128, 112

882, 011

Senator MORSE. I have only one question to ask you, Mr. Goodwill. It involves an argument that is frequently made by the opponents of Federal aid to education in any form.

I would like to know what your answer to it would be. The argument is, for example, that the State of Oklahoma, in regard to which Senator Kerr testified, the State of Ohio, in regard to which Mr. Stebbins testified, now California, in regard to which you testified, are all very wealthy States, and that if the local school district has used up to the limit its taxing ability on the property located in that district; then the next obligation for adequate schooling for the children in the State rests on the State government and the legislature of the State through which its taxing powers, such as income taxes, taxes on special interests which ought to raise the money and make it available to the poorer districts within the State rather than to call upon the Federal Government to assist. What is your answer to that argument?

Mr. GOODWILL. Well, in general I think that is true, that local and State resources should be provided in order to give equal educational opportunities, but the situation in America is changing very greatly in recent years, there is a shift of population, and I think that education now is a national problem; that a youngster who lives in a very poor section of a very poor State is entitled to the same kind of education as he would get if he lived in a wealthy community in our State or New York or Oklahoma.

Senator MORSE. Would you think a showing should be made in each one of these matters to the effect that the State, as a State, is assuming what could be found to be a reasonable share of the burden? Mr. GOODWILL. That is correct.

Senator MORSE. And that over and above that the Federal Government ought to make a contribution?

Mr. GOODWILL. That is my viewpoint, Senator.

Senator MORSE. Apparently on the theory that all the witnesses this morning have testified to, starting with Senator Kerr, that in part this is a federally created problem because these are Federal operations

Mr. GOODWILL. That is right.

Senator MORSE. That carry with them some responsibility at least for the educating of the children of the people who are necessary to operate the Federal project?

Mr. GOODWILL. Yes; that is correct.

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much for your statement.

Mr. W. E. Wilson, county superintendent of schools, Clark County, Ind.

STATEMENT OF W. E. WILSON, COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CLARK COUNTY, IND.

Mr. WILSON. I want to present evidence of one specific community in Indiana known as Charlestown township, which was a normal community in 1940, with an enrollment of less than 500 pupils, and it was able to support its schools according to the standards of the Indiana State Board of Education.

In the year 1940 the Federal Government established there the Indiana arsenal works, a very large installation, and that began to create a problem.

We were warned of what was going to happen by the governmental agencies, and also by officials of the Dupont Corp. who were in charge of building the plant, and about that time they told us to make preparations for about 1,450 school children, which was increasing our enrollment 300 percent.

They withdrew from our tax duplicates about 15,000 acres of the best land and many of the best homes for the site of this plant. The Office of Education and the Indiana State Department of Education and Indiana University helped us make a survey of what we were to need. After we found what we needed, we were in exactly the same plight all those long years that these communities are in this morning. There were no funds. We could only bond at that time for 2 percent of our assessed valuation, and that would not have started the foundation for a building of that type. About that time the Lanham Act was passed specifically to take care of communities of that sort, and Charlestown Township applied for a Lanham Act grant, and the first project, No. 12-101 that was granted to any community under the Lanham Act, was granted to Charlestown Township and $600,000 was allocated for the construction of the school building.

However, we had at that time a local trustee who was afraid to accept Federal money. It was very, very obnoxious to have anything to do with Federal money.

Senator MORSE. Tainted.

Mr. WILSON. And there were about five very conservative individuals in the community who persuaded him that it would bankrupt the township after the war was over to have this large $600,000 school building on hand.

Senator MORSE. Conservatives.

Mr. WILSON. Yes, extra conservatives. I have called them other names, but not in groups like this; but anyway, we did not get the building, and the children came, as had been predicted, and in as large numbers, and I do not suppose any of you men here in the room could testify to as bad conditions as we have had in that community. Those conditions existed up until the war was over, and we had farm houses and we had garages and we had store rooms and we had churches, we had basements, we had practically everything because there were about 17,000 workers who came in there to help manufacture the war materials.

Then after the war ended we were able to negotiate a lease with the engineers who had charge of this Government property. After they quit manufacturing powder it was turned over to the engineers, and we leased an office building. I suppose it had about 50,000 square feet in it, and we leased that for $6,000 a year and moved approximately a thousand children over into that office building, and we have been having school for the past two seasons in that building.

It was a very fine building, as most of those buildings were that were built in that time, but it was not designed for a schoolroom. There were many, many bad points in using an office for a classroom. The toilet facilities were inadequate, so were the laboratory facilities, the physical education facilities, but it was an improvement over what we had.

Now, at the present time the enrollment is about slightly under 1,500 students. It has increased 300 percent, and the student population has remained with us and we have over a thousand preschool children in the two housing projects that came along with the arsenal

building; as a result of that we are in an extremely helpless situation, and the only straw that we have to grab hold of is what success your committee here might have in enacting this law into force.

There is no money that we can receive from the Federal Works Agency except for maintenance and operations. There is none we can receive from the State. There is no other place for us to turn in this community.

Now, there was brought out here this morning this point: We did give comprehensive tests to the children and we found the housing projects were just as intelligent natively as the children from the officers' homes or from the homes of the old original residents of the township. There was no difference in the native intelligence.

Senator MORSE. Have not all of the tests which have been conducted for many years in this country shown, by way of conclusion, that the economic status of parents or official position of parents has no direct relationship or correlation to the native intelligence of the offspring? Mr. WILSON. That is right.

Senator MORSE. Keeping in mind that you have a certain group of unfits of all economic status, for that matter? You have a certain group of unfits with inheritable tendencies that affect the offspring, but even there we have some very interesting studies as to whether or not those effects are as direct as we have been led to believe for so long. But excluding those, the point I want to make for the record is, excluding those recognized inheritable misfits, the objective studies in the field of education to date show that innate intelligence of offspring bears no relation to the economic status of parents or positions of parents.

Mr. WILSON. That is what we find.

Senator MORSE. That when we find them falling behind by what looks like a relationship between economic status of parents and educational success of offspring, it is because of the early conditioning factors that were available to one group and not to another group, rather than because of any transmission of greater intelligence to offspring through a channel of economic status.

Mr. WILSON. That is right. Now there is another point I would like to substantiate by figures here, that you discussed. The conditions of these schools is so bad that the children drop out, and this year we had 1,485 children in grades 1 to 12, and only 29 of them were in the twelfth grade, while there were over 200 in the first grade. Now, 4 years ago this 1945 high-school class which graduated only 28 children had 100 children, and 72 of them had dropped out.

Senator MORSE. Read that to that trustee, will you, when you get back home?

Mr. WILSON. Well, it would do no good, because we have a new trustee with us who has all of the fine characteristics that a trustee should have, cooperative, progressive, and everything. The other trustee is out, and 95 percent of the citizens of the community at the time he refused to do it signed a petition asking him to go ahead, and he would not do it even with that; so it was just a very unusual thing. Sometimes a small minority can prevent good for the whole group.

Senator MORSE. Very frequently. [Laughter.]

Mr. WILSON. Now, to make matters worse, about the 22d day of May we received a telegram from the War Department canceling our lease of this building; so it looks as though we might have to return

to the garages and the farmhouses and half-day sessions. So, we are vitally interested in this legislation.

The people of that community are dissatisfied parents. Some 2,500 of them have signed a petition to send up to you. They seem to have a great amount of belief in petitions in Indiana, and they have sent one here with 2,500 parents' names on it asking that some sort of system be granted.

We also would like to present for the record a survey covering from the years 1931 and 1932 in this community up to the present time, which gives you the enrollment of each year and who the children were, where they were from.

Senator MORSE. Mr. Wilson, I want to thank you very much. I have not any doubt that the testimony you have put into the record this morning will be testimony that will reach the floor of the Senate eventually in discussion; and, without reference to any particular person, because I would not think of referring to any particular person because I do not know what the facts are, I make this general observation:

Helpful as petitions are, I hope you and the other people in the country interested in correcting what is an absolutely inexcusable situation, in regard to which you people have testified this morning, will do your best to make clear that after all there is a kind of writing more important than petitions, and that is the ballot you put into the ballot box, and I think that is the only way we are going to solve some of these problems. Do you have anything more to add?

Mr. WILSON. I would like to add one more statement. I do not know whether it has gone into the record or not, but we believe that the raising of the general intelligence of the Nation is a strong factor in our national defense both internally and from external forces.

Possibly the military people will soon come to realize that, if we should ever get into another conflict, that what we are intellectually, scientifically, and healthfully as a Nation will go a long way in determining the life of our democracy. So, I think that is one of the strong arguments for Federal aid to education.

Senator MORSE. Well, I agree with you, and I think some of the ex-leaders will discover that a great majority of the American people believe that the best way to keep the country secure is to see to it that all children have an equality of educational opportunity backed up by Federal aid.

(Mr. Wilson's prepared statement is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF FACTS CONCERNING SCHOOL FACILITIES OF CHARLESTOWN SCHOOL TOWNSHIP, CHARLESTOWN, IND.

(1) Prior to 1940 Charlestown School Township was a normal school township with an enrollment of approximately 500 pupils in grades 1 to 12.

(2) The township had a normal balance between property valuation and school enrollment, and was able to meet the standards of a first-class Indiana commission school.

(3) During the school year 1940-41, the enrollment began to increase on account of the construction of the Indiana Ordnance Works.

(4) Federal authorities at this time were award of the additional burden which would necessarily have to be assumed by Charlestown School Township and caused a survey to be made by several interested and competent agencies. (5) This survey anticipated a permanent enrollment of 1.450 children. (6) Upon this information the Federal Government granted $600,000 (Indiana Docket 12-101) from the Lanham Act to construct the needed school facilities.