Mrs. STERNE. This committee represents 11 national organizations. Four, the Association for Childhood Education, the American Home Economics Association, the National Education Association, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, represent strictly professional groups; two, the American Association of University Women and the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, represent professional and lay groups; five, the National Board of the YWCA, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Women's Trade Union League, the Service Star Legion, the National Federation of Women's Clubs, represent lay groups. We know that it is rash to claim to speak for thousands and millions of women. We do, however, feel that we can speak for the majorities in our respective organizations. Each of us submits to its own sections or branches detailed tentative legislative programs. The branches register approval or disapproval of each item. At national conventions duly elected delegates vote for or against legislative proposals. Year in and year out the majority vote in our 11 organizations has squarely supported the principle of Federal aid to education, and, today, we wish to present reasons for this continuous support. Several of the groups are going to file statements, and I will call on them first if that is all right. Mrs. James W. Irwin, representing the national board of the YWCA. STATEMENT OF MRS. JAMES W. IRWIN, NATIONAL BOARD, YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION Mrs. IRWIN. We know that you are aware of the deep interest of the Young Women's Christian Association in securing equal educational opportunities for all children in the United States of America. We worked with you for the passage of S. 637 in the Seventy-eighth Congress and shared with you in your distress when the bill was sent back to committee. We are delighted that you have again introduced legislation in the form of S. 181 which will authorize the appropriation of funds during the emergency to assist the States and Territories in more adequately financing their systems of public education and in reducing inequalities of educational opportunities. Not long ago the national board again expressed its belief in the right to equality of opportunity of education for all groups of people and pledged support of legislation to bring this about and to work for the improvement of educational standards in relation to teacher training and salaries and curricula. As you know, much of our work is concerned with thousands of younger girls in elementary and secondary schools. We have opportunity to observe the discrepancies in expenditures between different States, the great teacher shortages which exist in some States, the lowness of salaries in many, and the unevenness in curricula. We cannot but be aware, moreover, of the tragic evidence, which we know has already been brought to your attention of the 3,000,000 adults revealed in the 1940 Federal census as never having attended any school and the more than four and a half million men who have been rejected by selective service boards for educational, physical, and mental deficiencies. We understand that the rejections were highest in the States where the educational expenditures were the lowest. We do not need to tell you of our concern that the children of today, who will become the citizens of tomorrow, must have the best possible education if they are to meet the many problems of the postwar world. We believe that it is neither fair nor ethical that a considerable percentage of the Nation's children should be receiving educational services below any level that should be tolerated in a civilized country, which was the opinion of the President's Advisory Committee on Education in 1938. We hope that S. 181 will be quickly and favorably reported out of the committee and receive prompt passage on the floor of the Senate. Mrs. STERNE. The next witness is Mrs. Marion H. Britt, National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. STATEMENT OF MRS. MARION H. BRITT, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S CLUBS Mrs. BRITT. I wish to file this statement for Mrs. Margaret A. Hickey, the president of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. Mrs. Hickey was unable to be present today, and we should like this to be incorporated in the record. It is in support of the legislation under consideration. Senator ELLENDER. It may be incorporated in the record. (The statement referred to is as follows:) STATEMENT ON FEDERAL AID FOR EDUCATION (By Margaret A. Hickey, national president, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc., New York, N. Y.) The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc., representing 80,000 women in 1,700 communities, endorses the principle of Federal aid to education and asks for Senate approval of S. 181. Our members are convinced that maintenance of a vigorous democracy demands a high standard of education throughout the country, for the school children of today become the voters of tomorrow. We know that State boundaries are no bars to ignorance. With the mobility of our population, the educational welfare of its citizens is the concern of the whole Nation and not merely of the State where the children temporarily reside. Citizens of tomorrow must be educated today. For years we have known that our entire educational system has many weak spots. The rejection by our armed services of over 750,000 men because of educational deficiencies has dramatically focused the attention of the Nation on the shortcomings of our educational facilities. After careful study of the variations in educational standards throughout the Nation, we have concluded that the only way we shall achieve equality of educational opportunity throughout all of our States is to tax wealth where it is found and to educate children where they live. A check on varieties of educational expenditures shows that some States average figures for the most recent year available range from $30 to $170 per pupil in annual current expenditures, from $517 to $2,618 in average salary of teachers, from $103 to $670 in value of school property, and from 157 to 188 days in average length of school term. It is our belief that the $100,000,000 authorized by S. 181, which would be spent on equalizing educational opportunities, is a sound investment in democracy and a modest appropriation in relation to the present need for increased educational opportunity. We also recognize that the wartime emergency has brought manifold new educational problems, among them the alarming decrease in teaching staffs. To keep the schools open and to keep able teachers in the classrooms we endorse the provisions of S. 181 for a special emergency appropriation for financial assistance for salaries of teachers and other school employees. We cannot blame members of the teaching profession for leaving positions which are notoriously low paid for work in the higher paid war-connected occupations in Government and in industry. The only solution is to make teaching equally attractive and to emphasize its importance. At present the salaries of thousands of teachers are inadequate to meet the rising cost of living. For example, about 30,000 teachers in 15 different States earn less than $600 a year; nearly 200,000 teachers in 42 different States earn less than $1,200 a year. Yet, it is during this very war period that increased demands are placed on our school facilities and the need intensified for keeping our school system functioning. If we are to meet the problems of juvenile delinquency, we must maintain teaching staffs sufficiently large to supervise our young people adequately in and after school. The pending legislation, S. 181, conforms to American traditions that are as old as the Constitution itself. Federal aid to education is not new or novel. It was provided in the ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, the George-Deen Act of 1936, and many others. This legislation has been carefully drawn to prevent Federal control of education; the regulation of the schools is left in the hands of the States, with specific prohibitions in the bill preventing direction, supervision, or control of the schools by any Federal employee. It is our conviction that S. 181 takes an urgently needed step in the building of a sounder financial foundation for our school system and that the welfare of the Nation's children demands its immediate passage. Provisions for an adequate educational system throughout the Nation warrant the thinking and the support of all people in all States in the interest of maintaining and promoting a soundly functioning democracy. Mrs. STERNE. The next witness is Mrs. James A. Stone, representing the National Women's Trade Union League. STATEMENT OF MRS. JAMES A. STONE, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA Mr. STONE. I wish to file this statement in support of the principle of Federal aid to education. (The statement referred to is as follows:) NATIONAL WOMEN'S TRADE UNION LEAGUE OF AMERICA, Hon. JAMES E. MURRAY, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SENATOR MURRAY: The National Women's Trade Union League of America has always stood for the right of every child to equal opportunities for education in the United States. For your information, the league has a direct and affiliated membership of more than a million persons, the greater part of which are industrial and trade-union women. It is the conviction of the league that our Government could appropriate Federal aid for no more vital nor more deserving purpose than for the Nation's schools. All of us have been shocked at the large numbers of men rejected for Army duty because of illiteracy, and the league urges immediate action toward equalizing opportunity for education and for adequate school facilities. In the past, citizens of some of the States that do have adequate educational facilities for their children have objected to the principle of Federal aid for education. However, they should now realize that they are furnishing many more of the best youth in the country for the armed forces than they would have had to furnish if educational opportunity had been equalized before the war, thus reducing the tremendous number of rejectees in the backward States. We urge your earnest consideration of Federal-aid legislation, and action in the near future. Sincerely yours, MARGARET F. STONE, Legislative Chairman. ELISABETH CHRISTMAN, Secretary-Treasurer. Mrs. STERNE. Various members of the National Education Association have already expressed their views, so we will not ask anyone to present a statement for them. I will next call on Mrs. Catherine F. McClellan, the national legislative chairman of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. STATEMENT OF MRS. MALCOLM MCCLELLAN, CHAIRMAN OF LEGISLATION, NATIONAL CONGRESS OF PARENTS AND TEACHERS Mrs. MCCLELLAN. My name is Mrs. Malcolm McClellan. I am oldfashioned. I still use my husband's name. I am chairman of legislation of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. Senator ELLENDER. Have you a prepared statement, Mrs. McClellan? Mrs. MCCLELLAN. I would prefer to make a verbal statement. Senator ELLENDER. Very well. Proceed in your own way. Mrs. MCCLELLAN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I represent, as I told you, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. While we do have teachers in our membership, our organization is not primarily a professional group, but, rather, we are a group working together, the parents and teachers, for the welfare of the children. I want to make that distinction. Our whole object is the welfare of children and youth in the home, the church, and community. I think we are probably one of the largest organizations in the United States in that we have over 3,500,000 members, not entirely a women's group, but including fathers, mothers, and teachers. We have several organizations in every State, and in about 28,000 or more local associations. They grow in number each year. I have forgotten how many we have this year. There is one thing I would like to say. I read the Congressional Record regularly, and very often when anyone testifies for a group they are asked: "Well, does your membership subscribe to this or is it just some of your officers?" I want to say I think our group is one that is most democratic in that respect in that we do honestly try to learn the wish of the majority of our members before we ever make a statement. The bill, S. 637, which this bill, S. 181, is very similar to a copy of S. 637 was sent to every State president in the National Congress of Parents and Teachers and to every State chairman of our national legislation committee last year for an analysis of the bill. When our board supported this bill it included every member of the national board, it included every State president. State organizations which actively supported S. 637, and which I know, in the nature of things, will support S. 181, number 29. They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, North Dakota, West Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, New Jersey, South Dakota, and South Carolina. There may be others, but these are the ones from whom I have heard. I have had no expressed opposition from any State parent-teacher group other than the District of Columbia congress which did not like the method of apportionment of the money. They want a bill more on an equalization basis. I should like to say, however, that the National Congress of Parents and Teach ers favors equalization more than they do average daily attendance, and there were some States which did wish that the bill could have been more on an equalization basis, but since it is not and since it is the bill before Congress, we are supporting S. 181, and I personally like the change that has been made in making the $200,000,000 for the duration of the war. Now, I heard Senator Taft's observation there, but I think in most of the States, in my own State of Florida, which is almost an Army camp, our State itself is taking care of the children of many more people than normally live in that State. So, on an average daily attendance basis for the war, in my State that $200,000,000 would really come in and help to equalize things for us who are trying to take care of those children who are there from other States out of our own State money, and we are trying to do it in our State on an equalization basis, too. I know that all the statistical data will be given to you by the educators, so I simply want to bring to you the viewpoint of the parents as to the way we feel as to the need for a bill like this. To begin with, I heard many people say they oppose it because they oppose Federal control. I do not think this bill brings Federal control into it. Our national organization does not think it does. Besides, it seems to me that a great many people strain at a gnat and swallow a camel when they talk about this business of Federal control, because we do have it in our States; we do have it in the schoollunch program that is coming through the Department of Agriculture; we do have it in the funds which come through the State for nurseries in schools and for extended school services under the Lanham Act. We had it under WPA. We had it under NYA. We had it in any number of forms. The public schools get nothing, while many of these other groups are going on taking what finances they can and are getting millions of dollars of Federal money. What I am going to say now is inclined a little toward the personal, and I hate to say it, except that it brings out a point. At the last session of Congress the State university president in Florida, whom I know, put a statement in the Record saying he was not in favor of Federal aid for schools because it brought Federal control with it. Well, that same college is getting money under the Land-Grant-College Fund. Not only that, but I happen to know that the president is a man who never lets any department head in his university speak out unless he approves what they want. I went to our national convention in New York last year, and I had a very urgent wire and appeal from the head of the extension division of that same university asking me to get the National Congress of Parents and Teachers to endorse the bill of Senator Thomas for appropriations for aid to the extension division of land-grant colleges and State universities. So, to my mind, that is evidence of quite an inconsistency in attitude coming out of one college. The man happens to be a friend of mine, but, as I say, I do not want to be personal. Senator ELLENDER. You would not want to be more specific and give us his name? [Laughter.] Mrs. MCCLELLAND. Look back in the record. Our organization believes that we need this money-now. We need it, and we want it, and we want it for those States particularly who do need it. However in saying this we are looking toward the future, too, because so many |