Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/106

94 The judgment that these comic books have an effect on children, that is not the children's judgment. They don't think that. The children don't say that this does then any harm, and that is an inter- esting thing because it has been so misrepresented by the comic-book industry and their spokesmen in all the biased opinions that they peddle and that they hand ont to unsuspecting newspaper editors.

They say I asked the child, "Did you do that because you read a comic book?"

I don't ask the child "Why do you have the measles?", or "Why do you have a fever?" No child has ever said to me this excuse, "I did this because I read it in the comic book. I figured that out."

The children don't say that. Many of these children read the comic books and they like it and they are already so corrupt that they really get a thrill out of it and it is very difficult.

What you can get out of them is this, "For me, this docs not do any harm to me, but my little brother, he really should net read it. He vets nightinares or he eels wrong ideas."

The actual proof that a child can say, "I did this because of so and so," that is not at all how my investigation worked.

Senator. I do remember you showed me one example of a horror book with a child with a hypodermic needle and you related that to some crime that you had known something about.

Dr. . I have known children, in fact, if [ may say, Your Honor, I notice in the room the reporter who brought to my attention one of the earliest cases of children—may I say who it is—Judith Crist, who works for the New York Herald Tribune. She brought to wy attention a case in Long Island where children stuck pins in girls or something. I told her then that I have found where they stuck pins in much worse places than the arm.

I told her of the injury to the eyes. You can very rarely say that the boys said exacily, "That is what J did because this is what I wanted to do."

I have had children who told me they committed robberies. They followed the comic book, but they said, "That is not good enough, the comic books say you go through the transom."

"But," they said, "you go through the side door."

Children nowadays draw maps and say, "This is the street where the store is we are going to rob; this is where we are going to hide and this is how we are going to get away."

That is in many comic books, and they show me in comic books that is how they are going to do it.

1 would not say in such a case this is the only reason why this child committed delinquency, but I will say that is a contributing factor because if you don't know the method yon can't execute the act and the metliod itself is so intriguing and so interesting that the children are very apt to commit it.

Senator. In some of the comic books the villian made one mistake, he almost committed the perfect crime, but he made one mistake and he got caught. We found some cases where they are trying to eliminate the one mistake so that they can make the perfect crime.

Dr. . That is absolutely correct. That is the whole philosophy of comic books. The point is don't make any mistakes. Don't