page 6 section 4, that the religious liberty of Catholic parents is being curtailed by failure of the Government to financially support parochial schools.

On April 10 the Rev. William E. McManus, assistant educational director of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, attacked the National Educational Association before a convention of his association by accusing the National Education Association of blocking Federal educational grants, and then said: "Catholic schools ask for a reasonable and limited amount of public funds, just enough tax funds to make the Catholic schools an integral part of American education— just enough money to disabuse the public schools professional group of antidemocratic notions that they have any such monoply." He also said, "Catholic educators will never permit the Federal Government to treat parochial school children as stepchildren or second-class citizens."

In addition let me respectfully remind the committee that the Rev. Mr. McManus who preceded me on the stand has no constituency whatsoever unless he himself represents the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The National Catholic Welfare Conference in all its ramifications is established by the Conference of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church of the United States and as such voices the official opinions and implements the program of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of America. His brief bears record to the official attitude of the Roman Catholic Church as supporting Federal aid to schools if nonpublic schools are to be included.

After the hearing, I was informed that I might have left the impression that I favored Federal aid to private schools for lunch purposes. We were discussing Federal aid to public schools in general. I want it very clearly understood that I am opposed to any Federal aid to any private schools for any purpose. This is not a matter of discrimination because every individual in the United States has the opportunity to benefit from the program offered by the public schools. If they refuse to take advantage of attending public schools and insist on attending the private institutions then they should be compelled to pay the necessary cost which this involves.

Respectfully yours,

FREDERICK C. FOWLER, Chairman, Committee on Christian Liberty.

Senator AIKEN. The next witness scheduled is Mr. W. R. Ogg. I do not see him in the room so we will pass over Mr. Ogg for the time being and call on Dr. Clark Foreman, president, Southern Conference for Human Welfare.

STATEMENT OF CLARK FOREMAN, PRESIDENT, SOUTHERN CONFERENCE FOR HUMAN WELFARE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. FOREMAN. Mr. Chairman I have to ask the committee's indulgence. I lost my voice since yesterday but I will try to make myself heard. Yesterday, I was prepared to speak more clearly.

Senator AIKEN. The committee will listen attentively and it also has a printed copy of your testimony.

Mr. FOREMAN. Yes; I was going to say that I have submitted my testimony in writing.

I wanted to say simply that it seems to me that the basic problemwhich the Southern Conference for Human Welfare bases its support for Federal aid to education on-is the success of democracy as directly related to the education of the voters.

Taking that in the South in particular, I think we, without reflecting on my home regions, are an indication of how much we have suffered in democracy and in prosperity as the result of not having sufficient education.

We are at the present time producing more than our share of children, about one-third, and we have less than our share of income of the national income, being only about one-fifth.

In illiteracy, the Selective Service showed 9 out of every 10 illiterates were from the South.

Then, in the 1940 census, among all the people of the South, age 25 or over, only 1 in 10 had finished high school.

These statistics are carried in the written statement but when we realize that the South is also paying a higher proportion of its income for education than most of the other States-for example, we find that in the South in 1943 and '44, more than half of the southern States exceeded the national average expenditure for education of 1.55 percent of the total income and one southern State devoted 2.47 percent to this purpose.

Then we realize also that the variation of expenditure per classroom unit goes all the way from $6,000 to $100 and that, it seems to me, adequately demonstrated that the people of this country are not being equally prepared for their democratic duty.

Furthermore, I think it should be realized as the national situation that a great many of the South's children grow up in ignorance and ill health, and then leave the South and go to other parts of the country to find economic opportunity.

It seems to me that this country is now committed to help democracy in any part of the world and it should certainly be willing to help democracy in the South.

Further and finally, I would like to say that the Southern Conference for Human Welfare is for any type of Federal aid to public education.

We approve of S. 472 with the exception of section 6 (B) and we approve even more heartily, Senator, of S. 199 with the exception of title 2.

We are entirely against any help to any kind of school other than public schools from public money.

Senator AIKEN. Mr. Foreman, I had an instance called to my attention this morning where there is a crippled children's home. I will be frank with you. I cannot tell where it is, but it was called to our attention that they were furnished supplies from public funds. Now, what would your solution be to instances like that, children living in isolated areas and unable to get to school, or where they are crippled, if school boards were denied the right to lend public property, books, and supplies, to private families or institutions?

Mr. FOREMAN. Senator, I see no reason why public service, if adequate, could not take care of that situation just as well as a private school.

Senator AIKEN. Yes, but suppose there were no public school there. Suppose it was in an isolated area. I know communities where, as Mrs. Grubbs has testified, children would be completely denied a high school education if they could not attend a school which is partly private and partly supported by public funds.

Mr. FOREMAN. But, Senator, is not that the result of the fact that we do not have Federal aid to education? And in a number of cases, I am sure that is true now; but if we had Federal aid to education it would not be true, certainly.

Senator AIKEN. I have in mind communities of 600 to 800 population that simply could not support a public high school if they did not have the income from old endowments. They are public schools in fact, but they are not public schools in the eyes of the law and I

could take you to many communities where children would be denied the right to a high-school education if they could not, without public assistance, attend a private school and yet those communities are taxed for the support of the public schools throughout the State.

Mr. FOREMAN. I would not be prepared to say that there are not some communities where that condition exists, but it does not seem to me to be sufficient to sacrifice the principle of giving Federal money for public money for private education.

I think that your public schools are too important a part of our democracy.

Senator AIKEN. Here is another problem. There are families, of course, who have deeply religious convictions of one type or another. They may live 3 miles from the nearest schools. There is a public school conveyance that passes by their home. In my country the snow gets 3 feet deep in the winter and the temperature drops to 20 below zero. Would you deny the small boys and girls the right to ride in a public-school conveyance simply because their parents had such deep religious motives that they want them to attend a private school, we will say in this case a parochial school? Those children are not to blame if they get their feet frozen or their ears frozen.

Mr. FOREMAN. Senator, I am aware that the Supreme Court has made it possible for States to use Federal money for transportation. I think the principle is dangerous and should certainly not be extended. Senator AIKEN. I am afraid Vermont would have to be read out of the Union completely because we have a wide-open law which permits the school board to assist the children in getting an education which seems best for the community and best for the child, and we have to figure the cost of education.

I think the State of Maine has the same liberal attitude toward education and some of our communities would just have to be abandoned, give up the schools completely or else the children would have to be denied the right to an education.

Mr. FOREMAN. Even with Federal aid?

Senator AIKEN. Well, yes. This Federal aid is not going to make it possible to maintain a high school in a town of 600 population. Mr. FOREMAN. I think it is possible to have a consolidated high school.

Senator AIKEN. Certainly, I traveled 14 miles each way a day to high school for the last year. The first 3 years I went to a local high school and had one teacher for 3 years. It was not a very good high school. And then I had to go 14 miles. Now, there is a private school, nonsectarian private school, within a mile of where I live.

If my children are going to school, would it not be better for the community to pay $100 a year to permit those children to go to that private school than to pay transportation and tuition, sending them 14 miles a day and without giving them time to study? I did not get much of an education when I traveled 14 miles to school.

Mr. FOREMAN. Of course, it is possible, Senator, for the private school to be a very good one; but I also think it is possible to make a very bad one and I think this makes no discrimination whatever.

Senator ELLENDER. Mr. Foreman, do you object to the use of public funds to make books available to all these children no matter where they go to school?

Mr. FOREMAN. That is such a close point, Senator, that I am not prepared to oppose it. I would be sorry about any infringement on the principle of using public money for private schools. I understand that Louisiana does make these books available to people as a loan and that seems to me, anything that the State would provide by way of books to increase education, would be hard to oppose. But I think it is very dangerous in principle when you start giving these books to anybody.

Senator ELLENDER. How about school lunches for children in private schools? Are you opposed to that, too?

Mr. FOREMAN. No, I think that that would be like relief, that needy children would be enttiled to it.

Senator ELLENDER. Other examples are books or transportation. Mr. FOREMAN. I say, I can see where those are borderline cases but where you give schools, the school itself, help or teachers

Senator ELLENDER. I agree with you, I do not believe that any State, even Vermont, should furnish public money to pay the teachers in private schools. I do not believe that it would pass the test of the Supreme Court.

Senator AIKEN. Vermont does not do that. Vermont simply pays the tuition of $100 a year, approximately, to permit them to attend. Senator ELLENDER. But is not that using public funds to help pay teachers in a private school? .

Senator AIKEN. Well, put it the other way: You could have a perfect right to contribute $100 a year to a family to educate their own children and they could use it as tuition.

Occasionally we do pay tuition for a child to attend a parochial school as well as thousands of children to attend either nonsectarian or other private schools.

Senator ELLENDER. Suppose we amended the bill so as to make the funds available to the States to be distributed by them in accordance with their own laws and then let the courts decide whether or not it is constitutional. Would that in any way temper your views with regard to section 6?

Mr. FOREMAN. I am so much in favor of Federal aid to education that I would be in favor of such a bill and then be prepared to fight it out State by State as to what the State rules should be, but I would nevertheless still be in favor of the States using it for the pupils.

Senator ELLENDER. You are speaking personally for the Southern Conference on record as to that?

Mr. FOREMAN. The Southern Conference discussed this whole question of the two bills at the last board meeting and was opposed to any help for any private schools from Federal money, but very much in favor of any type of Federal aid to education for public schools, and I would assume that that covers that same situation. Senator ELLENDER. Did you pass a resolution to that effect? Mr. FOREMAN. Yes, sir; instructing me to come here and testify. Senator ELLENDER. I mean, opposing the utilization of public funds for private schools where it is permitted, where funds may be used under State laws-

Mr. FOREMAN. Specifically saying that we preferred of these bills S. 199, but were opposed to title 2 of S. 199.

Senator AIKEN. But title 2 of S. 199 does not permit a dollar to be spent for payment of teachers' salaries in private schools.

Mr. FOREMAN. No; but it does nevertheless help the private schools and we think that any help to the private school from the public's money, Senator, can carry competition between the two to the detriment of public schools.

Senator AIKEN. You would not object, however, to money being spent for school health examinations and school health services in any schools, would you?

Mr. FOREMAN. No; I would not object to health examinations in any way anywhere, in school or out.

Senator AIKEN. Then the other things that money could be spent for in nonpublic schools would be necessary transportation of pupils; there are a good many States like that already.

Then third is the purchase of nonreligious equipment and books, supplies, instead of reimbursing the school or reimbursing the parents. There probably could be no valid objection to it.

Mr. FOREMAN. The principle still exists that using Federal money for private schools does to that extent compete with the public-education system which we prefer.

It was not certainly illegal on the basis of the Supreme Court decision to do it this way, but it does not make it desirable.

Senator AIKEN. Maybe one good argument for Federal aid to public schools is in the fact that all qualified private schools all over the country now are turning down applications from people who have the means to send their children to private schools because of the generally poor condition of public schools at the present time.

The private-school attendance is increasing very rapidly, according to statistics.

Mr. FOREMAN. I think that is a very alarming fact and one that this bill is designed to reverse; and unless this bill does reverse it, I think our democracy is in danger, Senator, that any increase in private education as against public education is a very dangerous trend. Senator AIKEN. I was offering that as an indication that something had to be done by the public-school system.

Mr. FOREMAN. I agree, heartily agree.

Senator AIKEN. We are in accord on that.
Any further questions?

Senator DONNELL. I would like to ask the witness this: Dr. Foreman, I understand that you are opposed to the general idea of the use of Federal funds for the support of nonpublic schools.

Mr. FOREMAN. That is right.

Senator DONNELL. That is the position that the Southern Conference for Human Welfare takes?

Mr. FOREMAN. That is right, sir.

Senator DONNELL. And it has taken it to the extent that it passed a resolution just a few days ago and directed you to come here as the president of it to testify. That is correct, is it not?

Mr. FOREMAN. That is right.

Senator DONNELL. You appeared last year before the Committee on Education and Labor on this matter?

Mr. FOREMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator DONNELL. And you have had action of the board authorizing you to come here to testify?

Mr. FOREMAN. That is right.