The world needs religious teaching today. Education of youth is incomplete without it. But any old religion won't do. It must be a religion that strengthens the moral fibre, that has power really to save, that truly sanctifies and consecrates the individual heart and is a proper guide to conscience. Of more harm than good is a religious moral code, like that of the Roman Catholic Church, that merely supplies "reasons" to enable people to break the ten commandments without committing grievous sin.

One of the tests whether a religion is good or bad is its ability to support and propagate itself without an alliance with and special protection of the civil government. That the founding fathers of this great Republic knew and acted on this may be seen from the following declaration of Benjamin Franklin:

"When a religion is good I conceive that it will support iself, and when it cannot support itself and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

BY GEORGE ECKEL

Special to the New York Times

CHICAGO, March 12.-The national conference on tonight with a solemn and dramatic reaffirmation of the church doctrine on marriage and the family, in Holy Name Cathedral, heard chastening words today from a Bishop of the hierarchy.

The Most Reverend John F. Noll, of Fort Wayne, Ind., diocese, told a conference section that "nearly all the evils of society prevail most where we live and not where Protestants live."

He said that there were only 7,000,000 members of the Protestant churches in the 50 largest cities of the country, 20,000,000 Catholics. Eighty percent of the Protestants was rural, he declared.

"And it is in rural America where family life is most wholesome, and where the divorce rate is still low," Bishop Noll asserted.

"On the other hand, where the bulk of Catholics live one-half of the marriages end in divorce * * *""

President Grant expressed the tradition and the philosophy of our free institutions in the following language before the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic at Des Moines, Iowa, in September 1875, when he said:

"Let us all labor * * * for the security of free thought, free speech, a free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion.

* * *

Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church, and private schools supported entirely by private contributions. Keep church and state forever separate."

"

In conclusion I quote the remarks of Mr. Elihu Root at the constitutional convention of New York in 1894. He expresses as well as anybody the reasons against giving aid to sectarian schools.

Referring to the Pilgrim Fathers and other early settlers in this country, he said: "But Mr. Chairman, there is one thing and one thing only, which these people generous broadminded and liberal said, have always said, and say today, that never in this State of ours shall be that union of church and state, which drove your fathers and mine from their homes in the Old World. And that, sir, is the principle which we seek to embody in this constitution of ours by the declaration reported by the committee on education It is not a question of religion, or of creed, or of party; it is a question of declaring and maintaining the great American principle of eternal separation between church and state." Signed:

* * *

ELMER E. ROGERS.

JOHN H. COWLES, SOVEREIGN GRAND COMMANDER, SUPREME COUNCIL, THIRTYThird DegreE ANCIENT AND ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE OF FREEMASONRY, SOUTHERN JURISDICTION, United States of AMERICA, AND Elmer E. ROGERS, HIS ASSISTANT

Brief of their points made in statements before the Senate Committee on education and Welfare, April 23, 1947, on proposals for Federal aid to education in Senate bills 81, 170, 199, and 472.

1. General opposition to Federal aid to education on all levels―elementary, secondary, and collegiate, both public and nonpublic.

REASONS

2. The States are much more able to support their respective school systems than the Federal Government is to help maintain them:

(a) Federal bonded debt is close to $262,000,000,000.

(b) Total debts of States is around $2,300,000,000.

(c) Total debts of municipalities is around $11,886,000,000.

(d) Incomes of nearly all the States have increased during the past several years. Such incomes have for the most part exceeded expenditures.

(e) Quite a number of States have raised their tax levels to increase their support to education.

3. Federal aid tends to place control under the National Government and weaken the morale of the States in their first responsibilities to educate their children. 4. Federal aid to nonpublic schools would be a bad policy:

(a) It would tend to break down our public-school systems, the bulwark of our liberties.

(b) Six-sevenths of the nonpublic schools are sectarian, aid to which from public funds is contrary to the first amendment.

(c) Five-sixths of the nonpublic schools are institutions of the Vatican, a sovereign state whose pontiffs, prelates, priests, and press have repeatedly denounced our public schools as "godless" and "sinkholes of pollution," and the pontiffs and prelates are opposed to democracy as we know it based upon the principles of the Bill of Rights.

(d) To aid the institutions of the Vatican would be to turn our face against the fundamental principles of our own sovereignty in the interest of an ultimate world theocracy as a sole universal government which is the aim of the Papacy.

JOHN H. COWLES.
ELMER E. ROGERS.

THE SUPREME COUNCIL FAVORS

1. The American public school, nonpartisan, nonsectarian, efficient, democratic, for all of the children of all the people.

2. The inculcation of patriotism, respect for law and order, and undying loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America.

3. The compulsory use of English as the language of instruction in the grammar grades of our public schools.

4. Adequate provision in the American public schools for the education of the alien populations in the principles of American institutions and ideals of citizenship.

5. The entire separation of church and state, and opposition to every attempt to appropriate public moneys-Federal, State, or local-directly or indirectly, for the support of sectarian or private institutions.

Senator AIKEN. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Rogers.

The committee will recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. We have kept on schedule so far. We hope we can continue to keep on schedule, and the Chair thinks we can. The witnesses tomorrow will represent the labor organizations, both the AFL and the CIO, and then Friday there will be seven witnesses representing different organizations.

We will now recess.

(Whereupon, at 12:30 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned until 10 a. m., Thursday, April 24, 1947.)

FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1947

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION of the

COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator George D. Aiken, presiding.

Present: Senators Aiken (presiding), Smith, Donnell, Thomas, and Ellender.

Senator AIKEN. The committee will be in order.

We will continue the hearings on the various educational bills which are now before this Senate committee.

The first witness this morning is Miss Selma Borchardt, substituting for Matthew Woll. Really, Miss Borchardt is not a substitute for any body. Mr. Woll was slated and is not here and I understand that Miss Borchardt will testify for the American Federation of Labor.

STATEMENT OF MISS SELMA BORCHARDT, APPEARING FOR MR. MATTHEW WOLL OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

Miss BORCHARDT. Mr. Woll is very, very sorry that the activities of the American Federation of Labor's committee meeting prevents his being here and I would ask permission, if I may, to submit Mr. Woll's statement for the record with such exhibits as are mentioned therein; and, if I may, Senator, to summarize the report there rather than read it.

Senator AIKEN. You may do so, Miss Borchardt.

The statement of Mr. Woll will be inserted in the record in full and then you may proceed to summarize. You may be seated.

Miss BORCHARDT. We do not come before this committee at this time, Senator, to ask for charity. We come before this committee to plead for the American public school and for every child in the United States because we feel that you gentlemen are in sympathy with such a program as a basic right.

Furthermore, we are not presenting victims of our social lack at this time for we feel that the members of this committee with the expert services at their command may get the statistics on the great need, and we think every member of this committee is convinced of the great need for Federal aid.

We do beg for action now. We feel that the problem is simply this: We cannot keep teachers; we cannot get teachers unless we pay

them; many of the States cannot pay their teachers. Therefore, the Federal Government must supplement the salaries of the publicschool teachers and we feel that the teacher needs this money more than any other employee.

Then, Senator, we are also not submitting data to you to show that there are States which cannot afford to pay teachers what they should be paid. We feel that every one of the members of this committee is convinced of that fact and can get such additional statistical data as he may need.

We therefore address ourselves specifically to how we may meet the problem. Gentlemen, we are not pleading for our bill. We are not pleading for credit of doing a particular thing. We are pleading for the maintenance of the American public school and for the services which will help every child in America become a better citizen. We feel that today a broad statesmanlike approach is necessary and, gentlemen, nothing less than $1,000,000,000 could possibly meet the needs of America's children.

We do feel that this is something that has priority No. 1 on America's Treasury service for our children.

We are asking for three forms of aid. We are asking first for aid to enable the States to pay public-school teachers more nearly adequate salaries. We are asking for services for every child in America. We are asking for funds for scholarships to enable the children and the youth of America to remain in school and serve their country.

In asking for the money for these three purposes, we are supporting something in each of the bills before the Congress. We want to say first of all that we feel there is a genuine desire on the part of every member of this committee to do something. We are therefore pointing out first of all that in the bills introduced by Senators McCarran, McGrath, and Green there is the essence of one part of the program for which we stand-salaries for public-school teachers. We feel that in the bill introduced by Senator Hill, Senator Taft, and others, that there is the essence of an equitable distribution on the basis of relative need. We feel that in the bill introduced by you, Senator Aiken, there is the recognition of the fact that we need aid not only to maintain our public schools but we need aid also to service all children in America. So we propose that there be taken from each of these bills those qualities which are essential and which we believe are basic to developing such a system.

Now, as to the question of the salaries for the public-school teachers, we think there is no difference of opinion in our America as to the need of paying our teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools a more nearly adequate salary. When we realize that in some of the States, in a number of States, in fact, teachers are receiving less than $1,000 a year the need of supplementing the pay of the public-school teachers in the elementary and secondary grades is very apparent and recognized as urgent.

We like the definition of the teacher that appears in the McGrath bill; we like the fact that it recognizes that the crisis in public-school education is in teachers' salaries. There is no shortage of school administrators at the higher bracket level.

We urge, therefore, that not less than $500,000,000 be available to be distributed on a basis of relative need for the payment of public school teachers' salaries.

Then, gentlemen, we come to the question of services. There are certain services that are so essential that without those services, a public school, a nonpublic school is worthless. We refer to the essential teaching aids, to the textbooks, to the maintenance of the health and the well-being of the children, transportation to get them to the schools, something for sustenance while they are in the school. Gentlemen, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that it is fitting and proper, in the decision rendered by Mr. Justice Hughes, to supply funds for textbooks, the nonreligious textbooks, for the children of all of the schools. Our Supreme Court has just ruled within the year that it is fitting and proper to provide the transportation with which to take children to the school of the choice of their parents.

And here may I digress just a moment to say that while we all recognize, and again our Supreme Court has long recognized, this fact the right of any parent to decide where and how his child shall be educated some of us have not recognized the fact that to deny the child certain services for his physical well-being and his proper social growth, while attending that school, which his parents select, is an implementation of the right which is fundamental in itself.

Then the question comes up, will that not produce a divisive society to have some children in one school and some in others? It will divide people according to their beliefs, surely. But we want unity and not uniformity; we contend that the greatest unity in our America grows from bringing together for a common purpose various approaches for the common good.

We repeat, salaries should be paid from public funds only to the teachers in the public elementary and secondary schools and for that reason we do not approve of the language in section 6B of the Taft bill, although we recognize the validity of the purpose which wants to give services to the children in the nonpublic schools. We are for giving those services. We think that the Supreme Court's decision, and more than that, the laws unanimously enacted by the Congress of the United States, are eloquent testimony as to the propriety of such procedure.

The GI bill makes funds available for every youth and he may use those funds in any institution. Every man now in the Senate who was here last year supported the conference bill on the school lunches. That bill said, and it was unanimously adopted in its conference form, that the Congress of the United States deems it fitting and proper to make food available for every child in our America and furthermore, to make available the equipment with which to furnish that food. So we say, in the name of consistency and in keeping with the decisions. of the Court, make those services, those essential services, available for every child.

Then we have a third approach and that is for scholarships for children and youth from the ages of 14 to 20. Over half of the youth of our country from the ages of 14 to 20 leave school because they cannot afford to remain in school. That, we think, is a terrible waste, a shocking loss to our country's welfare. You gentlemen have just established again a very, very fine precedent and that precedent is that you believe there should be a national foundation through which to develop the resources of our country, the human, the social, intellectual resources of our country. You are going to make scholarships

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