Children Without Morals

One crime frequently suggests another, and it sometimes happens that a small wave of violence follows one sensational brutality. But the outbursts of cold murder and the high incidence of rape in the nation during the last few weeks seem to be something else again. Public officials and welfare workers think they see a deeper reason than mere suggestion.

What worried police and welfare workers most was a sharp rise in juvenile delinquency. Near Chicago, two boys held a farmer's family terrorized for several hours, threatening to kidnap their young daughter. San Franciscans were shocked by the story of two girls, 12 and 13, living in a downtown hotel with three members of an orchestra. This was only one incident: the city was crowded with girls and women, eager for the easy life of a port city, drawn by soldiers waiting for embarkation.

To talk to the young girls, to help them along, the city set up a Big Sister Bureau in its Police Department under motherly Kate Sullivan, daughter of a onetime detective. Kate Sullivan found that many girls felt it was their duty to do whatever a departing soldier wanted; she told them to try to convince the soldiers that they are fighting for American homes and respectable women.

But juvenile delinquency was up 20% over last year in Los Angeles; in New Orleans it was up 56% among Negroes, 5% among whites; in Boston up 15%. Said Dr. Mary Fisher, head of Vassar's child-study department: "There are thousands of 12-to 15-year-old girls who flirt with men in uniform. Educators should do something about them. They are war casualties."

In New York, FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover warned "unless we all do our jobs better, we can expect another era of lawlessness as after the last war."

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