Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/307

Rh to Irving Kraysow for his execttent news stories and research and to William J, Clow, assistant managing editor, who supervised the operation.

News Story, February 14, 1954

By Irving M. Kravsow

Teu vents at your neighborhoud drugstore or newsstand will buy your child a short course in murder, mayhem, robbery, rape, cannibalism, earnage, sex, sadism, and worse.

These are only a sample of the type of crimes and practices explained in detail with pielures in a variety of comic books being bought and read daily by count- less children,

In this country, 65 million eomie books are printed each month.

Some of the pictures and texts are so suggestive that it isu’h possible 10 quote them in @ family newspaper. Others are just soaked in gore with the characters mouthing phrases which would earn any yornngstier a spanking if utiered in the house.

T. E. Murpliy, in bis column Of Many Vhings, in ihe Courant was shocked to find his own youngsters reading a few of these eomic books and asked the question, “Do you kuow what your elildren are reading?"

To find oat, a reporter went to a section of the city where juveutle delinquents triyeling singly and in gangs, have troubled the area in recent years.

With a pocketlul of dimes, lle visited most of the drugstores in the area to examine the types of cainic books sold.

Walkiug inta each drugstore, he asked the same question; “Do you have any conic banks for children?”

“Tideed we du," was the answer every time and the druggist indicated either racks displaying the beoks or brought ont stacks of the comic books from under the eonnter.

The stores that kept the books under the counter weren't doing it beeause they fell ihe material in (he books was unsuitable for children.

Seyeral druggists teld the reporter they kept the books under the counter hecause they didn't waut the youngsters coming into the store, reading the books, then net buying them.

All the books had jn common a penehaut for violent death in every fori imayg- inalile, Many of the books dwelled in detail on various forms of insrnity and stressed sadism, F

Otbers were devoted to cannibalism wilh taonsters iu Hunan form feasting on himan bodies, usually the bodies af women dressed in such a way as to put. the crentors of historical fiction books eovers to shame,

One magazine Published by Marrell) Comics, hes for its cover a picture of a rotting corpse evading the clutching hand of a skeleton.

Inside is a story called, Bloody Mars. Il opens wirh a picture of a father reading his newspaper in an easy chair while his daughter, Bloody Mary, a child of about 6, ereeps up behind him with her jump rope fastioned into a noose, She wppatenitly didn’t succeed in straugling her father heeause the next panel shows her stealing cookies from a high shelf, dropping the jar, and gctiing a spanking from her mother,

Mary's mother, then lies down on a couch to take a nap aud litile Mary says to herself, “Go ahead, nap, you old bag, So you're tired, are you?*

With that the yonngster gets her trusty jump rape and strangles her mother with it, yelling all the time that she is killing the old woman, “Close your eyes. Jt's sleepy time.” :

When her father returns home, he fiuds Mary caliniy reading Mother Goose while her mother’s body is in the next room. When police come, Mery tells them her father killed her mother, then testifies in court, sending her father to the gallows. After showiug a pieture of the father hanging from the gallows it shews the child at an orphanage talking to a psychiatrist who finds out that the