JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
(COMIC BOOKS)
---------------------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1954
UNITED STATES SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON
THE JUDICIARY, TO INVESTIGATE JUVENILE DELINQUENCY,
NEW YORK, N.Y.
The subcommittee met at 10 a.m. pursuant to call, in room 110, United States Courthouse, New York, N.Y., Senator Robert C. Hendrickson (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding.
Present: Senators Hendrickson, Kefauver, and Hennings.
Also present: Herbert J. Hannoch, chief counsel; Herbert Wilson Beaser, associate chief counsel; and Richard Clendenen, executive director.
The CHAIRMAN. This meeting of the Senate Subcommittee Investigating Juvenile Delinquency will now be in order.
Today and Tomorrow the United States Senate Subcommittee Investigating Juvenile Delinquency, of which I am the chairman, is going into the problem of horror and crime comic books. By comic books, we mean pamphlets illustrating stories depicting crimes or dealing with horror and sadism. We shall not be talking about the comic strips that appear daily in most of our newspapers.
And we shall be limiting our investigation to those comic books dealing with crime and horror. Thus while there are more than a billion comic books sold in the United States each year, our subcommittee's interest lies in only a fraction of this publishing field.
Authorities agree that the majority of comic books are as harmless as soda pop. But hundreds of thousands of horror and crime comic books are peddled to our young ones of impressionable age.
You will learn during the course of these hearings that we shall also not be speaking of all crime comic books. Some of the types of crime and horror comic books with which are concerned have been brought into the hearing room for your attention.
I wish to state emphatically that freedom of the press is not as issue in this investigation. The members of this Senate subcommittee ─ Senator Kefauver, Senator Hennings, and Senator Langer ─ as well as myself as chairman, are fully aware of the long, hard, bitter fight that has been waged to achieve and preserve the freedom of the press, as well as the other freedoms in our Bill of Rights which we cherish in America.
We are not a subcommittee of blue nosed censors. We have no preconceived notions as to the possible need for new legislation. We want to find out what damage, if any, is being done to our children's minds by certain types of publications which contain a substantial degree of sadism, crime, and horror. This, and only this, is the task at hand.
Since last November the subcommittee has been holding many public hearings into the various facets of the whole problem of juvenile delinquency. The volume of delinquency among our young has been quite correctly called the shame of America. If the rising tide of juvenile delinquency continues, by 1960 more than one and a half million American youngsters from 10 though 17 years of age, will be in trouble with the law each year.
Our subcommittee is seeking honestly and earnestly to determine why so many young Americans are unable to adjust themselves into the lawful pattern of American Society. We are examining the reason why more and more of our youngsters steal automobiles, turn to vandalism, commit holdups, or become narcotic addicts.
The increase in craven crime committed by young Americans is rising at a frightening pace. We know that the great mass of our American children are not lawbreakers. Even the majority of those who get into trouble with our laws are not criminal by nature.
Nevertheless, more and more of our children are committing serious crimes. Our subcommittee is working diligently to seek out ways and means to check the trend and reverse the youth crime pattern.
We are perfectly aware that there is no simple solution the complex problem of juvenile delinquency. We know, too, that what makes the problem so complex is its great variety of causes and contributing factors. Our work is to study all these causes and contributing factors and to determine what action might be taken.
It would be wrong to assume that crime and horror comic books are the major cause of juvenile delinquency. It would be just as erroneous to state categorically that they have no effect whatsoever in aggravating the problem. We are here to determine what effect on the whole problem of causation crime and horror comic books do have.
From the mail that we received by the subcommittee, we are aware that thousands of American parents are greatly concerned about the possible detrimental influence certain types of crime and horror comic books have upon their children.
We firmly believe that the public has a right to the best knowledge regarding this matter. The public has the right to know who is producing this material and to know how the industry functions.
This phase of our investigation is but the first of several into questionable, or, should I say, disturbing phases of the mass media fields.
At a later date, the subcommittee will be attempting to determine what negative effects, if any, upon children, are exerted by other types of publications, by the radio, the television, and the movies. This is not to say that juvenile delinquency is wholly of even substantially the result of certain programs and subject matters presented by the mass media. But there can be no question that the media plays a significant role in the total problem.
I will now ask the assistant counsel to call the first witness.
Senator KEFAUVER. Mr. Chairman, before we call the first witness, I want to compliment the chairman upon a very excellent statement of the purposes of this subcommittee and of this hearing here.
I would like to reemphasize that I feel the congressional hearings must be related to something that the Federal Government has jurisdiction of. This subcommittee is looking into the violations of various federal laws, such as the Dyer Act, Mann Act, violations of the interstate commerce, and in connection with the subject matter under investigation we, of course, do have a postal statue which prohibits the mailing or using the mails for the distribution and dissemination of indecent and scurrilous literature which will be a part of the subject matter of this hearing.
The CHAIRMAN. That is correct, Senator.
Senator KEFAUVER. I think it is also important to point out that Mr. J. Edgar Hoover's report of yesterday shows that whereas the increase in population last year was 5 percent, crime had gone up 20 percent and the particularly large increase was in connection with burglary and stealing of automobiles.
The interesting point is that a large part of the burglaries was committed by juveniles. Also juveniles, according to the FBI report, comprise 53.6 percent of those arrested for stealing automobiles.
As the chairman said, we do not have all the answers, but I think that it is important to look into the various matters which Mr. Hoover and other experts do bring out in connection with the increase in juvenile delinquency; and certainly as to the horror and crime comics, not the good kind as the chairman said, but he various small part, most all the witnesses do have something to say about these.
We are not going into this hearing with the idea of condemning anybody or censoring the press or impairing the freedom of the press and bringing out in relation to a Federal statue something so that all of these experts on juvenile delinquency are talking about.
That is my understanding.
The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Tennessee is entirely correct and the Chair wishes to congratulate and commend the Senator for his contribution.
Now, will the counsel call the first witness?
Mr. BEASER. Mr. Richard Clendenen.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before the subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. CLENDENEN. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. The Chair with pleasure announces the presence of the distinguished Senator from Missouri, Senator Hennings.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD CLENDENEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.
Mr. BEASER. For the record will you state your name, your address, and your present occupation?
Mr. CLENDENEN. My name is Richard Clendenen, 1445 Ogden Street NW., Washington, D.C.
I am executive director of the Senate Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency.
Mr. BEASER. Mr. Clendenen, will you outline briefly your education and experience in the field of juvenile delinquency?
The CHAIRMAN. Before Mr. Clendenen answers that question, I would like to say that the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency feels that we have a very able staff director.
Mr. CLENDENEN. Thank you.
Prior to coming to my present position I had worked in the United States Children's Bureau for a period of 7 years, and held there the position of Chief of the Juvenile Delinquency Branch.
Prior to that time I had served in administrative capacities in institutions for emotionally disturbed children and delinquent children and also have had experience as a probation officer in a juvenile court.
Mr. BEASER. You are a trained social worker?
Mr. CLENDENEN. I am.
Mr. BEASER. Speaking on behalf of the staff, have you conducted an investigation into the comic-book industry?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes sir; we have. Our investigation into the comic-book industry has been almost exclusively limited to those comics which themselves center about horror and crime.
The particular type of comics to which I refer present both pictures and stories which relate to almost all types of crime and in many instances those crimes are committed through extremely cruel, sadistic, and punitive kinds of acts.
Now, in connection with that question, I should like to make it perfectly clear that our investigation has not been concerned with other types of comics, many of which all authorities seem to agree represent not only harmless, but many times educational entertainment.
I should also add that even within that type of comic books known as the horror crime comics, there are gradations within this group, too. That is, some are much more sadistic, much more lurid, than others in the same class or category.
Now, although our investigations have been limited to this particular segment of the comic-book industry, we should not give the impression that this is a small portion of the comic-book industry.
According to estimates which were provided us by the Audit Bureau of Circulations and the Controlled Circulation Audits, the two firms that publish circulation figures, there were about 422 different kinds of comic or comic-book titles on the newsstands in March 1954.
About one-forth were of the crime and horror variety.
Now, as far as all comic books are concerned, although exact figures are lacking, most authorities agree that there are probably somewhere between 75 million and 100 million comic books sold in this country each month.
If one-quarter of these are of the crime variety of comics, this means that there are some 20 million comic books, crime comic books placed on the newsstands of this country each month.
Mr. BEASER. When you say crime and horror comics could you be more specific in describing what you are talking about?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Well, we have prepared a certain number of slides which show pictures taken from comic books of the type to which we have addressed ourselves.
Now, I would like, for the purpose of illustration, to relate very briefly in summary fashion 6 stories, together with pictures illustrating these 6 stories which will give you a sampling of the type of comic books that we are talking about here.
Now, in presenting these I would like to say that while it is not a random sampling actually it is a deliberate sampling in trying to present the various types of stories and pictures that appear.
These are not typical, rather they are quite typical of the stories and pictures which appear in this type of publication. The first such crime comic is entitled "Black Magic."
This is a picture showing the cover or title page of this comic. Now, one story in this comic is entitled "Sanctuary," and the cover shots relate to this particular story.
You will note that this shot shows certain inhabitants of this sanctuary which is rally a sort of sanitarium for freaks where freaks can be isolated from other persons in society.
You will note 1 man in the picture has 2 heads and 4 arms, another body extends only to the bottom of his rib. But the greatest horror of all the freaks in the sanctuary is the attractive looking girl in the center of the picture who disguises her grotesque body in a suit of foam rubber.
The final picture shows a young doctor in the sanitarium as he sees the girl he loves without her disguise.
The story closes as the doctor fires bullet after bullet into the girl's misshapen body.
Now, that is an example of a comic of the horror variety.
The next slide, the second story, is the cover shot of a comic entitled "Fight Against Crime."
One story in this particular issue is entitled "Stick in the Mud". This is a story of a very sadistic schoolteacher who is cruel to all of the children in her classroom with only one exception. The one exception is the son of a well-to-do man who has lost his wife. Through her attentions to the son the teacher woos and weds the father.
The following picture shows the school teacher as she stabs her husband to death in order to inherit his money. She then disguises her crime by dragging his body into a bullpen where his corpse is mangled and gored.
The small son, suspecting his stepmother, runs away so that she will chase him into the woods where a bed of quicksand is located.
Our last picture shows the stepmother sinking into the quicksand and crying for help. The small son gets the stepmother to confess that she murdered his father by pretending he will go for help if she does so.
After her confession he refuses to go for help and stays to watch his stepmother die in the quicksand.
The next comic is entitled "Mysterious Adventures." This particular issue of which this is a cover shot contains a total of 6 stories in which 11 people die violent deaths.
One story, I think, in this particular issue, has to deal with a confirmed alcoholic who spends all his wife can earn on alcohol.
As a result their small son is severely neglected. On the day this small son is to start in the first grade in school the mother asks his father to escort him to the school. Instead the father goes to his favorite bootlegger and the son goes to school by himself. En route he is struck and killed by an automobile.
Informed of the accident, she returns to find her husband gloating over his new supply of liquor.
This next picture shows the mother kill her alcoholic spouse with an ax. She then cuts up his body into small pieces and disposes of it by placing the various pieces in the bottles of liquor her husband had purchased.
If you will look at the picture in the lower right-hand panel, you will see an ear in one bottle, an eye in another, and a finger in another, and so forth.
Senator HENNINGS. I wonder if Mr. Clendenen has any figures on the relative circulation or sale of this character of things as against the more innocuous kind of comics? To what extent, in other words, do these appeal to the children to a greater or less degree than the kind we are more or less familiar with, the harmless comic strips?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Well, about one-forth of the total comic-book titles, that is the different comic books are the crime and horror variety.
Now, perhaps not all of those are as rough as some of these that are shown.
On the other hand, this does constitute a not insubstantial segment of the comic-book industry.
Mr. BEARER. It is about 20 million a month, Senator Kefauver suggests.
Mr. CLENDENEN. That is right; 20 million a month of the crime and horror variety.
The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Tennessee.
Senator KEFAUVER. Do I understand, Mr. Chairman, the 20 million per month is the number sold or placed on sale? How do you get that figure, Mr. Clendenen?
Mr. CLENDENEN. That is a circulation figure which refers to sales.
The CHAIRMAN. Distribution and sales?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes, sir.
Senator KEFAUVER. Is that from the industry itself?
Mr. CLENDENEN. No, sir; those figures, Senator, are from Audit Bureau of Circulations and the Controlled Circulation Audits.
The two organizations are companies that collect and issue data on circulations of various kinds of magazines.
Senator KEFAUVER. Thank you, Mr. Clendenen.
The CHAIRMAN. Does the Senator from Missouri have any more questions?
Senator HENNINGS. I just wanted to ask Mr. Clendenen another question and I do not what to break into his fine presentation of this ─ The Yellow Kid was the first comic strip, was it not?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes, sir.
Senator HENNINGS. Then we went into the Happy Holligan and Katzenjammers and the ones we used to think were funny as youngsters.
At any rate, the funnies we knew were really funny, there were things in them that were calculated at least to amuse. The daily papers throughout the country nowadays carry more and more of the so-called serials, whether they deal with crime or whether they deal with romance or whether they deal with one thing or another, they are more stories now and less of the old comic-strip variety.
Have you any material on that transition and any observations to make as to why obviously that must appeal to the public, or they would not run these syndicated strips in the papers as they do.
What is your view of that, Mr. Clendenen? Why has the public taste changed so apparently? Are we advancing or progressing in that sort of thing, or is it the obverse?
Mr. CLENDENEN. There really, or course, are not research base data on which an answer to your question could be founded. I am not sure whether the public taste has changed or not.
Certainly the comic-book industry which was born in and of itself during the depression years of the thirties, the latter thirties, represented perhaps rather than reflected any change in the taste of the public, represents a new idea, that is, to put the comics up in book form of this kind.
Just exactly why you have had a transition from the type of comics - and now I refer to comic strips, which appeared in an earlier day and on which each separate day represented a separate episode and were funny to the serious type of strip ─ I don't have any idea and no opinion on it.
I am not at all sure I said, and if I failed to say, I would like to say, that our investigation has not pertained at all to the comic strips appearing in the daily newspapers rather the comic books.
Senator HENNINGS. Thank you.
Mr. CLENDENEN. The next slide, the next comic that we would like to present to you is entitled "Crime Must Pay the Penalty". This particular comic has 4 stories in which 27 people meet a violent death. One story in this particular issue called "Frisco Mary" concerns an attractive and glamorous young woman who gains control of a California underworld gang. Under her leadership the gang embarks on a series of holdups marked for their ruthlessness and violence.
Our next picture shows Mary emptying her submachine gun into the body of an already wounded police officer after the officer had created an alarm thereby reduced the gang's take in a bank hold up to a mere $25,000.
Now, in fairness it should be added that Mary finally dies in the gas chamber following a violent and lucrative criminal career.
Now, this is strictly of the crime variety.
The next comic is entitled "Strange Tales" and has five stories in which 13 people die violently. The story actually begins with a man dying on the operating table because the attending doctor is so absorbed in his own troubles that he pays no attention whatsoever to his patient.
It develops that this is the story of a promising young surgeon who begins to operate on wounded criminals to gain the money demanded by his spendthrift wife.
After he has ruined his professional career by becoming associated with the underworld, the criminal comes to get help for his girl friend who has been shot by the police. When the girl is placed upon the operating table the doctor discovers that the criminal girl friend is none other than his own wife.
This picture shows the doctor, first of all, as he recognizes his wife, and as he commits suicide by plunging a scalpel into his own chest.
His wife also dies on the operating table for lack of medical attention.
The next comic, The Haunt of Fear, has 4 stories in which 8 people die violently. One story entitled "Head-Room" has to do with a spinster who operates a cheap waterfront hotel. The renter of one room is a man she would like to marry.
To win his favor she reduces his rent by letting his room, during daytime hours, to an ugly and vicious appearing man. This shot shows her renting the room to that individual.
Meanwhile there are daily reports that a murderer is loose in the city who cuts off and carries away his victim's heads.
The hotelkeeper suspects the vicious appearing daytime roomer and searches his room where she discovers six heads hanging on hooks in the closet.
She is discovered there by her favorite roomer who is returning to the hotel for the night.
It develops that he is the murderer and the next picture shows the hotelkeeper's head being added to the closet collection.
From a psychological point of view, however, there is another story in this same issue which is really even more perturbing. This is the story of an orphan boy who is placed from an orphanage to live with nice-appearing foster parents.
The foster parents give excellent care and pay particular attention to his physical health, insisting that he eat nourishing food in abundance.
A month later the boy discovers the reason for their solicitude when they sneak into his room at night and announce they are vampires about to drink his rich red blood.
It might be said that right triumphs in the end, however, since the boy turns into a werewolf and kills and eats his foster parents.
The final story is one entitled "Shock Suspense Stories." It contains 4 stories in which 6 persons die violently.
One particular story in this issue is called "Orphan." This is the story of a small golden-haired girl named Lucy, of perhaps 8 or 10 years of age, and the story is told in her own words.
Lucy hates both her parents. Her father is an alcoholic who beats her when drunk.
Her mother, who never wanted Lucy, has a secret boy friend. The only bright spot in Lucy's life is her Aunt Kate, with whom she would like to live.
Lucy's chance to alter the situation comes when the father entering the front gate to the home meets his wife who is running away with the other man. Snatching a gun from the night table, Lucy shoots her father from the window.
She then runs out into the yard and presses the gun into the hands of her mother who has fainted and lies unconscious on the ground.
Then through Lucy's perjured testimony at the following trial, both the mother and her boy friend are convicted of murdering the father and are electrocuted.
This picture shows, first, "Mommie" and then "Stevie" as they die in the electric chair.The latter two pictures show Lucy's joyous contentment that it has all worked out as she had planned and she is now free to live with her Aunt Kate.
The last two comic books I mentioned are published by the Entertaining Comic group and I mention it because the publisher of Entertaining Comic group will be appearing here later this morning.
Now, that completes the illustration of the type of comics to which we are addressing ourselves.
Mr. BEASER. Just one point, Mr. Clendenen. In talking about the child who is placed in a foster home, turned into a werewolf, you said that psychologically that was disturbing. Why do you say that?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Let me refer back to the time that I was operating an institution for emotionally disturbed children. Any child who is not able to live, continue to live, with his own family and who is disturbed and goes into an institution and then later is facing foster-home placement has a great many fears both conscious and unconscious regarding the future. That is, he is very much afraid, very fearful about going out and living with the family.
He has met them, to be sure, but he does not know them and he is very insecure individual to begin with. This is the type of material that I myself would feel greatly increase a youngster's feeling of insecurity, anxiety, and panic regarding placement in a foster-family home.
Mr. BEASER. Mr. Clendenen, you produced a number of comic books with different titles. Are they all, each one of them, produced by a different company?
Mr. CLENDENEN. No, they are not. The organization of the publishers in the comic-book industry is really a very complex type of organization.
I would like to refer here to the Atlas Publishing Co., or Atlas Publishing group as an example. Atlas represents one of the major publishers in the comic-book field and, incidentally, there will be a representative of the Atlas Co. appearing also at these hearings. The Atlas Co. is owned by a man-and-wife team, Mr. and Mrs. Martin Goodman.
Now the Atlas Publishing Co, Publishes between 49 and 50 different comic titles. However, this number of comic titles, the 45 or 50 comic titles, are produced through no less that some 25 different corporations.
The Atlas organization also includes still another corporation through which it distributes its own publications. This particular exhibit shows 20 of the different groups of crime and weird comics they produce through 15 corporations.
Now, although several of the other publishers who are in the business of publishing comic books are smaller, the patterns of organization are essentially the same.
In other words, many times they organize themselves in forms of 2, 3, 4 or more different corporations. The end result of this type of corporation is that while there are many corporations involved in the publishing of comic books, the entire industry really rests in the hands of relatively few individuals.
Mr. BEASER. When you say they organize into different companies, do they organize into companies that produce nothing but comic books or do they produce other types of literature?
Mr. CLENDENEN. No, they also produce other types of literature. Many of them produce different kinds of magazines in addition to producing comics.
Now, not only may a particular organization be engaged in producing comics, both comic and magazines, but many times they will produce both comics and magazines through one individual corporation within the group.
In this exhibit, for example, this particular comic, which is produced once again by Atlas ─ and we are using Atlas merely as an example ─ these particular publications are not only both produced by the Atlas, but they are produced by a single corporation within the Atlas group.
Mr. BEASER. You say Atlas group. That is a trade-mark?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes, all their publications carry the Atlas trademark.
Mr. BEASER. In the course of your investigation has your staff had occasion to review scientific studies which have been made on the effect of crime and horror comics upon children and the relationship to juvenile delinquency?
Mr. CLENDENEN. Yes, we have. This is, we have reviewed virtually all of the surveys and studies that have been made; that is, we have reviewed all that we have been able to find.
I might say that it probably is not too surprising that the expert opinions and findings of these studies are not wholly unanimous. That is, there is certain diversity of opinion regarding the effects of these materials on youngsters even among these individuals whom we might properly qualify as experts.
Now, in this connection, I would like to submit to the subcommittee a few items here which relate to this matter of effects of these materials upon youngsters. One of these is a survey that was made at our request by the Library of Congress which summarizes all of the studies that they could locate having to do with the effects of crime comics upon the behavior of youngsters.
The CHAIRMAN. Is it your desire that this material be put into the record, or made a part of the subcommittees files?
Mr. CLENDENEN. The latter, I believe.
The CHAIRMAN. I think that would be preferable.
Mr. CLENDENEN. I also would like to submit a letter which we received from Dr. Robert Felix, Director of the Institute of Mental Health, to whom we submitted samples of these materials and this is his reply to us indicating his feelings on the effects of these materials.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be made a part of the record. Let that be exhibit No. 1.
(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 1," and reads as follows:)
EXHIBIT NO. 1
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE,
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE,
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH,
Bethesda, Md., April 8, 1954.
Mr. RICHARD CLENDENEN,
Executive Director, Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency,
United States Senate, Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. CLENDENEN: Your letter of march 23, 1954, requested an opinion concerning the effects of comic books upon children. You made it clear that your interest does not really include all comic books, but the rather sensational kinds of which you sent samples.
I think it is fair to say at the outset that there are not many data from experimental sources which answer the question at hand. Let me first cite some rather old analogical evidence. A study was made several years ago on the effects of movies upon the behavior of children and it was concluded that motion pictures have a deleterious influence on 10 percent of males and 25 percent of females. It has also been shown that movie attendance by children results in disturbed sleep, as indicated by increased motility during sleep. This effect sometimes perseveres for 2 or 3 nights. It can therefore be concluded that viewing motion pictures is not neutral event in the case of children. In the absence of similar studies concerning comics, I am included to extrapolate by saying that I believe reading comics may well have similar influences upon children to those that have been demonstrated for the movies.
One can approach this problem also by attempting to indicate what the comics really represent. It is clear that they represent stories about people and their relationships. It is also clear that the relationships are not tranquil, that they are in effect aggressive and hostile. However, children view aggressiveness and hostility in many of their daily experiences, and they themselves show aggressiveness and hostility. The comics of the kinds discussed here are exclusively preoccupied with relationships of this kind, and exclusive reading of the material is therefore a kind of unbalanced intake for a child. It should be noted, however, that all literature, including children's fairy tales, are characterized by treatment of the aggressive and hostile, and that the comics perhaps distinguish themselves only in their rather exclusive interest in situations portraying this kind of behavior.
It has been suggested by some psychiatrists that comic books may have some value in that they represent a sources of fantasy material to the child, and children use fantasy to work out some of their problems and some of their feelings toward other persons. Working out these feelings through fantasy may not be as undesirable as working them out through misbehavior or open acts of impression that there are other ways of working through problems, such as other kinds of reading, play activities with one's peers, activities with adults and the like. It seems preferable that the child at least utilize several of these methods. There probably is some cause for concern if the child devotes himself in a rather excessive manner to comic books as a source of fantasy.
Comic books may well also be significant with respect to psychological difficulties the child already possesses. Hostile feelings towards his parents, for instance, may be brought to the surface through the reading of these books, releasing the children's anxiety, and this result is not desirable. Furthermore, since the violent behavior of the comic books is not limited to the villain of the piece, the child may feel that he secures some sanction from this sources for the open statements can be interpreted as meaning that the pathology of the child is necessarily initiated or caused by the comic book, but that there is a significant relationship between the child's problems and how he reacts to them and the content of these materials. It is perfectly fair to say that this is not always salutory result.
In your letter you ask several specific questions which I shall attempt to give answers. One question deals with the reactions of comic of the disturbed versus the normal child. The emotionally disturbed child may show a greater reaction to comic books of this type than will the normal child. Perhaps it would be better to say that the emotionally disturbed chid may show a greater tendency to read books of this kind than will the normal child. The child with difficulties may find in these books representations of the kinds of problems with which he is dealing, and they will therefore have a value for him which will be nonexistent or minimal in the case of the child who is relatively free of these troubles. In other words, it might be suggested that the kinds of comic books a child chooses could provide to the child psychiatrist some clues with respect to the kinds of problems face by the child.
Your letter also asked about differential effects of the comics upon delinquents and nondelinquents. I doubt that the comic books can be blamed for originating delinquent trends as such in children, bu they might well be instructive in the techniques of delinquency and criminality since they do portray techniques of criminal activity and of the avoidance of detection.
It is not my feeling that the solution to delinquency or emotional disturbances in children is to be found in the banning or elimination of comic books. Rather, I feel that parents do have a responsibility for remaining alert to the kinds of reading material and viewing material, including the comics, being utilized by their children. The wise parent will exercise some discretion and some authoritative control in this connection. The truly wise parent may realize the symptomatic importance of a strong and persistent interest in lurid material and will perhaps seek guidance or therapy for his child. In summary, I should like to add that comics must be viewed as only a part of the total experience of the child and that the same principles of guidance which parents must exercise in all realms of the child’s experience must apply in this area.
The above comments leave many questions unanswered, but I hope that the committee may find this letter of some value in dealing with this difficult problem.
Sincerely yours,
R.H. FELIX, M.D.
Director, National Institute of Mental Health.
Senator KEFAUVER. Does that go for the first memorandum, too? I think the people would like to read the compilation by the Library of Congress.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be made a part of the record. Let it be exhibit No. 2.
(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 2," and reads as follows:)
EXHIBIT No. 2
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,
LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE,WASHINGTON 25, D. C., MARCH 5, 1954.
CRIME MOVIES, CRIME COMIC BOOKS, AND CRIME RADIO PROGRAMS AS A CAUSE OF CRIME
(Prepared for the use of the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate juvenile delinquency)
(Note.- This report on the effect of crime comic books, crime movies, and crime radio programs upon delinquency includes quotations from research studies and opinions, as well as critiques of several studies.)
In the past 30 years, from time to time, discussion have arisen, centered around first, crime movies, and in later years the crime radio programs, and more recently crime comic books with respect to their connection with the causation of crime. Opinion have been voiced on this subject by sociologists, criminologists, juvenile court judges, psychiatrists, psychologists, and parents' groups, and in some instances, research studies have been made.
Some authorities feel that a realistic appraisal of these forms of entertainment indicates that, while there are delinquent cases in which they maybe important, on the while their direct influence on the juvenile is either almost nil or serves only to aggravate already existent attitudes and personality traits.1 Herbert Blumer and Phillip Hauser found in their study over 17 years ago that motion pictures were one of the factors that was important in only about 10 percent of the delinquent males and 25 percent of the delinquent girls. 2
Present evidence seems to indicate that the process of acquiring conduct norms, both unconventional and conventional, is primarily through intimate association with others and personal experiences of a face-to-face nature. Delinquents who have already had association through companions with unconventional behavior may be further stimulated by crime motion pictures, by certain radio programs, or by comic books. In a study made of 1,313 gangs in Chicago, Frederic M. Thrasher found that comic strips influenced these groups and their activities. Not only did many of the gangs obtain the names from the comic strip, but suggestions for vandalism and other destructive activities were directly traceable to this source. 3
1. Edwin J. Sutherland. Principles of Criminology, p. 184.
2. Herbert Blumer and Phillip M. Hauser, Movies, Delinquency and Crime, p. 198.
3. Frederic M. Thrasher, The Gang, p. 113.
To date, there have been few truly scientific investigations of the influence of such forms of entertainment on juvenile delinquency. There has been limited investigation of the millions of nondelinquent juveniles who avidly attend crime movies, listen nightly to several radio broadcasts dealing with criminal cases, and read one or two crime comic books a week.
The present report was prepared after a survey of the available materials in the Library of Congress. The basis for choosing articles and studies to be included were the background of the author, his standing and experience in his field of specialty; and in the case of the critiques, the author's recognized authority to judge the studies. This material is presented in chronological order (except where there is a critique of a specific study) with a note about the author, and a statement of the purpose of the study.
HERBERT BLUMER, AND PHILLIP M. HAUSER. Movies, Delinquency, and Crime.
New York: the Macmillan Company. 1933. 233 p. [PN19995.5.B53]
(Herbert Blumer at the time of this study was associate professor of sociology at the
University of Chicago, and Phillip M. Hauser was an instructor in sociology at the same
university.)
The following statement is from the preface of the above book and gives background material on the reason for the study:
"The history of [these] investigations is brief. In 1928 William H. Short, executive director of the Motion Picture Research Council, invited a group of university psychologists, sociologists, and educators to meet with the Members of the Council to confer about the possibility of discovering just what effect motion pictures have upon children a subject * * * upon which many conflicting opinions and few substantial facts were in existence. The university men proposed a program of study. When Mr. Short appealed to the Payne Fund for a grant to support such an investigation, he found the foundation receptive because of its well-known interest in motion pictures as one of the major influences in the lives of modern youth."
The investigation extended over a period of 4 years (1929-32). The purposes was to study the role of motion pictures in the lives of delinquents and criminals of both sexes; and the effects of motion pictures shown to them in prisons and reformatories; and the effect of movies on nondelinquents.
Data was secured by two methods: Questionnaires and autobiographical accounts. The authors give the following "word of caution" at the beginning of their report"
"These statistical data are based on questionnaire tabulations and must be interpreted with great care. They should not be taken as definitely proven measurements of different forms of motion-picture influences but rather as rough approximations suggestive of a likely extent of such influences * * * questionnaire responses are in the nature of opinion and judgement and are subject to the uncertainty and instability which attend such kinds of response." 4
The reader is cautioned to regard the statistical results as "merely distributions of replies roughly suggestive of the extent of different kinds of motion-picture influence." 5
Summary of findings
"* * * motion pictures were a factor of importance in the delinquent of criminal careers of about 10 percent of the male and 25 percent of the female offenders studied * * *. In addition to these readily traced influences, motion pictures or lead individuals to various forms of misconduct.
"Several important indirect influences disposing or leading persons to delinquency or crime are discernible in the experience of male and female offenders. 6
"On the other hand, movies may redirect the behavior of delinquents and criminals along socially acceptable lines and make them hesitant about, and sometimes deter them from, the commission of offenses. 7
"It is evident that motion pictures may exert influences in diametrically opposite directions. The movies may help to dispose or lead persons to delinquency and crime or they may fortify conventional behavior. 8
4. Herbert Blumer and Phillip M. Hauser, op. cit., p.9
5. Ibid., p. 10
6. Ibid., p. 198
7. Ibid., p. 199
8, Ibid., p. 201
"* * * the forms of thought and behavior presented by the movies are such as to provide material and incentive to those sensitized to delinquent and criminal suggestion.
"Motion pictures play an especially important part in the lives of children reared in socially disorganized areas. The influence of motion pictures seems to be proportionate to the weakness of the family, school, church, and neighborhood. Where the institutions which traditionally have transmitted social attitudes and forms of conduct have broken down, as is usually the case in high-rate delinquency areas, motion pictures assume a greater importance as a source of ideas and schemes of life. 9
MORTIMER ADLER. Art and Prudence. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1937. 686 pp. [PN1995.5A4]
(The author at the time of writing was associate professor of the philosophy of law
at the University of Chicago.)
Dr. Adler gives the following explanation for writing this book:
"As results of their reading of Crime, Law and Social Science, representatives of the motion picture producers asked me to review for them the recent empirical investigations specifically concerned with the influence of motion pictures on human behavior - to make, in short, a similar analysis of the problems, methods and results of research' 10
He specifically discusses the Blumer and Hauser study in the following statements:
"All through these pages in which case histories are reported, figures cited, and similar may-or-may-not conclusions drawn, there is no recognition on the part of the investigators that they are proceeding without control groups. For all they know, if non-delinquents and non-criminals were made to write their autobiographies under the same type of guidance [as the delinquents], they might find exactly the same kind of items reported as having been impressive in or memorable form the motion pictures they had seen. One would then be entitled to presume that there may be an unconscious connection in their lives between motion pictures and law-abiding behavior, or perhaps the opposite - maybe they were law-abiding in spite of motion pictures.
"Considering the admitted worthlessness of their statistical data and the admitted unreliability of questionnaire responses, how are Blumer and Hauser able to conclude the chapter on female delinquents with the statement: 'It seems clear from the statistical data and from the autobiographical accounts * * * that motion pictures are of importance, both directly and indirectly in contributing to female delinquency.' 11
"As I have said before, research of this sort does not warrant the amount of critical attention I have given it. It could be dismissed in terms of authors' direct or implied admissions of the inadequacy of their method, the unreliability of their raw materials and the insignificance of their numerical data.
"But there are good reasons for exhibiting this piece of research in such a way that all of its defects are plain to anyone. For one thing, the work of Blumer and Hauser has been cited by laymen who are bent upon reform, as a scientific demonstration that the movies are a cause of crime. For another, this type of work is considered creditable by some social scientists." 12
Dr. Adler has the following comment to make about the reliability of scientific research in the study of human behavior:
"Little of what has been accomplished by research in the field of criminology has improved upon the state of common and expert opinion - the "unscientific" opinion of men experienced in dealing with criminals. At best, research has been confirmatory of our doubt about any factor of set of facts as causative of crime.
"In the light of speculative standards, the attempt of scientific investigation in the field of human behavior should always be praised, even when its achievements are of no practical significance. To be practically significant, science must definitely alter the state of existing opinion; but ever when it fails to do this, the same probability is better held as a matter of scientific knowledge than as a matter of opinion. * * * The intrinsic weakness of the study of human behavior as science is further complicated by the methodological incompetence of most of the attempts which have been made." 13
9. Ibid., p. 202
10. Mortimer Alder op. cit., xi.
11. Ibid., p. 280-281.
12. Ibid., p. 255.
13. Ibid., p. 283.
WILLIAM HEALY, and AUGUSTA F. BRONNER. New Light on Delinquency and Its
Treatment. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1936. 226p. [HV9069.H37]
(William Healy, physician and psychologist, was at the time of this study director of
the Judge Baker Guidance Center, Boston, and Augusta Bronner was associated with
him at the center.)
This study presents the results of a research project conducted for the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University. The research was conducted simultaneously in three American cities (Boston, New Haven, and Detroit). Five hundred and seventy-four individuals of one hundred and thirty-three families were studied.
Only brief mention is made of the role of crime motion pictures as an ingredient of delinquent behavior. The authors report that:
"Interest in the movies was exhibited much more by the delinquents than the non-delinquents. Regular attendance once or twice a week was the habit of 88 of the delinquents as against 42 non-delinquents. Only a few delinquents, however, stated that they had derived ideas from gangster or other crime pictures upon with they definitely patterned their own delinquencies." 14
EDWIN H. SUTHERLAND. Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia : J. P. Lippincott Company.
1939. 639 p. [HV6025.S83]
(The author at the time of publication was professor of sociology, Indiana University.)
In the preface Dr. Sutherland says the purpose of this book is "to show some development of criminology toward science." He also states that "A science of criminology is greatly needed at present both for satisfactory understanding and for adequate control. The existing criminology is inadequate: It has consisted of obviously unsound theories of criminal behavior, of scattered and unintegrated factual information, and unwarranted application of that knowledge to practical problems."
Among the other institutions which relate to crime, Dr. Sutherland says:
"The motion pictures are unquestionably an extremely important agency in determining the ideas and behavior of people, and especially of children. * * * In view of this significant effect produced by the pictures on conduct, the content of the pictures is highly important. * * * Children play as gangsters after seeing the pictures and are influenced in other ways. Within a month after "The Wild Boys of the Road" was presented as a motion picture in Evanston, Illinois, during the Christmas holiday of 1933, fourteen children ran away from home. For of these were apprehended by the police and three of the four stated that the freedom depicted in the picture had appealed to them. One of these was a girl fifteen years of age and she was dressed in almost identically the same fashion as the girl who had taken the feminine lead in the picture. 15
"In fact, the general tendency seems to be that the children who reside in areas where delinquency rates are high are influenced more significantly by the crime and sex pictures than are those who live in areas of low delinquency rates. * * * Upon people who already have a fairly stable scheme of life, as adults and as children in good residential areas do, the influence of the motion pictures is less harmful than young people whose habits are less definitely formed and whose environment is more distinctly limited. 16
HOWARD RODLAND. "Radio Crime Dramas". Educational Research Bulletin.
November 15, 1944, pp. 210-217 [L11.E495]
This study analyzes recording made of 20 radio crime dramas.
"By and large, radio crime dramas offer no realistic portrayal of the influences which produce criminals. Only three of the programs based upon the activities of law-enforcement officers made by any attempt to explain the background of the offenders.
* * * There is some evidence that children from delinquent areas listen to crime programs proportionately more than children from nondelinquent areas. This does not mean, however, that listening to crime programs necessarily is a cause of delinquency. Instead, it is more probably that the same economic and cultural factors which produces delinquency also produce a greater number of young people who enjoy crime drama more than other types of programs. 17
14. William Healy, and Augusta Bronner, op. cit., p. 72
15. Edwin H. Sutherland, op. cit., p. 192.
16. Ibid., p. 193.
17. Howard Rowland, op. cit., p. 213.
"Children undoubtedly need a certain amount of excitement and aggression in their drama, but there must be a point beyond which the law of diminishing returns begins to operate. Crime and violence in drama lose their cathartic value when there is a constant habituation to overdoses of these ingredients which not only results in jaded taste in children but may contribute to those frustrations which bring about aggressive behavior. If this premise is correct, it follows that the producers of crime dramas help bring about some of the aggression which these dramas are supposed to relieve." 18
HANS VON HENTIG. CRIME CAUSES AND CONDITIONS. NEW YORK: McGraw-Hill
Book Company, Inc. 1947. 379 p. [HV6025.H45]
(The author at the time of publication was Professor of Criminology at the
University of Kansas City.)
Dr. Von Hentig, in his preface, says:
"Crime, being a pattern of social disorganization, has a multiplicity of causations that rest on defects and obstructions in the working order of society * * *. The statistics that complement personal observations and the lessons to be drawn from the many case studies herein have been brought up to date as of 1940 and 1941.
"* * * In its presentation the book goes it own way. Theoretical views and hypotheses are regularly supported by concrete facts as contributed by judges, district attorneys, police officers, wardens, prison doctors, criminals and victims. * * * Whatever theory is proposed or upheld, it is based on realities and exact observation.
"When movies and radios produce those long-drawn-out slugging scenes in which the hero finally downs the bad man, the G-man, the gangster, or the sheriff, the cattle rustler, we think that the moral outcome should be enough to immunize the aggressive spirit. There will, however, always be some spectators or hearers who are by disposition in a tense readiness for violence, From hearers they turn into doers, today or tomorrow when adequate incentives arise. * * * Some children have an inordinate craving for movies; so have many adults. Burt found this inclination in more than 7 percent of his delinquent boys. 19 The movie has achieved tremendous results in reducing drinking and gambling and thereby cutting down delinquency; yet it may cause misconduct as well.
"There are three sources of possible danger, ably discussed by Burt. While some films do not teach crime, they describe criminal techniques. Before the law starts its triumphal march, wickedness has to be demonstrated; it has to be nearly successful before being smashed. On this phase a good film advertises crime and its technical procedures. 20
JUDITH CRIST. "Horror in the Nursery." Coller's, March 27, 1948. pp. 22-23. [AP2.C65]
(The author quotes extensively from Dr. Frederic Wertham who was formerly the
chief resident psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. He was, at the time of the
writing of the article, director of the psychiatric service at Queens General Hospital.)
Dr. Wertham * * * said" "The comic books, in intent and effect, are demoralizing the morals of youth. They are sexually aggressive in an abnormal way. They make violence alluring and cruelty heroic. They are not educational but stultifying."
With 11 other psychiatrists and social works, Dr. Wertham, senior psychiatrist for the New York Department of Hospitals and authority on the causes of crime among children, has spent 2 years studying the effect of comic books on youngsters. His findings [are] published here for the first time. * * *
The purpose of the study was to find "not what harm comic books do," Dr. Wertham said, "but objectively what effect they have on children. So far we have determined that the effect is definitely and completely harmful. * * * We do not maintain that comic books automatically cause delinquency in every child reader. But we find that comic-book reading was a distinct influencing factor in the case of every single delinquent or disturbed child we studied."
Dr. Wertham does not believe that comic books alone can cause a child to become delinquent.
Dr. Wertham feels that a local enforcement of the penal codes by district attorneys, or license commissioners could stop circulation of the most offensive books.
18. Ibid., p. 214.
19. Cyril Burt, The Young Delinquent, D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc., New York, 1925. p. 137.
20. Hans Von Hentg, op. cit., pp. 323-324.
FREDERIC M. THRASHER, "The Comics and Delinquency : Cause or Scapegoat",
The Journal of Educational Sociology, December 1949, pp. 195-205.
(The author at the time of writing this article was a professor at New York
University. He is also an associate editor of the Journal or Educational Sociology and
author of the Gang, a study of 1,313 gangs in Chicago. 1927.)
Dr. Thrasher says that the controversy over motion pictures as a major cause of delinquency closely parallels the present controversy over the role of comic books in the causation of antisocial behavior.
"Delinquent and criminal careers can be understood only in terms of the interaction of many factors. Evaluation of their relative influence demands research based upon more rigorous sampling and control, and requires the utmost objectively in the interpretation of the data the research yields.
"After surveying the studies dealing with the influences of comics we are forced to conclude such research do not exist. The current alarm over the evil effects of the comic books rests upon nothing more than substantial than the opinion and conjecture of a number of psychiatrists, lawyers, and judges.
"Reduced to their simplest terms, these arguments are that since the movies and comics diet is made up of crime, violence, horror, and sex, the children who see the movies and read the comics are necessarily stimulated to the performance of delinquent acts, cruelty, violence, and undesirable sex behavior.
"As an example, let us examine the position of the leading crusader against the comics, New York's psychiatrist Frederic Wertham. [He] disclaims the belief that delinquency can have a single cause and claims to adhere to the concept of multiple and complex causation of delinquent behavior. But in effect his arguments do attribute a large portion of juvenile offenses to the comics. More pointedly he maintains that the comics in a complex maze of other factors are frequently the precipitating cause of delinquency.
"We may criticize Wertham's conclusions on many grounds, but the major weakness of his position is that it is not supported by research data. In Collier's March 27, 1948, his findings are said to be the result of 2 years' study conducted by him and 11 other psychiatrists and social workers at the Lefarge Clinic in New York's Harlem. In this article the claim is made that numerous children both delinquent and nondelinquent, rich and poor were studied and that the results of these studies led to the major conclusion that the effect of comic books is 'definitely and completely harmful'."
Wertham's major claims rest only on a few selected and extreme cases of children's deviate behavior where it is said the comics have played an important role in producing delinquency. Although Wertham has claimed in his various writings that he and his associates have studied thousands of children, normal and deviate, rich and poor, gifted and mediocre, he presents no statistical summary of his investigations. He makes no attempt to substantiate that is illustrative cases are in any way typical of all delinquents who read comics, or that delinquents who do not read the comics do not commit similar types of offenses. He claims to use control groups (nondelinquents), but he does not describe these controls, how they were set up, how they were equated with his experimental groups (delinquents) to assure that the differences in incidence of comic book reading, if any, was due to anything more than a selective process brought about by the particular area in which he was working.
"On the basis of the material presented by Wertham with reference to children's experience with the comics, it is doubtful if he has met the requirements of scientific case study or the criteria for handling life history materials. He does not describe his techniques or show how they were set up so as to safe guard his findings against invalid conclusions. * * * Unless and until Wertham's methods of investigation are described and demonstrated to be valid and reliable, the scientific worker in this field can place no credence in his results.
"In conclusion, it may be said that no acceptable evidence has been produced by Wertham or anyone else for the conclusion that the reading of comic magazines has or has not a significant relation to delinquent behavior."
"LOOKING AT THE COMICS - 1949" (a survey by the children's book committee of the Child
Study Association). Child Study, fall 1949, pp. 110-112.
"In the hope of providing an answer * * * the children's book committee of the Child Study Association some years ago surveyed about a hundred comic magazines and published in Child Study a critique of these for the guidance of parents and others working with children. The enormous growth of these publications in the years since this has prompted a resurvey which reveals some important changes, not only in their quantity but in the kinds of material that are being offered in picture-strip magazines.
"The most regrettable change since the earlier survey has been the increased number of these magazines dealing with 'real' crime, and those featuring sexually suggestive and sadistic pictures. These are presumably not addressed to children ─ are perhaps not even attractive to many of them. Nevertheless, they are available at 10 cents for young people to purchase, and are prominently displayed on newsstands. Some of these are about as uncouth and savage pictures and stories as can be found anywhere."
JOSETTE FRANK. Comics, Radio, Movies ─ and Children. New York: Public Affairs Committee, Inc. (Pamphlet Publication No. 148). 1949. 32 p. [HQ784.A6F7]
(The author is educational associate in charge of children's books and radio on the staff of the Child Study Association of America.)
In discussing crime and the comics, Josette Frank indicates that a number of juvenile court judges have cited the evidence of children brought before them who declared that they had "done it because they read it in the comics." Such evidence is discounted by others ─ criminologists and psychologists ─ who point out that children in trouble can hardly be expected to understand their own behavior, much less explain it. The causes of behavior, they insist, are deep and complex. "In studying the causes of behavior problems of children for many years," wrote Dr. Mandel Sherman, professor of educational psychology at the University of Chicago, "I have never seen one instance of a child whose behavior disturbance originated in the reading of comic books, nor even a case of a delinquent whose behavior was exaggerated by such readings. A child may ascribe his behavior to a comic he has read or a movie he has seen. But such explanations cannot be considered scientific evidence of causation." 21
21 Josette Frank, op. cit., p. 7.
CAVANAGH, JOHN R. The Comics War. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern University School of Law) volume XL, June 1949.
(Dr. Cavanagh is the senior medical officer and psychiatrist, United States naval disciplinary barracks, Portsmouth, N. H.).
"Little factual evidence has been produced that the comics are harmful. A small number of cases have been produced in which comic-book reading has preceded or accompanied the commission of a crime. Actually does this prove anything? * * * If it is true as we are told, that 40 million comic books circulate each month and that each one has several readers, should not their harmful effects, if any, be more evident? Emotionalism sells better than intellectualism, and makes better copy.
* * * * * *
"If the comics are as bad as we hear they are, something should be done about them. What we need, however, are fewer exclamations and more facts. Up to the present there have been more references to the harmful effects of the comics in the popular press than in the professional literature. * * * My plea is to investigate first why children like comics and secondly to determine, if possible, how harmful they really are.
* * * * * *
"* * * the normal aggressive reactions find release In the phantasies stimulated by the comic books which thus become the means by which children are able to work off their hostility toward their parents and others without the development of guilt which they might otherwise feel. They may thus displace onto the characters in the comic books the aggression which would otherwise be too dangerous to show overtly or even to imagine. Many have commented on the quieting effect of the comics, the "marijuana of the nursery," usually in the belief that this is harmful. It seems more likely that the child is merely projecting himself into the story and releasing his aggression in the realm of phantasy rather than finding it necessary to be noisy, troublesome, or to indulge in other overt aggressive behavior. For the normal child such conduct is not harmful or detrimental. For the neurotic child it could be detrimental but not necessarily so, and in any case he will be equally harmed by radio or movies.
* * * * * *
"The prevalent attitude seems to be that all comics are objectionable This is certainly not the case, and if you read the 'fine print' almost everyone who writes about the comics admits this. Unfortunately, the average reader is not concerned with the ordinary work-a-day writings. His attention must be caught and retained. * * * in order to retain an audience it is necessary to highlight the unusual, the bizarre, the sensuous, the anxiety-producing factors. The facts are there, but the usual, the ordinary have slight sales value and consequently must be softened in the interest of the stimulating, unusual items.
"There are comics which are undesirable. These are in the minority. The group known collectively as 'jungle adventure comics,' typify this class. Within the group all of the features are displayed which have been considered objectionable. Here are found the scantily clad females, the chained females, and the sexually suggestive situations Which are the comics' most objectionable feature. However, such pictures and situations become significant principally when viewed through the repressions of the viewer and seem to arouse little anxiety in the well-adjusted reader.
NEW YORK STATE JOINT LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE TO STUDY THE PUBLICATION OF
COMICS, formed in 1949.
The committee reported in 1951 the following findings, which are condensed:
"1. The entire comic-book industry is remiss in its failure to institute effective measures to police and restrain the undesirable minority of stubborn, willful, irresponsible publishers of comics whose brazen disregard for anything but their profits is responsible for the bad reputation of the publishers of all comics.
"2. Comics are a most effective medium for the dissemination of ideas and when such a medium is used to disseminate bad ideas which may leave deep impressions on the keen absorptive minds of children, the unrestricted publication and distribution of comics becomes a matter of grave public concern.
"3. Comics which depict crime, brutality, horror, and which produce race hatred impair the ethical development of children, describe how to make weapons and how to inflict injuries with these weapons, and how to commit crimes have a wide circulation among children.
"4. The New York State Joint Legislative Committee states flatly as follows:
Crime comics are a contributing factor leading to juvenile delinquency.
"5. Instead of reforming, publishers of bad crime comics have banded together, employed resourceful legal and public-relations counsel, and so-called educators, and experts in a deliberate effort to continue such harmful practices and to fight any and every effort to arrest or control such practices.
"6. The reading of crime comics stimulates sadistic and masochistic attitudes and interferes with the normal development of sexual habits in children and produces abnormal sexual tendencies in adolescents.
"A disturbing feature of this situation is that publishers of completely wholesome and acceptable comics have come out squarely in support of publishers of the objectionable type, even though the latter are making serious competitive inroads in their field. One reason given is that all publishers, both good and bad, fear any governmental imposition of regulation and possible censorship of their publications."
The New York State committee grouped objectionable comic books under these descriptions:
1. Those which depict brutality, violence, and crime.
2. Those which depict ways of inflicting bodily injury, plans for commission of crime, and unlawful breakings.
3. Those which are sexually suggested and in some instances depict semihidden
pornography.
The New York committee concluded that governmental regulation should be undertaken as a last resort and only after the industry itself has shown an inability or incapacity to do it, or has failed or refused to do it.' 22
22 U. S. Congress. House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials. Report
pursuant to H. Res. 596. Washington, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1952, pp. 27─28
(82d Cong., 2d sess., H. Rept. No. 2510).
MALTER, MORTON The content of current comic magazines. Elementary school journal (Chicago) v. 52, May 1952: 505─510.
(Dr. Malter is assistant professor of education at Michigan State College, East Lansing).
"The major purpose of this study is to determine whether or not this impression is valid. This is accomplished through an analysis of the comic magazines. proffered by the publishers during the 2-month period in 1951."
Mr. Malter wrote to the 22 comic-book publishers listed In the 1950 edition of N. W. Ayer & Son's Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals. In return he received 185 comic magazines from 17 of these publishers. One published no longer put out comic books and four publishers did not answer his request.
Two of his conclusions follow:
"1. Various writers have maintained that crime stories dominate the comic magazines, while humorous content is restricted. The results of this study indicate that this criticism is not valid. Rather, the data suggests (a) that the percents of pages devoted to humor and crime are approximately equal and (b) that approximately one-third of all comic-story content is devoted to humor.
"2. The writer concludes that general attacks on the comic magazines are unwarranted. Unquestionably, It is desirable for persons to graduate from reading comic magazines to the reading of more sophisticated material. However, it seems unreasonable to blanket all comic magazines under the heading unacceptable"; for, as in all other areas, good and bad examples are to be found. In attempting to improve reading habits, It seems desirable (a) to eliminate unacceptable comic magazines by teaching children to be selective in their reading and (b) to make available to readers other books within their experiences.
WILLIAM W. BRICKMAN. Causes and cures of juvenile delinquency. School and society (New York) v. 75, June 28, 1952, p. 410.
(Dr. Brickman is professor of education at New York University and the editor of School and Society Magazine).
"As one reads the professional literature and the lay expressions of opinion about juvenile delinquency, one becomes aware of differences of emphasis and of opinion regarding causes, treatments, cures, and preventive work. There are those who put their eggs in the basket of comic books, television programs, narcotics, or other features of our society. While a trend is in the making along the lines of multiple causation and therapeutics, there does not exist sufficient recognition of it in public circles. Some still snipe at the old-fashioned school for its supposed role in the making of delinquents, while others are equally unreasonable in attributing all behavioral ills to progressive education."
LEVERETT, GLEASON. In defense of comic books. Today's health (Chicago) v. 30,
Sept. 1952: 40─41.
(Mr. Leverett is the former president, Association of Comics Magazine Publishers).
"Well over 75 percent of all children between 4 and 19 are regular readers of comics magazines. Sales total between 60 and 70 million copies a month. More than 400 different comics magazines are on sale today. They constitute more than a third of all the newsstand reading matter in this country. The influence that this part of the reading diet has en children has become an important consideration for parents, educators, sociologists, doctors and, in fact, the entire population.
* * * * * * *
"The effect of brutality, sex, sadism, and cruelty in children's reading matter is self-evident. No comic book which includes such matter can ever be acceptable. The strict code of ethics set up by the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers has brought about the elimination of such scenes from the magazines published by association members. Every issue of the magazines put out by members is examined before it is printed by an arbiter retained by the association.
LEWIN, HERBERT S. Facts and fears about the comics. Nation's Schools (Chicago). v. 52, July 1953: 46─48.
(Mr. Lewin is a clinical and child psychologist in New York City.)
"Governors, legislators, parents, and professional educators find themselves In a still growing debate over the reputed psychological menace to millions of children, a threat that sems to lurk between the covers of many comic books.
"Some zealous experts demand that these booklets be outlawed. Considering the widespread demand for the controversial comics, such a move might well result in a new source of revenue for enterprising citizens interested in bootlegging or blackmarketing the 'hot goods.'"
* * * * * * *
"Before discussing our belief that the harmful influence of the comics has been overrated, let us give some attention to the thinking that has led to objections to them. Many persons concerned with juvenile delinquency and problems of mental hygiene believe that there is a direct relationship between the reading of undesirable literature and improper behavior. They argue that juvenile delinquency frequently occurs alongside of excessive comic-book reading. They feel that the continuous stress on the excitement and glamor of crime might poison the thoughts and emotions of children, and, in certain cases, might cause them to become delinquents"
* * * * * * *
"The danger seems to be great, it is of crucial importance to find out whether comic-book reading really has the feared due outcome.
"To answer the questions as to whether the reading of comics actually results in antisocial behavior, the following experiment was made recently. Nearly 260 city boys of average intelligence and between the ages of 12 and 13 were closely investigated as to their reading habits and interests."
* * * * * * *
"Apparently comic-book reading in itself is not the cause of maladjustment and similar studies with respect to the effects of radio and television programs confirm the findings. * * *
"One thing seems to be certain: Excessive comic-book reading can be a symptom of maladjustment but it is rarely, if ever, its cause. For example, a habitual young thief has been found to be an ardent comic-book reader. Has this reading caused him to become a thief? Scarcely. We feel safe to say that his reading is a symptom of a long-standing personality problem but not the cause of his delinquency. This is true just as we know now that alcoholism is a symptom of an emotional disturbance but not its cause."
* * * * * * *
"We must attack delinquency and emotional disturbances at their roots. Yet we cannot overlook the fact that occasionally comics may be the vehicles of maladjustment. We can change the character of many comic books in a wholesome fashion; at the same time we do not have to remove from the books much that makes them attractive to our youth."
* * * * * * *
"Many comic-book stories, too, contain an extremely harsh and punitive view with respect to their villains. * * * Frequently no motives for their acts are given but the basest and rudest ones. Stories of this kind do not frighten a potential delinquent. However, they can unnecessarily increase the anxiety of young people who are worried about their minor misdeeds. Moreover, such stories tend to blunt the sense of justice and the spirit of forgiveness and thus they play the game of authoritarian philosophers."
* * * * * * *
"Comics have many faults but their damaging influence has been overrated. Official prohibition will not solve the problem because legislation would be virtually unenforceable it would encourage illegal distribution and put a premium on reading the least desirable strips just because they are 'forbidden fruit.' Neither will censorship improve the state of affairs, quite apart from the undesirability of all legal intervention in the field of literature. Only public pressure on comic-book publishers and editors will bring about a change for the better. Parents, teachers, ministers, child-welfare workers, and psychologists could successfully exert this pressure."
N. E. A. Research Bulletin. Schools help prevent delinquency (Wash.) v. 31.
Oct. 1953. P. 107─108
"From time to time crime depicted in comic books as well as on radio and television programs has been charged with directly contributing to juvenile delinquency. Conclusive evidence on the subject is not available. Reputable authorities are lined up on both sides of the question.
"The number of comic books in circulation in recent years has skyrocketed as compared with about 10 million copies a month in the last 3 prewar years, the 1947 rate was 60 million copies a month. An estimated 40 percent of the purchasers are young folks between the ages of 8 and 18. No estimate is readily available of the number of comic books concerned with sadistic
crime and horror stories.
"Other mass mediums of communication also offer a strong diet of violence. On the four major radio networks, programs that embodied violence or threat of violence were transmitted for a total or more than 85 separate time periods in 1 week (1950). Television has a similar record. On 7 stations in the New York area the listener had the pick of more than 75 periods a week when a taste of life outside the law could be had.
No acceptable evidence to date has shown these factors to have a significant relation to delinquent behavior. To be sure, in isolated instances judges have reported commissions of youth where comic books have been named as the source of the idea. But upon further investigation such youngsters were found to need help beside and beyond scrutiny of their reading and listening habits.
"The foregoing statements do not condone the cultivation of low tastes nor condemn the legitimate realization that some persons gain from an occasional detective story. Regardless of such considerations, the development of good communication tastes is an educational goal that can stand on its own merits."
WERTHAM, FREDERIC. What parents don't know about comic books. Ladies home journal (Philadelphia) Nov. 1958.
(Dr. Wertham is a psychiatrist and in this article refers to his research work at the Lafargue Psychiatric Clinic in New York City and the Queens Mental Hygiene Clinic.)
In this article the author presents vivid illustrations from many crime comic books being read by children and adults. He contends that:
"Juvenile delinquency is not just a prank, nor an emotional illness. The modern and more serious forms of delinquency involve knowledge of techniques. By teaching the technique, comic books also teach the content."
* * * * * * *
"What is the relationship of crime-comic books to juvenile delinquency? If they would prevent juvenile delinquency there would be very little of it left. And if they were the outlet for children's primitive aggressions, this would be a generation of very subdued and controlled children. After all, at times the output of comic books has reached 950 million a year, most of them dealing with crime. The whole publicity-stunt claim that crime comics prevent juvenile delinquency is a hoax. I have not seen a single crime-comic book that would have any such effect. Nor have I ever seen a child or young adult who felt that he had been prevented from anything wrong by a comic book. * * *
"The role of comic books in delinquency is not the whole nor by any means the worst harm they do to children. It is just one part of it. Many children who never become delinquent or conspicuously disturbed have been adversely affected by them.
"My investigations and those of my associates have led us, very unexpectedly at first, but conclusively as the studies went on, to the conclusion that crime comics are an important contributing factor to present-day juvenile delinquency. Not only are crime comics a contributing factor to many delinquent acts, but the type of juvenile delinquency of our time cannot be understood unless you know what has been put into the minds of these children. It certainly is not the only factor, nor in many cases is it even the most important one; but there can be no doubt that it is the most unnecessary and least excusable one."
Dr. Wertham also discusses the elusiveness of some comic-book publishers who go out of business under one name and reappear as new publishing firms. He says, "This is why I have called crime-comic books 'hit-and-run publications.'"
"Crime comics create a mental atmosphere of deceit, trickery, and cruelty. Many of the children I have studied have come to grief over it. How best to summarize the attitudes most widely played up in crime comics? One might list them in some such way as this: assertiveness, defiance, hostility, desire to destroy or hurt, search for risk and excitement, aggressiveness, destructiveness, sadism, suspiciousness, adventurousness, nonsubmission to authority. Anybody could make up such a list by going over a thousand comic books. Actually, though, this is a literal summary of the traits of typical delinquents found by the famous criminologists Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck in a study of 500 delinquents when compared with 500 nondelinquents. In other words, the very traits that we officially wish to avoid we unofficially inculcate."
* * * * * * *
“Legal control of comic books for children is necessary not so much on account of the question of sex, although their sexual abnormality is bad enough, but on account of their glorification of violence and crime. In my attempts to formulate the principles of a crime-comic-book law I realized that it is necessary to introduce more public-health thinking for the protection of children's mental health. * * *
"Laws in the service of public health do not necessarily deal with criminal intent. They cope with what the lawyers call public-welfare offenses dealing with food, drugs, and sanitation. What I wanted to accomplish was to add mental health to these categories."
* * * * * * *
"I have seen many juvenile delinquents who were predisposed to achieving good things in life and were deflected from their course by the social environment of which comic books are a part. We would not by law permit people to sell bad candy with poisonous ingredients because the manufacturer guarantees that it will not hurt children with strong stomachs and will sicken only those children who are inclined to have stomach upsets in the first place. In public health we also have little sympathy with the claim that we don't have to prevent illness because if we rule out one factor people would get sick sooner or later anyhow, if not with this disease, then with something else. Yet that is how the comic-book industry reasons."
SOLOMON, BEN. Why we have not solved the delinquency problem. Federal probation (Washington) v. 27, Dec. 1958: 11─19.
(Mr. Solomon is editor of Youth Leaders Digest, Putnam Valley, N. V.)
This writer contends that the only way to solve the delinquency problem among youngsters is through prevention. He also holds that there are nine "fallacies" which are generally believed by persons who are concerned over the problem.
He has this to say about fallacy No. 2:
"Comics create crime. It is common practice to blame the comics, TV, the radio, and movies for much of our delinquency. It is pointed out that some youngsters are highly 'suggestible' and that through these media they might learn the methods of crime and how to skillfully avoid detection. Maybe so, but I'd like to point out that all children listen to the radio, see TV, and the movies, and read the comics, and that 99 percent of them don't get into any kind of trouble. And it might further be pointed out that we've had lots of delinquency long before these things came into being."
Mr. CLENDENEN. I also have a compendium of the Journal of Educational Sociology which shows the result of comics on delinquency by Dr. Thrasher, who is a noted criminologist connected with the University of Chicago.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be made a part of the record. Let that be exhibit No. 3.
(The article referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 3," and reads as follows:)
EXHIBIT NO. 3
THE COMICS AND DELINQUENCY: CAUSE OR SCAPEGOAT
Frederic M. Thrasher
Expert students of mankind have always tried to explain human behavior in terms of their own specialities. This is particularly true in the field of adult and juvenile delinquency, where anthropologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists have been guilty of a long series of erroneous attempts to attribute crime and delinquency to some one human trait or environmental condition. These monistic theories of delinquency causation illustrate a particularistic fallacy which stems from professional bias or a lack of scientific logic and research, or both.
Most recent error of this type is that if psychiatrist Fredric Wertham who claims in effect that the comics are an important factor in causing juvenile delinquency. 1 This extreme position which is not substantiated by any valid research, is not only contrary to considerable current psychiatric thinking, but also disregards tested research procedures which have discredited numerous previous monistic theories of delinquency causation. Wertham's dark picture of the influence of comics is more forensic than it is scientific and illustrates a dangerous habit of projecting our social frustrations upon some specific trait of our culture, which becomes a sort of "whipping boy" for our failure to control the whole gamut of social breakdown. 2
1 Wertham, Who is a prominent New York psychiatrist, has stated his position on the comics in the following articles: The Comics─Very Funny, Saturday Review of Literature, May 29, 1948; What Your Children Think of You, This Week, Oct. 10, 1948; Are Comic Books Harmful to Children?, Friends Intelligencer, July 10, 1948; the Betrayal of Childhood: Comic Books, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of Correction, American Prison Association, 1948; the Psychopathology of Comic Books (a symposium), American Journal of Psychotherapy July 1948; and What Are Comic Books? (a study course for Parents), National Parent Teacher Magazine, March 1949.
2 Cf. Katherine Clifford, Common Sense About Comics, Parents Magazine, October 1948.
One of the earliest of these monistic errors was that of Lombroso and his followers of the so-called Italian School of Criminology, 3 who asserted there was a born criminal type with certain "stigmata of degeneracy" which enabled the criminal to be distinguished from normal people. These included such characteristics as a cleft palate, a low retreating forehead, a peculiarly shaped head, nose, or jaw, large protruding ears, low sensitivity to pain, lack of beard in males, obtuseness of the senses, etc. These "criminal traits" were explained as due to a reversion to a hypothetical "savage" (atavism), or to physical and nervous deterioration. Accompanying the physical divergencies in some unexplained manner always went a predisposition to delinquency. Exponents of this theory in its extreme form have even claimed that different types of criminals exhibit different sets of physical anomalies.
3. Lombroso first stated his theory in a brochure in 1876 and this was expanded later into three volumes. See Cesare Lombroso, Crime: Its Causes and Remedies. Translated by H. P. Horton. Boston: Little, Brown, 1918.
More rigorous investigators shortly discredited this naive theory. One of these was England's distinguished Charles Goring. He rejected Loinbroso's conclusion because it was based upon an inadequate sample of the criminal population, chiefly the inmates of an institution for the criminally insane. As Von Hentig Succinctly points out, only "minute sections of crime are found in court or in prison, a certain proportion in institutions for the criminally insane. Crime's most numerous and dangerous representatives are never seen by a judge, a warden, or a psychiatrist."4 No valid conclusion concerning delinquents and criminals as a whole can be drawn from the small proportion of their number appearing in clinics or found in institutions.
4. Hans Von Hentig, Crime: Causes and Conditions. New York: McGraw Hill, 1947.
Goring rejected Lombroso's theory further, and more importantly, because it ignored the possibility that the traits to which delinquent and criminal behavior were attributed might be as prevalent among law-abiding citizens. Goring was an exponent of the elementary scientific technique which insists on the use of a control group, a simple yet essential statistical maneuver designed to protect the scholar and the public against fallacious conclusions about human behavior. The use of the control group as applied to the study of the causation of delinquency simply means that the investigator must make sure the trait or condition to which he ascribes delinquency is not as prevalent among nondelinquents as among delinquents.
When Goring studied not merely the inmates of prisons, but a representative sampling of the unincarcerated population, he found "stigmata" to occur no more frequently among prisoners than among people at large. 5 Lombroso's theory was knocked into a cocked hat.
5. Charles Goring, the English Convict. London: Stationery Office, 1918.
Students of delinquent and criminal behavior were slow, however, to heed the lesson implicit in the collapse of Lombroso's theory. Continuing to seek a simple monistic explanation of antisocial behavior, repeating Lombroso's errors of inadequate sampling and lack of control, they have attributed the bulk of delinquency to mental deficiency, to focal infections, to lesions of the nervous system, to psychopathic personality, to poverty, to broken homes, to one after another of the characteristics of the delinquent or his environment.
More rigorous sampling and control have forced the abandonment of these one-sided explanations. The assertion of Tredgold and Goddard, 6 for example that mental deficiency is the major cause of antisocial behavior was based on institutional samples of the delinquent population. It should be reiterated that such samples are highly selective, since more intelligent criminals are less frequently found in institutions or other groups available for testing. Indeed adequately controlled studies, such as those of Carl Murchison, 7 E. A. Doll 8 and Simon H. Tulchin 9 have conclusively shown that low intelligence of itself is not an important factor in producing delinquency.
6. A. F. Tredgold, Mental Deficiency, New York: William Wood, 1914; and Henry H. Goddard, Feeblemindedness: Its Causes and Consequences. New York: Macmillan, 1914.
7. American White Criminal Intelligence, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, August and November 1924.
8. The Comparative Intelligence of Prisoners, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, August 1920.
9. Simon H. Tulchin, Intelligence and Crime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939.
Sociological studies have shown marked correlations between poverty and delinquency. But again the sample is selective, biased by the fact that official statistics fail to record the large number of delinquencies committed in more prosperous sections of time community; and again one is given pause by the necessity of accounting for the large numbers of children in the most dire economic need who do not become delinquent. As for broken homes, the studies of Slawson 10 in New York, and of Shaw and McKay 11 in Chicago, have shown that time broken home in itself cannot be considered a very significant factor in explaining delinquency.
10. John Slawson, the Delinquent Boy. Boston: Badger, 1926.
11. Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, Social Factors in Juvenile Delinquency. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931, pp. 261─284.
More recently it has been asserted that motion pictures are a major cause of delinquency. The controversy over the truth of this assertion closely parallels the present controversy over the role of comic books in the causation of anti-social behavior. The Motion Picture Research Council, with the aid of a research grant from the Payne Fund, and in cooperation with a number of universities, undertook a series of objective studies of time question.12
12. For a history of this controversy, the results of the Payne Fund Studies, and a critical evaluation of them, see: Henry James Furman, Our Movie Made Children, New York, Macmillan, 1933; Martin Quigley, Decency in Motion Pictures, New York, Macmillan, 1935; Frederic H. Thrasher, Education Versus Censorship, Journal of Educational Sociology, January 1940; W. W. Charters, Motion Pictures and Youth : A Summary, New York, Macmillan, 1933; Mortimer J. Adler, Art and Prudence, New York, Longman's Greene, 1937.
The most conclusive of these studies as it bears upon the relationship of the motion picture to the causation of delinquency, was conducted at New York University by Paul G. Cressey.13 Cressey's findings, based upon thousands of observations under controlled conditions, showed that the movies did not have any significant effect in producing delinquency in the crime-breeding area in which the study was made. Cressey readily admits that boys and young men, when suitably predisposed, sometimes have utilized techniques of crime seen in the movies, have used gangster films to stimulate susceptible ones toward crime, and on occasion in their own criminal actions have idealized themselves imaginatively as possessing as attractive a personality, or as engaging in as romantic activities as gangster screen heroes.14 Cressey is careful to follow this statement, however, with the explanation that he does not mean that movies have been shown to be a "cause" of crime, that he does not mean that "good" boys are enticed into crime by gangster films, that he merely means what he has said that boys and young men responsive to crime portrayals have been found on occasion to use ideas and techniques seen at the movies. This type of analytical thinking is largely absent from the findings of such critics of the comics as Fredric Wertham.
13. Paul G. Cressey, The Role of the Motion Picture in an Interstitial Area. (Unpublished manuscript on deposit in the New York University library.)
14. Paul G. Cressey, The Motion Picture Experience as Modified by Social Background and Personality, American Sociological Review, August 1938, p. 517.
Furthermore Cressey found that urban patterns of vice, gambling, racketeering, and gangsterism, including large components of violence, were so familiar to the children of this district that movies seemed rather tame by comparison. That this section of New York is typical of the thousands of other delinquency areas in American cities cannot be doubted.15 It is from these areas that the large proportion of official juvenile delinquents come and there is no reason to doubt that the role of the motion picture in producing delinquency is any greater in these areas in other American cities than it was found to he in New York.
15. See Clifford R. Shaw and Henry U. McKay, Report on Social Factors in Juvenile Delinquency, National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (No. 18, vol. II), Washington: Government Printing Office; ─, Delinquency Areas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929; and---, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.
The behavior scientist has learned that the causes of antisocial behavior─like the causes of all behavior─are complex. Delinquent and criminal careers can be understood only in terms of the interaction of many factors. Evaluation of their relative influence demands research based upon the most rigorous sampling and control, and requires the utmost objectivity in the interpretation of the data the research yields.
Let us now turn to researches dealing with the influence of comics. After surveying the literature we are forced to conclude such researches do not exist." The current alarm over 'the evil effects of comic books rests upon nothing more substantial than the opinion and conjecture of a number of psychiatrists, lawyers and judges. True, there is a large broadside of criticism from parents who resent the comics in one way or an