Senator DONNELL. You are familiar with the remonstrance which is set forth at the conclusion of the Everson case from New Jersey, recently decided by the Supreme Court of the United States? Dr. GIVENS. Yes. Senator DONNELL. This remonstrance having been placed there by the minority of the Court, four out of nine, in order to indicate that it might not become rusty or covered with cobwebs, in view of the antiquity of the document. You are familiar with that? Dr. GIVENS. Yes, sir. Senator DONNELL. And Madison was the man who was the author of that remonstrance in large part, was he not? Dr. GIVENS. That is my belief. Senator DONNELL. Now, Doctor, I ask you also, S. 181 is set forth in full in this document that I have here, namely, the hearings before the Committee on Education and Labor of the United States Senate, proceedings held in the early part of February 1945, during which you testified. testified. I will ask you to state whether or not S. 181—Ï assure you I am reading correctly from this section 5 (A), which states under the heading "Available amount for appropriation," and I quote: The funds paid to States from the funds appropriated under section 2 (A) of this act shall be available for disbursement by the State to local public school jurisdictions or other State public educational agencies for the payment of salaries of teachers and other school employees in public elementary schools, which may include kindergartens and nursery schools, and public secondary schools, which may include through the fourteenth grade, for any or all of the following purposes― and so forth. You recall that language? Dr. GIVENS. Yes, sir. Senator DONNELL. That bill as it was presented, and which you endorsed at that time, was a bill providing for help to the public schools, was it not? Dr. GIVENS. Correct. Senator DONNELL. And did not at least at this time when you testified-contain any provision with respect to support of nonpublic schools? That is correct, is it? Dr. GIVENS. That is correct. Senator DONNELL. Now, you favored at that time the exclusive use of these funds for public schools, as provided in that bill, did you not? Dr. GIVENS. Yes, sir. Senator DONNELL. Today you are advocating a bill which, as you have indicated, in part is unconstitutional because it fails to exempt the salaries of teachers, and does provide not only for the support of public schools but also for the support of nonpublic schools. That is correct, is it not? Dr. GIVENS. I would like to say this, Senator Donnell― Dr. GIVENS. Not quite. Senator DONNELL. In what respect is it not correct? Dr. GIVENS. I would like to make one revision of it. I am in favor, always have been, and if I have to come back to testify on Federal aid again-I hope I don't have to come any more- I hope it goes through in this session of Congress, but if I do come back I shall always testify for public education. Senator DONNELL. In other words, your personal judgment and your personal sympathies are opposed to the use of Federal funds for nonpublic educational institutions? Dr. GIVENS. That is my personal conviction. Senator AIKEN. Dr. Givens, you are from the State of Washington? Senator AIKEN. You are aware of the conditions existing in the rural areas of this country, fairly well, and you know that there are many homes that have children suffering from infantile paralysis or crippled in some way. Do you think that the State does or should have the right to furnish textbooks and supplies to those families so that they can teach those children at home when they are physically unable to attend public school? Dr. GIVENS. As a superintendent of schools, I have always done everything, Senator Aiken, wherever I have been, to make it possible that those children might receive instruction. Senator AIKEN. You believe you have rightfully done it? Dr. GIVENS. That is right. And I have always done it from the public school. Senator AIKEN. Do you believe that the fact that that family might have deep religous convictions should warrant denying to those children the right to such education as they might obtain from nonreligious textbooks loaned them by the State or the community? Dr. GIVENS. No, Senator Aiken, the public schools open their doors to all children of all faiths and all creeds, and if they are in their homes and not able to come to school, I think they ought to be taken care of by the public school system. Senator AIKEN. I think some families of different religious denominations would be bound to intermingle a certain amount of religion with the teaching of their own children at home. Of course, they have to pass the examinations that are given to children in the public schools, they have to meet certain qualifications before they are certified for their education, in the event that they are able to take it, but haven't you got an analogous situation there? Dr. GIVENS. I don't believe it is, quite, because these children are in no school, and being in no school, they are entitled to instruction, any instruction that the public schools can give them of any kind, whether part or full. Senator AIKEN. Suppose they live in isolated areas; suppose there aren't children enough in the neighborhood to maintain a school, isn't it only just that the State, which theoretically guarantees elementary education to all children, should at least supply them with the means of obtaining that education? Dr. GIVENS. Yes; I think they ought to help in educating them. Senator AIKEN. Otherwise, we are taxing that community-and it may be a wealthy community; there may be a mine, there may be a forest there, things that are heavily taxed-we are taxing that community for the support of the children in other communities. Dr. GIVENS. That is right. I think the public schools ought to go the limit in providing education for all children. Senator AIKEN. We ought to give them the opportunity to obtain an education, otherwise we are not fulfilling our educational guaranties. Dr. GIVENS. I think the public schools ought to go to supreme lengths in doing everything they can for any child in the State, through the public school set-up. Senator AIKEN. Then I would like to call one other matter to your attention, and that is, throughout northern New England and I presume in other parts of the country-there are certain types of private schools which are partly supported by endowment and partly by the public in one way or another. If it were not for the fact that the public contributes to the support of those schools in these small communities they would have to close their doors and the communities would be left without any opportunity for high-school education for the children in those localities. Do you believe that such an arrangement does enable many children to obtain a secondary education that otherwise they would be unable to obtain? Dr. GIVENS. I think that is true, Senator Aiken, and I am very sympathetic with the problem that you face. Senator AIKEN. I know that is true. I know that thousands and thousands of school children would never be able to go to high school if they were not able to attend these schools which are public in fact but technically are private schools. Dr. GIVENS. I stated, Senator Aiken, in my testimony this morning that I had faith in this committee bringing out a bill that would meet those various situations, and whatever bill comes out of this committee I hope the National Education Association can support. Senator AIKEN. It seems to me that any steps taken to deny those children the right to an education, which is virtually guaranteed them by State law, but which the State does not fulfill; any steps taken to deny those children an education, while it might not indicate a lack of religion, it seems to me would indicate a lack of Christian spirit. I am sorry so much religion has gotten injected into this question before us, which is such a critical question. Here we are spending $400,000,000 to maintain military alliances in Greece, Macedonia, and other places, and then we quibble over the first line of defense in the United States. Are there any questions by the committee? If not, we thank you, Dr. Givens. Our next witness is Mrs. Worrell, representing the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic. We may have to rearrange our schedule because of the Senate being called an hour earlier, unexpectedly. STATEMENT OF MARGARET H. WORRELL, LADIES OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC Mrs. WORRELL. My name is Mrs. Margaret Hopkins Worrell, and my residence is apartment 515, Clifton Terrace, East, Washington, D. C. I am here in opposition to Senate bill 472 and other general Federalaid-to-education bills. As president general, I represent the Wheel of Progress and as past national junior vice president and national legislative chairman, I represent the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic. As you probably know, our objects, regardless of creed or religious sentiment, are to teach loyalty to our country and give especial attention to the public schools to see that the children obtain proper education. We have about 35,000 members throughout the United States. The Wheel of Progress is nonpartisan and nonsectarian, organized to defend the Constitution of the United States and to battle for representative government by inducing all citizens to use the elective franchise to the end that the Republic of which the founders dreamed shall at last be ratified in a "government by the people." Among our distinguished life members are numbered Mrs. Rose Gouveneur Hoes, granddaughter of President Monroe; Col. Charles A. Lindbergh; Capt. George Fried; Senators Warren R. Austin; Joseph C. O'Mahoney; Carl A. Hatch; and former Senators Hiram W. Johnson, William E. Borah, Henry F. Ashurst, Ernest W. Gibson, Frederick Van Nuys, and others. May I begin by saying that our organizations are heart and soul in favor of good salaries for our teachers, as we believe they are the guardians of the coming generations and upon them depends the future of our Nation. We realize that the teachers' salaries have been too low and have not increased with the cost of living, but that is a State matter. However, there is a remedy and it is not Federal aid and control. All States have the financial ability to increase the salaries of their teachers to a proper level. The country has just experienced Federal control in various bureaus and should realize that from humble beginnings in some of these bureaus they finally dominated our whole life, and we are just now endeavoring to get rid of them. It would appear that Federal control is a creeping disease much like the opium habit, a little leads to more, and if brought into our public schools would end in a body of youth permeated with political experiences and ideas that any unsafe administration might prefer. We cannot afford to acquire that habit; it is sheer folly. The proponents of this bill, the educationalists, have for the past several years endeavored to impose Federal control of our public schools upon the people, but thus far they have been unsuccessful. Each year a bill comes up dressed in new garments, but it is the same old bill, the same desire to impose Federal control of schools in every State of the Union. It bypasses the State's right to run its schools, notwithstanding positive statements to the contrary. It is to be accomplished through the State educational authority and the United States Commissioner of Education. The propaganda for this Federal aid is probably the most widespread of any that has ever occurred. The proponents cry loudly that Federal aid for schools has been in effect for many years in appropriations to land-grant colleges, and that it has not meant Federal control. Evidently they have read the rules now in force governing the land-grant colleges, because there is not only Federal control but that control differs as the years roll by. The main theme of the story about teachers leaving the service. on account of poor salaries is disproved because their reasons for leaving are numerous: Some were drafted, some were lured away by high wartime wages, just as that happened in every other business in our Government. The profession of teaching is one of the grandest and most highly honored professions. But the leaders who are trying to get the schools under the Federal Government have seriously lowered the morale of those who remain. The propaganda constantly saying that the best teachers have left, that no man would enter the teaching profession if he were able to get into any other profession, and that teachers have poor social status, is all untrue, but it greatly discourages and disheartens those teachers who have remained true to their trust. Relative to the numbers who have left the teaching profession, which numbers appear to be not only inaccurate but misleading as is shown in the December issue of the National Education Association Journal, page 587, which states that 600,000 teachers have left since 1939. However, most of the proponents seem to have agreed on the number as 375,000; some say for the last 6 years and some for the last 5 years. Let us accept that figure, 375,000, or 75,000 a year. There are 850,000 public-school teachers and from the statements of our best authorities, the United States Census Bureau, the National Education Association, and Benjamin Fine, of the New York Times, 10 percent normally leave the teaching profession. Well, 10 percent of 850,000 is 85,000 who leave the teaching profession in normal times. According to their claims, if only 75,000 a year have left in the last 5 or 6 years, it is less than normal. The political educators who had the handling of the more than $400,000 of the National Education Association war and peace fund have used it with telling effect. This war fund, wrung from underpaid teachers, was not to prosecute the war the Government was engaged in but a war to obtain Federal aid to education. Right here I would like to quote from House Concurrent Resolution No. 2, clearly demonstrating the attitude of the people of the great State of Indiana, which we believe is also the thinking of the citizens of our other States as well: Indiana needs no guardian and intends to have none. We Hoosiers, like the people of our sister States, were fooled for quite a spell with the magician's truck that a dollar taxed out of our pockets and sent to Washington will be bigger when it comes back to us. We have taken a good look at said dollar. We find that it lost weight in its journey to Washington and back. The political brokerage of the bureaucrats had been deducted. We have decided that there is no such thing as Federal aid. We know that there is no wealth to tax that is not already within the boundaries of the 48 States. So we propose henceforth to tax ourselves and take care of ourselves. We are fed up with subsidies, doles, and paternalism. We are no one's stepchild. We have grown up. We serve notice that we will resist Washington, D. C., adopting us. Congressman Noble Johnson is quite right when he says that— when legislatures are confronted with Federal-aid law, the legislature must comply with this law or forfeit the money which has been taken from the States' citizens in taxes. In conclusion we think the great army of school teachers are a noble group of men and women and should not be degraded by socalled leaders. They have good reason for better salaries. We are for them; but the States can take care of them. The States have not asked for Federal aid to educate their children and increase their teachers' salaries. The agitation is by teacher organizations. Let investigation be made as to who were the or |