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186 I daresay that if he returns them they don't go back to the publisher, they go to another newsdealer. It is a roundrobin. It is a vicious circle. They are never returned to the publisher until all means of selling these magazines are exhausted.

Mr. . You mentioned the Saturday Iyvening Post awhile ago, Would the number of Saturday Evening Posts he receives be cut in his next shtpment ?

Mr. . Possibly, yes. He is under the threat of being cut.

In other words, if he should return what the distributor may think is an unreasonable amount of magazines, he would be et off com- pletely.

Mr. . Have there been instances when that has happened?

Mr. . Yes. So the newsdealer takes the line of least resist- ance. He accepts them as he gets them and does what he can with them. .

Here isone magazine. The publisher appeared hore yesterday, this Mr. Gaines, and how he could possibly sit here and justify his maga- zine is beyond comprehension. ITlave you gentlemen seen this thing called Panic?

The. We have seen many of them. I do not recall seeing that one.

Mr. . This has a grotesque head. It is with apologies te Benjamin Franklin, incidentally. This fellow looks like Mr. Hyde of Jekyll and Hyde. This magazine to my mind is worse than one of the horror magazines, It is a demoralizing type of magazine, It satirizes, it ridicules the better comics.

The. May the Chair see that, Mr. Richter?

Mr. . Yes, sir.

Comic books like Joe Palooka and Li'l Abner are ridiculed.

Senator. Li'l Abner himself ridiculed Dick Tracy, did he not?

Mr. . Yes, but this is done in not a critical manner, but in a gruesome manner, in a vicious manner.

You will note in this magazine beyond the middle cover what they call Pan Mail. This magazine was banned in Boston and Mr. Gaines as the publisher seems to delight in that fact. He says, "Panic is a success. It has been banned in Boston."

Then he goes on to quote from the newspaper reports of that city. Tle says:

And what were we banned for? Horror? No. Sex? No. We were banned for lampooning the poem The Night Before Christmas.

Panic in the words of the Massachusetts attorney general, Finegold. Hee The Night Before Christmas in a pagan manner, That was taken from the Springfield Daily News editorial of December 22 and also quotes the Massachusetts attorney general, Finegold, threatened criminal proceedings last week against Gaines unless the comic book Panie containing the satire of the poem was withdrawn voluntarily.

He says his original intention was to defend that, but he sayswhen I say "he," Gaines, the publisher, the best way for him to do this is to quote from letters received from people to the magazine.

It does not identify who those people are, whether they be children, teen-agers, or grownups.