7140 which removes from the definition of "Federal property" all property leased from the United States, if leaseholds are subject to taxation. The estimates may have been made on the assumption that the bill before the 1959 Connecticut General Assembly permitting municipalities to tax such leaseholds would pass, which it finally did not; or they may have been made with the thought that since the Supreme Court has ruled taxation of such leaseholds to be permissible, they are "subject to taxation" anyway. We do not know, but we do know from the Department's estimates that it expects to save 60.6 percent of our State's part of the cost of the program, or $871,713. Column 4 shows what would have been left after both reductions. The total left for all towns is close enough to the Department's total reduced estimate for Connecticut to make our assumptions and calculations in columns 2 and 3 reasonably reliable. Effect of H.R. 7140 on Federal grants under Public Law 874 to Connecticut towns NOTE.-Bridgeport, New Britain, and West Haven have been omitted from the table because of special circumstances involved. H.R. 7140 would have wiped out their entitlements. Mr. McCORD. We have a copy of a letter from Congressman Hastings Keith, of Massachusetts, to one of his school districts, discussing this legislation. Mr. BAILEY. Without objection, it will be accepted for inclusion in the record. (The letter referred to follows:) Mr. SYDNEY G. PIERCE, JULY 28, 1959. DEAR MR. PIERCE: Thank you very much for your recent letter inviting our attention to the problem that Wellfleet would face if there should be a substantial cut in the benefits provided under Public Law 874. The purpose of this law when it was originally passed was to help out communities like Wellfleet. They are hit much harder than most because of the relatively small size of the school population and the relatively great impact that comes from the military installations in proximity to the community. As a matter of fact, I believe that your case merits much more serious attention than most others. For example, in the community in which I reside, there are tremendous numbers of students whose parents are employed by the Federal Government. But these Federal employees are of diversified ages, and, generally speaking, are able to afford homes on which substantial taxes can be paid. These in turn help de fray the cost of educating the children. This is not the case in Wellfleet nor in other small cape towns where military personnel predominate. The parents are younger. They have more children and their income is substantially lower than in the towns in the vicinity of Washington. The committee, therefore, has a very difficult task on its hands. I have advised them of the nature of the problem in my district and I am hopeful that the hearings which were held today will provide some legislative solution that will meet with your approval. I apologize for the lateness of this reply and once again I appreciate the thoughtful nature of your letter. Kind regards. Sincerely yours, HASTINGS KEITH, Mr. BAILEY. The subcommittee hearing will resume on Tuesday next, at 10 o'clock. (Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Tuesday, August 4, 1959.) PUBLIC LAWS 815 AND 874, 81ST CONGRESS (ADMINISTRATION'S PROPOSAL FOR MODIFYING EXISTING LEGISLATION) TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1959 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON GENERAL EDUCATION OF THE Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 429, Old House Office Building, Hon. Cleveland B. Bailey (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. BAILEY. The subcommittee will be in order. The subcommittee, which has been in recess since Wednesday of last week, today resumes its hearings of Members of Congress and representatives of school boards and individuals who are opposed to the administration's proposals as contained in H.R. 7140 having to do with Public Laws 815 and 874. We have Hon. James M. Quigley, Member of Congress from Pennsylvania. Mr. Quigley, you may proceed in the presentation of your testimony. STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. QUIGLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE 19TH DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to come before you to add my views to the many I am sure you will hear raised in objection to H.R. 7140. It is my understanding that this measure, sponsored by a distinguished member of the House Committee on Education and Labor and my colleague from Pennsylvania, Congressman Carroll Kearns, embodies the recommendations of the administration headed by my most distinguished constituent, Dwight David Eisenhower. Despite this high recommendation and sponsorship, I have no choice but to be opposed to the bill. My opposition to H.R. 7140 is threefold in nature. First, its passage would have an immediate and adverse effect on many schools within my congressional district as well as throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the entire Nation. Second, I believe that the enactment into law of H.R. 7140 would amount to a shirking on the part of the Federal Government of its admitted responsibility for a problem which it created and which, up to now, it has endeavored to solve. Third, H.R. 7140 embodies a complete repudiation of just about everything that the Eisenhower administration has long since and repeatedly told us it stands for in the vital field of education. Mr. Chairman, in the picturesque language of the Pennsylvania Dutch, H.R. 7140 "wonders me." It "wonders me" that it is necessary for me to be here today to state my objection to this bill. It "wonders me" because I know that it was seven state of the Union messages ago that President Eisenhower stated that our school systems needed help. Since then, he and others in his administration have kept on repeating that statement and periodically and vociferously they have pledged their dedication to the meeting of the needs of American education. Just as recently as 10 weeks ago the President urged each and every one of us to read the statement of his advisory committee on "Education for the Age of Science." As a member of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics, I took that advice to heart and began to read that most urgent report. It wasn't very long before I came across a sentence which read, and I quote, "Doubling our current national investment in education is probably a minimal rather than an extravagant goal."-unquote. Yet by the terms of H.R. 7140, the administration suddenly proposes to cut already promised funds to school districts where that need is most clearly a Federal responsibility, in school districts where the Federal Government adds a burden to educational costs with no local means of obtaining tax revenue from the source of that burden. Mr. BAILEY. Would the gentleman permit the Chair to make an observation? Mr. QUIGLEY. Yes, of course. Mr. BAILEY. Is not the administration's position on school matters somewhat that of the person in this story? There was a mountaineer in West Virginia who disappeared in the mountains and was gone for about a week. People had given him up for lost. Finally one day he showed up and they said, "Sam, were you lost?" He said, "Not exactly, but at times I got kind of confused." Mr. QUIGLEY. I think H.R. 7140 just adds so much more confusion to an already confused picture that I have observed in my time in Congress and I am sure the chairman has observed for many years. This administration has consistently said one thing as far as education is concerned and has consistently proposed to do just about the opposite. In fact, H.R. 7140 has sort of a reverse English to it. At a time when the President's committee is urging that the Nation double its investment in education, the President's administration by its sponsorship of H.R. 7140 is proposing that the Federal Government cut its contribution to federally impacted areas by a much as one-half. It is with great difficulty that I restrain myself from making some remarks here about administration arithmetic. As most of you are too well aware, I could stand before you and quote from innumerable speeches of the President and his Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare expressing their concern over the needs of our educational system and its facilities. But I think it more germane to quote from the people who have a real concern in this field, the people who are in the field of education affected by this legislation. What I am going to read now is a compendium of statements from supervising principals of school districts in my congressional district. That district receives almost $500,000 under the provisions of Public Law 874, a substantial sum that truly does not fully cover the added |