Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/138

126 Mr. . Since the earliest years of our organization we have specialized in parent discussion groups, in groups of parents coming together for the discussion of problems of child development for the purpose of achieving a greater competence as parents.

We have worked with mass media. The Child Study Association had the first radio program in the field of parent education. We have been consultants to radio, TY, and to other organizations in these fields.

The. Do you have an annual budget?

Mr. . We have an annual budget, a rather small annual budget for a national organization, and there is no secret about it. Our annual budget is about $125,000, sir, which comes from contribu- tions, from foundations.

We have a membership, we have a quarterly magazine, Child Study, which govs across the country into many foreign countries.

We have had, through ihe decades, consistently high relations, inter- national as well as national.

The. Do you work very closely with the Children's Bureau?

Mr. . Well, we have had consistent contact with the Chil- dren's Bureau through the years. We have had contact with them in several fields, most lately with thetr publie health nurstng depart- meul because they are interested in working with us and we with them, in terms of inmproving the skills of public health nursing.

The. The reason I ask is thai we find that they have certain budgel. needs that somebody has to meet some day and prob- ably the Congress will have to meet those needs.

Do vou know anything of that problem ?

Mr. . Yes, sir. I have been in public welfare for a long time. Perhaps the most notable thing which binds the Children's Bureau and us together is mutual poverty, Mr. Chairman.

The. That is quite likely a common occasion.

All right, counsel?

Mr. . Mr. Dybwad, you were formerly the child welfare director in the State of Michigan?

Mr. . Yes, sir.

Mr. . Do you have a background in social work?

Mr. . I do, sir, and law.

Mr. . As a person with a background in child-welfare work, what is your opinion of the material, crime, and horror comics? What is your opinion of their effect upon children?

Mr. . Now, I want to speak slowly and deliberately so that we carefully segregate the various categories.

If you refer to much of what you just now removed from your exhibits. I would like to talk there on two levels.

The one is the individual effect of a comic book on a given child's reading.

The other is the cumulative effect in a community where this type of literature in effect becomes the only literature readily available to children where this type of literature is displayed on every street corner and characterizes the climate of the community.

I think there is no question that this is a symptom, this kind of comic-book distribution in certain sections of our city, and, of course, I am aware not only from New York, but from the Middle West that