THE KENTUCKY KERNEL, Wednesday, April 28, 15-

Measure Given
Chance Of Passage

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By LAURA CODOFSKY
The Collegiate Tress Service
WASHINGTON
Although
alternathe Republican
tive to the Administration's elementary and secondary school
program has not stirred up much
enthusiasm, a similar approach
to higher education aid has significant bipartisan support and
is given a
chance of pasthis year.
sage
Championed by Sen. Abraham
Ribicoff
tax credits
for higher education is perhaps
the most controversial education-relatemeasure before Congress
this year. The former secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare's
proposal, which is strongly opposed by the Johnson administration, has split Democrats in Congress along unusual lines and has
also divided the usually united
front of higher education.
Last year, a Ribicofftax-crcdamendment to the Administration's tax cut bill was voted down
in the Senate. It took strong
election-yea- r
Presidential
to get the necessary
votes, which included those of
three of the measure's original
sponsors Scn.'s Robert Byrd(D-W.Va.Frank Moss
and Hubert Humphrey
This year a
measure
has been reintroduced by Sen.
Ribicoff and 36cosponsors. Many
observors believe that a majority
of the Senate can be rallied to
vote for the bill. In the House,
Congressman Sydney Herlong
and 16 of his colleagues
have introduced similar
measures.
The major support for
has come from church-relateand small private institutionsand particularly from the
Indianaone and
-based
Citizens National
Committee for Higher Education,
Inc. Its approximately 2,000 members include many trustees and
presidents of these institutions.
The major oppositions to
has come from public
universities and
particularly
Nafrom the Washington-basetional Association of State Universities and Land-GraColleges

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(NASULGC).

The American Council on Education, which calls itself the
"principal spokesman for colleges
and universities in the United
States," is neutral, reflecting a
split in its membership of 1,111
schools and 224 education organizations. Some of its major private institutions have expressed
oppositions to the bill and the
views of their less wealthy brothers. Some of its public institutions
have also supported the bill, adding to the confusion.
Among the other groups supporting the bill are the Citizens
for Educational Freedom and the
Americans for the Defense of Independent Education, both of
which have worked actively to
get public aid for church-relateand private schools. Lined up
against these groups are organizations which consider aid to
private and especially church-relatehigher education a breach
in the "wall of separation between church and state." (The
Protestants and Other Americans
United for the Separation of
Church and State and the Masons
are prominent among these
groups.)
Also on record in favor of the
principals of tax credit legislationthough not particularly activeis the Association of American Colleges, an organization of
liberal arts colleges both witldn
and independent of large universities. In January 1964, the AAC
passed a floor resolution commending the Congressional proponents of tax credits. In a poll
one month later, its members en
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dorsed the
guaranteed loan, and federal scholarship
provisions of what is essentially
the current Administration Higher Education bill, w hich the AAC
is now supporting. If the tax
credit issue recurs later this year,
AAC officials will then decide
what to do about it.
Because the direct a
feature of tax credits
which appeals to supporters of
church-relateinstitutions also
appeals to supporters of segregated institutions, the NAACP has
also lined up against the
proposal.
The most powerful education
group to side with the NASULGC
is the 936,272
against
member National Education Association, which views tax credits
as a circumvention of its goal of
direct federal aid to schools, as a
long-ruthreat to public education, and as a bad fiscal policy.
also opposed
The AFL-CItax credits, and at its executive
council meeting this winter it
took its first formal step against
them. The AFL-CIparticularly
objects to what it sees as a tax
break only for one class of people
those who pay sizable income
taxes and to the possibility that
tax credit legislation might encourage college tuition hikes.
Labor's two major opponents
in many other federal aid to education fights, the Chamber of
Commerce and the National As- work-stud-

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sociation of Manufacturers, have
no position on
The controversial
measure would enable anyone
who supports a college student
the student himself, his parents,
his relatives, or any philanthropic
soul to subtract from the final
amount of income tax he would
otherwise pay the federal government a percentage of the first
$1,500 spent on tuition, fees,
books and supplies at institutions
of Iiighcr education. The amount
of this "credit" would be 75 percent of the first $200, 25 percent
of the next $300, and 10 percent
of the next $1,000. The maximum
credit would be $325.
The controversy over
legislation centers on its implications for higher education
and the motives of its supporters.
Mr. Ribicoff claims he is primarily interested in easing the burden
e
of college costs for
families who cannot qualify for
scholarship aid, but who often
find it difficult to support their
children in college. Aiding education, he argues, is strictly secondary to aiding these
parents.
In other cases , however,
supporters are primarily
seeking .ways to channel federal
funds into colleges and universitiesparticularly into church-relateand weaker, smaller private institutions.
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RALPH McGILL

Tribute To A Senator

alone knows what Olin Johnston
WASHINGTON NOTES-"G- od
suffered in spirit and in the long waking hours of his nights," said
a friend of the veteran South Carolina senator, who died a few days
ago of cancer and pneumonia. "I would guess, out of a certain
knowledge of the man, that it was considerable. He sometimes said
as much, but he, like others from the South, was caught in the web
of his region's tortured political processes, and so he played out his
string the best way he could.
"But," continued the friend, judice to win primaries in states
"he was a cut above a lot of his where there was no Republican
fellow Southern senators who opposition and where Negro vothave greater reputations for abil- ers were so few as to be meaningity and who have more prestige. less.
The truth is, however, that Olin
Olin Johnston moved up from
Johnston had a lot more intelleca loom boy's job in a cotton mill
tual courage than many of those in the
years when child labor was
whose names are better known. a national custom. He
began getHe not only had this courage,
ting his education at 18 years of
he showed it. When some of those
age. During some of these years
with prestige and status were he would often work two
finding excuses to leave the counshifts to get extra money. He
try at election time or going into served well in World War II. In
a sort of Trappist Monk silence 1944, after
having been governor
to avoid public support of the since 1935, he defeated the vetDemocratic presidential nomieran senator, Ellison D. (Cotton
nees Harry Truman, Adlai StevEd) Smith. Senator Smith was,
enson, John F. Kennedy, and in many respects, one of the most
Lyndon B. Johnson, Olin openly crude and vulgar political demacampaigned for them. He never gogues in Southern history.
ran away from loyalty or his
He walked out of the 1938
party commitments.
"Not only that," said Sen. Democratic convention because
Johnston's friend, "he was the a Negro minister delivered one of
the
His racial speeches
only Deep South senator to take wereprayers.
modeled after those of Pitchon the late Joe McCarthy. When
that fraudulent and dangerous fork Ben Tillman. They were masman was terrorizing government terpieces of coarse vituperation
and corrupting public opinion, and calumny.
Olin confronted him. He charged
By 1944 South Carolina was
bored with the boorish Smith.
with vilifying governMcCarthy
ment employees. You will find, Labor, thanks to the Roosevelt
too," he said, "that Olin was not programs, was strongly at the
afraid to give public support to polls, and a few thousand NeLabor when he felt Labor was groes were registered in the Piedmont area cities.
right.
Olin Johnston, of course, stood
"To be sure, he gave a public
show of hominy grits and red ham loudly on a segregationist platgravy, but he was a lot more than form, but he was never a Cotton
that. I repeat that he was more of Ed Smith. Mr. Johnston's shouta man than a lot of his Dixie conings and his facade of rustic bomtemporaries who attained more bast and nonsense were the fabric
exalted reputations but never of the verbal costume all Deep
quite had the nerve to work for South politicians had to wear in
the party when it was unpopular those years, but Olin Johnston,
to do so."
when the party chips were down,
Olin Johnston deserves such a never ran out on his party. Today
tribute and analysis. One of the there are young Southerners who
tragedies of Southern senators are aware that the civil rights
and congressmen, especially the laws are a very real proclamation
more able, is that in tin past
for them. It frees them from hythey have had to join with, enpocrisy and prejudice.
courage and expand racial pre
(Copyright 1965)

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