I would just like to say here, Mr. Chairman, that there is nothing in the law which requires the Federal Government to insist that the children of military personnel go to segregated schools. This is the policy part. It is the policy of the Office of Education and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to insist that these children go to segregated schools.

There is little doubt that this kind of duplicity will continue until Congress or the courts eliminate it.

In testimony presented to the 85th Congress we submitted information on the amount of money the defiant States received for public school education out of the Federal Treasury. These are amounts paid for 1950 through September 1957.

Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will not run through the figures, but will ask they be printed in the record.

Senator MCNAMARA. They will be inserted in the record at this point.

Mr. MITCHELL. The source of this information is the U.S. Office of Education, and this was the latest overall data that was available. In order to prevent further abuses of the kind mentioned at the beginning of this testimony, we suggest that the following amendment be included in any bill reported out by the subcommittee:

No funds authorized to be appropriated under this Act shall be paid to any State education agency or other State agency unless such State education agency or other State agency shall certify to the Commissioner of Education that such funds will be allotted only to schools that are operating in conformity with the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States relating to school desegregation.

That concludes my testimony, Mr. Chairman.
Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you.

You make reference to some 1,200 children who are eligible to attend the Little Rock Air Force Base school facility. You say there are 120 colored children who would be eligible to attend if they were not barred because of race.

Where do they go to school?

Mr. MITCHELL. They now go to schools that are scattered around in the county area.

This is not in the city of Little Rock proper. It is within Pulaski County, outside of the city of Little Rock.

Senator MCNAMARA. There is not a special school for these 120, but they go to various schools in the surrounding area?

Mr. MITCHELL. That is the practice, Mr. Chairman, in all of these schools where there is segregation. The white children are permitted to go to the school which is nearest the post and the school that has

been erected by Federal aid, but the colored children are scattered around in the various areas, in whatever the territory may be.

Senator MCNAMARA. Thank you very much. I think your statement is very clear, and I have no further questions. I assure you your testimony here today will be given consideration by the subcommittee, the committee and the Senate when it gets to it.

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you very much.

Senator MCNAMARA. This hearing is adjourned. The next meeting will be held on Monday at 10 a.m.

Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the subcommittee recessed until 10 a.m., Monday, April 13, 1959.)

FEDERAL GRANTS TO STATES FOR ELEMENTARY AND

SECONDARY SCHOOLS

MONDAY, APRIL 13, 1959

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION OF THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:25 a.m., in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Ralph W. Yarborough presiding.

Present: Senator Yarborough (presiding).

Also present: Senator Randolph, member of the committee. Committee staff member present: Stewart E. McClure, chief clerk. Senator YARBOROUGH. The Subcommittee on Education will resume its hearings.

Our first witness this morning is the Honorable Jennings Randolph, U.S. Senator from West Virginia, a person who has made a distinguished contribution to the advancement of education in this country, having been a college teacher for 6 years, being now a member of the boards of trustees of two colleges, and, in addition, to that, being a member of the advisory committee of the Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges.

It is my privilege to sit just one desk removed from Senator Randolph in the Senate. I have watched him there as one who has advanced the best interests of the American people. So it is with particular pleasure, Senator Randolph, that we welcome you to the Subcommittee on Education, and we are most happy to have your remarks on these measures.

STATEMENT OF HON. JENNINGS RANDOLPH, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, a pleasant good morning to you, to our guests who are here from one of the unions of the AFL-CIO, and to any other citizens in individual or collective capacities who are present. I am sure I would join you in welcoming them to this session, a continuance of the hearings on Senate bill 2 and related legislation. Senator Yarborough has spoken about sitting next to me. I would like you to know that I sit next to him, because he has been here longer than have I, and I seek him out for counsel, of course, on many, many occasions.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear here before the subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee of which I am a member, to testify on the school support legislation.

I would like to commend Senator Murray and all those persons, 30 in number, in addition to myself, who cosponsor this important legislation.

I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, that Senator Murray has been persistent and devoted in his efforts in this area of legislative activity, and I feel that you and other Members of the Senate have shown a constant concern for the improvement of the overall educational programs of the United States.

Before discussing the evidence which substantiates the critical need for this legislation, I would like to address my comment to a point which has been raised on more than one occasion by its opponents.

I refer to the often-voiced fear of Federal control which follows inevitably, it is supposed, upon Federal aid to education.

We are all aware of the importance of the American custom of local responsibility and control of public education. But let us at least be clear in our understanding of the origins and the reasons for this tradition. Let us not be confused by the invocations of the rhetoric of the Founding Fathers, or raising the specter of an omnivorous and power-hungry Federal police state.

Without going into historical detail, we can acknowledge that the practice of local support for public education has been one of the fundamental marks of the American system from its outset. But let us also acknowledge that this practice was not based upon any hallowed principle of democratic idealism, but, rather, on the simple and understandable resistance of the citizens of one community to paying taxes for the education of the children of another.

The struggle for universal public education in America was not won overnight. The merchant and propertied classes resisted strongly the economic, political, and social ferment we associate with the Jacksonian period, and the chief tribute they won from the champions of public education was the principle of local support of the schools. The principle was thus motivated by self-interest, at least to a degree, as well as idealism.

But this is not to condemn it. Within the context of an agrarian society, a loose Federal structure, and the sectional jealousies and rivalries of the individual States such a point of view is easily understandable. But, Mr. Chairman, it is important, when we listen today to the critics of Federal aid to public schools invoking some supposedly time-honored American tradition, to know that that tradition has nothing to do with the fear of Federal control.

On the contrary, in the field of higher education the practice of Federal support is almost as old as our tax-supported universities themselves. Three years from now the great land-grant colleges and universities of America will celebrate the centennial of the Morrill Act which set aside Federal lands for the support of agricultural and engineering colleges. In 1862, Congress passed this epochmaking act, which for the first time established the policy of Federal aid, not only to the newer States but to the older ones as well, offering each State the proceeds from the sale of 30,000 acres of Federal land for each Member of its congressional delegation. The sole measure of Federal control in these colleges has been the supervision of the Reserve Officers, Training Corps established therein, hardly an example of a burgeoning police power of the national state.