John Balch, of Milton, Mass.; and Mrs. B. L. Robinson, of Cambridge, Mass.

Mr. DOUGLASS. I know of those ladies by repute. They are of high standing.

Miss KILBRETH. We are perfectly respectable. I am from Southampton, Long Island, and, consequently, partially a constituent of the chairman. We have been interested in this bill for a long time. We were the first paper to compile Federal-aid tables showing the amount each State contributed and received back in Federal aid. When we started this the internal-revenue reports did not publish the percentage of the Federal funds gathered in each State. The Woman Patriot had to work out these percentages itself. The interest has grown so great in the classification that now the internal-revenue reports show the proportion the States pay and receive back. Our table on education was published in March, 1921, and the Federal-aid table on the maternity bill in December, 1921.

The group of women with whom I work have an opinion about the outcome of this or any other bill to create a Federal department of education, should it be enacted, different from any I have heard submitted to your committee. Opponents generally predict it would lead to Federal control and would Prussianize education. Teachers backing this bill deny that there will be any Federal control or that they would submit to any such control. The teachers are right, in my opinion. What they plan is the very antithesis of the German system. The pre-war German Empire operated or ruled by means of two vast machines, a civil machine and a military machine, equally disciplined, scientific and efficient, and equally controlled to carry out the policy of the German Empire. They instilled into the citizenry the unified ideal of the fatherland, love of country and willingness to die for it if necessary in military defense. In other words, they absolutely instilled their ideals into the people. These machines were huge, they were vast, but they were as integral and legitimate a part of the German system as the arms are part of the body. In prewar Germany there was no bureaucracy at all in the American sense, that is, there was no machinery of government in the sense of an independent body operating at will, a governing body within the government, such as our bureaucracy intrenched and protected by the civil service. The rulings of our bureaus have practically the force of laws. We predict that this bill would set up a huge teachers' machine, undisciplined, uncontrolled, under our theories of academic freedom, doing exactly what they pleased. It is as different as possible from anything in pre-war Germany. If we are going to have a Federal department of education it should be controlled by our Government, but our Government, whether you consider this our strength or our weakness, has no definite national policy. You see that everywhere, in the Army and the Navy, for instance. no continuous policy.

There is

Mr. BLACK. No design.

Miss KILBRETH. Thank you.

That is the word I mean.

The CHAIRMAN. Would you be inclined to favor a bureau of education as it exists now, with large appropriations?

Miss KILBRETH. I can not see the need of any Federal machinery putting out information on educational matters.

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The CHAIRMAN. You see no particular danger in the present bureau?

Miss KILBRETH. No; not at present.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it would be if they were to have more money?

Miss KILBRETH. I think so.

Mr. KVALE. It is potentially dangerous?

Miss KILBRETH. That is exactly what I mean. It is potentially dangerous. Any Federal agency in connection with education, I think is dangerous.

The CHAIRMAN. You felt that same way in regard to the Department of Commerce?

Miss KILBRETH. I know nothing about that subject. I am not sufficiently informed. The Department of Commerce in a way is offset or balanced by the Department of Labor. They probably hold each other a little in check, there would be no check on a department of education.

The CHAIRMAN. Your organization if it could would probably abolish the Children's Bureau.

Miss KILBRETH. We would. We consider that part of the feminist program of revolution by legislation.

Mr. FLETCHER. You stated that you are opposed to the Government sending out any information on education.

Miss KILBRETH. I do not see why the Federal Government should. I suppose my point of view is necessarily biased by my home State. It has been repeatedly stated at education hearings that New York is one of the States that needed most Federal help in the way of information, etc. Why? Why? Our expenditures for education are huge in New York. If this is a matter of money, why on earth can not New York do anything that the Federal Government can do in the way of investigation? There is no omniscence at Washington.

Mr. FLETCHER. If you are opposed to the Government sending out any information on education, to be consistent with that would you entirely oppose the present bureau and be in favor of disbanding it?

Miss KILBRETH. I do not mean to be rude or disrespectful in regard to the bureau, but it is so insignificant it does not really matter. I do not like some of the things they send out.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not agree with some of the other witnesses who appeared for that side of the case that the bureau has done good work?

Miss KILBRETH. I am not connected with any of them. I am speaking simply for the board of directors of our company.

Mr. BLACK. Give us an example of some of the things that the bureau has done that you do not like.

Miss KILBRETH. Some of the literature that they put out about child play. I think it was a series entitled child play, seemed to me silly. Mrs. Robinson, of Boston, took them up at a previous hearing. The CHAIRMAN. I remember it.

Miss KILBRETH. I will send them to the committee if they wish to see them.

Mr. FLETCHER. So that there will be no misunderstanding about it, you prefer to abandon the present Bureau of Education in preference to increasing its efficiency?

Miss KILBRETH. We have not taken any stand on abolishing the little Bureau of Education. It seems to me in its present state harmless, and I should not think it would be of any special use.

Mr. FLETCHER. You object to increasing its efficiency?

Miss KILBRETH. I would not be in favor of increasing its appropriation. Let State systems do their own investigating.

Mr. FLETCHER. On the ground that it is revolutionary and contributes to the revolutionary idea?

Miss KILBRETH. I did not say the present bureau was revolutionary.

Mr. FLETCHER. Would letters and sending out propaganda and information be revolutionary?

Miss KILBRETH. I will get to section 8 in a minute. I shall be specific about the revolutionary connection.

Mr. FLETCHER. We are interested in getting your point on the revolutionary idea.

Miss KILBRETH. The revolutionary idea has no connection whatever with the present Bureau of Education.

Mr. FLETCHER. Would it have in this new department?

Miss KILBRETH. I am coming to that. A Federal department of education as provided in this bill would set up a teachers' machine. One of Lenin's chief objects in Russia was trying to get control of the teachers. I do not want to be misunderstood in regard to teachers. I believe only a small proportion of teachers are actively working for this bill, and I think it is greatly to their credit and shows their disinterestedness, not to be mixed up with this pressure upon Congress for this bill. It is a small percentage of teachers. The National Education Association, I believe, do not claim in their membership more than 10 per cent of the teachers, and I think when consider all the prophecies of increased pay and all that sort of thing that have been held out to teachers, that it is very remarkable that the National Education Association have only been able to get 10 per cent of them into this organization.

Mr. FLETCHER. Is that all they have?

you

Miss KILBRETH. That is their own testimony. I am not speaking with mathematical accuracy.

Mr. BLACK. That is the testimony.

Miss KILBRETH. About this subject of our bureaucracy, the form of our bureauracy, the Communist Party in the United States was underground for years, and in 1922 they decided to come out in the open and call it the Labor Party. One of the most able books I have ever read on bureauracy is one published by the Communist Party of the United States, explaining why they considered the time opportune to come out in the open. They contend that previously conditions in this country have not been right for socialism or for an open party to put it over in this country. John Pepper is the pen name of a man named Pogany, who was the greatest propagandist of the Soviet Government. He was the one they sent down to Hungary to bring about a Hungarian revolution, and he brought it about. He worked in the United States for many months. He analyzes, particularly in the first edition of this book, the bureauracy in the United States. He says the United States was a hopeless terrain for socialism up to recently because they were a highly decentralized Government. They have no breauracy whatever in the foreign sense, no enormous government with the bureaucrats holding positions for life. Up to

)

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

Bureau of Education (Budget, p. 708).

(Fiscal year ended June 30, 1928)

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

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

Reed bill recently passed for additional vocational education ap

propriations, at maturity...

Howard University...-

Total additional appropriations.

Appropriation authorized in H. R. 7.---

Total under proposed new department of education___ Doctor Strayer, who is president of the legislative

the National Education Association, said: '

19, 618, 350

commission of

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.