MR. SMITH.. The next question to Vice President Nixon from Mr. Warren.
MR. WARREN. Mr. Vice President, you mentioned schools. It was just yesterday, I think, you asked for a crash program to raise education standards, and this evening you talked about advances in education.
Mr. Vice President, you said--it was back in 1957--that salaries paid to school teachers were nothing short of a national disgrace. Higher salaries for teachers you added, were important, and if the situation wasn't corrected, it could lead to a national disaster.
And yet, you refused to vote in the Senate in order to break a tie vote when that single vote, if it had been "yes," would have granted salary increases to teachers. I wonder if you could explain that, sir.
MR. NIXON. I'm awfully glad you got that question, because, as you know, I got into it at the last of my other question and wasn't able to complete the argument. [Laughter].
I think that the reason that I voted against having the Federal government pay teachers' salaries was probably the very reason that concerned Senator Kennedy when, in January of this year, in his kickoff press conference, he said that he favored aid for school construction, but at that time did not feel that there should be aid for teachers' salaries. At least that's the way I read his remarks.
Now, why should there be any question about the Federal government aiding teachers' salaries? Why did Senator Kennedy take that position then? Why do I take it now? We both took it then and I take it now for this reason: We want higher teachers' salaries; we need higher teachers' salaries; but we also want our education to be free of Federal control.
When the Federal Government gets the power to pay teachers, inevitably, in my opinion, it will acquire the power to set standards and to tell the teachers what to teach. I think this would be bad for the country; I think it would be bad for the teaching profession.
There is another point that should be made. I favor higher salaries for teachers, but, as Senator Kennedy said in January of this year in this same press conference, the way that you get higher salaries for teachers is to support school construction, which means that all of the local school districts in the various States then have money which is freed to raise the standards for teachers' salaries.
I should also point out this: Once you put the responsibility on the Federal Government for paying a portion of teachers' salaries, your local communities and your States are not going to meet the responsibility as much as they should. I believe, in other words, that we have seen the local communities and the States assuming more of that responsibility. Teachers' salaries, very fortunately, have gone up 50 percent in the last 8 years, as against only a 34-percent rise for other salaries. This is not enough. It should be more. But I do not believe that the way to get more salaries for teachers is to have the Federal Government get in with a massive program.
My objection here is not the cost in dollars. My objection here is the potential cost in controls and eventual freedom for the American people by giving the Federal Government power over education, and that is the greatest power a government can have.
MR. SMITH.. Senator Kennedy's comment.
MR. KENNEDY. When the Vice President quotes me in January, '60, I do not believe the Federal Government should pay directly teachers' salaries, but that was not the issue before the Senate in February.
The issue before the Senate was that the money would be given to the State; the State then could determine whether the money would be spent for school construction or teacher salaries.
On that question the Vice President and I disagreed. I voted in favor of that proposal and supported it strongly, because I think that that provided assistance to our teachers for their salaries without any chance of Federal control and it is on that vote that Mr. Nixon and I disagreed, and his tie vote defeated--his breaking the tie defeated the proposal.
I don't want the Federal Government paying teachers' salaries directly; but if the money will go to the States and the States can then determine whether it shall go for school construction or for teachers' salaries, in my opinion you protect the local authority over the school board and the school committees. And, therefore, I think that was a sound proposal and that is why I supported it and I regret that it did not pass.
Secondly, there have been statements made that the Democratic platform would cost a good deal of money and that I am in favor of unbalancing the budget.
That is wholly wrong, wholly in error; and it is a fact that in the last 8 years the Democratic Congress has reduced the appropria-- the request of the appropriation by over $10 billion.
That is not my view and I think it ought to be stated very clearly on the record.
My view is that you can do these programs--and they should be carefully drawn--within a balanced budget if our economy is moving ahead.
MR. SMITH.. The next question to Senator Kennedy from Mr. Vanocur.
MR. VANOCUR. Senator, you've been promising the voters that if you are elected President you'll try and push through Congress bills on medical aid to the aged, a comprehensive minimum hourly wage bill, Federal aid to education.
Now, in the August postconvention session of the Congress--when you, at least, held up the possibility you could one day be President and when you had overwhelming majorities, especially in the Senate--you could not get action on these bills.
Now how do you feel that you'll be able to get them in January--
MR. KENNEDY. Let's take the bills--
MR. VANOCUR. (continuing) . . . if you weren't able to get them in August?
MR. KENNEDY. If I may take the bills.
We did pass in the Senate a bill to provide $1.25 minimum wage. It failed because the House did not pass it and the House failed by 11 votes, and I might say that two-thirds of the Republicans in the House voted against a dollar twenty-five cent minimum wage, and a majority of the Democrats sustained it. Nearly two-thirds of them voted for the dollar twenty-five.
We were threatened by a veto if we passed a dollar and a quarter.
It's extremely difficult, with the great power that the President does, to pass any bill when the President is opposed.
All the President needs to sustain his veto of any bill, is one-third plus one in either the House or the Senate.
Secondly, we passed a Federal-aid-to-education bill in the Senate. It failed to came to the floor of the House of Representatives. It was killed in the Rules Committee and it is a fact in the August session that the four members of the Rules Committee, who are Republicans, joining with two Democrats, voted against sending the aid-to-education bill to the floor of the House.
Four Democrats voted for it. Every Republican on the Rules Committee voted against sending that bill to be considered by the Members of the House of Representatives.
Thirdly, on medical care for the aged: This is the same fight that's been going on for 25 years in social security.
We wanted to tie it to social security. We offered an amendment to do so; 44 Democrats voted for it; 1 Republican voted for it; and we were informed at the time it came to a vote that if it was adopted the President of the United States would veto it.
In my judgment, a vigorous Democratic President supported by a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, can win the support for these programs; but if you send a Republican President and a Democratic majority and the threat of a veto hangs over the Congress, in my judgment you will continue what happened in the August session, which is a clash of parties and inaction.
MR. SMITH.. Mr. Nixon, comment?
MR. NIXON. Well, obviously my views are a little different.
First of all, I don't see how it's possible for a one-third of a body, such as the Republicans have in the House and the Senate, to stop two-thirds if the two-thirds are adequately led.
I would say, too, that when Senator Kennedy refers to the action of the House Rules Committee, there are eight Democrats on that committee and four Republicans. It would seem to me, again, that it is very difficult to blame the four Republicans for the eight Democrats not getting something through that particular committee.
I would say further that to blame the President in his veto power for the inability of the Senator and his colleagues to get action in this special session misses the mark.
When the President exercises his veto power, he has to have the people behind him, not just a third of the Congress--because let's consider it:
If the majority of the Members of the Congress felt that these particular proposals were good issues--the majority of those who were Democrats--why didn't they pass them and send to the President and get a veto and have an issue?
The reason why these particular bills in these various fields that have been mentioned were not passed was not because the President was against them; it was because the people were against them. It was because they were too extreme; and I am convinced that the alternate proposals that I have, that the Republicans have in the field of health, in the field of education, and the field of welfare, because they are not extreme, because they will accomplish the end without too great cost in dollars or in freedom, that they could get through the next Congress.