as grounds for asking institutional loans. This self-contradiction indicates that they are really aiming not at bona fide loans but at credit relations which involve immediate or future aid. Apparently the insights of many Roman Catholic laymen, for whom Senator Kennedy spoke in the election campaign and for whom he continues to speak now as President of the United States, are clearer on these constitutional points than are those of the clergy who run the schools. Should the Federal Government set up an aid program, which, even under the guise of loans, tries to build up the private and parochial schools with taxpay ers' funds, it thereby becomes party to the parochial system in competition with the public educational programs of the several States. A Federal-parochial system of schools will not help the total cause of education, but it does represent an obvious violation of separation of church and state. Furthermore, additional fragmentation is bound to come until we have what could be listed as "FederalBaptist schools," "Federal-Methodist schools," "Federal-Roman Catholic schools," "Federal-labor schools," "Federal-Jewish schools," "Federal-white supremacy schools," and many more. III. Churches and church-operated institutions can be free only if they carry forward their programs on the basis of their own concern. Historically, a spiritual powerlessness has come upon churches when they have become tools for the use of public policy or government. The repetition of such errors must be the more carefully guarded at those times when the churches seem most important to public interests. It is at such times that the temptation arises to undergird the churches with well-intentioned motivations which are extraneous to the churches themselves, and which actually weaken the churches. One of the more popular suggestions for increasing attendance at parochial schools and the payment of tuition to them is to offer tax deductions or credits for parents making such payments. Apart from the Government's role in undertaking such encouragement, two major problems arise. Presently the Internal Revenue Service views tuition payments as payments for "services rendered." They are not "contributions" to the schools. If the clear distinction between "purchase of services" and "contributions" is blurred by enactment of provisions as now proposed, the new tax-reducing device should also apply to other types of services which are purchased. Surely all health expenses, many if not all of the person's recreational expenses, as well as efforts at betterment, would be eligible for consideration. If recognition were given only to those services that have strong lobbying power this would be clear discrimination. That a new line could be drawn which is better than the one presently applied by the Internal Revenue Code is hard to see. The total effect on the U.S. Treasury is also hard to estimate. After a full discussion of the church-state issues included in these proposals the Baptist Religious Liberty Conference of 1960 said: "It is our strong feeling that the Government is not concerned with the motivation or quality of the individual's stewardship. The Church of Christ has the responsibility of trying to develop this quality of an individual's stewardship. But we do deplore the tendency in some quarters to use the deduction idea in order to collect funds for church purposes. We believe this is a part of the secularization process going on in America today." Furthermore, the conference concluded that 66* * * we believe that no tax deduction should be granted for tuition for education, and that no Government grants should be made to privately owned, operated, or sponsored schools. Further, we believe that religious training or private education is a personal responsibility and prerogative.” Senator MORSE. I am going to invite Dr. Paul L. Ward, President of Sarah Lawrence College, to testify at this time. STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL L. WARD, PRESIDENT OF SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE Senator MORSE. Dr. Ward, we are glad to have you. You may proceed in your own way. Dr. WARD. Thank you, Senator. My name is Paul Ward. As president of Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, N.Y., I have requested a chance to speak in support of the section of bill S. 1726 that seeks to strike out the disclaimer affidavit provision of the National Defense Education Act. As early as March 4, 1959, our board of trustees voted to accept the recommendations from our faculty expressing opposition to this provision and urging that the college refuse to accept funds under the act so long as the disclaimer affidavit should be part of it. Our student council adopted a similar resolution at almost the same time. As newly installed president I have been impressed with the strength and virtual unanimity of opinion to this effect among students, faculty, and staff at our college. Dr. Harold Taylor, who was the college's president at the time, summed up his views in his communication to the board of trustees late in February 1959 by saying: There is no doubt in my mind that the provision should be eliminated from the National Defense Education Act because of the danger it creates for the freedom of the country's educational system. Mr. Harrison Tweed, the distinguished senior member of the New York bar who succeeded him as college president, in a response in December of 1959 to a college newspaper in Baltimore explained: The basic reasons for the decision were that a disclaimer affidavit is discriminatory because not required in the case of any other Government grant is a threat to academic freedom in that it imposes conditions upon aid to edu |