recently we had a decentralized Government and there was nothing that communism could work on. Pepper says in previous wars when we have had to set up a machinery for war, the Civil War, etc., that the machinery was promptly disbanded after the war and gotten rid of by the Government, and it went back to its original form, but that after the World War the American Government had not been able to throw off its bureaucracy, so that now the United States has one of the most enormous bureaucracies in the world. The book is a most remarkable analysis of American conditions for anyone who wants to see it. I refer to it to substantiate my remarks on socialism. Mr. BLACK. You might put extracts from it in the record. Miss KILBRETH. I will insert them.

(The extracts referred to are as follows:)

The communists now contend:

*

*

"The American Government * * * has grown into a mammoth monster of centralization, similar to that of the old European governments. * * A centralized government, which interferes in the daily affairs of the working class, is the basic condition * * the fundamental condition for the formation of a nation-wide political mass party-the birth of a (communist) labor party." ("For a Labor Party, ," issued by Communist Workers Party of America, p. 22.)

The above official communist campaign handbook was issued in October, 1922, as an explanation of why the communists considered the time ripe to emerge into the open and establish a radical third party.

This communists handbook explains that former third-party movements had failed, because:

"There has never been in this country a centralized government power as they understand it in Europe. The United States has never been such a centralized country * * * as Germany, England, or France. The 48 States, * * * according to the original Constitution, are separate sovereignties. * * * The administration of public business, the greater part of the judiciary, the police, the militia, the educational work, the major part of legislation remained in the hands of the separate States. * * *

"The American labor movement could not organize a political struggle on a national scale against the Central Government for securing political power as the workers of Europe do. They could not do so, because there has been no permanent centralized government in the United States." (Ibid., pp. 17-22.) The present development of bureaucracy, which the revolutionists count upon to help them for a third party is described in this communist handbook, as follows:

"By means of the World War the centralized government acquired power unequaled, either in the War of Independence or the Civil War. * * * More and more departments of activity came under the control of the National Government. * * * Not only has the number of employees grown but also the composition of this army of employees has greatly changed. The number of those subject to civil-service examinations has steadily grown. The number of civil-service employees in 1884 was 13,780. * * At the peak of the war, in 1918, the number increased to 917,760.

*

"This government-examined corps of employees, not affected by changes of administration, and which is constantly growing, has become a government bureaucracy in the European sense of the word. (Ibid. p. 21.)

In short, American communists themselves admit that it is impossible to promote revolution in this country unless the rights of the States are destroyed and a centralized bureaucracy, under an intrenched caste of bureaucrats similar to those of Europe, gives communists the "basic condition" for revolution. "The attitude of the Communst Congress toward democracy is especailly interesting. Beginning with Lenin's first speech, running through the following debates, and much of the newspaper comment is an obvious fear of democracy. * * * They recognize very clearly that their real enemy, against which they must marshal their most formidable attack, is that spirit of democracy to which this Nation is dedicated. (State Department memorandum, Second Congress of the Communist International, October 25, 1920, p. 5.)

I will come in a moment to Lenin's statement about the control of teachers as an apparatus of power, taking up the power and money

involved in this bill. There is a great deal of money and power involved in this bill, although it does not look so from its text. We have made a table in our office of just what the money would amount to that this department would control under the present bill. We make it come up to $19,618,350. This is the table.

APPROPRIATIONS TRANSFERRED TO PROPOSED DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

(Fiscal year ended June 30, 1928)

Bureau of Education (Budget, p. 708)

Federal Board for Vocational Education (Budget, p. 54)

Reed bill recently passed for additional vocational education appropriations, at maturity.

Columbia Institution for the Deaf (Budget, p. 721).

Howard University..

Total additional appropriations

Appropriation authorized în Ĥ. R. 7.

Total under proposed new department of education___

Doctor Strayer, who is president of the legislative commission of the National Education Association, said:

The Federal Government is now spending approximately $40,000,000, for the support of education, other than that involved in the rehabilitation of veterans of the World War.

We worked over this table for some time and we can not explain the discrepancy between our $19,618,350 compiled from the present budget report of the Government and Doctor Strayer's statement. All we can guess is that it is intended eventually to capture for this department the agricultural educational activities. We suspect that because Senator Hoke Smith, who introduced the early bill, in the hearings of 1920 on the Smith-Towner bill said, referring to the Bureau of Education:

It has not the machinery to do what we contemplate, or the authority to do what we contemplate.

Senator Smith continued:

I think that some of the additional branches of educational work might, perhaps, be added to the department of education. I doubt whether it should invade the agricultural work, because it is a class of work, while it is educational, yet it is work in agriculture, and I think that the farm-extension work through the colleges is in splendid shape, and I do not know that it ought to be transferred. It may be later on that the department of education will, as it gets hold of the work, get ready for it. We thought, however, that it had better grow and develop first. (Hearings, 1920, p. 18.)

I suggest that this may be an explanation of why we can not get up to the $40,000,000, which is about twice what we can find as the appropriation for this bill. Mr. Joy E. Morgan, editor of the National Education Association Journal, said: "No one would seriously propose that present agencies dealing with education, such as the Federal Board for Vocational Education, could be coordinated in the bureau."

That shows why the advocates of this bill are opposed to increasing the bureau. Money is not all that they want. They want the power that would come from the incorporation of all these activities in a department which could not be incorporated in a mere bureau so that part of the opposition to a bureau is that it could not have the same delegation of power.

The CHAIRMAN. But that is not your opposition to the bureau? Miss KILBRETH. No. We oppose this educational bill root and branch.

The CHAIRMAN. And every phase of it.

Miss KILBRETH. Every phase of it. In our dual form of government education was left to the States. In all of this discussion much has been said about States' rights, but not much about our dual form of government. If you impose this Federal activity of government on the States you are imposing a double government on the unfortunate taxpayer, and American citizens will have two governments on their backs.

The American people have been encouraging education in the States. Doctor Strayer has said that in 1921 the States were spending $1,750,000,000 on education, so that it can not be said that the States are starving their people on education. We have compiled a table that shows the expenditures of last year.

(The matter referred to is as follows:)

Ten-year increase of public school pupils, teachers, and expenses in the United

States 1

1 Compiled from the World Almanac, 1928 (p. 397) table by the United States Bureau of Education.

From the above table it will be noted that the 10-year increase in the salaries of teachers and superintendents in 1926 represented an amount greater than the total expenditures on public schools in 1916; that the proportionate increase in total expenditures was ten times the percentage of increase of pupils, and the increase in salaries more than ten times the percentage of increase in pupils.

In addition, there are 654,266 students in American colleges and universities, and at least 2,500,000 pupils in parochial and other private schools. (Ibid. pp. 393, 408.) The cost figures are not available.

The value of all public-school property for the school year, 1925-26 was $4,676,603,539. (Ibid. p. 399.)

The total annual expenditures for education in public schools (in 1926, $2,016,812,685) is nearly half as much as the total value of all public-school property. The States are thus spending upon teachers' salaries, new buildings, equipment, etc., every three years, more money than represented by the total value of all public property used for school purposes. In other words, the maintenance of the American educational system for three years costs the State taxpayers more than the total cost of rebuilding and refurnishing every public school in America at its present valuation.

Surely, then, it can not be said that the States, or the American people, are "niggardly" in supporting public education, or that public education needs the "stimulus" of a Federal department in order to grow. As a matter of fact, the increase in total expendi

tures for public schools, from 1916 to 1926, corresponded almost exactly with the increase in our fastest growing industry, publicschool expenditures increasing from $640,717,053 to $2,016,812,685 and the wholesale value of passenger automobiles increasing from $797,469,353 to $2,730,385,507 in the same 10 years. (Ibid. p. 352.) Without Federal aid or a Federal department, public education in the United States, at least in cost, is growing as fast as the most spectacular increase of an industrial product the world has ever known.

In connection with the charge that teacher advocates of this bill were interested in it financially and the denial by an advocate witness at this hearing, I recall to the committee that there has been proof of such self-interest as far back as the 1920 hearings on the SmithTowner bill.

Mr. L. V. Lampson, vice president of the American Federation of Teachers at the original joint hearings on the Smith-Towner bill, July 10-22, 1919, testified in part as follows:

"The facts relating to the inception and history of this bill should appear in the report of these proceedings for the information of the country. They are in substance as follows: At a convention held in St. Paul, in June, 1918, upon a resolution introduced by Delegate Stillman, representing the organized teachers, the American Federation of Labor went on record in favor of the creation of a department of education and the annual appropriation of $100,000,000 by the Federal Government in aid of teachers' salaries. * * * At its convention in Pittsburgh, held in June, 1918, the American Federation of Teachers went on record in favor of resolutions of similar import. In conformity with these resolutions a bill was in the process of being drafted. In the meantime the National Education Association secured the introduction into the Senate of what is known as the Smith bill. * * * Then followed the introduction of the Smith bill, amended, into the House under the name of the Towner bill. * * * Unlike the original Smith bill it [Smith-Towner bill] contains specific provisions for Federal aid in the payment of teachers' salaries. The way to improve the schools of America * * * is to raise teachers' salaries (p. 115).' Dr. George D. Strayer, of Teachers' College, Columbia University, at the same original joint hearings, testified in part:

"Half of the $100,000,000 [Federal fund] appropriated shall be devoted solely to paying the salaries of the teachers on the condition that the States shall pay them as much more. That is a very good beginning" (p. 51).

Mr. FLETCHER. When did Senator Fess make that statement?
Miss KILBRETH. At the Smith-Towner hearings in 1919.

Mr. FLETCHER. Does that refer to this bill?

Miss KILBRETH. No. I am going back to the early bill. All of these bills have about the same backing. The Fess remark was on page 53 of the joint hearings, Sixty-sixth Congress, first session.

In the 1926 joint hearings Senator Copeland asked Dr. S. P. Capen, chancellor of the University of Buffalo, "Really, it gets back to that every time, the matter of dollars."

Doctor Capen said, "Well, largely" (p. 27).

So I think we are quite justified in thinking there is such an interest in the bill.

Dr. J. A. H. Keith, president, State Normal School, said:

This measure is designed to stimulate the schools to spend more money. * * * I do not believe that anything short of a Federal bounty will do it. * * * We are the richest Nation the sun ever shone on. It is not financial inability at all. It is a matter of distribution, and we can not bring these things about until we get a fair deal on the economic side.

As to the Federal-aid proposition that was dropped in this bill, but that was in the previous bills. Great emphasis has been laid on the fact that it is not in this bill, and the emphasis is misplaced because

there is ample testimony in the statement of the proponents to prove that it is not a bona fide relinquishment and that there is no intention whatever of giving up that money. It is only a temporary expedient, the camel's-nose-under-the-tent subterfuge to get this bill through. Somebody remarked the other day that it was understood so from a former president of the National Education Association. There has been great reticence in the National Education Association. In 1921 at the National Education Association biennial convention where the change was made I could find no discussion at all. The report of the legislative commission does not even directly mention Federal aid. This is a statement from the report of the legis lative commission, by Dr. George D. Strayer, chairman of the commission. He says:

Your legislative commission worked most earnestly during the last session of Congress to have the education bill, then pending, reported out by the committees of the House and of the Senate. The legislative secretary of the National Education Association, Miss Charl Ormond Williams, obtained the active cooperation of the representatives of 21 other national organizations supporting the measure. Even with their combined interest and support, it was not pos sible to secure action by Congress. That we were not able to get a report from either committee throws considerable light upon the present legislative situation. In view of this situation, the commission voted at a meeting held in Cincinnati in February to propose a bill creating a department of education, but omitting appropriations other than those necessary for carrying on the work of the department.

I searched the National Education Association Journal for that report. But in the reports of that Cincinnati meeting, I could find nothing about the dropping of the Federal-aid provision.

Mr. BLACK. Does it say anything about the necessity for research work?

Miss KILBRETH. In that connection, Doctor Strayer says:

Your legislative commission is convinced that in the bill to be presented before the next session of Congress, emphasis should be placed upon the function of the Department of Education as an agency for the conducting of investigations and for the dissemination of information.

And so forth. He continues that this is in accord with the position of the President. I want to take up the President's position in just one minute. I have something here on that.

The National Education Association was very reticent on this complete somersault of policy. The nearest official statement we can find on just exactly why they made this change is from the Christian Science Monitor of June 22, 1925. It seems fair to quote this paper because the Christian Science Monitor is for this bill and friendly to the National Education Association. It says:

The National Education Association leaders decided to defer their request for Federal aid of education because they realize the unwisdom of pursuing it further at the present.

The same article says of Dr. George D. Strayer:

An untiring worker for a department of education, Doctor Strayer also sought to encourage education in the States through Federal aid until he saw that further campaigning along this line promised for the time to be barren of results. The article continues:

Asked to comment further on the Federal-aid discussion, Miss (Charl) Williams, (field secretary legislative division National Education Association and former National Education Association president) said: "There is a general understanding among educators that Federal aid will be deferred. the last two sessions of Congress has been a double-headed one.

Our bill in
We have