Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/216

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JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

printed in the appendix to the report. ‘The bills that have been signed include a tie-in-sales, a bill that you are very much interested in at the present time, as I understand it.

We have tripled the existing penalty under our penal law for the sale of salacious material, and we have also written into onr law a new authority for injunctive reHef to be sought by mayors of cities and corporate counsels of cities, or by the chief legal oflicers of other units of governinent, that do not actually have corporate counsels because of their small size.

Now, I should like, if IT may, to submit a copy of this report in evidence at this time, and to request that it be included as a reference and incorporated as a part of my remarks and part of my testivaony, by and on behalf of my committee, as chairman of the committee.

The Cuamman. It will be the order of the subcommittee that this report be made a part of the subcommittee’s files.

(The report referred to was submitted earlier by Mr. Richard Clendenen as “Exhibit No. 4c,” and is on file with the subcommittee.)

Mr. Fitzpatrick. Thank you, sir.

I should also like at this time to invile your attention, Senator, to the remarks made by the former chairman of this committee, As- semblyman Joseph Cunline, who appeared before the Gathings com- mittee, and testified at quite some length during their hearings in Washington.

T should like also to invite your attention to the fact that in this report we have included a sununary, net only of our previous work ant findings with respect to comic books, but with respect to pocket size picture books, and with respect to television, and I understand you are going to have some television hearings here tomorrow.

I have read with great interest both the report of the Gathings committee and the proceedings of Senator Kefauver’s commuattee studying crime in interstate commerce.

i was particularly interested in a letter written to Senator Kefauver by J. Edgar Iloover in August of 1950, for in it he states that the basic cause of the high rate of juvenile crime is the Jack of a sense of moral responsibility among youth.

This seems to me to be the key to the whole problem now being studied by this committee, and [ feel sure that you will conclude, beyond any question of doubt, that the horror and crime comic, the obscene pocket book and the so-called girhe magazine are among the principal factors helping to pervert, warp, undermine, and completely destroy all sense of responsibility, moral or otherwise, of today’s youth,

This being the case, it would appear that the time has new come for all agencies of government, loca], State, and Federal, to unite in a concerted effort to rid the newsstands of this country of the current torrent of filth in print.

The Chairman. May I interrnpt your prepared statement.

Which of these two types of magazines or publications do you think have the most serious influence on our young people ¢

Mr. Fitzpatrick. As I point out later in my statement, I think Dr. Wertham, who has testified before your committee, and who has testified before our committee, and who has recently published a very excellent book entitled “Seduction of the Innocent”, has put his finger