AMEND ACT TO INCORPORATE HOWARD UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION, The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Frederick W. Dallinger (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. I called this meeting to give Congressman Cramton a hearing on the bill introduced by him, H. R. 10604, relating to Howard University. The bill reads as follows: Be it enacted, etc., That section 8 of an act entitled “An act to incorporate the Howard University in the District of Columbia," approved March 2, 1867, be amended to read as follows: "SEC. 8. Annual appropriations are hereby authorized to aid in the construction, development, improvement, and maintenance of the university, no part of which shall be used for religious instruction. The university shall at all times be open to inspection by the Bureau of Education and shall be inspected by the said bureau at least once each year. An annual report, making a full exhibit of the affairs of the university, shall be presented to Congress each year in the report of the Bureau of Education." STATEMENT OF HON. LOUIS C. CRAMTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN Mr. CRAMTON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very much the kindness of the committee in so promptly giving us a hearing on this bill, and I want to reciprocate by condensing what we have to present, as far as possible, and will not unduly detain you. Howard University has been receiving Federal aid annually for about 50 years. I have had charge of the Interior Department appropriation bill, in which that item is carried. I think the present Interior Department bill is the fourth one that I have handled. Under the recent revision of the rules of the House, our committee has no right to report items that are of a legislative character, and we have no right to recommend appropriations that are not authorized by existing legislation. The Committee on Appropriations has tried in good faith to live up to the rules of the House. At the same time we are the servant of the House, and in the various bills there are items that are unauthorized by law but have been carried for many years and each year approved by the House, and quite generally in those cases the committee has continued to recommend them, until we run into some trouble. You will remember that in the first year or two points of order were made against two-thirds of the Indian bill and those items went out of the bill, and then Mr. Snyder, the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, took up the subject and had a blanket measure passed which authorized certain lines 1 of expenditure, and the committee then was able to go ahead, because that removed the controversy. This item has been approved year by year for 50 years. I think at various times in the past points of order have been made against it, but it has always been restored in the Senate if it went out in the House, and the House by a vote has subsequently indorsed the item. So that up to this time we have felt it to be our duty, as these items have come to us from the Budget, to insert them in the bill, and we thought we were following the wishes of the House in so doing. But there is a question in my mind as to how long we ought to continue that practice if each year the matter goes out on points of order. Mr. TUCKER. Has it been put in the Budget? Mr. CRAMTON. It has been put in the Budget this year. Mr. CRAMTON. They do follow precedent. For instance, here and there there are items which are put in the Budget without previous authority of law. For instance, when the President called his farm conference there was no law that authorized the payment of any money to take care of the expenses, but he sent a recommendation to Congress for a supplemental estimate of $50,000 for its expenses, and in that particular case the Appropriations Committee declined to insert it in the deficiency bill on the ground that there was no authority of law for it, but it was called to the attention of the Committee on Agriculture, and we expressed our willingness to be guided by their views and accept any amendment that they might recommend. My impression is that they offered an amendment which was subjected to a point of order. However, it is a question in my mind as to how long we ought to continue to put in these items without any legislation. The precise situation was this: The Budget sent in items running somewhere up to $200,000 for the current expenses of the institution, for pay of salaries, improvement of grounds, repair of buildings, etc. About $221,000 is the most that has ever been appropriated in any one year for the current expenses of the institution, and it was about that figure that was recommended this year. We recommended it to the House and it was stricken out on a point of order. In the Senate it has been restored and is now pending in conference. Of course, it will have to come back to the House if the conferees agree to it, and if it is acceptable to them, as I assume it will be, it will come back to the House for a separate vote. There was one other item which was recommended by our committee, an item of $185,000 for one-half the construction cost of a new medical building, the total cost of which was to be $370,000, and as we recommended it to the House, that money was not to be expended until the alumni and other friends of the institution had guaranteed that they would take care of the $130,000 necessary for the equipment of the building We recommended that to the House. It was not carried in the 1926 Budget that was received in December. The 1925 Budget, for the current year, did recommend the total $500,000 and our committee struck it out last year, because last year we had an item in to complete the construction of the gymnasium, etc., and personally I did not feel that at a time when we were cutting down the activities of the Government generally, that In we ought to increase this particular item by a half million dollars as would have been the case if we had put the medical building in last year. The bill last year went to the Senate and the Senate put that in, the half million, with the rest of it, but I opposed its acceptance in the conference on this ground that it seemed to me better that we should just make a moderate expenditure each year for new construction and that it was hardly in keeping with our other program to make an increase of a half million dollars, and the item was dropped out. I mention that to emphasize the fact that I have a feeling of some responsibility, having stood in the way of that item, when by accepting it in conference that half million dollars would have been a part of the law for the current year. other words, it had gotten by the point of order stage and if the House conferees had accepted it, the institution would now have the half million dollars and would be at work on the new medical building. That new medical building is very greatly needed. The colored race needs more physicians from their own race, and there is a very limited opportunity for them in other medical institutions. Secretary Work, who is a physician, is interested in it; and the President manifested his interest last year. The elimination of that item last year by insistence of the House conferees and this year by point of order, accounts for some special interest on my part and in part for my desire to put this in a form where the House can each year vote that which it wants to vote. In addition to that, the institution, as I have come in contact with it in the last four years, has impressed me with the fact that it is doing a very wonderful work with very limited means. I feel that the problem of the Negro is a national problem. You gentlemen all know that it is a great problem in many of its aspects. While I have spent most of my life in the North, I have lived one year in the -South, and I have some familiarity with the great difficulties of the problem. It is a national problem, and the education of the Negro is a proper avenue of Federal expenditure, the same as the education. of the Indian. Therefore I believe in this matter that some aid to that institution is a very proper expenditure. The expenditures that have been made in the past have been along such economical lines, and it is expected to continue them on such lines, so that no great drain on the Treasury is involved. The bill that I have introduced simply provides this. The institution is a private institution, incorporated by special act of Congress approved March 2, 1867, which shows how far back the activities of the institution go, and I simply propose to amend section 8 of that act of incorporation so that it would read as follows: Annual appropriations are hereby authorized to aid in the construction, development, improvement, and maintenance of the university, no part of which shall be used for religious instruction. The university shall at all times be open to inspection by the Bureau of Education and shall be inspected by the said bureau at least once each year. An annual report making a full exhibit of the affairs of the university shall be presented to Congress each year in the report of the Bureau of Education. That bill has been indorsed by a special meeting of the executive committee of the board of trustees of Howard University, which was held December 18 last. After a very full discussion of the matter, upon motion, the executive committee voted unanimously to approve |