Back to Schools

They're really sweating on this one, said a House veteran. "They don't know where to hide." On nearly everybody's agenda, the President's request for $2.3 billion to pay for new public school construction and teacher salaries over the next three years had been written down for a fine old cliche-ridden battle between liberals and conservatives. But the Roman Catholic hierarchy's demand for a share of the funds for parochial schools--or at least a long-range, low-interest loan program integrated into the bill--changed all that. By last week, as the mail mounted and both House and Senate education subcommittees held hearings on the bill, most congressional palms were clammy. Congressmen from urban areas--whether liberal or conservative, Protestant or Catholic--were wondering how they could save the bill and not seem hostile to the church; many rallied strongly to Kennedy's stand that the loans were unconstitutional--and hoped that their voters would remember the President's religion. To make decision more difficult, the editorialists and pundits joined in on the national debate (see box); the majority siding with Kennedy.

"Unfair & Discriminatory." Drawn further into the debate, the Catholic hierarchy seemed to love federal aid far less than the principle of the parochial schools' right to it. St. Louis' Joseph Cardinal Ritter announced himself "personally opposed" to federal aid of any kind; but if such aid is voted, "then all the children should share in that benefit." New York's Francis Cardinal Spellman noted that "it is not for me to say whether there should be any federal aid to education. That is a political and economic matter to be decided by the Congress in compliance with the will of the American people." But if Congress approved any federal aid, he said, it was "unfair and discriminatory" if Catholics did not share the benefits.

Washington's Monsignor Frederick G.

Hochwalt, educational director of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, took the same position before both congressional subcommittees--with an important addition. "If an intellectual and scientific breakthrough is to be realized, if excellence is to be achieved.'' said he, "who can tell whence will come the leadership for the nation--from the public schools, or from their partners in education, the private schools?'' He was also "happy to support loans for Sunday schools," for denominations that wanted them.

Protestant and Jewish clergymen, even from denominations with schools of their own, sharply disagreed. At the hearings, a dozen Protestant witnesses spoke in favor of a high wall between church and state.

Nineteen nationally known Protestant and Jewish leaders--among them, retired Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, retired Episcopal Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill and the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake. Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.--signed an opinion that "it would be most unfortunate for a major church to press its own interests in a way that would threaten the strengthening of our basic educational system." Dr. Robert E. Van Deusen of the National Lutheran Council told the House subcommittee that a religious group with its own high school system "should provide the necessary financial support, thus insuring its own continuing autonomy and freedom." The Association of Reform Rabbis of New York announced: "We uphold the President's definite stand against the extension of any portion of federal aid to parochial schools." "This Other Area." Clearly worried about the fate of the bill, the Kennedy forces tried cautiously to find some middle course. At the House hearing, New Jersey Democrat Frank Thompson, a Catholic in favor of Kennedy's stand, tried to take some of the heat off pro-Kennedy fellow Catholics by asking Monsignor Hochwalt how he thought Catholic Congressmen should vote on a bill that lacked parochial school loan amendments. The answer: "They must vote according to their consciences. They will have a moral judgment to make as to what would be of greater national value." At his weekly press conference, the President stuck by his conviction that across-the-board loans were unlawful, but refused to comment on the legality of alternatives, i.e., tax credits.

At week's end, Democratic floor leaders had not yet worked out the strategy for their bill, or settled on any private school aid compromise. Nor had the White House yet begun to line up votes for a measure that faces tough conservative opposition--with or without the hierarchy's loan amendments. Many Congressmen agreed with Chairman Adam Clayton Powell of the House Education and Labor Committee: "It's dead."

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