an age of responsibility they are ready, if required, to render the kind of service the Nation may demand of them.

This means we must maintain our great public-school system on a high plane throughout the Nation. There must be a minimum education program and this program must be available for every child. We have millions of young people today who are either not in school at all or who are attending schools that are inefficient, expensive, and worth little more than nothing at all. A large segment of our population is permitted to go to waste. From this intolerable condition arises a threat to our national well-being, which is as inexcusable as it is dangerous. The inequities in educational apportunities to which we needlessly and foolishly subject vast numbers of our young people cannot be eliminated without Federal aid to the States. There is no excuse for this crisis in public education. We are a rich Nation but we are not so rich, nor are we so powerful, that we can afford to close our eyes to the imperatives inherent in the adequate education of our young people.

The world today is smaller in time and distance, and our international obligations are more complex and more demanding than at any time in the history of the world. The pearl of great price for all mankind exists in a disciplined intelligence which crowns personality with respect and elevates the individual through freedom to a level where he can live with his fellowman in peace and plenty. In our democratic society, each individual has an influence upon the rest of the world. We must educate to a higher degree and in a greater number than we heretofore have if our future is to be safe and if it is to be powerful for the good of all.

It is my opinion that Federal aid to education should be authorized by this session of Congress; that it ought to be provided without Federal encroachment upon State and local control of educational policy; that the welfare of minority racial groups should be assured; and that such legislation should particularly have as its first objective the strengthening of our State public-school systems in those States and communities where educational opportunities are least adequate. While I endorse no specific bill before your committee, I believe the principles set down in S. 472 are basically sound and can be recommended for your careful consideration.

Time is of great importance. The critical conditions in our schools have existed already too long. I express the hope that you will quickly report a bill favorably and that Congress with equal celerity will move to enact it.

FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION

THURSDAY, MAY 1, 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 9:25 a. m., in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator George D. Aiken presiding.

Present: Senators Aiken (presiding), Donnell, Ellender, and Hill. Senator AIKEN. The committee will be in order, please.

The first witness this morning is Mrs. Ethel Grubbs of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.

Mrs. Grubbs, will you please state your full name and your connection with your organization and something of your educational background?

Mr. GRUBBS. I will be glad to.

STATEMENT OF MRS. ETHEL GRUBBS, ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA SORORITY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mrs. GRUBBS. I am appearing as a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in behalf of its nonpartisan council on public affairs. Our organization is composed of 167 chapters in 46 States comprising approximately 10,000 college women.

As to my background, I was educated in the public schools of the District of Columbia, I am a graduate of Howard University and received my M. A. degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. I have studied eight summers in addition to that, and have spent a year foreign scholarship of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority which was given in the year 1928-29, and under which I studied mathematics in Germany.

Senator AIKEN. Thank you, Mrs. Grubbs; you may proceed. Mrs. GRUBBS. We want to go on record again in favor of Federal aid to education.

We are endorsing in principle the proposal, Senate bill S. 472, presently before this committee for consideration and are earnestly desirous that it receive favorable action by you.

We agree with Mrs. Agnes Meyer, Mr. Leslie Perry, and Dr. Givens in requesting an increase of the floor from $40 to $50.

Our formal statement has been turned in to your committee for your consideration and I am submitting today a corrected copy for your records.

Senator AIKEN. May I be clear on that? I have before me the document entitled, "Federal Aid to Education," to be delivered by

yourself as marked "Prepared by Miss R. Josephine Anderson." Is that the one you desire the committee to have?

Mrs. GRUBBS. Yes, sir; there are some typographical corrections to be made.

Senator AIKEN. So the one now on our desk is the one you are submitting and any other one that has been submitted to us is to be superseded by the one we have now?

Mrs. GRUBBS. Yes; there are a few minor changes.

It is highly probable that most of the salient points covered in our statement, including the data given, are similar to those presented by others who have testified before this committee.

I shall therefore not burden you with so much repetition but shall merely indicate the major topics which we have discussed in our statement and highlight three phases which I feel do not involve too much repetition.

In brief, we have discussed these phases:

Why the United States is concerned with the education of several foreign peoples.

Extent of America's cognizance of its educational responsibility at home.

The American myth that educational opportunity through the secondary level is equal and available to the youth in toto, and the obstacles which impede making a reality of this myth.

The chief argument advanced against Federal aid to education in regard to the effect of the usurpation of State control, and citation of instances of Federal aid to States for educational purposes without resulting governmental domination.

The cause of the teacher in the current Nation-wide crisis marring our educational system.

Safeguards in the bill S. 472 in regard to State control of funds allotted under the bill and with respect to minority racial groups.

Here I would like to pause to say that we believe the bill S. 472 has the necessary safeguards with respect to minority racial groups and to read from page 3 of our statement, just reading a part:

Another vital safeguard of the bill is found in the provision that States maintaining separate schools for children of minority races, the minority races must receive at least their pro rata share in proportion to population without any decrease from the Federal Government under this act cannot be used to replace or to reduce State funds. In order to qualify for receiving funds under this act the State must continue to spend in the fiscal year ended in 1946. These sections indicate the tenor of the bill. It is not as salutary as would be desired by reason of the fact that it permits use of Federal funds to perpetuate undemocratic segregated school systems, but it is designed to correct the failings of some of our educational systems and it does provide impregnable safeguards for those who fear intervention on the part of the Federal Government with State education.

To continue, our statement also includes discussion of the chief causes of inequities of educational opportunities.

May I pause again concerning this topic to call your attention to the third and fourth paragraphs on page 4 of our statement. I shall read the last sentence of paragraph 3:

Proof that States differ widely in the nature and amount of their economic resources is evidenced by the 1943 range in per capita income-$484 in Mississippi to $1,452 in Connecticut.

Further figures reveal that as of 1946 20 percent of State income is spent for education in the South as compared with the 20 percent in non-Southern States.

Further, although support of the poorer States might reasonably be expected to increase their efforts, no mere equalization of efforts among the States will enable them to offer equal educational opportunities.

If some Southern States spent their entire general funds on public schools alone, they would still be below the national average of expenditure per child. The South is receiving only 8 percent of the Nation's income and must educate 32 percent of the Nation's children.

After our statement had been prepared and turned in, it was gratifying to me to read the article by Walter Lippman in the Washington Post of April 29 in which Mr. Lippman has highlighted the same causes for inequities as have been included in paragraphs 3 and 4, page 4.

I should like to call your attention to part of Mr. Lippman's article and submit it, if I may, to be included in the record.

In Mr. Lippman's article, he says:

The poorer States have of course less income per taxpayer. But they have more children per taxpayer than the richer States. They have to educate more children out of smaller resources.

Mississippi, for example, is at the bottom of the list in what it spends on schools. But it is near the top of the list, actually ninth, for the whole country in the percentage of its income which is devoted to education.

It spends 3.41 percent of its income. New York spends 2.61 percent of its income. But because Mississippi is so poor and has relatively so many children, it has an average of $400 to spend on a classroom unit whereas New York has $4,100 to spend per classroom unit.

Furthermore, Mr. Lippmann says:

In other words the States with the poorest schools are not those which make the least effort. Many of them make the greatest effort. New Mexico, for example, though it is among the 10 which spends the least, leads all the other States in the proportion of its income which it spends.

I do not, however, mean to give the impression that the effort of the poorer States is consistently greater than that of the richer ones. But it is true that most of them make an effort which is near the average for the Nation as a whole.

There is, therefore, no moral basis for objecting to Federal aid. The Taft bill would tax individuals wherever they live, and would distribute the proceeds to States which, though they spend 2.5 percent of their income on schools, do not have enough money to provide $40 per pupil per year.

Senator AIKEN. Thank you. The article of Mr. Walter Lippmann referred to already has appeared in the record. We were pleased to have it.

Mrs. GRUBBS. To return again to our statement, it includes further some facts and figures of inequities in the educational opportunities for teachers.

Necessity for more funds for schools for Negro children: Here again I should like to call your attention to page 5 of our statement, paragraphs 3, 4, 5, and 6, part of which I shall read:

Just as the southern school child has less chance to develop his natural talents and abilities than the child born outside the South, the southern Negro child has even less of an opportunity.

I feel that it is appropriate to quote a passage from the Senate Calendar No. 1598, Seventy-seventh Congress, second session, July 16, 1942, submitted by Senator Thomas of Utah on behalf of the Committee on Education and Labor and which accompanied S. 131:

"In addition to the general need for partial equalization of school opportunities among the States there has long been a 'need for more funds for Negro schools. This need has recently been brought into sharp focus by the rulings of Federal

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