We feel the subcommittee could well consider the question of seeking to establish a floor for school housing such as contained in S. 246 but which deals only with operating expenses. The problem is difficult, but some formula might be worked out.

From the point of view of the group we represent, Federal aid to school construction is imperative. In the Southern States, Negroes have been the victims of a vicious system of segregation in education, and under this system generations of my people have suffered untold hardships. Although some Southern apoligists for segregation seek to promote the fiction of "separate but equal," there has not yet been found a single instance where such separation has resulted in equality. On the contrary, the outstanding result has been a disparity in educational facilities that is nothing short of shocking.

Let me cite a few examples that are pertinent to the measure now

before you:

The value of school property is a pretty good index of what has happened under the Jim Crow education in the Southern States. The most recent report available on this subject was prepared by the Office of Education in the Federal Security Agency. It reveals that in 1946 in Alabama the value of school property per pupil enrolled was $30 per Negro child but was $145 per white child. In Arkansas, $47 per Negro child and $161 per white child. In Florida, $61 per Negro child, $313 per white child. In Georgia, $41 per Negro child, $200 per white child. In Louisiana, $63 per Negro child, $346 per white child. In North Carolina, $70 per Negro child, $217 per white child. In South Carolina, $43 per Negro child, $209 per white child. In Texas, $95 per Negro child, $298 per white child. In Virginia $100 per Negro child, $239 per white child.

These disparities have been intentional, deliberate, and systematic over the years. Faced, then, with this condition, if the schoolconstruction bill is to do what I am sure you gentlemen intend, certain definite safeguards should be incorporated to assure that these funds are expended in an equitable manner and that buildings will be built to serve the greatest need.

Both Senator Bricker and Senator Humphrey have attempted to meet this problem, but I would suggest the following be placed in any bill reported out of this subcommittee:

That the provision below be considered in no way, explicit or implicit, as an endorsement of racial segregation in education. That, Mr. Chairman, I would like to incorporate in the bill.

(b) That in States where separate schools are maintained by law, the State plan must provide for a progressive equalization of schoolplant facilities between the races;

(c) That funds made available under this bill must be expended only under a State plan which results in an opportionment for elementary and secondary public schools for minority races of a sum which is at least the ratio in which the school-age population of such minurity races bears to the total school-age population of the State. I believe your bill contains such a provision.

(d) That the Commissioner be prohibited from certifying any State when the above provisions are not fully met.

Mr. Chairman, the first suggestion I make is based on the struggle that I am sure you are familiar with that Negroes all over the country are making to do away with segregation in education. We do not

expect this bill to do away with segregation in education. We know it is not designed for that purpose. But we think that such a provision--that no endorsement of racial segregation is included in the bill-that at least it would not be a deterrent effect on the struggle we are making in the courts and other places.

Senator HUMPHREY. May I say that there is another way that can be done, if Dame Fortune should smile on us and get this bill up in this session. I must be more positive that when we get this bill up in this session that can be fortified by what we call the legislative history that is, the committee report on the bill-as well as the comment on the floor, which are always referred to in any judicial study of any problem which may arise in connection with the bill. Mr. HENDERSON. I am very glad to hear it.

On this last provision, (d), that the Commissioner be prohibited from certifying any State when the above provisions are not fully met, I do not want to leave the impression of making any special criticism of the Office of Education. I know that they have limited facilities and have limited authority. But it has been a fact, Mr. Chairman, that under the many appropriations that have been made for education, that have gone through the Office of Education, when they seem somehow or other to get to the lower level where they are supposed to get, they do not get to the colored schools on any basis of equity.

We went into that to a very great extent during the war on the Fair Employment Practices Committee, and we found that the great funds that were provided for vocational training and other war production training, just somehow or another when it came to the skilled levels that were vital for war industry, we just did not get them in the colored schools in the South.

Of course, no provisions were made for Negroes to get into the white schools. Some alleviation of that problem was made under the FEPC during the war, but it seems now that the old condition is coming right back again.

I might refer specifically to the vocational education bill which I understand appropriates some $27,000,000. We have just received a complaint from a number of colored educators that those funds are not reaching the colored schools in anything like an equitable proportion, which indicates that some kind of safeguard needs to be put in this bill.

Senator HUMPHREY. I would like to make this comment that I am sure you are familiar with, Mr. Henderson: Since 1946 many of the States have made a more determined effort to equalize some of their educational opportunities. I mean there are recent Supreme Court decisions, for example, which were quite compelling on respective States-the States of North Carolina and Louisiana are just two States I think of offhand. They have tried to equalize teachers' salaries, for example, for white and Negro schools. Likewise, there is a full recognition of the deterioration of the school plant.

We discussed this with one or two of the other witnesses. I was bringing up the possibility of duplication of school services, and the necessary expense that went into that duplication, and of course there is such overcrowding.

One of the reasons that you have this low per capita, or Negro child ratio of school plant dollars, is that the Negro school has been

overcrowded in many of these areas as compared to the white school. But they are both overcrowded.

And, of course, the purpose behind the school-construction bill is to provide the basic minimum at least of adequate school facilities. I am sure that all of us who have authored any of these bills have it as our intention that we are not looking at the colored man's skin or his profile or anything else. What we are interested in is school facilities, and until we arrive at that point where there are adequate school facilities for all school children we are not going to be too concerned about whether or not there is a little extra here or there.

We have to build it up. And the great proportion, I would say, of school money under a bill such as this would be very much like under the public-housing bill that we just passed; it would go to those who are most in need.

For example, the public-housing bill that was passed with 810,000 units of public housing, if the same ratio persisted or was maintained in the new housing bill as the one in 1937, the Negro population would get approximately 240,000 of those 810,000 units, on the basis of need. And here again I think the need element is being very definitely emphasized, particularly in S. 287, where you are trying to equalize the educational opportunities per child, and if you have protection in there for proper apportionment, where there is a pattern of separate schools for different groups, you have that recognition of the need element and the equalization-of-opportunity element.

I think we are going to fulfill some of the requirements that listing.

you are We will look at the bill, of course, with reference to these provisions that you have outlined.

Mr. HENDERSON. Thank you. I, of course, agree with you wholeheartedly, and hope that the committee will give serious consideration to the problems.

We believe this bill should also contain a provision such as was incorporated in the Lanham Act and is presently required by the armed services; that all contracts for public-school construction or for materials used in such construction should require that contractors should not discriminate in employment because of race, religion, or national origin.

That provision in the Lanham Act worked very successfully, Mr. Chairman. I think it would be very well to consider such a thing in this act.

Senator HUMPHREY. It has been the chairman's point of view for a long time that, if we want to get started on a program of fair employment practices, the best way we can get started on it would be where the Government is the prime purchaser. In other words, where the Government puts in its money specifically as Federal money certain requirements can be listed out.

And I think maybe, before we get as far as some folks would like to go, that would be a good starting point on fair employment practices, where the actual Government expenditure for Government contract would require the contractor to open up his job opportunities. Mr. HENDERSON. There is no doubt about that.

We feel these safeguards to be sound and justifiable, and we urge this committee to report the improved bill favorably and recommend its speedy passage.

Thank you, very much.

Senator HUMPHREY. Thank you, very much, Mr. Henderson. We appreciate your presence here, and your contribution is very, very good, and helpful.

Mr. Marshall, we are going to take a little time, so if we are over the bells a little, don't worry, we will take care of you.

STATEMENT OF JAMES MARSHALL, MEMBER, NEW YORK CITY BOARD OF EDUCATION

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Senator. I appear on behalf of the New York Board of Education as chairman of the Committee on the Impact of the Increased Birth Rate upon the Public Schools of the City of New York.

I am appearing in support of the proposals to provide for capital funds for school construction. But I am not here to endorse any specific bill.

I am very fearful, Senator, that the widely publicized statement of General Eisenhower which appeared in the papers yesterday, directed at Senate bill 246, to provide Federal aid for the operation of public schools, may be misinterpreted and cause confusion in consideration of the measures before you, which are designed to provide funds for capital improvement; namely, construction of school buildings.

Senator HUMPHREY. May I just interrupt and say that, despite the statement of General Eisenhower, I think he is wrong. I disagree with him and I am glad to say that the majority of the Senate disagreed with him, and disagreed with others that took that position. I surely respect his right to give his point of view; but, as far as his observation on the principles of general education is concerned, I think he was way off the beam.

Mr. MARSHALL. I am glad to hear you say that, sir; but I would like for the record to comment on it, if I may take the time, because it seems to me that the notion that the proposal before you is some way associated with the idea of socialism as suggested by General Eisenhower seems to me entirely without foundation. He is off the beam there.

It is obvious that we are dealing with a function of Government, not interference by Government with any form of private enterprise in any way. Public education has been, as its name implies, an affair of the public. It has been generally regarded in this country as a State enterprise operated and to a great extent controlled by local agencies of Government. We think it therefore apparent that there is no issue of socialism in the question at all.

Senator HUMPHREY. Would it not be more accurate to say, if we want to be brutally frank about it, that of course education is a socialist institution; it is Government-owned, Government, controlled, and Government-paid for. Some people do not like to admit that, but the fact is that socialism means the ownership and control of the means of construction and distribution.

Mr. MARSHALL. Just as the post office is a Government-owned enterprise.

Senator HUMPHREY. Why, surely.

Mr. MARSHALL. The good general, I think, got his wires crossed, because, if you will recall. sir. a week ago there was a great deal of

publicity in all of the front pages of the papers of a report by the Educational Policies Commission advertising the fact that the general and a great many other distinguished educators opposed the presence of Communist teachers in the schools. Well, that very same report, which General Eisenhower signed as a member of that committee, contains this statement on page 44:

The public schools are now supported primarily from State and local revenues. These in turn are to a large degree derived from taxes upon real property. Such revenues do not respond so flexibly to rapidly rising costs as do other sources. This is one reason why the Federal Government should provide funds to help the States to adjust school expenditures to the new high levels. Whatever the cost of security may be, our present financial arrangements cannot underwrite the required educational program.

The schools entered the war with an inadequate plant. School building construction, although stimulated somewhat by work relief projects, never fully recovered from the damaging effects of the depression.

Having neglected the ordinary replacement of both buildings and personnel for a decade, the Nation must now pay the penalty in the form of higher State, local, and Federal support. The only alternative is gravely inadequate educational opportunities with accompanying perils to the Nation's future.

And, sir, I prefer Eisenhower in the first week of June to Eisenhower in the second week.

The only issue which seems reasonable is whether or not the Federal Government should provide funds to assist local government in the performance of its duty to provide adequate housing for operation of schools. The appropriation of Federal funds for school construction is not new. Thousands of schools, as you know, were built in this country with WPA and PWA funds, which went either in whole or in part for the construction of those schools. If the present recession extends further, there is no question but that the Federal Government would again encourage the construction of public schools by the use of Federal funds to assist economic recovery, as it did in the 1930's.

The proposal before you requires the States to initiate the school construction program. It specifically fixed administrative control in the States. This principle is precisely in the tradition of education as a State function. The only respect in which it may be said to differ at all from the current practice is that the dollars would come from the Federal Government. Thus, the plan is calculated to provide Federal moneys under local administration. There can be no question, therefore, of centralization of control over the construction of school buildings in the Federal Government.

I think with that in mind, sir, the Senate ought very carefully to review these proposals for the Federal Government going into questions of specifications or contract provisions of one kind or another, because it is very easy to bring the Government into education under the guise of the kind of wages that are paid to the employees of contractors. And I do not want to belabor that point at length, but I think it ought to be considered from the point of view of whether that does not put the Government in control of a feature of education. Senator HUMPHREY. May I say that there has been very full and comprehensive testimony, as you well know, from the Office of Education personnel and from others, as to Federal control in the development of State plans and State standards. I think every one of us appreciate as we enter this field we are on touchy ground, so to speak, and we have to be careful, and we are going to be careful.