FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1945 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., in room 357, Senate Office Building, Senator James E. Murray (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Murray, Thomas, Ellender, Chavez, Johnston, Aiken, Fulbright, Smith, Donnell, and Morse. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, the hearing will come to order. STATEMENT OF KERMIT EBY, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION, CIO Mr. EBY. Senator Murray and members of the committee, I am Kermit Eby, director of research and education of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. It gives me great pleasure to appear before your committee, to express the interest of the CIO in the advancement of American educational standards and to indicate its support for S. 181 and its companion bill, H. R. 1296. Our support of these Federal-aid-to-education bills is consistent with labor's historic support of free public education. As early as 1825, when the first political party of workers was set up in Philadelphia, the establishment of free public schools was a prominent plank in the party's platform. And all historians in the field of education agree that it was the workers' organizations which gave continued aid to Horace Mann and other pioneers of public education. Before the formation of the CIO, our brother labor organization, the American Federation of Labor, consistently tried to secure better schools, properly trained and paid teachers, and Federal support to equalize educational opportunity, especially in the interest of the poorer States. The labor movement led the way to establishing vocational education, and each convention of both the CIO and the AFL has expressed continued concern through resolutions supporting education. Specifically, at its seventh constitutional convention, held at Chicago in November 1944, the CIO adopted the following resolution unanimously [reading]: Whereas our democracy must be based on a people who have the widest opportunities for education. There are many areas in this country where educational facilities are absent or meager and large numbers of American people are denied this important right; and Whereas many adults, although desiring to learn to read and write as well as to take vocational training and cultural courses, cannot do so because of the absence of adequate facilities: Now, therefore be it Resolved, (1) We call upon Congress to enact legislation which has been pending for a long time to provide Federal aid to States for expanding and developing full educational facilities so all Americans shall be able to enjoy the full benefits of education; (2) We endorse a national adult educational program and urge the Congress of the United States to appropriate Federal funds to promote a national adult educational program in cooperation with the several States and administrative agencies thereof. We in the CIO are particularly interested in Federal aid which will equalize the educational opportunity of the boys and girls of America. Our reasons grow out of the nature of our organization. Today some 6,000,000 workers are members of the CIO, and some 8,000,000 workers are members of the other labor groups-the American Federation of Labor, the railroad brotherhoods, and the United Mine Workers. These 14,000,000 organized workers are also spokes men for the unorganized. Any advancement in the economic and educational standards of the organized worker has a tendency to lift or to better conditions for the unorganized as well. So we feel that our contributions to bringing about Federal aid are in the interest of all the workers of America and their children. The population of America is not fixed in space. We are a transient people. The CIO has within its membership hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, men and women who move from one community to another, from one State to another, to better their economic conditions in the industrial centers of America, to help with the production of the implements of war. For example, according to the United States Senate Committee to Investigate Migration of Workers, from 1930 to 1940, 4.000.000 workers moved from one locality to another; and from April 1940 to November 1943, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 312 million people moved from one State to another. Senator JOHNSTON. Do you mean to say education keeps them from moving? Mr. EBY. No; no, I would not say that. As I go along and develop this I will show that education gives to the people who move the background which will make it possible for them to adjust themselves in the complicated environment of our cities and our industrial organizations. Senator JOHNSTON. The reason I asked that is that I have noticed as they become educated they leave their home States. Mr. EBY. As I go along, I will develop that. Those last figures show only additions and subtractions from State populations at given dates, exclusive of births and deaths, and do not reflect nearly all of the comings and goings and the multiple moves of war workers, both inter and intrastate. California, for instance, has received 1.7 million in-migrants; Michigan, Washington, Maryland, and Ohio mors than a quarter of a million each. States which have lost populations are predominantly rural-Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa. Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. Arkansas, North Carolina. Kentucky, and Oklahoma lost about a quarter of a million apiece, in 1940 to 1943. Now, what does this mean to the CIO? It means workers are leaving the States whose economic circumstances make it impossible for them to give their people the quality of education which every American citizen deserves. It means that when these workers move to Detroit, or Flint, or Van Port, they are moving from a rather simple rural economy and life to a complicated, industrial economy and life. I remember very well the development of the Black Legion in Michigan. While teaching in Ann Arbor, a friend of mine did his thesis on its origin and the attitude of its members. I used to go with him to gather data, and came away with the impression that the members of the Black Legion, to a large extent, were former citizens of the South who had moved North and brought their social attitudes and prejudices with them-attitudes and prejudices which were responsible for the development of indigenous Fascist groups, in their way just as intolerant as the Nazis of Germany. The first person murdered by Black Legionnaires was a Catholic youth of Pontiac who was seen in the presence of a Protestant girl. Fortunately, the Black Legion did not develop to the same extent as the Ku Klux Klan, perhaps because economic conditions in Michigan got better and the pressures which developed between Negroes and whites, native Detroiters and imported workers, competing for jobs, abated. However, all of us who are acquainted with the race riots in Detroit know that they were a byproduct of the social situation which is precipitated when people with an inadequate understanding of American ideals live in an inflammatory environment such as is ascribed to modern Detroit. Now, since we prepared this testimony we were interested in trying to run down some of the figures as they related to Detroit and the people that were involved in the riots. A fraction less than 35 percent of those detained in the rioting were 21 years of age or under. Arthur Raper, in his book The Tragedy of Lynching, says, and I think this is particularly significant [reading]: Few of the lynchers were even high school graduates. Most of the lynchers read but little, and were identified with but few or no organizations. Such generalizations should also be made concerning the black and white hoodlums of Detroit's Bloody Monday. All of us who watch these social phenomena know that one of the things we need to do to prevent recurring riots is to broaden the social understanding and educational base of the people involved. We in the CIO are doing all we can to relieve racial tension. The Julius Rosenwald Fund, in its recent report, said: The Congress of Industrial Organizations is the strongest force against discrimination [in employment] that has arisen in these torrid years. United States Attorney Biddle wrote to President Roosevelt on July 15, 1943: It is extremely interesting that there was no disorder within Detroit plants where colored and white men worked side by side on account of efficient union discipline. We in the union are carrying on an educational program. But we recognize that the job will not be adequately done until the educational opportunity of the migrants to our industrial centers is, improved at its source, until better teachers are secured, until a real program of education and tolerance and understanding is developed. So we in the CIO are interested in everything which increases the educational opportunity of our members. We believe such increased opportunity will make them better union members, and, what is more important, better citizens of our great democracy. It is sometimes argued that this wartime migration, which I de scribe, is purely a temporary one. I do not believe such to be the case because Americans have always been on the move. Every census since 1850 shows at least one-fifth of our people living in States other than those in which they were born. The major reason, in peacetime as in wartime, causing workers to pull up stakes is to better their economic conditions. In 1930 the national proportion of migrants was as high as onefourth. Fifty percent of the population of 10 States was born in other States, and over 15 percent of the population of 36 States was born in other States. We all know of the migrations of the Oakies and of thousands of homeless workers who sought job opportunities during the depression. This phenomenon is, of course, also accelerated by the industrial revolution which, by its very nature, is continuing to change us from an agricultural to an industrial nation. It is affected further by the fact that the birth rate is highest in the rural areas of the country, which are, incidentally, the less economically privileged of the Nation. We heard these facts presented yester day in the most effective way I have ever heard them presented. For example, some of the poorest States have the highest birth rates. In 1942, New Mexico's birth rate was 26.7 per thousand; Mississippi's 25.4; North Carolina's, 25.2; Alabama's, 24.2; Idaho's, 23.9; Montana's, 2.8; as compared with the low rates of Pennsylvania at 19.1; Massachusetts, 19; New York, 18.9; Missouri, 18.6; and Kentucky. 20.9. The effect of these high birth rates can be seen in the fact that in 1940 South Carolina had 589 children to each 1,000 adults; California, but 277. California's income per adult was twice that of South Carolina. In the words of James Patton, of the Farmers' Union, the young people who move to the urban centers are the most valuable exports of these poorer agricultural States. I believe the Farmers' Union estimates that about $4,000,000,000 worth of earning capacity of young people and workers are exported each year. It seems reasonable to me to take the same interest in the children who move across State lines as we do in agricultural products and livestock which move across State lines, which we insist must meet certain quality standards. Lest we be thought to be purely selfish, may I make very clear that we are supporting this bill not only because of its effect on those who move from rural communities but because of the very, very definite relief which it would give those who stay. We in the CIO do not belong to the school of thought which argues that we should develop the educational opportunities of one section of our Nation at the expense of another. We believe that the boys and girls on farms and in small towns must have the same right to educational opportunity as do those who live in more privileged urban centers. We feel that now is the time to start a program of lifting the educational level of America. This is so not only because of the nature of the present war emergency but also because of certain other trends in our national life. Our national birth rate has increased from 18 per thousand in 1940 to 21 per thousand in 1942. The death rate has declined. The total number of registered births in the United States increased from 2,265,588 in 1939, to 2,808,996 in 1942, an increase of some 600,000. In 1945-46 these children will be ready for school. By then, we hope the war will be on its way to an end, and perhaps between 1,000,000 and 1,700,000 of our returning veterans have been estimated as intending to finish their education. At the same time, many of the 3,000,000 working boys and girls between 14 and 17 years of age will be returning to school. Many women now working will want to remain in the labor force. The United Automobile Workers found that over 60 percent of the married women now working in the aircraft industry would like to continue working if jobs are available. Schools will bear an increased responsibility, especially nursery schools, for the children of working mothers. These developments will all reach a focus at about the same time and pressures on our schools will be terrific. Likewise, we may face serious postwar economic and employment adjustments. Many who would normally seek employment will, therefore, go to school instead. We should afford an educational opportunity to those who want to go to school and start a program which would relieve the economic pressures and make it possible for us to do the job which needs doing. Therefore, it seems absolutely imperative that we begin a program now, which will lead to the elimination of the basic educational inequalities which exist in this Nation. Many of the figures which I shall include-and I do not expect to incorporate nearly all of them-are familiar to all of you. Those which impress us the most, from our particular point of view are these: In 1942 the well-to-do sections in American cities sent 86 percent of their youth to high school; the lower income groups sent 57 percent. According to the 1940 census, there were 3,000,000 adults in the United States who had never attended school, over 10,000,000 illiterates, and approximately 2,000,000 children at the ages of 6 to 15 not attending school. Parenthetically, I recall also, since we prepared this testimony, how directly it affects us. One of the projects which we have under way in our research and education section of the CIO is the preparation of a primer. This primer is prepared for the textile workers. People, we find, cannot be developed into good union members until they have been taught to read or helped to read. I might say I never dreamed that part of the job of the research and education section in CIO would be the job of preparing a primer, and we ought to have it out quite soon. One of the interesting things in the work we did in preparation of the primer was that we found many of our people are very sensitive. They do not want organizers to find out that they cannot read. One of our jobs is to do this job so carefully that we do not affect their feelings. I do not know how it will work out. We also appealed to the Rosenwald organization, and other unions have helped and are working with the extension divisions of certain colleges and universities to alleviate the difficulties in this problem. Senator CHAVEZ. In preparing your statistics that you are going to submit to the committee, have you any figures on the question of illiteracy as it is related to the selective-service program? |