intimidation. If you do not do what somebody at the top believes, how will you know the appropriation will be coming along next year?

Mrs. MEYER. We are going to have Federal aid whether you like it or not, because we need it to go ahead. Therefore, what we must do is to clarify the Federal-State relationships so that authoritarianisms cannot come about.

Mr. JUDD. I notice your sentence where you said the Federal Security must take steps to clarify the Federal-State relationships. It is always the man at the top. This is the United States of America and the State should be the one to decide how much should be granted. Mrs. MEYER. In the legislation for the Welfare Department, the States were consulted, the best State governments were consulted, and wrote that part of it.

Mr. JUDD. The other comment I want to make is this: There are other provisions in Reorganization Plan No. 2 besides the one which you are dealing with.

Mrs. MEYER. Which ones are you thinking of?

Mr. JUDD. Putting unemployment compensation in this Agency. I want you to understand, if this plan is turned down, as I hope it will be, that it does not mean opposition on the part of the Congress to this particular part. Under the law, as it is written, if we dislike any part of the plan, we cannot knock it out. We can turn it down and send it back to the President and allow him to bring in a revised plan, striking out if he wishes those things we objeet to. I think you, being an influential woman, ought to make clear that if this Reorganization Plan No. 2 is turned down to your associates that it does not necessarily mean that the Congress is turning down this plan to get health education.

Mrs. MEYER. I think it would be absolutely inexcusable to turn down a plan of such important administrative reform because one little thing like the unemployment does not suit you.

Mr. JUDD. You do not think that is very important.

Mrs. MEYER. To begin with, I actually think that these Federal commissions which float in the air with no responsibility to anybody are not sound administratively. To whom are they responsible? Nobody but the Chief Executive. We all know that the Chief Executive has some responsibilities, he cannot possibly keep an eye on these various things.

Mr. JUDD. They are responsible more directly to the Congress. They are quasi-judicial. We want to keep them that way so they are not under executive or the head of the department.

Mrs. MEYER. They have to be responsible to someone. If they are not responsible to a Cabinet official, they are responsible to the Chief Executive.

Mr. JUDD. They are independent agencies.

Mrs. MEYER. With no responsibility to anyone.

Mr. JUDD. They come back to Congress each year.

Mrs. MEYER. Is that good administration?

Mr. JUDD. Yes; it is in certain things, where you want to avoid their control by the head of a department who is a political employee. Mrs. MEYER. This is the report to the President's committee. It says that every independent commission is the responsibility of the Chief Executive. I do not think it is.

Mr. JUDD. The Chief Executive cannot overrule the decision of the Unemployment Compensation Commission.

Mrs. MEYER. If there is any debate about their decision, it is always thrown upon the President, I am told, by these Government experts, and I have to go by what they say.

Mr. Chairman, am I right about that, that these floating commissions, of which we still have several, are always responsible to the President?

The CHAIRMAN. They have independent status. The President cannot veto their decisions.

Mrs. MEYER. No; he cannot veto them.

Mr. JUDD. He can appoint Fred Vinson as a new member or that sort of thing if they get into trouble.

Mrs. MEYER. Personally, I do not think it is important whether your unemployment compensation commission stays in or out.

Mr. JUDD. I think it is very important. I can see if we turned down you would assume we are against this part of the plan.

Mrs. MEYER. I would certainly think it catastrophic if that important plan were turned down on account of that thing. The sooner we do it, the better for the country.

Mr. JUDD. Under the law as written, we cannot take that which is good without taking some other things which we think are bad.

Mrs. MEYER. Do you have to take the whole thing or nothing? Mr. JUDD. That is the point. We have to take it all or nothing. Therefore, if we do not like it all, we send it back.

Mrs. MEYER. Do you really think that that one point is so important that you would keep education, health, and welfare from the children of the country? Would you like to see people suffer unnecessarily for an abstract theory of that sort? I think it is unimportant, and unpardonable, because we are dealing with human beings and human welfare. That is the thing we must not take our eyes off.

Mr. JUDD. That is the typical attitude that I am objecting to most of all under our recent administration. It is a delay of 60 days.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, Mrs. Meyer, no new function can be created under a reorganization plan. These agencies that are being transferred to Federal Security Agency or any other agency can now perform all the functions

Mrs. MEYER. I do not think it would affect the powers of that commission in the least. In fact, it might enhance their efficiency.

The CHAIRMAN. The rejection would not mean the children would be denied medical care or schooling. I do not think you meant quite what you said.

Mrs. MEYER. That agency would not be changed, Mr. Chairman, by being a part of this organization.

The CHAIRMAN. We can still send out the baby books from the Children's Bureau.

Mrs. MEYER. I think cooperation on these things would strengthen everyone's powers and not curtail their powers. It would enhance them.

Mr. RICH. Have you ever traveled abroad?

Mrs. MEYER. Yes, I have.

Mr. RICH. Have you ever seen any country in all your travels that you thought the education system was better than it is in America?

Mrs. MEYER. I think the social-work program in Sweden and Denmark is extraordinarily well thought out and well coordinated. Mr. RICH. Does that include their educational system?

Mrs. MEYER. Yes. Of, course, they are small countries, but they have given the deepest thought to those things. They have known of the abject poverty that we have over here.

Mr. RICH. They are in better condition, then?

Mrs. MEYER. Their whole social system is stronger than ours as a whole.

Mr. RICH. Do you advise us patterning after their system? Mrs. MEYER. Certainly not. Every country has to work out its own system that grows out of its own needs.

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Mr. RICH. If they are so much better than ours, why not pattern after something that is better?

Mrs. MEYER. Because you can never take an idea from another country without adapting it to your own circumstances.

Mr. RICH. Isn't it a fact that this country of ours is trying to tell all the countries of the world how they should operate their government and what kind of government they should have?

Mrs. MEYER. I hope we are not trying to do it as drastically as that. In fact, the Educational Commission came back from Japan and found so many good things in the educational system of Japan that they recommended that we go ahead very carefully in trying to improve their methods.

Mr. RICH. The point I am trying to get out now is this: Your indictment of our educational system in America and standards is about the most drastic that I have ever had presented to me in any committee. I am wondering just how we can go ahead and improve that, outside of the suggestions you make, unless we follow some plan of some other system that might be better than ours.

Mrs. MEYER. In a great many of our States, we have probably the best schools in the whole world. All I am trying to do is give those children who have not been given the same educational opportunities an equal opportunity, because I think if we are a democracy, every child in this country should be able to grow up a healthy educated human being. The point I am making is that I want the same standards for our underprivileged areas that already exist in our prosperous States.

Mr. RICH. You speak about the fact that we set up this Bureau of Education and then you work through the States and the local communities?

Mrs. MEYER. Yes.

Mr. RICH. You said "both can be brought to the people if our Federal and State Governments could collaborate in a well-rounded program of community organization;" then you made the statement: "supported by Federal aid."

In order to realize your ambition and standards that you would set up, have you ever figured on what amount of money the Federal Government would have to appropriate for this work?

Mrs. MEYER. The total, no, sir, because it would take very careful study to determine the sums. I pointed out to the chairman only a little while ago that they have to be computed very carefully in relationship to the needs of the State.

Besides, the States do not have to come in. Supposing we do have such a system of Federal aid, no State can be forced to take it. It is only there if they want it. It is optional.

Mr. RICH. If you make the law and require certain things from the States

Mrs. MEYER. I am not requiring anything. What I said was that we should have a system by which Federal aid could be effectively administered. Of course, that depends upon the Congress. If we are not going to have Federal aid, it is up to Congress. This does not institute Federal aid. It simply improves the administrative processes that if Federal aid is voted by the Congress, it can be effectively handled.

Mr. RICH. We are trying to aid and assist the States in vocational education and have appropriated quite a sum of money. The thought expressed here was that we expected the States to handle this vocational education, but we find out that the Federal Government is in it so deep that the States cannot hanle it only as directed by the bureaucrats here in Washington.

Mrs. MEYER. To begin with, it was a matching problem, and the result was that the States that could put the most in the kitty got the most from the Federal Government. My point is that Federal aid should be adminisered in such a way that it is in relationship to need. Mr. RICH. You want the Federal Government to do it all and States not do anything?

Mrs. MEYER. Excuse me, I said nothing of the sort. My whole argument is against that.

Mr. RICH. Then I misunderstood you. I thought anything that is worth while is worth working for.

Mrs. MEYER. To begin with, the States would have to request the Federal aid. Nobody can force the State to take Federal aid if they do not want it.

Mr. RICH. We are forcing on the States a lot of things they do not like. We have been working up on that.

Mrs. MEYER. I am trying to fight that trend.

Mr. RICH. You say now you do not want the States to support this educational system, but you want the Federal Government to do it.

Mrs. MEYER. Excuse me, my argument is totally against that. I think if you will read my testimony again, you will see that I am out and out States' rights person.

Mr. RICH. Then suppose we have the States cooperate. Do you believe that we should in any sense of politics enter into our educational system in this country?

Mrs. MEYER. I think that there should always be a complete absence, ideally speaking, in education, health, and welfare. At present, you have got politics in education up to your ears in lots of States. I think the improvement of our administrative machinery would help to eliminate it.

Mr. RICH. I am trying to get your thought so we in no sense can have politics.

Mrs. MEYER. I think, sir, you and I agree absolutely on methods and on administrative processes.

Mr. RICH. I do not know that I agree altogether with you on this, although I am for education. I am trying to get your views on it. That is why I am asking these questions. I think the greatest thing

for any people is to have them well educated. I believe that will do more to have them acquire responsibility of their own to try to get themselves out of one condition which is not good.

Mrs. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Mr. RICH. The more money you give people, the more they will spend it having a good time, and they will not do the things good for

them.

What we want to do is give them an opportunity to go out and work and earn and save and to teach them that they ought to save some of that for their own family benefits, and for their own education instead of trying to give them a hand-out. That is what I want to try to do.

Mrs. MEYER. I agree with you entirely, but people will never save unless they have some sort of educational training. That was the great catastrophe about some of these poor ignorant people who came into the war centers and earned large salaries. I saw them throwing their money around. It is the same with these poor miners. They have got wages; they have not improved their standards one bit, because they are so uneducated, so ignorant, that they do not know better. Saving is a matter of training.

Mr. RICH. Do you belong to any welfare societies?

Mrs. MEYER. I have gotten out of all of them except the Child Welfare League of America, and I think I had better get out of that.

Mr. RICH. You had better try to get back into them and try to rectify them.

Mrs. MEYER. I am trying to rectify it by holding up the bad conditions of the country.

Mr. RICH. I hope you can. Your coming here and asking us to put a proposal in without knowing just what it is going to cost this country to start it, and then do not know

Mrs. MEYER. What it costs the country will depend entirely on the Congress. This does not spend a nickel. This simply improves the machinery. So, by chance you wish to spend some money, it will be well spent. What happens about Federal aid after that is entirely up to Congress?

Mr. RICH. We have had a pretty good spending Congress. We are about on the rocks now. I do not know how much further you can go.

Mrs. MEYER. Sir, if you have a department of this sort, you can even administer more effectively the money that you are spending now without voting another cent.

Mr. RICH. There is no mistake about that.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you through, Mr. Rich?

Mr. RICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. BENDER. Regarding this business of education-I read your statement rather hastily-what do we do when we educate people and then we give them jobs wholly out of line with their educational training and their cultural development?

For example, in a good many of our cities, we educate a lot of people, even give them a college education at taxpayer's expense, and then we give them a job as street cleaner. Do you think we are making him happy?

Mrs. MEYER. I think that happens largely to people who are at disadvantage for other reasons.