Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/126

114 Then every cartoonist being somewhat dishonestcartoonists are very much like peoplewe sometimes introduce into our strips things which we hope will be cute and will get the ladies to write in and say "Ah." This is a little puppy dog who shows up every once in a while, and the ladies do write m and think he ts very cute.

I won't continue with this because we will run out of paper. Milt won't have any room.

But I wonk! like to just say that, m delivering a serious lecture, one which involves trying to make these young people feel that it is posstble in onr newspapers as they exist today to express themselves, that we still have a ereat heritage of freedom in our press, one which we want to keep, one which if you are good enough you can make daily use of.

Young people are somewhat mtimidated before they become actual journalists so that they are a little frightened, They think that pub- lishers and editors are going to bring great pressure to bear on them; they are not going to be able to say what they would hike to say, se a word coming from a silly cartoonist an the outside, a man who has grown at least to the point where he can buy lis own cigars, they are refreshed by this sort of experience.

We find as cartoonists that using our simple techniques of making drawings and making statemeuts that the two somehow become en- twined, the people are willing to listen because we are making pictures largely, but willing to listen also becanse we do live, T believe, a great tradition of trying to express the truth tm a decent and sometimes, we hope, humorous way.

We believe that this is the way of America. We think it will continue,

T am sure you gentlemen are as much concerned with it as J, I know that is why we are here,

The. Speaking as one member of the committee, Mr. Kelly, I can say that you cartoonists do make a great contribution to this country.

Mr. . Thank you, sir.

The. I am sure my colleagues will agree with that statement.

Mr. . I would like to add one thing to probably clear up what I was doing here. It prebably escaped a lot of ns. It escaped me.

I was trying to show here the different facets of personality. It is my belicf that cach one of us contains all these horrible things which we sometimes see in crime hooks, not in any enlarged form, but way back in there are things. That is why I try to bring ont and Mili tries to bring out and 300 other cartoonists in our society iry to bring ont other things which are much better than thet. We believe as people read comic strips they will get to vealize that all other people are very much like ourselves and that they will be rather paticnt and understanding in trying to judge then fellow men.

The. Thank you very much, Mr. Kelly. That is a fine presentation.

Mr. . Mr. Chairman, I would Itke to follow with this: As you can see, we are attempling not to debate with Dr. Wertham, whose opinion we value very highly, but rather to make this point, that the newspaper comic strip does two things, and we think this is extremely important.