I believe the same philosophy is the thing that is acting as a deter- rent to groups who are anxious to clean their own house. They have found they just simply can't go to the fellow publishers and ask, "Won't you play ball?" And whatever means they can use in the industry to force them to play ball they are afraid to utilize because of fear of prosecution under the anti¢rust laws.
I feel there is real merit in their contention that we should give seri- ous consideration to opening the door for them te proceed within their own industry, because this type of self-regulation unquestion- ably in our opinion is the best of all regulations, but we have found it has not worked up to «late.
T notice again with a great deal of pleasure that William Richter, whe appeared and testified before yon on this tic-im sale problem, is acting as counsel now for a newsdealers association, which is forming a cooperative to attempt to ban comics. ‘This piece was in the New York Times this morning.
This, incidentally, is following the excellent werk that is bemmg done in New York by Mr. Kaplon of your own State, sir, along the same general lines. I hope this is the kind of thing of which we will see more and more.
The Chairman. I am glad you referred to that smmouncement by Mr. Richter, because I have before me an article which indicates their «ifort to clean house within the industry, on the same subject.
Mr. Frezparnck, That is wonderful. T hope they can do rt. But I think we have to realize that efloris in the past have not met with great suecess and it is only because of that—and I believe this is very, very important—it is only because of that that the State of New York has had to step in, aud I think you are going to have to step in on a Federal level.
Just one more thing that might be of interest to you, as an indirect result of the tie-in sale, the kind of thing that can happen with de- cent distributors. I have in my hand a letter—it happens to be from u distributor in my home town, but it is indicative, T believe, of what ean be done—in which he states to the retailers that the tie-in sales bill of the State of New York has been passed, and that-it will be effective on the Ist of July, and while it has not been their practice to purposely disseminate indecent material of any kind, they want it clearly known to their retailers that any material that they have reason personally to believe ts indecent or obseene can be returned to them directly without any obligation. I believe that is a step mn the right direction.
The Chairman. It most certainly is a step in the right direction.
Assemblyman, you talked about the industry putting its own house in order. Have you ever made a study of the number of printers engaged in this particular phase of these publications?
Mr. Fitzpatrick. Yes; we went into that quite thoroughly in our privted report in 1951. We found that time that 75 to 80 percent of all comic books sold in the United States were put out by 12 leading companies. ‘Che other percentage was put out by the fly-by-mghts, which are the ones we ure having vreat trouble in hitting.
Now, no one can sit down today, I believe, and tell you that there are X number of them, because that is the very nature of their business.
The Chairman. I am not talking about the publishers, but the printers.
