Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/154

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142
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

You see, we are bringing up a new faci I cid not know. As far as we knew this was a comie publishing company which produced these magazines. Beyond that, behind it we didn’t go,

I don’t know whether you know, sir, when this particular woman muvied this particular man and began to publish that particular comic, Ll think we are going a little bit afield as far as we are con- cerned,

However, this new fact F will call to the attention of our hoard of directors and I hope from the minutes of this committee T can wet fall evidence.

But. this does not detract from the work we have done with this. publisher and from iny statement that these conics seem to have very little conneeiion with the inquiry of this committee.

T wanl lo reiterate that the function of our organization also has relatively little to do with the mquiry of this committee as far as we are concerned. T would not haye come te testify here unless T had the invitalion of ihe counsel ancl I did so gladly because the par- ticular problem of your committee, delinquency, not comics, but delinquency, is not the area in which we work and in which I am now working,

Professionally it was the area in which T have spent, sir, sume: 15 years, and. therefore, I have on a personal basis certain compe- tence tn the field.

Senator Kefauaver. Mr. Chairman, just for the record, I see one other here. I mentioned Gruenberg and Dr. Bender, Josette Fraunlk. I fine one other here on your board that is also apparently receiving: pay from-the National Comics. That is Dr. S. Harcourt Peppard. He also is on your board; is that not true?

Mr. Dybwad. No.

Senator Kefauaver. You have him listed here as one of the people that vou rely upon, Dr. S$. Harcourt Peppard, M. D., as acting direc- tor, Bureau of Child Guidance, New York Cily Board of Education. He is listed on the front here as one of the authorities that apparently has something to do with these studies.

I thought the record ought to just show that he is also, along with Dr, Bender and Dr. Frank, on the editorial advisory board of this- comie publication,

Mr. Dybwad. Mr. Chairman, may TF point out that as we indicated here we went at the time to uw number of people, of the very few people who in those days were concerned about comics.

Now, Dr. Peppard, who 1 think leng since has died, was an em- ployee of the city of New York. As far as I recall he has never been: even on our advisory board. Ile was never on oar board of directors. He happened to be an intelligent, wan who early saw the problem of colies as something to be concerned with.

1 want to point out that in this particular document the Senator from Tennessee has made reference to sa many times here, they are all very prominently listed, just as prominently as anything else, some strong condemnation of conics. radio, and others, and I quote, for instance, here from Dr. Alpert who says:

Gomies have a thrill, muke aggression tveo easy aud too colorful and in that way threaten evuption of ibe child's own precariously controlled agressive un-- pulse. Fear inevitably follows.

And so on.