Miss BORCHARDT. No. I am not in favor of releasing any Federal source of funds. I am in favor, Senator-which we shall point out here a little later, of a complete study of the tax structure.

There is a great need for a realinement of local, State, and Federal taxes, and what that alinement should be, I am not prepared to say here, but surely we should not say that a State which has no income tax, or a very low income tax, should be favored because it has a low tax. But what that relationship should be is one that has to be developed.

In fact, we have right in this issue some of the facts on that very point; on the relationship of the State and local and Federal taxes. For example, beginning at the bottom of page 7 there

Senator ALLOTT. Well, excuse me, I just interrupted because you had been interrupted.

Miss BORCHARDT. No, it was just the point that we are developing, Senator. The Federal Government must meet the emergency.

Will not teachers bear the burden for paying for these new buildings through foregoing long overdue increases or even out of further cuts in salaries in the very districts in which increases are most needed? Is it proper or even logical for the Federal Government to spend money for the recruitment of teachers and at the same time, fail to provide the means for holding those they have?

Are we truly mindful of where the burden will really be felt? Some of the States with highest overall tax loads-State and local taxes combined-have very high State taxes and extremely low local taxes. For example: Louisiana, 10.77 percent of income; Oklahoma, 9.38 percent of income, as against national average collections of 7.83 percent of income.

In Louisiana State taxes are $121 per capita, local taxes $42 per capita; in Oklahoma, State taxes are $99, local taxes $49 per capita1953. Is it fair or even practical to ask such States to raise State or local taxes that are currently already so much above average?

On the other hand, there are States such as New Hampshire, North Dakota, and South Dakota in which total State and local taxes amounted to from 9.51 to 11.06 percent of total income in 1953, where local taxes amounted to from one-half to two-thirds of total collections.

Actually, do not these questions show the urgent need for giving immediate direct grants-in-aid, and at the same time setting up a nonpolitical machinery for studying our three-pronged tax systemsFederal, State, and local?

We know that in some States the State and local taxes do not impose the relatively same burden on the people as they do in others. We know also that in some States they could not; in some, they should not. As you gentlemen consider the share which the Federal Government should bear in helping the States maintain their schools, we realize that you must consider, not only what is the most equitable means of having all the people pay, through taxes, for essential services, but also the development of a program by means of these funds, through which the Nation and all of its people would most richly and most properly benefit in sharing the Nation's wealth.

These facts, emphasizing the need for further study do, to a high degree, show the value of title IV in this bill, which, though the amount appropriated is small, it does have its value.

There is merit in the provisions in title IV. This title has value for long-term planning. This section could encourage studies leading to better school district organization and to essential changes in current tax or debt limits and help evolve a plan for better planning of the entire fiscal program of a school system.

This section also has value in the recognition it gives to the responsibility of local school authorities. It helps emphasize our concept of Federal-State and local cooperative responsibility.

And now drawing attention to the point which you have raised, Senator Allott, on the role of the Federal Government.

There seem to be some people who even now question the responsibility of the Federal Government in sharing the cost of the maintenance of our Nation's schools. We all agree, I presume, that the administration of education is definitely a State responsibility. Surely, we must all recognize also that the Federal Government has a fourfold direct responsibility in the education of our people:

First. The Constitution, in the preamble, and again in article I, section 8, places on the Federal Government the responsibility of promoting "the general welfare." The general welfare of any nation rests to a large degree on the education of its people.

Senator DOUGLAS. Miss Borchardt, may I interrupt you a minute? Miss BORCHARDT. Surely. Please.

Senator DOUGLAS. You have undoubtedly studied the evolution of the Constitution, and while it is true that a clause giving the Federal Government direct power to legislate for the general welfare was eliminated in the final draft of the Constitution, nevertheless section 8, article I, on the powers of the legislature gave to Congress the power to tax for the general welfare, and is it not true that the Supreme Court in every case which has come before it has ruled that the Congress has the power to spend for the general welfare?

Miss BORCHARDT. That, Senator, is my third point right here, emphasized in the case of Frothingham v. Mellon.

Senator DOUGLAS. And this has been supported by an unbroken chain of decisions that the Federal Government has the power to spend for the general welfare.

Miss BORCHARDT. Definitely. I am so glad you have emphasized what I have just begun to develop in referring to Frothingham v. Mellon. I think it is quite significant that this development has been emphasized since the adoption of the income-tax amendment. Through the 16th amendment the Federal Government stepped into the States and took taxes directly from the people through direct taxation, for the first time in our history. In this way the Federal Government established its moral and legal responsibility to return directly to the people the funds in the form of services and aids a direct return for what it had taken from them.

Second. With the adoption of the 16th amendment (the incometax amendment) in 1913, the individual citizen was given a moral right to share directly in the benefits which the Federal Government is bound to bestow to promote the general welfare. Read the debates here in Congress when that amendment was adopted and you will find far more emphasis on what the Federal Government will be able to give to the people from the revenue which will flow in from this amendment than on enlarging the Federal Treasury from this form of direct taxation.

Senator Douglas, I remember your lecturing on that in class, emphatically.

Third. The Federal Government for almost 15 years after the 16th amendment was adopted fought to maintain its right and to exercise its duty to serve the people in the several States through FederalState programs established and maintained to promote the general welfare. And this right and this duty were affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1927, and as you point out, Senator, it has been reaffirmed very often since then. As you know, it isn't very often that the Court sustains a taxpayer's suit, but this decision, of Frothingham v. Mellon, coming through the unusual means of a taxpayer's suit, was defended by our Government in the name of a man who certainly was not fostering "creeping socialism" or any other kind of left-wing philosophy. In the action which established the right, and impliedly the duty, of the Federal Government to spend its money to give direct aid to the people in cooperation with the several States to promote the general welfare, the defense, on behalf of the Federal Government, was made in the name of Andrew Mellon, then Secretary of the Treasury. And that decision (Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447) has never been set aside, and has been reaffirmed in every similar suit brought before the Court. It is the undisputed law of the land.

Fourth. We would repeat the self-evident fact that the lack of opportunities, and the denial of privileges in the field of education suffered by the people in one State, become the problem of the other States and of the Nation when any victim of these limitations migrates beyond his State lines. Or indeed, when he is called for service in peace or in war to help preserve our Nation and promote its general welfare, the loss of potential manpower is emphasized.

The duty of the Federal Government is clear.

I have heard several questions when other witnesses have testified here on how long should the Federal Government continue to make this contribution; should we accept it as a permanent pattern. You, Senator, raised the question here earlier.

I would say with absolute candor that there appears to be no likelihood in the foreseeable future for a number of States to be able to finance their own schools adequately and properly from State and local revenue alone. I would say just as frankly that because even the necessary actions of State legislatures are often delayed, it will be some time before the States, now restricted by State constitutions and other State law, will be able to repeal or adopt laws making their full functioning possible. But within those States, aid is urgently needed now.

Take the case which I know Senator Lehman must have felt very, very deeply, the case of the children near Buffalo, N. Y., who were burned. He would have done anything himself, he and those with whom he has worked through the years for human betterment would have done anything, to have removed that firetrap before the terrible catastrophe occurred. Yet the State, with its legal limitations on rapid action, could take no action to give funds to replace this firetrap school, and the terrible tragedy occurred. It is to overcome the threat of such tragedies that we ask for the immediate emergency aid for all States.

Such cases emphasize the urgency of full study for equitable plans for the development of a permanent aid program on the one hand, and

the need for the immediate enactment of Federal law giving grants-inaid to meet the current desperate crisis.

We close our case here, therefore, as we opened it: With a plea for immediate grants-in-aid to meet the most urgent needs in the emergency which confront us.

Since I last appeared before this committee, just a few weeks ago, shocking tragedy once more has highlighted these needs.

In Mississippi, the poor children in a wooden shack, called a school, were swept away in a windstorm. They died. They died the victims of our failure, as a Nation, to act in their behalf. May their death. be the plea that other poor children like them shall not be sacrificed by a Congress which delays emergency relief in a grave crisis.

Chairman HILL. Any questions, gentlemen?

Senator ALLOTT. I have some questions.

Chairman HILL. Senator Allott.

Senator ALLOTT. Dr. Borchardt, at its recent meeting in Miami the 17-man A. F. of L. executive council is reported to have decided to oppose all new Federal school-construction aid to States that evade the Supreme Court's ban on segregation.

Now, as I understand it, you are the Washington representative for the American Federation of Labor, that is the teachers' group of the American Federation of Labor.

Miss BORCHARDT. That's right.

Senator ALLOTT. The American Federation of Teachers, is that correct?

Miss BORCHARDT. That's right, of the American Federation of Teachers.

Senator ALLOTT. And for which you are speaking this morning. Do you take a similar stand?

Miss BORCHARDT. Senator, we have long urged the elimination of segregation. The Hill bill provides for aid to public schools onlyand, naturally, those schools, that is the public schools of the Nation, must be governed by the dicta of the Supreme Court, and when the Supreme Court of the United States decides how to implement that decision, there is no question whatsoever but that we will give full force and effect to supporting the dicta of the Supreme Court on implementing it as well as on the decision itself.

Senator ALLOTT. Well, the principle has been laid down by the Supreme Court. Does your union support that principle?

Miss BORCHARDT. We support that principle without reservation. Senator ALLOTT. That is all.

Chairman HILL. Any questions, gentlemen?

Senator LEHMAN. I just want to clear up a little further the matter that Senator Douglas brought us, because I do not think that the figures of $6 billion and $7 billion should be allowed to stand on the record as evidencing any real hope or possibility of effectuation. As I read it, the only mention of $6 billion is contained in section 211

Miss BORCHARDT. Yes.

Senator LEHMAN. Which is a limitation of the obligations, the maximum obligations, that the Federal Government can assume during the period covered by this bill.

There certainly is no indication, no guaranty, not even an expression of any real hope, that $6 billion will be made available. So far as the $7 billion, the only other mention of sums is the $200 million in title III which is $65 million a year

Miss BORCHARDT. Yes.

Senator LEHMAN. For 3 years for the whole country, which would at the most build three or four thousand schoolrooms, whereas we know we need over 300,000.

Miss BORCHARDT. Yes, 300,000.

Senator LEHMAN. The third mention of a sum is in title I, which limits the amount of the obligations that can be assumed by the Government to $750 million for a period of 3 years, or $250 million a year. But we know from experience in the record that in the past only $76 million out of a total sum of $2 billion of school bonds that were issued bore a rate so high that the Government would be authorized to step in and take over part of this obligation.

It is true one of the witnesses testified that this might be done through the issuance of bonds today by companies that have not done so. But that is purely speculative. There is no indication that the sum that the Federal Government would advance would be much in excess, if at all, in excess of the $76 million which has been the record for the past 7 years.

Miss BORCHARDT. Senator, we do indulge in hope. Hope springs eternal, you know.

However and our point was this even if our hopes were realized and we agreed, they are but hopes-but even if our hopes were realized, and these loans were offered with interest the realization of those hopes would so greatly further burden the local communities and the States that these communities would be either unable to meet their obligations or they would not attempt to undertake further commitments, through them so that the offer would defeat itself.

Senator LEHMAN. I just did not want the record to remain unchallenged.

Miss BORCHARDT. Well, I am glad you gave me the chance to develop that point.

Senator LEHMAN. I think this is the time for people to really understand the inadequacy and impracticability of this proposed legislation.

Miss BORCHARDT. As I have said, it was the hope, and even from that hope would flow such great liabilities, that the States would not undertake the program of loans if it were offered.

Senator LEHMAN. Thank you.

Chairman HILL. Any other questions?

Senator NEELY. Miss Borchardt, where did you hear Doctor Douglas deliver the lectures to which you referred?

Miss BORCHARDT. Out in the University of Chicago in Illinois where he helped educate America. He helped educate lots of us, and I am very grateful to him.

Senator NEELY. I wish that all the children in America could have an opportunity to learn from Dr. Douglas as the Apostle Paul learned from Gamaliel.

Miss BORCHARDT. I feel much richer for having been taught by Dr. Douglas.