policy of centralized administration by experts, who are made directly responsible to the people. Every social organization must be coercive to the extent necessary for efficiency or it must break down. A social organization based upon a scientific analysis and control of social phenomena in the broadest sense involves the rule of an élite in no greater degree than is implied in the responsible direction of administrative details by experts, instead of more or less irresponsible control and exploitation by professional politicians. If we could conceive of a society in which all the individuals were equally informed on all social matters and all absolutely sincere, all traces of an élite composed of experts, of aristocrats, or of professional politicians would disappear. But that is an impossibility.

Nor does such a view of society deny the necessity for social change or fail to make provision for it. On the contrary, it prescribes the condition for such change, demanding that all adjustments of individuals to the group shall be made on the basis of a scientific analysis and evaluation of social phenomena, so far as such knowledge is available; and it further makes it obligatory upon the individual to discover such knowledge where it is possible for him to do so. But since the individual cannot discover all the needed facts for himself, it recognizes the necessity for having these facts brought to the attention of the individual by the social organization, which must also demand social conformity. Those activities not under a scientific social control and which need adjustment, should be readjusted so far as possible on the basis of scientifically determined knowledge of social facts, which it is the business of the social organization to supply and enforce through whatever agencies are most effective education, investigation, expert service, etc. The main emphasis of this view of society is upon the abolition of whimsical, subjectivistic, hedonistic, and thus predominantly anti-social, adjustments and maladjustments, through insistence upon scientific social adjustments so far as a science of society can provide the facts.

Thus the social organism or organization, intelligently considered, establishes its importance, first, as a means for

stimulating analysis and co-ordination of social phenomena for guidance in social control, and, second, as the means to the dissemination and enforcement of the findings of such investigations. At the present time we have no adequate machinery for the investigation of such facts on a large scale and our sociology, because of its largely subjectivistic reference and emphasis, is almost entirely impotent to direct such investigation.

Any compulsory organization not supplied with all the facts. necessary to a scientific social control must necessarily make mistakes, as all social organizations so far have. Useful activities are liable to be interdicted and harmful ones encouraged. The difficulty, however, rests not with control itself when conscientiously administered but with an inadequate social science. The ever-present problem of social science is to discover what adjustments will be most effective in securing social development and the survival of the group and of the individual.⭑

Perhaps the chief advantage of the frank recognition of the inherently compulsory nature of the social unity as here explained, is that it assists in centering the attention upon the organic nature or connectedness of social problems, i.e., of cases of maladjustment. It promotes analysis and leads to the relating of problems to one another, in that it demands a co-ordination of knowledge about the problem with a view to group survival. Under such a grouping, sociology and social policy cease to be confusions of apparently more or less unrelated problems, many of which conflict in their solutions. With all minor social or personal problems thus understood as converging in one large and conclusive problem of group survival and growth, each particular problem becomes an attempt to co-ordinate all the activities, thus working toward the abolition of social waste.

To guard against a possible misunderstanding, it seems necessary to say that group or social survival must also include the survival of all those individuals who are capable of social service. It is almost axiomatic that the group must be so constituted as to provide the utmost possible opportunity for the training of individuals in social functions and to utilize their capacities when so trained.

The group which is regarded as the object of attention will always be the most inclusive group which can be made to function as a unity. Hitherto it has been the ambition of most great religions, and of many empires, to treat the world as a whole as such a unity. All have failed. With the breaking down of magical, mythological, theological, and metaphysical controls, and with the gradual substitution of an adequate scientific social control, with adequate provision for necessary and scientific change, an adequate world control may be expected.

A truly scientific control, however, of any group, large or small, cannot be attained till all science and sciences recognize the fundamental problem of social growth and survival. The problems of all the sciences must converge about this one primary pragmatic and functional problem, and their energies must be directed, not by individual whim and interest, but by the demands of the social organism. When such co-ordination of scientific investigation is attained all science from astronomy to sociology will be, for the first time, truly functional and social in its application.

The final and supreme implication of this view of society is that when a fact is discovered it shall be applied and enforced. The counter plea of "interference with individual liberty" should have no weight in court, for individuals have no liberties in opposition to a scientifically controlled society but find all their legitimate freedom in conformity to and furtherance of such social functioning. Society is not yet regarded as a compulsory unity for much more than the suppression of rebellion, the repulsion of foreign invasion, the punishment of personal (not political) robbery, and the discouragement of personal violence. Proper scientific analysis of social phenomena will disclose other less obvious but even more pressing problems, as indeed it has already disclosed them. As these are abstracted from the incoherent mass of social phenomena the compulsory or functional unity of society also comes into view and means must be found for the coercion of individuals who stand in the way of efficient social function

ing. The chief opposition to such effective social control comes from the old subjectivistic, individualistic, and hedonic dogma of personal liberty and the co-ordinate term self-realization which are mainly pleas for personal license in more attractive forms.

Thus the advancement of civilization appears to be marked by the growth of the conception of the compulsory and inherent functional unity of society, both for the purpose of furthering a scientific analysis of social phenomena and for enforcing the findings of that analysis. The working-out of such a theory in its details, as a means of communicating ideas and information concerning the character of social activities and as a means of correlating and controlling these activities, is largely yet to be accomplished. In fact, it can be consummated only as the actual concrete social processes are analyzed and evaluated.

THE INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPER PRESENTATIONS UPON THE GROWTH OF CRIME AND OTHER ANTI-SOCIAL ACTIVITY (Continued)

FRANCES FENTON

The University of Chicago

CHAPTER IV

METHODS USED IN THE PRESENT STUDY

Two kinds of fact regarding the influence of newspapers upon the growth of crime and other anti-social activity have been collected in this investigation: direct evidence of newspaper suggestion, consisting of cases in which the cause and effect relation between the newspaper and anti-social activity is known to have existed; and analyses of the relative amounts of space devoted by newspapers to anti-social and other matter. The latter constitutes a study of the possible objective sources of the stimuli in the newspaper to anti-social activity; the former some of the responses to these stimuli. Both studies are necessary preliminaries to any adequate control of the anti-social activity under consideration here.

The direct evidence was collected from all the available sources, from newspapers themselves, from persons who came in contact with criminals or other anti-social persons, or with juvenile offenders, and from court records. In addition 201 question-lists1 were sent out, 74 to prison and reformatory officials, 75 to juvenile court judges and other judges, 45 to chief probation officers, and 7 to other persons. In return, 20 replies

The question-list sent out was as follows:

1. Do you know of any persons, young or old, who have received the idea of committing some crime or abnormal act from the newspapers?

(a) name

2. If so, will you answer the following questions regarding them: and place; (b) description of act committed and circumstances; (c) newspaper from which the idea was obtained; date and place of publication; (d) if there is a court record, please cite it in addition.

3. Did you get your information from the person's own confession, from