Mr. BEASER. Mr. J. Jerome Kaplon.
The CHAIRMAN. Will you swear that the evidence you are about to give before this subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. KAPLON. I do.
The CHAIRMAN. I want to welcome a fellow New Jersey citizen here. Thank you for coming.
Will you state your full name and address, for the record?
TESTIMONY OF J. JEROME KAPLON, CHAIRMAN, JUVENILE DELINQUENCY COMMITTEE, UNION COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION, UNION COUNTY, N.J.
Mr. KAPLON. J. Jerome Kaplon, and my home address, 78 Edger Road, Summit, Union County, N. J. I am an attorney and I am the chairman of the juvenile delinquency committee of the Union County Bar Association.
The CHAIRMAN. You practice in Elizabeth?
Mr. KAPLON. I practice in Summit. I was given the information yesterday that I was a member, appointed a member by Governor Meyner, of the newly appointed joint legislative committee known as the Juvenile Delinquency Study Commission, along with Mr. Simon J. Falcey of Trenton, Hon. John J. Rafferty, former member of the Court of Errors and Appeals of New Brunswick.
The CHAIRMAN. Former member of the House Assembly, too?
Mr. KAPLON. Correct.
Judge David A. Nimo, judge of Hudson County Court, and myself. I am not a legislator. I hold no political office, no governmental office.
The Union County Bar Association is merely acting in its capacity as one of the subordinate elements of the New Jersey State Bar Association who some 8 months ago, about the time your committee was organized, Senator Hendrickson, decided that New Jersey wanted to do something about juvenile delinquency also.
The CHAIRMAN. I might say for the record at this point that New Jersey has done something about it, too. Your committee is evidence of that fact.
Mr. KAPLON. We are happy, if I may digress from the main argument of what I hope to bring out today, the fact that we think in New Jersey, thanks to Mr. Fitzpatrick, of course, and his very fine work in connection with the report that his committee has gotten out, with the appropriation that they had within the limitations they were working ─
The CHAIRMAN. Do you happen to know, Mr. Kaplon, what appropriation they did have, the amount of it?
Mr. KAPLON. I believe it was something like 15 or 20 thousand dollars the first year, and they have been continued.
Our present commission in New Jersey, I am sure, has no appropriation. I know of none. All of the members of it, including myself, will serve without reward or compensation. It has been that way right from the very start when I, as an individual, felt that something should be done because the legal profession has a duty and obligation to the citizens.
We felt that as lawyers we should do our part in trying to probe for and find out the causes and the reasons and what could be done in the preventive field, in the field of juvenile delinquency.
I just read in our paper this morning, and I think it is worthy of note to call it to the attention of this committee:
Eight teeners held as cause of $2 million fire.
A teen-age tale of swimming in a forbidden area, stealing surreptitious "smokes” on a wooden pier, and making clumsy effort to put out the resultant fire with wet bathing suits, was drawn from 8 youngsters yesterday, according to police investigating Tuesday's $2,250,000 fire. The blaze put 125 firemen on the casualty list through injuries or smoke poison, touched off 100 explosions and threatened to engulf much of Edgewater before it was brought under control in one of the most spectacular fire-fighting efforts in years.
The youngsters are age 13 to 16, one of whom was a girl. I just bring this to your attention. It is so new that the ink is hardly dry on the Morning Newark Star and Eagle.
Mr. BEASER. You also have had experience with comic books, crime, and horror comic books?
Mr. KAPLON. We have had plenty of experience with comic books. Our committee has been diligently obtaining the evidence that has been offered today.
I don't think there is any exception in the State of New Jersey or Union County. I picked up something in Chicago only this Tuesday. Throughout the Nation we are having the same situation. It aggravates one greatly to hear the publishers cry and screech freedom of the press. They quoted so beautifully here from Justice Douglas. I don’t they bore in mind the fact there is another quotation from the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said in a controversy involving freedom of speech, that the right that a person has to say what he pleases does not give him the privilege or right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater.
That surely puts those at rest who feel that there has been some kind of thought in regard to censorship.
Our committee is solely interested in the effort to ban the salacious, the lascivious, pocket-book comic books that come into the hands of juveniles.
We don't want to encroach upon the forbidden area of censorship. With that in mind a segment of our Union County Bar Association drew up, drafted, a proposed law which I shall offer in evidence here and, fortunately, because of the new streamlining of our courts and the new setup that has resulted in New Jersey since the inception of the new constitution in 1948, we were able to find a spot where we could put some kind of prohibitive force that would in time, we feel, dry up the very, very source of this trouble, which I feel and still feel lies in the hands of the actual publishers themselves.
I refer, therefore, to assembly bill 401, introduced April 12, 1954, in its exact form that it was turned over to Mr. Thompson of Mercer County. It is a very short bill. I would like to read it.
The CHAIRMAN. You have that privilege.
Mr. KAPLON (reading):
[Assembly, No. 401, state of New Jersey]
Introduced April 12, 1954, by Mr. Thompson. Referred to committee on revision and amendment of laws
AN ACT concerning the sale and distribution of printed publications or other articles in certain cases to minors, supplementing chapter 170 of title 2A of the New Jersey Statutes.
Be It Enacted. by the Senate and General Assembly of New Jersey:
1. Any person, who directly, or indirectly, acting as agent or otherwise, sells, gives or furnishes to a minor under the age of sixteen years, any book, pamphlet, magazine, or other printed matter, the cover of which or the content of which is devoted principally, or in part, to the exploitation or portrayal of lust in a manner which reasonably tends to excite or excites lustful or lecherous desires among minors, and which book, pamphlet, magazine, or other printed matter, for a minor, is obscene, lewd, or lascivious, is a disorderly person and shall be punished by fine of not more than twenty-five dollars.
The second section is to hit the publisher who is sending this stuff in as they claim they are not supposed to keep it, they don't have to keep it, but they don't tell us at the same time, they make it very difficult for any retailer to return this unwanted literature and many of them today are putting it aside and are returning it because─
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kaplon, do we have any publishers of this type of literature in New Jersey?
Mr. KAPLON. I think we do not have any of these types of publishers in New Jersey. They may print it in New Jersey.
I had occasion to speak to the president of one of the typographical unions living in Hillside. He told me that he blushes when he has to set into type some of the material that is given to him by the higher ups.
Now, the second portion of this act 401 assembly bill:
2. Any person, firm, or corporation, or any agent, officer, or employee thereof, engaged in the business of printing or distributing for the purpose of resale through retail outlets, any book, pamphlet, magazine, or other printed matter, the cover of which is devoted principally, or in part, to the exploitation or portrayal of lust in a manner which reasonably tends to excite or excites lustful or lecherous desires among minors, and which book, pamphlet, magazine, or other printed matter, for a minor, is obscene, lewd, or lascivious, is a disorderly person and shall be punished by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars.
Then the final conclusion is this:
3. Any book, pamphlet, magazine, or other printed matter, the sale of which to a minor under the age of sixteen years, was the basis for conviction under paragraph 1─
That is where the little retailer has been caught selling something that he shouldn't have sold ─ that particular book:
shall be deemed obscene, lewd or salacious and contributing toward the delinquency of minors for the purpose of prosecution under section 2 of this act,
which is the act that gets at the publisher or the distributor, the man that is in New Jersey.
We have distributors in New Jersey, even though we do not have publishers.
This act, I am informed by Mr. William R. Vanderbilt, as of yesterday, was introduced, had its first reading.
Next Monday, June 7, it will be, I hope, I understand it will be taken out of committee, the committee of law enforcement, and committee of our legislature, and will have a second reading.
On June 14, which unfortunately is the concluding day of our present legislature, it should have its third reading unless we have another sit down strike like we had in the New Jersey Legislature last week when our Democratic friends sat down for some reason or other ─ I don't mean to place that in the record as being derogatory to the Democrats, but there was some other controversy involved and the State's business was held up.
I am assured that on June 7 this bill will have its second reading and then its third reading on the 14th. I am hopeful that this bill will have a dilatory effect, it will stifle the sending in of the salacious type of literature to the retailer.
If it does that, we can get 10 or 15 percent of that sort of thing happening, I think we will have accomplished something.
I am very much interested in following through the first prosecution in a major State court of this act. I hope to be a part of it.
I know that there are recalcitrant dealers who do not cooperate. I have checked my own little home town in Summit. As an outgrowth of the Union County Bar Association's work here we formed the New Jersey News Dealers Association.
The CHAIRMAN. Before you pass on that, Mr. Kaplon, have you given any thought to the constitutionality of this bill?
Mr. KAPLON. I have consulted with special counsel to the Governor, Mr. Comerford, who looked it over several weeks ago. He was concerned as you and I, as lawyers, are concerned, about censorship. He feels that on the standard for obscenity for adults, we have laws on our books as you know, that you can in some way or other tie in or obtain a conviction if the periodical is obscene under our indictment laws.
But we are stepping this crime, so-called, down to merely making it a disorderly person. It is very trivial in its conviction. A $5 fine just like we have today in our State, a fine for anyone who sells cigarettes to a child under the age of 16.
That is where we found a place for this particular act. There had been no conviction under that act, although I understand in Linden about 8 weeks ago a merchant was hailed into court and fined $5 for selling a cigarette to a child under the age of 16. I think that this particular legislation will not cause a flurry of complaints and indictments. I do worry about that. There are zealots. There are individuals who are just waiting for an opportunity to grab hold of the Newark News and claim that the picture of a woman wearing a brassiere in an advertisement is obscene and that if a sale is made to a child under 16 there may be an infraction of the law.
I had that on good authority. My hometown editor tells me that he has been called on the telephone, that an ad that appealed in one of the big department stores advocating the sale of a brassiere was immoral to this particular individual.
So we do fear zealots, and we ask for reasonable interpretation of this law.
But I do feel that once a dealer who is not cooperative, Senator, and who say ─ and I know there is at least 1 in my town out of the 11 who have told me so ─ that "This is my bread and butter, and I will sell what I please," there should be an example made of him and once he knows that he is going to be fined $5 he is going to cooperate. He is going to be sending back this stuff that is junk, as Mr. Fitzpatrick says. Once he does that it will be a long time before that distributor will take a chance sending other stuff of similar nature to him.
Mr. BEASER. Will your statute get at the crime and horror comics, or is it aimed at a broader thing?
Mr. KAPLON. The work that we have been working on has not been on crime and horror. I started off 8 months ago when I wrote a letter and I feel I would like to say, as in this letter to the Elizabeth Daily Journal, October 8, it says here:
Let us assist in the great work to be done by the recently appointed Senate Committee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency whose counsel is Herbert J. Hannoch, Esq., of Newark. He needs your suggestion and help in a hearing shortly to commence. Perhaps a way can be found through legislation to control the incubation of juvenile delinquency which feeds on the rotting of the soul of the weakened mind and spirit stimulated by an indiscriminate circulation of questionable and easily accessible books.
They printed that letter. I have other matters in here that might prove interesting, but we feel, our committee has felt, and I think I can speak on their behalf, that the type of literature that is coming through in torrents in the form of mental aphrodisiac, just as cigarette will spoil and harm the physical well being of a child under 16, under the police power we have a right to have such a law passed.
We feel that the constant bombardment of the young mind by this, type of literature can disturb the moral fiber of the child.
I read very carefully Dr. Wertham's book, extractions from it. I was here at the time this committee heard him on it, and I feel confident in my own mind that while comic books, books that are sex stimulators, girlie books, are not the sole cause of juvenile delinquency; they at least are a contributing factor.
I have always felt in accordance with a biblical expression if you can save the life of only one person, you are considered as if you had saved the whole world.
Let us make some progress at least, a small percentage. If we can just get this constant torrent of filth brought down to a point where it does not pay a man to spend $30,000 to get 300,000 copies out, then we will have accomplished something. They will think twice before they will go into a venture which might run afoul of the law in our State.
Mr. BEASER. Do you think the answer lies through legislation, cooperation, or community effort?
Mr. KAPLON. I feel that community effort is an important thing. We have felt that the problem is not so much the juvenile delinquent, but the juvenile in delinquent society.
I feel that delinquent society can no more be better ably planned than by some of the publishers who are getting out this type of thing for the one sole purpose, for the money influence that comes out of it. It is a business. It is a mass industry and that is one of the first things we have found mass industry is used to impair the morals of a child and that is criminal in our State, too.
You can't put your finger on these things so easily.
I would like to offer also in evidence the seal of the New Jersey News Dealers Association and its pledge card, which takes a positive attitude. If I may read just about seven lines or so, the purpose for it incorporation:
To inculcate the highest ideals of American citizenship in the youth of our country by promoting the publication, distribution, and sale of that type of literature that will morally and spiritually build the youth of New Jersey and of our Nation into substantial American citizens, to encourage the interest and participation of all citizens of New Jersey in affording clean, wholesome and exemplary literature for juveniles. To promote the basic concepts of our Founding Fathers as portrayed in the Constitution of the United States by advancing that type of literature which will furnish these principles and ideals.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, these exhibits will be made a part of the record. Let that be exhibit No. 81.
(The documents referred to were marked "Exhibit No. 31," and are on file with the subcommittee)
Mr. KAPLON. There should be more of the Horatio Alger, Tom Swift books we had 25 or 30 years ago.
On that point may I add another shot, and that is the results of the Kinsey book.
Senator HENNINGS. Why do you say Horatio Alger and Tom Swift?
Mr. KAPLON. Horatio Alger books, if I recall correctly, and may I just quote:
What we need is a fewer Aly Khans and Rublrosas and more Daniel Boones and Horatio Algers.
The governor made this statement:
The modern ideal of feminine perfection seems to be a punk actress with platinum hair and an overstuffed bosom.
That was our governor.
And that, Mr. Chairman, is why I feel there should be positive effort and it can be done. That came to one of my dealer merchants that I dealt with from a publisher, the Dell Comics.
Here is proof positive that good comics far outsell all others.
I feel that your committee is accomplishing great work here and that this is proof positive that your work is bearing fruit when they realize that 22 of the leading 250 magazines on the newsstand, 44 percent of your top sellers and big profit makers, are Dell Comics.
When they know they have to go out of their way to censor themselves you know very well that your work has not been in vain.
I want to pay compliment to this group here. I have felt from the very beginning the work has been much needed. It is grand relief from the reckless talk and blabbering we hear from other investigating committees. I am hopeful you can take this law, if it is passed, and send it on to the other States and let them model it in the same way.
Mr. Fitzpatrick has told me that he hopes this very same law may become part of their statutes, too. He realizes they have fallen short of what they hoped to do. He is very much interested in this gimmick or device ─ better call it that ─ which will enable us to get our foot in the door at least, anyhow.
It will not be censorship because that same storekeeper can handle the most vicious type of literature that might be indictable as long as he does not sell it to a minor.
I am confident that no storekeeper who is that vicious will welcome repeated lines in court, taking away from his profits, until he reaches the point where he will place his hands in the air and say, "To hell with all this kind of trash. I don't want it around here."
I wrote a letter to Dell Comics and I told them about the work that is being done here in trying to have them become interested in our New Jersey News Dealers Association, which is a nonprofit organization working on no budget, no appropriation, and sorry to say, that I personally am out the money for the seals and for the pledge cards and for the labor and work.
It is a job of love. This is not the responsibility ordinarily by the bar association. We have been practically in every town in Union County. We have pictures taken of storekeepers cooperating, and the editor of the Elizabeth Journal had a lead editorial 2 weeks ago in which he congratulated one of the storekeepers, Mr. Sullivan, whose business has jumped marvelously since he placed in his window and signed a pledge card to the effect, "I pledge to sell only clean literature to children."
As a result of that kind of community effort we are going into Rahway this week; we are going into Linden; we are going to have pictures and seals going on the windows. People are becoming alert. We have addressed the following: Catholic War Veterans of Union County, at Linden; Knights of Columbus, at New Providence; Youth Guidance Council, at Rahway; Union County Grand Jurors Association, at Elizabeth; Catholic Daughters of America, at Trenton; Holy Name Society, at Roselle; and a YMCA forum in Summit.
We have had 8 or 9 or 10 evening engagements in recent times on this subject, the harmful influence of the comic books on the youth of our country.
If people are awakened and realize what is going on, I think they will rise up in arms and they will support and they will boycott - I do not like to use that word "boycott"; it has been used before and it is a harmful word to use, but I think if it is necessary, if a man is absolutely uncontrollable as a news dealer and refuses to exercise decent, fair judgment, there should be some measure of retaliation by his customers and he will lose business thereby.
I touched on the Kinsey book before I went into this thought on the New Jersey News Dealers Association. I was amazed to find out that in Formosa there was a news item only appearing 10 days ago ─ I am not concerned whether Formosa is in the Nationalist camp or otherwise; they banned the Kinsey report because it exerted an undue psychological influence on students. Those are the words.
There was a five-line press report. If they can do that in Formosa, they can certainly exercise a better discretion in our own country.
Senator HENNINGS. Have you read the Kinsey report?
Mr. KAPLON. I have read excerpts from it.
Senator HENNINGS. Is it in your judgment a fallacious presentation?
Mr. KAPLON. It is a grand treatise for doctors. It makes spicy reading for adults. But it is a disgrace if it gets in the hands of minors.
My only experience has been that I went to the public library and I asked the librarian there what the story is on the Kinsey book.. I was amazed to find out. He says only yesterday three high-school girls came in and wanted the Kinsey book.
Free speech. Freedom of the press. The librarian says, "What do you want it for?"
The children say, "We are studying glands."
You can find much more than glands in that book. I hope the press does not publicize any more than they have publicized it already.
But the real harm is due entirely to the psychological twist. The Kinsey book has been perverted to the point where they are selling a synopsis of this book in our very city in New York under the guise of sex habits of American women for 35 cents.
Now a child does not have to make an excuse to the librarian that she is studying glands; she does not have to even go in a store and blush while she asks for the Kinsey book; and I know in my hometown a young man was turned down by a legitimate bookstore with $8 in his hand. He wanted the Kinsey book. All they need is 35 cents.
You will be amazed, too. It gives a very fine synopsis of the Kinsey book that is being sold in our best drugstores. Certainly it is good literature. You can't censor that sort of thing to an adult, but it is easily accessible for the price of an ice-cream soda to a child who wants to learn something, and there is no child and probably no man here who has not tried to find out in his youth probably what some of the dirty words are. He can find them out right here.
Then the thing that probably is most aggravating, gentlemen and, this I shall say, it has not been touched upon, either ─ one of the best sellers this country has had in many years, and made into a wonderful moving picture, I think it is grand, From Here to Eternity. More smut appears in this book that you wouldn't find in a toilet, in a flop-house, in the Bowery, and not for $3, but for seven-fifty.
I am hopeful that papers will not pick that up, because it will zoom from here to eternity.
Also, it is a shame to the author to think that he could not have completed a book like that without the insertion of the vulgarity that is in there.
To make it all the more aggravating, those of you who are here, you can find out for yourselves, the paper-book edition, on page 447; and I shall not repeat the words here because they are not proper to repeat before an assembly of gentlemen even ─ they italicize the most vulgar word; it is not of the English language - the most vulgar word you could not really find in a toilet, in a flophouse, in the Bowery.
If an adult wants to read it, it is perfectly all right, but I certainly wouldn't want my 17-year-old daughter to actually see a word that you know is forbidden to see, right in front of her.
What is the actual sense of that when she knows she sees it there, she can repeat anywhere, it is common knowledge? It is literature; it will become a classic 10 years from now.
I don't know whether I am committing libel or slander. I am speaking on behalf of myself now. Personally my sensibilities for our children are hurt to know that they had to have that sort of saying in a book, paperback edition.
I wanted to call your attention to one item that appeared ─ I made a photostatic copy of the Sex Habits of American Women ─ the change in attitude toward virginity. Among the group of middle-class married women, where they get their dope from, I don't know, but that doesn't make a bit of difference to a child who is beginning to blossom into womanhood, before 1890: Not virgin at marriage, 13 percent.
Skip down to 1910 or later: Not virgin at marriage, 68 percent.
I have always felt that people followed the sheep. When you see something hike this in there ─ where they got their dope from, I don't know ─ I feel that any boy's mind could be very quickly turned where the tables are evenly balanced.
Our work has been principally on this type of literature rather than on the crime comics. The psychological effect ─
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kaplon, in that connection, as I recall it, you said this bill that is pending in the New Jersey House Assembly did not provide any enforcement provisions for the crime comics.
Mr. KAPLON. It did not. We were afraid to go out whole hog at this time. We wanted to get this thing through with as little bickering as possible.
Crime comics, there has been argument on both sides. I am convinced it has an effect on the child.
The CHAIRMAN. You said that bill was pending in the committee?
Mr. KAPLON. It is pending in the committee on revision and amendment of laws. Mr. Vanderbilt told me yesterday that it is expected to be moved out of the committee on June 7 when it will have its second reading.
The CHAIRMAN. Your committee does not think it advisable to cover crime comics in this legislation?
Mr. KAPLON. If we could cover crime comics it would be delightful, but I am hopeful to get at least a portion of it in now. It is almost too late to try to get the crime comics element into this bill.
The CHAIRMAN. Would it be bold of the Chair to suggest that you might contact Bill Vanderbilt and ask him if he could not have a committee print written up so as to cover crime comics?
Mr. KAPLON. I shall be very happy to contact Bill Vanderbilt and see if we can't get something through on that, and again copying the fine work of Assemblyman Fitzpatrick, to whom we are deeply indebted in New Jersey. If he would send the legislature a bill for the work that they have accomplished, I would really think that the legislature of New Jersey would be getting a good bargain.
The CHAIRMAN. I think the whole country is indebted to Mr. Fitzpatrick.
Mr. KAPLON. Of course, I mention your committee, too. Without your help, without the influence, the prestige of the Senate subcommittee hearing, we would not have gotten to first base. It has been an encouraging note from the very beginning. The entire country should be greatly obligated to this group of men who have toiled and worked as hard as you have worked in order to bring to the attention of the public at least the harm that is being done, the moral fiber of our youth being destroyed at the back door while we are trying desperately to fight communism through the front door, as we should do.
The CHAIRMAN. We wish to commend you for the fine work you are doing and the contribution you are making so unselfishly and so courageously.
Mr. KAPLON. Thank you. It has been a pleasure.
Senator HENNINGS. Mr. Chairman, I think it is very evident that Mr. Kaplon is a most public-spirited man and is animated by, I was about to say zeal, I don't mean zealot, by a righteous zeal to do something about this problem that confronts us, you realize the complexity of it, of course.
Mr. KAPLON. The complexity is a burden.
Senator HENNINGS. It is a tough problem.
Mr. KAPLON. No question about it. If we can hold the zealots in line who may want to prosecute any storekeeper who may be selling a magazine like Life, that occasionally has a rather interesting picture of a fully clothed woman, shall we say, but in a position that might raise a supercilious eyebrow ─ we cannot really be prudes altogether, but there are some people who will be and they can make a mockery of this law if they go into action. I am hopeful we can stem the tide in New Jersey.
The CHAIRMAN. So whatever law we have we will have to have proper safeguards in it.
Mr. KAPLON. Yes; that we are convinced of, Senator.
Senator HENNINGS. Have you not even heard of the prurient mind who turn pictures in all directions trying to see what they can make out of them?
Mr. KAPLON. I have enough confidence in the magistrates in our State who will act upon this when the complaint is brought in that they will use good judgment in not permitting the law to get out of hand.
A little prosecution, a little conviction here and there against a recalcitrant dealer, and a little more, shall I say, effort in getting all of our news dealers signed up, might operate and operate very well.
I think that I have been too lengthy. I know it is late.
The CHAIRMAN. You have been very helpful.
Mr. KAPLON. It is a disadvantage to be working at the shadow hour of 5 o'clock. I want to express my willingness to return at any time, any place, in order to give you any information that might be at all helpful.
The CHAIRMAN. We shall appreciate that very much. Thank you.
Mr. KAPLON. I would like to present to this honorable body the interim report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee of the Union County Bar Association of New Jersey. This report is the result of several months of effort in trying to probe the reasons for juvenile delinquency and to endeavor to find preventative means of curbing juvenile delinquency principally by acting in that field which will ban the sale of salacious and lascivious literature by news dealers to minors under the age of 16.
I am grateful that the committee will accept this report.
The CHAIRMAN. That will be exhibit No. 32.
(The report referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 32," and reads as follows
EXHIBIT No.32
THE JUVENILE IN DELINQUENT SOCIETY
INTERIM REPORT OF THE JUVENILE DELINQUENCY COMMITTEE OF THE UNION COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION
It is a tradition of lawyers, as of all ritualists, to show a high disdain for the ordinary workaday details of life. Like the two maiden aunts in Marcel Proust, who carried on an elaborate conversation in which they sought to thank Swann for a gift, without mentioning the gift, which by their social code would have involved too vulgar a contact with ordinary life, lawyers, and judges stick to their code and mention social reality only by innuendo and indirection. And so, this report, too, is a departure from syllogisms, rituals, and abstractions in that it breaks with such tradition in its treatment of one of the many facets of an ordinary and workaday detail of life ─ juvenile delinquency.
No more alarming symptom of present-day lawlessness can be cited than the shocking spectacle of juvenile transgression now running rampant throughout our Nation. In the age group of 10 to 17, figures complied by the United States Children's Bureau released at the annual forum of the National Conference of Social Work last month in Atlantic City, revealed a startling increase of 45 percent in delinquency cases for the 5-year period, 1948─58, as compared with a rise of only 7 percent increase in population during the same period in this age group. It may be said that this revolting pattern of social decay has reached the serious proportions of a national epidemic. Through indifference or preoccupation with vexation and stress in a world in turmoil, we have shut our eyes to the present level of moral deterioration of our adolescent society. "We devote much attention, energy, and resources ─ and rightly so ─ to the fight against communism, both at home and abroad. We are waging the fight to keep this Nation free. To what avail is that fight if the moral fiber of more and more of our children Is being undermined? We devote untold millions to the protection of our national resources through reforestation, prevention of soil erosion, and the like. But we are neglecting our biggest national resource ─ our children and youth." (Interim Delinquency Reports Conclusion of United States Senate sub-committee, headed by Senator Robert C. Hendrickson of New Jersey.)
Our statutes provide, under 2A: 4─14 that "the juvenile and domestic relations court, shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine all cases of juvenile delinquency." And juvenile delinquency is defined by the commission by a child, under 18 years of age, of an act which when committed by a person of the age of 18 years or over, would constitute the gravest of offenses. The only exceptions are found in Revised Statutes, 2A :4─15, which provide that in cases involving juvenile delinquency, committed by persons of the age of 16 or 17 years, where it appears that the act of delinquency was committed by an habitual offender, or where the offense is of a heinous nature, then the juvenile court may refer such case to the county prosecutor. In addition, "any juvenile of the age of 16 or 17 years, may demand a presentment and trial by jury, and, in such case, when this fact is made known to the court (juvenile court), such case, together with all the documents pertaining thereto, shall be referred to the county prosecutor. Cases, so referred to the county prosecutor, shall thereafter be dealt with in exactly the same manner as a criminal case." The likelihood of a youth of 16 or 17, voluntarily placing himself within the jurisdiction of our criminal courts, is quite remote. These references to the prosecutor are further enunciated in Revised Rules of Practice, 6:9─7.
Every adult concerned with the welfare of our youth, cannot fail to recognize the grave impact of the United States Senate subcommittee hearings on juvenile delinquency, the New York State Joint Legislative Committee To Study the Publication of Comics and the recent creation of a similar joint legislative committee in our own State. Several months ago, the New Jersey State Bar Association, with a membership of some 3,000 lawyers, joined in the effort by Its delegation of 21 county bar association subcommittees on juvenile delinquency. These agencies have been diligently engaged in seeking out the causes, probing for prevention, arresting the growth and endeavoring to control the spread of this cancer of modern day society.
It can be said that our State has achieved unique success in the reformative and correctional processes of our erring youth. On March 15, Life magazine featured an article on the great strides of our State in this department. The title of this article was, "Helping Bad Boys ─ A Plan Pays Off for New Jersey."
In reclaiming our youth, the diagnostic center at Menlo Park, and the Highfields experimental project ─ the former Lindbergh home at Hopewell ─ are inspiring landmarks in the reformative field. The latter program, began in July of 1950, is described in a report based on a 17-month operational period, as accomplishing "as much, if not more, in its 4 months of residential treatment, as the reformatory at Annandale does in its more than 12 months." Moreover, the rate of success on probation or parole, in the case of boys released from Highfields, was shown to be substantially higher than the record for Annandale. Experiments such as these in the conservation of human resources, may very well provide methods which will bring about a turning point in the tide of juvenile delinquency. The continued strengthening of such facilities should greatly augment the court's effectiveness in fulfilling one of its principal functions ─ the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.
In unraveling juvenile delinquency, the pathway does not lie in unrelenting and vengeful punishment, but in persistently seeking and uprooting the causes; in probing for the symptoms, rather than in treating the disease "after the horse has been stolen."
Our legislators, psychiatrists, probation officers, parent-teachers groups, religious and civic organizations are wrestling with the question posed by the admitted monthly publication of 90 million comic or pocket books, 25 percent of which are estimated as being principally devoted to horror, crime, and sex exploitation and stimulation, beamed to juvenile eyes and slanted for juvenile consumption because of their easy accessibility and cheap cost. Obscenity, lewdness, and indecency to the sensitiveness of the adolescent litter the magazine racks. Just like a drowning man who grasps at a straw, there is a growing school of thought that points an accusing finger at this insidious and pernicious influence on the minds of our youth. Santayana once said, "The man who gives a wrong twist to your mind meddles with you just as truly as if be hit you in the eye; the mark may be less painful, but it is more lasting."
Interspersed with this torrent of filth, are commendable publications that are a credit to the industry. Is that smaller portion, characterized as literary garbage, protected by the freedom of the press, harmful to the mind of a child? Is seduction of the innocent and moral disarmament of our youth induced through the subtle and pervading effects of crime and sex comics? Do these magazines and the crime and love comics that flood the newsstands, contribute to delinquency? Unfortunately, there is no stock answer.
Early this year, a grand jury in Middlesex County drew a direct connection between the public display of pornographic literature and the growing number of nonsupport and desertion cases. Police Commissioner O'Connor of Chicago says that the recent increase in rape and sex crimes is directly attributable to the influence of lurid magazines and books. The juvenile court judges in Minnesota have issued an approved reading list for young people. They feel that it is part of their job to get indecent publications out of youngsters' sight and touch. (See p. 18, Report of New York State Joint Legislative Committee to Study Publication of Comics.) We have in this country some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, amusing and informative magazines in the world. Among the pocketbooks on the newsstands are some of the best reading values ever offered; Bibles, atlases, and geographies, books on child care, reprints of the great novels and short stories. But crowding all of these useful and enjoyable magazines and books, are publications which can have no possible effect, except to misinform the adolescent, debase his thoughts, and degrade his emotions. The publishers of such material will stop at nothing to catch the eye.
The laws of our State make the sale of obscene and indecent literature an indictable offense (2A: 115─2). The test of what is obscene and indecent is not easily definable. The test generally laid down is whether the writing is of such character as would tend to deprave the morals of those into whose hands the publication might fall, by suggesting lewd thoughts and exciting sensual desires. In Dysart v. U. S. (277 U. S. 655), the Supreme Court indicated, as one test, that the language must be such as would be calculated to corrupt and debauch the minds and morals of those into whose hands it might fall.
In New Jersey (See Bantam Books, Inc., Plaintiff v. Matthew F. Melko, prosecutor of Middlesex County (25 N. J. Super, 292) a test case sought to establish the right of a prosecutor of the pleas to ban certain objectionable pocket comic books, culled from a list compiled by volunteer citizen groups. Letters from the prosecutor to dealers in the county, attacking the Chinese Room were cited by the plaintiff, as the basis for its injunctive suit seeking to restrain the prosecutor. The publishers, plaintiff, claimed abridgment of freedom of the press, guaranteed under the first amendment. In a brilliant 30-page opinion, emphasizing abhorrence of censorship, Superior Court Judge Goldman found the questioned book within the accepted limitless standards of a free press. The Supreme Court upheld the decision but modified the injunctive relief by striking down that portion of it that denied the prosecutor the power to warn dealers that certain hooks were on the banned list. The reasoning sustaining this permissive quasi-censorship, epitomized in the Supreme Court opinion, was sound: Law enforcement agencies have the right to warn in advance possible infringement of any law. The green light was flashed to the unethical publisher to grind out more and more of this literary garbage; to stimulate the adolescents with pocket and comic books on the borderline of pornography and in the twilight zone of obscenity which pandered sex with the lethal weapon of a mental aphrodisiac.
We feel confident that if this test case had involved an infraction of our proposed bill (assembly 401─See exhibit A) the court would have taken judicial notice of the mass of dirty, revolting pocket and comic books failing into the hands of juvenile and contaminating their impressionable minds. To allow, unchecked, this torrent of filth and trash condemns us as delinquents because the failure or neglect to furnish protective care through public health legislation for the growing mind of the adolescent, constitutes an abdication of adult responsibility.
It has been felt that the court, in protecting the freedom of the press, has leaned over backwards in its unwillingness to be unduly censorious. It must he observed that the entire field of censorship involves the suppression of freedom. This precious heritage, guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution, must, at all costs, he held inviolate; but, at the opposite pole, it may he safely argued that the right to protect the morals of youth is just as sacred as the right to freedom of the press vouchsafed for us in the Bill of Rights. The unscrupulous or unethical publisher who claims the right to print what he pleases, must be reminded of the immortal words of the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, in a controversy involving freedom of speech said "that the constitutional protection to say what we please, does not give one the right to shout 'fire' in a crowded theater."
The real knotty question involved is how we can regulate and control the industry at the publication and wholesale distribution levels without doing injury to our freedom and without incurring the evils of censorship. Surely, the framers of our Constitution could not have intended these guaranties as a license for irresponsible publishers to contaminate the minds and morals of children for profit. For the most part, the storekeepers are blameless and helpless for they are at the mercy of the higher-ups. The custom in the trade calls for weekly shipments from the distributor of a full assortment of periodicals on consignment, with privilege of return; often the objectionable material is hidden within the pages, and the average retailer could spend half his workday in frustrating self-policing. Our State enforcement agencies stand read to assist these local merchants in cleaning up their stands where there has been intimidation by a distributor who insists on a tie-in, a gimmick employed at the higher level that compels acceptance of filth at the risk of a penalty of losing his supply of worthwhile, staple, and salable publications. (See ch. 392, Laws of 1953.)
In the absence of industry control, the flood of indecent literature will surely backfire, caught in the mesh of an indignant public, unwilling to buy the trash. The unrelentless surge of such a movement will encourage the retail dealers, no longer fearful of reprisals or sanctions ─ to return the trash to the wholesale distributors and, who, in return, will dump the mess right back from whence it originates, the irresponsible publisher. To hasten this process our State legislature is considering a law (assembly bill 401), based on the principle of our present statute that forbids the sale of cigarettes to a minor under 16. Interpretation of preventative legislation of this kind must always be dispassionate and reasonable and free from the clamor of zealots and would-be reformers. In this war of attrition the law of economic necessity will force a collapse of the unethical publisher, while building to even loftier heights the proud profession of a great and free press.
Our committee in Union has vigorously attacked the problem from several angles. In the legislative field we drafted and sponsored assembly bill 401, introduced by Frank Thompson, Jr., of Mercer County. This bill seeks to curb the sale of salacious, lascivious, and lurid literature at the retail and wholesale levels to minors under 16. We encouraged the incorporation under title 15 of the New Jersey News Dealers Association (nonprofit), which is a self-policing, self-censoring medium employed by newsdealers throughout the State to compel publishers to temper their business methods with better taste and cleaner consciences. In cooperation with the public relations committee of our bar association, your chairman has addressed the following organizations to date on this timely topic: Catholic War Veterans of Union County, at Linden; Knights of Columbus, at New Providence; Youth Guidance Council, at Rahway; Union County Grand Jurors' Association, at Elizabeth; Catholic Daughters of America, at Trenton; Holy Name Society, at Roselle; and a YMCA forum, in Summit.
Respectfully submitted.
Edward Cohn, Philip Donnelly, Joseph D. Epstein, J. Leroy Jordan, Lea Kaplowitz, Isabel Muirhead, Richard P. Muscatello, Sarah V. Needell, Daniel J. O'Hara, Milton Sevack, H. Douglas Stine, George R. Walsh, Clark McK. Whittemore, J. Jerome Kaplon, Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kaplon, will you carry my best wishes back to the good people of Summit?
Mr. KAPLON. I certainly shall.
(The following statement was submitted by Mr. J. Jerome Kaplon at a later date and is incorporated in the record at this point.)
SUMMIT, N. J., June 9, 1954.
HERBERT W. BEASER,
Chief Counsel, United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, Washington, D. C.
DEAR Mr. BEASER: Will you please include the contents of this letter as part of my testimony and to be read into the record?
I want to express my formal appreciation to you and to the other members of the committee for asking me to testify last Friday in my dual capacity as chairman of the juvenile delinquency committee of the Union County Bar Association of New Jersey and as Governor Meyner's recent appointee as member of our juvenile delinquency study commission, created by joint resolution of our State legislature.
I admired your splendid handling of the questioning of the several witnesses that day, and was especially glad that the testimony brought out vividly the burning, controversial question: "If limited censorship applying only to children is the partial answer to the comic-book problem, will legislation, based on such a principle, do violence to the first amendment of our Constitution ─ the freedom of the press?"
It must be observed that the entire field of censorship involves the suppression of freedom. This precious heritage, guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution, must, at all costs, be held inviolate; but at the opposite pole it may be safely argued that the right to protect the murals of our youth is just as sacred as the right to protect the "freedom of the press," vouchsafed for us in the Bill of Rights. You will recall that I quoted the immortal words of the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in that connection, who, in a controversy involving freedom of speech said, "that the constitutional protection to say what we please does not give one the right to shout 'Fire' in a crowded theater."
We all abhor censorship and, therefore, encourage self-policing and voluntary censorship by the retail newsdealers. I am afraid that some publishers cannot be relied upon to do a satisfactory censorship job of their own; their operation is too big in this $100 million industry.
But, we can approach this problem through the back door, starting with the little retailer. The flood of indecent literature will surely "backfire," caught in the mesh of an indignant public, unwilling to buy trash. The relentless surge of such a movement will encourage the retailers, no longer fearful of reprisals or sanctions, to return the rot to the wholesale distributors and, who, in return, will dump the mess right back from whence it originates, the irresponsible publisher. Anticipating the squawk from these publishers, who, with one hand are greedily multiplying the fleshpots of their mass industry, while with the other hand are pleading for enforcement of freedom of the press privilege, the courts may very well be called upon to interpret this portion of the first amendment in terms of present day social conditions. Will our proposed law in New Jersey (assembly bill 401) stand up in such, a test? I can think of no better way of answering this challenge than by quoting from the late Justice Louis D. Brandeis, appearing on page 115 in The Words of Justice Brandeis, Edited by Solomon Goldman:
"Whether a law enacted in the exercise of the police power is just, subject to the charge of being unreasonable or arbitrary can ordinarily be determined only by a consideration of the contemporary conditions, social, industrial, and political, of the community to be effected thereby. Resort to such facts is necessary, among other things, in order to appreciate the evils sought to be remedied and the possible effects of the remedy proposed. Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires, and likewise a weighing of relative social values. Since government is not an exact science, prevailing public opinion concerning the evils and the remedy is among the important facts deserving consideration, particularly when the public conviction is both deep-seated and widespread and has been reached after deliberation."
I could not close my statement without expressing my deep appreciation on behalf of the lawyers of the Union County Bar Association, to the Elizabeth Daily Journal, and particularly to Mr. John Hall, editorial writer, and Miss Nadia Zagilka, special feature writer, whose recent revealing series of articles on juvenile delinquency has surcharged our citizens with determination to act. This great newspaper in our county of over 400,000 inhabitants, has given us yeoman service in editorial help and news releases over the past several months. The dozens of articles and the thousands of words that have been printed by this paper, in support of the work of the juvenile delinquency committee of the Union County Bar Association in this phase of its public-relation work; the encouragement and aid that were received in drafting legislation that finally found its mark in the halls of our legislature; the constant notices and reports of meetings of our committee who have addresses dozens of civic and social clubs and groups; the help given New Jersey News Dealers Association (a nonprofit corporation of this State) with publicity in the distribution of its decal and pledge card, speak well of an industry that contributes so much to the betterment of mankind. I would also like to echo similar sentiments of gratitude to Mr. Carl Hulett, the publisher of my hometown weekly, the Summit Herald.
Very truly yours,
J. JEROME KAPLON,
Chairman, Juvenile Delinquency Committee of the Union County Bar Association, and Member of Juvenile Delinquency Study Commission of New Jersey.
The CHAIRMAN. At this point, I wish to have entered into the record a group of articles appearing in the Hartford Courant. Let that be exhibit No. 33.
(The material referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 33," and reads as follows:)
EXHIBIT No. 33
[From the Hartford (Coon.) Courant]
This is the story of the campaign as told in Editor and Publisher magazine in their issue of April 3, 1954.
INTRODUCTION
Because of the many requests we have had for more details about our now celebrated campaign against salacious and depraving "comic books" we have put the news stories and editorials in this booklet for your information. We feel that our efforts have started a "chain reaction" in our community which has resulted in a definite improvement in a very unhealthy situation. We hope that similar campaigns from coast to coast may react in stamping out this growing evil. I would like to pay special tribute to three members of the Courant staff ─ to Thomas B. Murphy, editorial writer, for the inspiration of the campaign, to Irving Kravsow for his excellent news stories and research and to William J. Clew, assistant managing editor, who supervised the operation.
JOHN R. RUTEMEYER,
President and Publisher.
News Story, February 14, 1954
DEPRAVITY FOR CHILDREN 10 CENTS PER COPY
By Irving M. Kravsow
Ten cents at your neighborhood drugstore or newsstand will buy your child a short course in murder, mayhem, robbery, rape, cannibalism, carnage, sex, sadism, and worse.
These are only a sample of the type of crimes and practices explained in detail with pictures in a variety of comic books being bought and read daily by countless children.
In this country, 65 million comic books are printed each month.
Some of the pictures and texts are so suggestive that it isn't possible to quote them in a family newspaper. Others are just soaked in gore with the characters mouthing phrases which would earn any youngster a spanking if uttered in the house.
T. E. Murphy, in his column Of Many Things, in the Courant was shocked to find his own youngsters reading a few of these comic books and asked the question, “Do you know what your children are reading?"
To find out, a reporter went to a section of the city where juvenile delinquents traveling singly and in gangs, have troubled the area in recent years.
With a pocketful of dimes, he visited most of the drugstores in the area to examine the types of comic books sold.
Walking into each drugstore, he asked the same question: "Do you have any comic books for children?"
"Indeed we do," was the answer every time and the druggist indicated either racks displaying the books or brought out stacks of the comic books from under the counter.
TALES OF VIOLENCE
The stores that kept the books under the counter weren't doing it because they felt the material in the books was unsuitable for children.
Several druggists told the reporter they kept the books under the counter because they didn't want the youngsters coming into the store, reading the books, then not buying them.
All the books had in common a penchant for violent death in every form imaginable. Many of the books dwelled in detail on various forms of insanity and stressed sadism.
Others were devoted to cannibalism with monsters in human form feasting on human bodies, usually the bodies of women dressed in such a way as to put the creators of historical fiction books covers to shame.
One magazine published by Farrell Comics, has for its cover a picture of a rotting corpse evading the clutching hand of a skeleton.
Inside is a story called, Bloody Mary. It opens with a picture of a father reading his newspaper in an easy chair while his daughter, Bloody Mary, a child of about 6, creeps up behind him with her jump rope fashioned into a noose. She apparently didn't succeed in strangling her father because the next panel shows her stealing cookies from a high shelf, dropping the jar, and getting a spanking from her mother.
Mary's mother, then lies down on a couch to take a nap and little Mary says to herself, "Go ahead, nap, you old bag. So you're tired, are you?"
HOW TO KILL
With that the youngster gets her trusty jump rope and strangles her mother with it, yelling all the time that she is killing the old woman, "Close your eyes. It's sleepy time."
When her father returns home, he finds Mary calmly reading Mother Goose while her mother's body is in the next room. When police come, Mary tells them her father killed her mother, then testifies in court, sending her father to the gallows. After showing a picture of the father hanging from the gallows it shows the child at an orphanage talking to a psychiatrist who finds out that the child is really a midget. Mary kills the psychiatrist to prevent him from talking and then burns his body.
The last scene shows the child being tucked into her crib by the kindly matrons who run the orphanage. They call her a sweet child and tell her she'll be adopted by some nice family soon.
The same magazine has a story called, One Very Wide Coffin, about a thin husband and a fat wife. The husband has an argument with his wife and says, "You're just a fat, lazy pig. All you do is eat, eat, eat."
He leaves his wife, goes to a mountain cabin and broods. "How can I kill her and stay out of the electric chair?" he says. "There must be a way, if I'm clever enough."
Then follows a detailed drawing showing exactly how a shotgun is rigged to fire when a door is opened. It's as good as a blueprint showing how to set a death trap to spring on a victim while the murderer is far away with a perfect alibi. Fate takes a hand, and the couple make up. The husband takes her to the cabin for a second honeymoon, forgetting he has set a death trap. When he opens the door to carry her over the threshold, both are killed.