Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/226

214 Mr. . No, sir; I de not know the answer to that. You mean people who actually print the publications?

The. That is right. Would it not be an interesting thing io have that figure, because they must be, I suspect that they would be, members of the printers’ umen, whatever the official name is, and maybe through the unions you could make an appeal on this subject and clean house that way?

Mr. . Well, Iam afraid, Senator, that we ave going to have to have at least the stick in hand.

In other words, while voluntary control is the answer if it will honestly be placed in operation by the industry, I do not think we are going to get it because people who publish this kind of thing, in my humble opinion, have no morals, and if they have no morals in distributing filth and breaking down the whole moral attitude of onr youth, I don’t thtak they care whether or not they have any standing.

I am speaking now, remember, abont the few, reserving as you did in your opening statement, for the better segment of the industry all of the praise that they deserve, all of the praise they deserve in attempting to clean their own house,

If they could get these other fellows in, wonderful; let us do it that way, but L think we are going to have to have a big stick to do it,

We went through some of the big comic-book printing plants aud we found this with respect to that, at that particular time. They print great quantities of these and the prinis are submitied months In advance, at least that is what we were told at that time. They simply do not have an opportunity within the plant to contrel the content of the material as it comes through.

We went fo them at one time. We thought at one time—in fact, the first bill I mtrocuced in 1949 set up a separate bureau in the educational department, where all of these thines would have to be submitted in advance.

Well, that censorship is not desirable; we have come to a realiza- tion ourselves that in our opinion that is not the best way to approach the problem,

T do think that the tie-in sales bill, the giving to the Postmaster General some additional authority to go in and get these people before they can get away, sxnne thought to the antitrustelimination of the antitrust resiriction in the specific instance

The. I hope the staff are underscoring these remarks because they do relate to our Federal problem

Mr. . I think those are the kinds of things that can be helpful. I think I have undoubtedly taken much time of your com- mittee. Iwant you to know how appreciative we are of the opportunity to appear before you, how deeply mterested we are, and { beheve many more and responsible segments of the people of the State of New York are tuterested in seeing something done about this kind of thing which we think, if it is permitted to go unhampered and un- restricted, will honestly drag down the whole moral fone, not only of our youth, but of our entire country.

I hope, sir, that you will be highly successful. If there is any way in which we im our simall way can contribute to the work of your connnittee, or 1f we can furnish vou anything further from the ma- terial we have at our disposal, we will be delighted to do so.