Faculty Research Edition of The Savannah State College Bulletin

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SAVANNAH STATE COtitGE UBKARY

STATE COLLEGE BRANCH

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FACULTY

RESEARCH

EDITION

of

The Savannah State
College Bulletin

Volume 22 No. 2 December, 1968

Published by
SAVANNAH STATE COLLEGE

STATE COLLEGE BRANCH
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

Editorial Policies Which Govern The
Savannah State College Research Bulletin

1. The Bulletin should contain pure research, as well as creative
writing, e.g., essays, poetry, drama, fiction, etc.

2. Manuscripts that have already been published or accepted for

publication in other journals will not be included in the Bulletin.

3. While it is recommended that the Chicago Manual of Sytle be
followed, contributors are given freedom to employ other ac-
cepted documentation rules.

4. Although the Bulletin is primarily a medium for the faculty of
Savannah State College, scholarly papers from other faculties are
invited.

FACULTY RESEARCH EDITION

of
The Savannah State College Bulletin

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Published by

The Savannah State College

Volume 22, No. 2 Savannah, Georgia December, 1968

Howard Jordan, Jr., President

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O Editorial Committee

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Joan L. Gordon Charles Pratt

Calvin L. Kiah Hanes Walton

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A. J. McLemore, Chairman

Articles are presented on the authority of their writers, and neither
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^ sponsibility for the views expressed by contributors.

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Contributors

Charles A. Asbury, Instructor in Education and Psychology
Fayetteville State College, North Carolina

Sarvan K. Bhatia, Professor Economics, Armstrong State College,
Savannah, Georgia

Thomas H. Byers, Associate Professor, Savannah State College

Laura Grant, Student, Savannah State College

Prince A. Jackson, Jr., Associate Professor, Savannah State College

M. P. Menon, Associate Professor, Savannah State College

Charles Pratt, Professor, Savannah State College

Kamalakar B. Raut, Professor, Savannah State College

John B. Villella, Professor, Savannah State College

Hanes Walton, Associate Professor, Savannah State College

Foreword

With this issue, the Faculty Research Bulletin completes its four-
teenth year of publication. Throughout these years, it has served as
an organ through which the faculty and staff of Savannah State Col-
lege and many other colleges have shared with colleagues their
academic and literary endeavors. It has also served to encourage and
stimulate expression in many intellectual and professional fields.
Once again, the college is happy to publish this Bulletin.

Here at Savannah State College, We feel that good teaching and re-
search must go hand in hand in that good teaching is characterized
by the serious search for new truths and in testing and verifying old
ones. It is our hope to encourage more members of the faculty and
staff to record and publish the results of their experimentation and
creativity.

This issue of the Bulletin, as in previous years, includes material
that relates to several broad areas of undergraduate and graduate
education.

Howard Jordan, Jr.
President

94091

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 60-53452

Table Of Contents

Some Selected Problems Involved in Assessing the Intelligence
and Achievement of Disadvantaged Groups; With
Emphasis on the Negro

Charles A. Asbury 7

Guaranteed Annual Income

Sarvan K. Bhatia 21

Economic Development and The Developing Nations

Sarvan K. Bhatia 3 1

Individualized Learning in the Introductory Social Science
Course: Progress Report

Thomas H. Byers 43

Teaching Counting and the Fundamental Operations to
Elementary School Teachers

Prince A. Jackson, Jr 48

Use of the Instrumental Activation Analysis for the Charac-
terization of the Terrestrial and Extra-Terrestrial
Material

M. P. Menon 53

Cottonseed Protein Structure I. Isolation of Protein, and
Determination of N-Terminal Acids and Sulfhydryl
Groups

Charles Pratt and Laura Grant 64

Synthesis of Certain Chalcones

Kamalakar B. Raut 67

Synthesis of Some New Azo Dyes

Kamalakar B. Raut 69

Effect of Cobalt-60 Irradiation on the Morphology of
Schistosoma Mansoni

John B. Villella 71

Myths, Symbolism, and the Measurement Technique

Hanes Walton, Jr 76

Communist Insurrection and Mass Support in Malaya,
1920-1966

Hanes Walton, Jr 83

The Funeral Industry

Hanes Walton, Jr 97

5

Some Selected Problems Involved In Assessing

The Intelligence And Achievement Of
Disadvantaged Groups; With Emphasis on The

Negro

by
Charles A. Asbury

Introduction

The well known fact of race differences in scores earned on stan-
dardized tests is probably one of the best documented in the entire
literature of psychology. Most often the documentation is in the form
of a comparison of scores earned by whites with scores earned by
presumably comparable groups of Negroes on certain selected types
of tests. The focus of this type of comparison usually employs tests
of intelligence and/or achievement. A variation sometimes seen, is
concerned with a comparison of upper or middle class persons with
persons from a lower class of the same race or national origin.

Interestingly enough, many writers have contented themselves with
merely pointing out that one group scores higher than another and
thereby resting their case. That is, they make no attempt to explain or
seek out the causes of the phenomenon. Still others, (Shuey, 1966)
begin by assuming that they already know the causes and proceed to
provide test score differences as evidence in support of their assump-
tions. Obviously, neither of these approaches provides a thorough and
complete insight into the comprehensive understanding of the nature
and extent of individual differences. In fact, one of the most unfor-
tunate aspects of the study of "race" and "status" differences in in-
telligence and achievement is that the attempt to 'prove' has precluded
attempts to 'discover'. A statistical difference between two groups
says little about the underlying operations or factors which produced
the difference. The work of investigators such as Shuey (1966) are
good examples of this. They content themselves with describing group
differences and assume biological inferiority as the cause. Their work
would be far more valuable if they would turn their attention to the
search for causes rather than assuming that they already know. This
view is also held by Dreger ( 1960) who comments on an earlier work
by Shuey (1958) as follows:

The usefulness of Shuey's otherwise excellent work is
limited by what appears to be a polemic attitude. Her book
seems to be an attempt to prove a nonegalitarian hypoth-
esis rather than being strictly a review of the literature.
(P. 364)

Still other writers have attempted to point out the true nature of the
problem and have hypothesized several factors which may be influen-
tial in causing score differences. For example, Eells (1951) reported
status differences in performance on certain types of test items. The
crucial factor in the variation seemed to be opportunity for familiarity

with specific cultural words, objects, or processes required for answer-
ing test items correctly. Eells found mean status differences largest
for verbal and smallest for picture, geometric-design, and stylized-
drawing items. Eells offered an hypothesis concerned with the above
contained in the statement:

It seems likely that status differences cannot be attri-
buted to any single simple cause but are the result of var-
ious types of factors, quite possibly including genetic or
developmental differences in real ability, on the one hand,
and motivational and culture-bias factors in the tests, on
the other. Interpretation of I.Q. differences between pupils
of differing cultural backgrounds should, therefore, be made
with extreme caution. Their true significance cannot be
stated with any degree of certainty on the basis of present
research knowledge. (Eells, 1951, P. 68)

Eells might also have added that the influence of these factors is made
even more profound when we consider the complexity associated with
their interaction.

The Problem

The purpose of this investigation is to study some selected factors
which are generally believed to be operative as influences on the in-
tellectual development of certain status groups, most notably, the
Negro. The writer recognizes that much of the work done in this area
is not restricted exclusively to Negroes. However, it was found that
most of the evidence reported in the current literature concerned with
the study of the disadvantaged does apply to Negroes and also some
aspects reported are peculiar to the Negro as a special case.

Intellectual development in this investigation is restricted in its
usage and should be construed to pertain to those aspects of intellect
which have a bearing for performance on standardized tests. The
tests involved are essentially measures of intelligence and achieve-
ment.

The writer feels that the relationship between intelligence and
achievement is sufficiently close to merit their collective study in a
single investigation. It is well known that tests of general intelligence
are most often predictive instruments for assessing a likely future
level of achievement. In addition, the achievement of a child as mea-
sured by a standardized achievement test is often as not a fair index
of his intelligence. As Dreger puts it,

If we assume that intellectual functions develop ada-
tively and are not entirely determined by heredity, we may
suppose that intelligence tests of the usual variety measure
in part that which is developed in order to achieve success
in a certain culture. (Dreger, 1960, P. 373)

Scope of Study. This study purports to investigate some selected prob-
lems involved in the intellectual assessment of disadvantaged groups.
More specifically, it seeks to determine the influence of three primary

groups of factors on the performance of said groups on standardized
tests of intelligence and achievement. The three groups of factors are
(1) cultural factors, (2) motivational factors, and (3) factors result-
ing from limitations or differences in cognitive development. Essenti-
ally, the focus is on the influence of external and organismic variables
on standardized test score. As stated elsewhere, the disadvantaged
group emphasized will be the Negro.

The Psychology of the Disadvantaged

No one single factor of influence seems sufficient to account for
the persistent discrepancy found between the performance of dis-
advantaged groups and their counterparts in higher levels of society.
Different writers report such factors as test bias, cultural deprivation,
lack of motivation, differences in cognitive style, examiner influence,
all as being major influencing variables.

Appell (1967) asserts that cultural deprivation among Negroes
has an inhibiting effect on the programing of the brain, on the devel-
opment of perceptual-cognitive structure and processes, all slowing
down the attainment of concepts, of intellectual, emotional and social
transaction with the environment. Commenting further on motives,
Appell believes that individuals differ in inner motivation, self -motiva-
tion, self-selection, seeking behavior, will to learn, and achievement
motivation.

On the other hand Tyler (1965) has taken the position that moti-
vation does not seem to make much difference in test performance.
Also, with reference to emotional stability Tyler contends, "The hypo-
thesis that Negro children are handicapped by a severe degree of
neuroticism has likewise not been convincing." (Tyler, 1965. P. 317)

Still others have assumed that Negroes have a distinctly different
cognitive style from other groups and that lower-class children are
under-developed when they start school. What is the evidence? In
this section the writer will attempt to shed some light on the problem
by citing the work of several authors concerned with factors of cul-
ture, motivation, and cognition.

Cultural Factors

Among the more important expositions centered on the influence
of cultural factors on intellectual development has been the work of
Klineberg (1935). Klineberg hypothesized that there is an increase
in Negro migrant intelligence scores with increasing length of residence
in a northern city. More recently, this work was substantiated by Lee
(1951) who reported a significant upward trend for general intel-
ligence and for each of the sub-tests of the Chicago Tests of Primary
Mental Abilities. The single exception was memory. The overall in-
crease was attributed to better educational advantages and improved
environment.

The work of Bloom, Davis, and Hess (1965) has been especially
instrumental in pointing out the devastating effects of cultural im-
poverishment on the intellectual development of children and youth.
Another thought provoking and very readable account of the effects
of the culture has been offered by Crow (1966). Crow goes into some
detail concerning sociological factors, psychological factors, teacher
preparation for deprived children, and experiential lacks as all these
influences may come to bear on the development of intellect.

Keller (1954) cites the role of attention and approval as another
item of fundamental significance. They serve as rewards for certain
kinds of behavior and activity. In lower-cluass sub-cultures it seems
that there is a relatively low premium placed on competence of an
intellectual and academic nature. The bestowal of secondary rein-
forcers such as approval and attentiveness comes about, for the most
part, as a result of behavior which is, to say the least, different. The
sterility of intellectual competence as a means of eliciting these
rewards leads to the chronically lowered motivational level with sub-
sequent lack of intellectual development as a corollary.

With special reference to the Negro, Jenkins (1950) concluded
after intensive investigation that the most important single fact for
any Negro, gifted or otherwise, is his being a Negro. Consequently,
the performance he manifests on a test as well as elsewhere is literally
"colored" by this fact.

Bloom summarizes the influence of cultural factors when he
says concerning intellingence,

The evidence so far available suggests that extreme en-
vironments may be described as abundant or deprived for
the development of intelligence in terms of the opportunities
for learning verbal and language behavior, opportunities for
direct as well as vicarious experience with a complex world,
encouragement of problem solving and independent think-
ing, and the types of expectations and motivations for in-
tellectual growth. (Bloom, 1964, P. 88)

In general, it seems that an ethnic group having a collective history
of being deprived of stimuli typical of mainstream America is unduly
incapacitated by the arousal provoked by standardized tests. Finally,
intellectual development varies with the richness, variety, and especi-
ally the complexity of the environment over relatively extended
periods of time. These things do not exist in the subculture of the
disadvantaged.

Motivational Factors

Anderson (1966) has recently reported that the level of academic
expectancy may be an important factor in terms of reinforcement and
performance. Another investigator (Dreger, 1960) reports that chil-
dren discern within at least the first four or five years of life their
social and ethnic roles, with attendant supervaluations or devaluations
of self and performance expectations. As stated by Getzels,

10

"There are social conditions which have a profound influ-
ence on the self-concept and hence on the motivation to
learn." (Getzels, 1964, P. 239)

Even Shuey (1966) admits that,

Probably more research is needed before one can be
reasonably certain that inferior motivation or depressed
educational aspiration has not influenced the mental test
performance of Negro subjects. (Shuey, 1966, P. 508)

The evidence concerning the influence of motivation on test perform-
ance is considerably less than conclusive, however.

In a study designed to test the hypothesis that segregated schooling
has a depressing effect on educational aspirations, St. John (1966)
found no supporting evidence. The author suggested that this problem
is more complex than was originally assumed and pointed out the
necessity for further investigation. Gary (1966) however, has asserted
that attainment of an education is related to the motivation of the
individual. Commenting on the interrelationnship between motivation
and competence, Gadzella and Bentall (1966) support the idea that
facility in use of communication skills may be a good predictor of as-
pirations of high school seniors.

Perhaps some of the confusion in the area of motivation is the
result of our lack of knowledge in this field. Recent theoretical
models concerned with achievement motivation may serve to eventual-
ly shed more light on this complex subject. In addition, a distinction
might be in order between motivation to excel on a test, on the one
hand, and long-time motivation for academic success in overall school
pursuits. Possibly a different dynamic system may be operative in
either case.

In summary, many authors go to great length to explore the de-
pressing and stultifying effects of deprived cultural background on
the motivational process. Others are equally convinced that these
things make little difference. Especially as they may relate to test per-
formance. The writer will submit that there must necessarily be a
relationship between the mental orientation of the organism and his
motivation toward intellectual pursuit of any kind. However, a com-
plete analysis of the dynamics of this complex relationship awaits
further investigation.

Cognitive Factors

Deficiency in development of cognitive ability has been considered
a potent influence on standardized test performance. This deficiency
is considered as one of the main effects of cultural disadvantage and
deprivation. The writer is of the opinion that it merits special con-
sideration in this report because of its immediate relevance for what
the tests measure as mental processes in the testing situation. As Mays
(1966) puts it with reference to intelligence,

"If a child is trained to think precisely about words and

11

to reason correctly, this concept formation will be acceler-
ated with corresponding increase in intelligence test score."
(Mays, 1966, P. 328)

Tyler (1965) has noted that Negroes from the south are most in-
ferior to New York Negroes on digit symbol, block design, and pic-
ture arrangement subtests. The combination of these suggests some
sort of perceptual defect. This is further borne out by deficiencies in
picture completion ability. A special difficulty is also noted with re-
gard to number proficiency. Shuey (1966) supposes that the disad-
vantaged perform better on tests composed of common-sense, con-
crete material than on tests involing abstract concepts. Shuey notes
that children in this group suffer a serious disadvantage when taking
tests which are highly verbal and abstract in nature.

Some of the dynamics underlying cognitive development have been
cited by Hyman (1964). In the subculture of the disadvantaged the
immediacy of present events generally precludes a development of
concern for more profound considerations usually implied in the use
of such terms as "why", "how", and "with what effects". Commenting
further on this aspect of intellectual development, Hyman says,

Piaget and the Russian psychologists agree that this
important development of thought is a direct result of the
child's communicating with adults and peers. In gradually
achieving mastery of public, as opposed to private, forms of
representing the world, the child simultaneously can inter-
nalize a system by which he can check his private thoughts
against those of his culture. (Hyman, 1964, P. 104)

Obviously, such opportunities as the above may seldom present them-
selves in the case of the disadvantaged child.

Some investigators have approached this problem from the point
of view of differences in cognitive style and organization. Although
few in number at present, studies of this type would seem to be pro-
mising as vehicles for explaining differences in ability test perform-
ance. This writer was able to find only two investigations to date
which allude to this problem. They will be presented in some detail in
the paragraphs which follow.

Michael (1947) sought to determine the influence of two pilot
populations, (815 West Point Cadets and 356 Negro Cadets) upon
the factor composition of two comparable test-batteries, of a pass-fail
criterion in pilot training, and upon the prediction of criterion scores
and factor scores from optimally weighted tests. The two groups had
seven factors in common identified:

(1)

mechanical experience

(4) psychomotor coordination

(2)

number

(5) perceptual

speed

(3) pilot interest

(6) reasoning

(7) spatial

relations

An eighth factor called kinesthesis emerged for the Negro group. For
West Point Cadets the three most valid factors in the prediction of

12

pilot success were pilot interest, psychomotor coordination, and spa-
tial relations; for Negroes, kinesthesis, perceptual speed, and spatial
relations. Intellectual factors such as number, reasoning, and verbality
were not valid for either group. This study suggests that for actual
performance in some areas the typical intellectual test is not a valid
predictor for either group. Also, different mental factors may be
operative between Negroes and whites, even for the same performance.
If this is a valid assumption, it would seem that the difference in
organization of mental traits does not necessarily result in inferior
performance.

Semler and Iscoe (1966) focused their attention on the variation
in constructs and operations defining "intelligence" as measured by
different intelligence tests. There is evidence to suggest that the mental
ability estimates provided by some instruments may be inappropriate
for individuals who, for whatever reason, have need for a functional
intelligence quite different from the standardization population. The
authors state:

"The principles underlying the construction of some tests
come closer to the functional intelligence concept than
others and may provide a much different assessment as a
consequence." (Semler and Iscoe, P. 327)

The guiding hypothesis in this work was that white-Negro differ-
ences in level of measured intelligence would be less on a test involv-
ing cognitive abilities than on a test loaded with psycho-cultural fac-
tors. Two of the tests were the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Chil-
dren and the Progressive Matrices. No significant differences were
found on the Progressive Matrices, but differences were significant at
all age levels on the Wechsler. The authors concluded:

The white-Negro PM subtest inter-correlation matrices
were quite similar, suggesting that the interrelationships
among the stages of cognitive development sampled by
this test are quite similar for the two races. (Simler and
Iscoe, 1966, P. 355)

This study seems to support the idea that cognitive organization and
structure are the same for both races in those areas which are not in-
fluenced by psychocultural variables, but tests themselves are general-
ly highly loaded with cultural content rather than pure factor cognitive
content.

Problems of Assessment

While all the preceding discussion has relevence for assessment of
the culturally disadvantaged, the writer will now turn his attention to
problems which are peculiar to the conception, construction, and
operation of the tests themselves. As Appell (1967) has stated,

"Whatever the stimulation of assessment, whatever the
origin of its use, if assessment is decided upon as a way of
helping to know what is happening in the classroom, there
are certain dimensions about which to wonder." (Appell,
1967, P. 459)

13

Implicit in such a statement is the notion that there may be more
than the usual amount of error involved in assessing the intellectual
abilities of the disadvantaged.

Intelligence Assessment

As far as environmental considerations are involved, the two pre-
vailing points of view concerning differences in measured intelligence
are: (1) tests commonly used are inadequate or unfair for some
groups; (2) that differences in test scores reflect real differences in
ability, but that these are due to educational handicaps and experient-
al deprivation. Tyler (1965) is of the opinion that,

First, there is some doubt as to whether tests designed
for white subjects are altogether adequate measures of
Negro intelligence. Second, some developmental influence
other than educational and socio-economic handicaps may
be having a consistently depressing influence on the mental
growth of Negro children. (Tyler, 1965, P. 345)

And further, "Thus, while we cannot conclude that "middle-class
bias" in intelligence tests is of no importance, we can say with some
assurance that the differences lie deeper than this." (Tyler, 1965,
P. 348)

Since a substantial majority of recent group tests is patterned after
the 1937 Stanford-Binet in terms of conceptualization, and compared
with the Binet in terms of their results, it seems in order to look more
closely at this instrument. Two crucial questions here are, "How was
it standardized?", and, "What is it supposed to do for whom?" The
following quotations taken from the manual for the latest revision
shed some light on the answers :

Though the 1937 scale provided a wider sampling of
abilities than did the earlier scale (1916), including more
pictorial and manipulative items, it was still heavily weighed
with test situations in which verbal ability was an essential
element: Many of the so-called performance test items tried
for inclusion in the scale (1960) and were eliminated be-
cause they contributed little or nothing to the total score.
They were not valid items for this scale. (Terman and
Merrill, 1960, P. 8)

This acknowledgement by the authors is not particularly encouraging
in view of the well-established fact that Negroes and other disad-
vantaged groups have a history of language and communications dif-
ficulty. The admission of lack of validity of certain performance items
does violence also to Shuey's (1966) earlier cited assumption con-
cerning concrete and practical items.

In referring to the norming population the test authors further
state,

"The final 1937 standarization group consisted of 3184

14

native-born white subjects," (Terman and Merrill, 1960,
P. 9)

and still further concerning their attempts to equalize the sample,

Despite such precautions, the sample proved to be
slightly higher in socio-economic level than the census
figures indicated for the general population. (Terman and
Merrill, 1960, P. 10)

The foregoing statements imply that any time the 1937 Binet or
another test with a similar rationale, is used with Negro subjects, the
resulting low scores should be quite predictable.

Merrill then proceeds to comment on the relationship between test
score and test item content and presentation, again with obvious im-
plications for the mismeasurement of the disadvantaged.

In the 1930's, for example, 69 per cent of the three year
olds of the standardization group recognized and could
name 5 out of 6 items consisting of miniature object re-
productions of shoe, watch, telephone, flag, jackknife, and
stone. In the 1950's only 11 per cent of children whose
mental age on the same scale was three years were able to
do so. (Terman and Merrill, 1960, P. 19)

This points to the role of familiarity with test item content in success
with intelligence tests. The manner of presentation and the name the
item is called are significant factors influencing successful communica-
tion between the child and the problem presented.

Cooper (1967) attempted to find an instrument which would
discriminate academically disabled southern Negro adolescents from
those who appeared genuinely defective in intelligence. Tests stu-
died were the (1) Wechsler, (2) Revised Beta, (3) Ammons Picture
Vocabularly, and (4) Porteus test. Cooper concluded that the Porteus
test was the only one which did not classify behaviorally nonretarded
subjects the same as those who were retarded. It is apparent that some
intelligence measurement meets virtually none of the criteria for valid
or reliable assessment. Summarizing with a mixed conclusion, Cooper
stated,

It is suggested that this experiment demonstrates not
only the inadequacy of current intelligence tests when used
with this population but also that this study has related a
psychological assessment instrument to specific behavioral
criteria. (Cooper, 1967, P. 191)

Most test content has little utility in dealing with the elementary
problem of survival in a subculture. Also, if prior failure has anything
to do with current test performance, it should be noted that many
disadvantaged children have already had failure experiences with
some of the test content at the time they are first tested.

The expectations of the examiner have also undergone scrutiny.
Smith (1966) reported evidence of significant examiner variability
associated with the administration of the Stanford-Binet. Some sug-

15

gested sources of variability were sex, race, and testing experience of
the examiner. Especially crucial was the examiner's expectations for
the success of the subjects.

Haggard (1954) in reviewing the findings of many studies reached
a highly critical conclusion which seems to apply fully to the tests
currently being used.

In terms of our present knowledge the standard type
intelligence tests are inadequate on several counts: (1)
They have measured only a very narrow range of mental
abilities, namely, those related to verbal or academic success
and have ignored other abilities and problem solving skills
which perhaps are more important for adjustment and suc-
cess even in middle-class society; (b) they have failed to
provide measures of the wide variety of qualitative dif-
ferences and the modes and processes of solving mental
problems; (c) they have ignored the differences in cultural
training and socialization on the repertoire of experience
and the attitude, motivation, and personality patterns of
some groups of our society, and the effects of such factors
on mental test performance; and (d) they have considered
mental functioning in isolation, thus ignoring the inter-
dependence of the individual's motivational and personal
structure on the characteristics of his mental functioning
as seen, for example, in the differences between rote learn-
ing and the ability to use previous experiences creatively
in a new context. (Haggard, 1959, P. 187)

Assessment of Achievement

For the most part, the bulk of the studies concerning the whole
intelligence range indicates that Negroes show the same deficiencies
in their school work that they do on the intelligence tests themselves
(Tyler, 1965). Gary (1966) has pointed out the handicap associated
with demands of the school and lack of stimulation in the home at an
early age.

Environmental conditions contribute to the self-concept which, in
turn, influences motivation. In the lower socio-economic group the
emphasis is on survival. The lack of parental guidance is often the
result of reduction in time for concern about a child's school learning.
These and other factors are influential on the child's school achieve-
ment and are reflected in performance on standardized achievement
tests.

Symbol-expressive middle-class cues are not learned by the lower-
class child. Thusly, the child searches for concrete experiences and
ignores the middle-class comunication system because he has never
learned it. (Gary, 1966) . The lack of early mastery in verbal ability
produces a cumulative, deficit in language development and con-
ceptual abilities. Expeijbnce with the communication system is sorely
lacking in lower-class "culture and reflects itself in poor performance

16

in dealing with the primarily verbal business of school work. As one
author puts it, "Aquisition of language through verbal dialogues at a
pre-school age is the basis for readiness to develop cognitive ca-
pacities." (Gary, 1966, P. 351)

Another serious problem connected with the low level of perform-
ance of disadvantaged groups on standardized achievement tests con-
cerns the eternal lack of recognition on the part of test authors, of the
formal experiential preparation of this select group. Test manuals
which report standardization procedural data often read as if the tests
are constructed for use with some "ideal" premolded groups who are
trained in some "utopian" educational setting (Hopkins, 1966). The
standardization of the mathematics concepts segment of the Stanford
Achievement Test Battery has received the following commentary by
Hopkins:

A more serious omission concerns the mathematical
background of the participating pupils. 'The major require-
ment for inclusion of a school system in the norm group
was that the system had a recognized modern mathematics
program in effect for a reasonable length of time in each
of the grades (5-9) being tested.' (Statement from manual)
This statement gives rise to several important but un-
answered questions. Which are the "recognized" programs?
Presumably, the SMSG regular and UICSM texts are among
the recognized programs. Does the SMSG-M text or the Ball
State Teachers College program qualify? Which program
approaches were actually included in the standardization
sample? What is the breakdown by percentage of pupils for
the various approaches involved? What constitutes a reason-
able length of time? Did "reasonable" include a 2-8 year
span in modern math background? These questions are
especially relevant since they are needed to ascertain wheth-
er a given school district could be considered as a member
of the population for which the norms apply. Hopkins,
1966, P. 333)

Obviously, the above critique suggests that often a test author may
either intentionally or unintentionally blindfold himself to the realities
of the practical situation in which the test is to be used. When we
combine the ambiguity of his criteria for inclusion in the norming
population with the well-known log behind the times of schools for
the disadvantaged, we come up with a curious situation. It would seem
that such tests as the above could at best have only minimal validity for
assessing the achievement of pupils exposed to haphazard, substan-
dard, and generally deficient instruction in mathematics. Attempts to
use an instrument standardized on the basis of such a rationale would
not so much involve the measurement of what the pupils have
achieved as it would the definitive determination of what they have
been taught.

17 SAVANNAH STATE COLLEGE LIBRARY

STATE COLLEGE BRANCH

&WAHNAH, GEORGIA

General Considerations

Evidence continues to mount to the effect that there is only an
incidental relationship between what goes on in school, as it has a
bearing for dealing with real problems, and what takes place outside
the school. Thusly, if the typical intelligence test measures the abilities
necessary for success in school, it is even further removed from the
prediction of success in effective living than the school is removed
from the business of preparation for effective living. The point here
is that often the assessment of intellectual development of disadvan-
taged groups fails due to the fact that the child's "practical intellect"
is developing in an entirely different from what the test presumes it
should.

Lower class children are underdeveloped when they start school
and learning difficulties might be alleviated considerably if teaching is
undertaken on an individualized diagnostic and treatment basis
(Wayson, 1967). An improvement in verbal ability would, in itself,
raise the total score on a general intelligence test, even though there
was no improvement in other factors (Lee, 1951).

Summary

This report is the result of an investigation of selected problem
areas which seem to have a bearing on the performance of disadvan-
taged groups on standardized tests. The problem areas were cultural
influences, motivation, and cognitive development. The plight of the
Negro was considered especially relevant.

Generally, the review of literature revealed a striking and consistent
set of adverse circumstances which come to bear on the intellectual
development of this unfortunate group. In some instances the evidence
weighs heavily in the direction of showing underdevelopment of capa-
cities. In others, it would seem that the development is not stunted,
but rather is pointed in a direction which is contrary to academic
goals and objectives.

At present the purposes of the schools do not seem to be in keeping
with meeting the needs of a large segment of the population. Since
intelligence and achievement assessment instruments relate for the
most to school problems, their use with disadvantaged groups is
somewhat of an anachronism. Certainly, the extent of their usage to
make judgements is unjustified. As long as the circumstances of the
disadvantaged remain the same, the tests remain the same, and the
schools remain as they are, we will continue to get the same results.
That is, low scores which reflect a composite set of unfortunate cir-
cumstances.

Conclusions. On the basis of the foregoing investigation, the writer
will submit the following specific tentative conclusions:

( 1 ) No one single factor may be pointed out as the cause of low test
performance of disadvantaged groups.

18

(2) Two of the most crucial factors in the cognitive domain which
are reflected in test performance are verbal facility and per-
ceptual ability.

(3) Intelligence development varies with the richness, variety, and
complexity of the environment over relatively extended periods
of time.

(4) Low test scores often are a reflection of a negative self-concept
and insufficient motivation.

(5) Often the practical intellect of the disadvantaged operates at
crosspurposes with the work of the school. As stated by Dreger
and Miller,

"It is naive to assume that the academic types of intel-
ligence tests which have traditionally been the instruments
of comparison compare in reality (sic) Negroes and whites
in those areas of intelligence which they are called upon to
use in "real life" situations. Intelligence test differences be-
tween Negroes and whites cannot mean the same as they
mean between two groups of whites." (Dreger and Miller,
1960, P. 373)

(6) Use of logical thought processes is aborted with this being re-
flected in test performance.

(7) Often assessment instruments possess only minimal validity and
reliability for use with disadvantaged groups.

As has been discussed elsewhere, the current state of affairs in
American society is such that the problems in this area will not soon
avail themselves of solution. The present aura of confusion combined
with a lack of knowledge of the complexity of the problem makes the
difficulty more than prominent. The practical significance of the prob-
lem of assessment of disadvantaged groups generates its own fascina-
tion, however, for the serious student of psychology.

Bibliography

Anderson, H. E., "Generalized effects of praise and reproof." Journal of Educa-
tional Psychology, 1966, 57, 169-173.

Appell, M. L., "Assessment; its may facets." Childhood Education, 1967, 43,
458-462.

Bloom, Benjamin S., Stability and Change in Human Characteristics, New York:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1965.

, Davis Allison, and Hess, Robert, Compensatory Education for Cul-
tural Depreciation, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1965.

Cooper, G. D., "Porteus test and Various measures of intelligence with Southern
Negro adolescents."

Crow, Lester D., Murray, Walter I. ,and Smythe, Hugh H., Education the
Culturally Disadvantaged Child, New York: David McKay Company, Inc.,
1966.

19

Dreger, R. M., and Miller, K. S., "Comparative Psychological studies of Negroes
and whites in the United States." Psychological Bulletin, 1960, 57, 361-
402.

Eells, Kenneth, et al., Intelligence' and Cultural Differences, Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1951.

Gadzella, B. M., and Bentall, G., "Differences in mental ability and academic
achievement of two groups of high school graduates." Journal of Educa-
tional Research, 1966, 60, 104-106.

Gary, D. L., "Class socialization patterns and their relationship to learning."
School and Society, 1966, 94, 349-352.

Getzels, Jacob W., Learning to learn and the education of the lower-class urban
child." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry , 1964, 34, 238-239.

Goslin, David, The Search for Ability, New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1963.

Haggard, E. A., "Social status and intelligence: An experimental study of
certain cultural determinants of measured intelligence." In S. Bech and
M. B. Molish (eds.), Reflexes to intelligence: A Reader in Clinical
Psychology, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1959, 141-187.

Hopkins, R. R., "Stanford Achievement Test: Modern Mathematics Concepts
Test" (Review). Journal of Educational Measurement, 1966, 3, 331-334.

Hyman, Ray, The Nature of Psychological Inquiry, New Jersey: Prentice Hall,

Inc., 1964.
Jenkins, M. D., "Intellectually superior Negro youth: Problems and Needs."

Journal of Negro Education, 1950, 19, 322-332.

Keller, Fred S., Learning: Reinforcement Theory. New York: Random House,
Inc., 1954.

Klineberg, Otts, Negro Intelligence and Selective Migration, New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1935.

Lee, E. S., "Negro Intelligence and selective migration: A Philadelphia test
of the Klineberg hypothesis." American Sociological Review, 1951, 16,
227-233.

Mays, W., "Philosophic critique of intelligence test." Educational Theory,

1966, 16, 218-239.

Michael, W. B., "An investigation of the contribution of factors to tests and
to their predictive value in two Army Air Force pilot populations."
American Psychologist, 1947, 2, 417-418.

Semler, I. J., and Iscoe, I., "Structure of intelligence in Negro and white
children." Journal of Educational Psychology, 1966, 57, 326-336.

Shuey, A. M., The Testing of Negro Intelligence, Lynchburg, Virginia: J. P.

Bell, Inc., 1958.
, The Testing of Negro Intelligence, Lynchburg, Virginia: J. P. Bell,

Inc., 1966.
Smith, Herbert W., May, Theodore, and Leborritz, Leon, "Testing experience

and Stanford-Binet scores." Journal of Educational Measurement, 1966, 3,

229-232.
St. John, N. H., "Effect of segregation on the aspirations of Negro youth."

Harvard Educational Review, 1966, 36, 284-294.

Terman, Lewis M., and Merrill, Maud A., Manual for the Stanford-Binet
Intelligence Scale, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960.

Tyler, Leona E., The Psychology of Human Differences, New York: Appleton-

Century-Crafts, 1965.
Wayson, W. W., "Needed: Diagnostic Attention." Educational Leadership,

1967, 24, 323-326.

Charles A. Asbury is an assistant professor in the Department of Education and
Psychology at Fayetteville State College.

20

Guaranteed Annual Income

by
Sarvan K. Bhatia

INTRODUCTION

We are living in a challenging time of social change a time for
re-evaluating the adequacy and equity of present programs of helping
only a small percentage of the U. S. population with a limited or no
income. Despite much progress, the anomaly of privation in plenty
continues, and a large share of that privation indeed more than in
earlier years is borne by the aged persons, women who must them-
selves serve as family heads, Negroes, and others who in our society
have a hard time earning enough to support themselves and their
dependents. This is not to say that such groups fare worse in the
absolute sense than their counterparts of yesteryear but rather that
today they have fewer around to keep them company. (The number
of poor people has been constantly on the decline. For example, at
the end of 1959, a total of 38.9 million persons were poor whereas
in 1963, this figure was about 35.4 million. By 1966, the number had
been further reduced to only 28.7 million.) Public programs do exist
to provide income when earnings are interrupted or lacking altogether,
but they are limited in both how much they may pay and to whom
they will pay. Thus, some get no help at all from any public program
though their other sources of income are well below what they need
while others, who do get such help, are still poor after the payments. 1

In addition, we are going through a period of technological revolu-
tion. Industrial revolution started about two hundred years ago; ac-
cording to some authorities, we are currently going through a second
industrial revolution and the changes that have taken place in the past
twenty-five years are no longer exclusively quantitative; they are
qualitative as well. Automation and computers have now become
household words. We blend these together and come to a new word
"cybernation" which has been defined as the attempt to apply the
science of cybernetics to (i) the process of industrial production, and
(ii) the management and control of data. 2 In what context cyberna-
tion is related to the guaranteed annual income becomes clear when
we look at the number of jobs being taken away by cybernation and
the resulting increase in the number of the unemployed. 3

1 Of the 60.5 million households in the United States in March 1966 counting
as a household an unrelated individual as well as a family of two or more
19.5 million or just under 1 in 3 reported that someone in the household
received payment from a public income-maintenance program sometime
during 1965. This included the social security payments which accounted
for 22 per cent of the total.

2 Robert Theobald, The Guaranteed Income: Next Step in Economic Evolu-
tion, (New York: Doubleday & Co.), 1966, p. 32.

3 For example, auto workers produced a million more trucks and cars in 1963
with 20 per cent fewer workers, than they did in 1953. In recent years,

21

Until a few years ago, the merits of several alternative approaches
to poverty a negative income tax, a guaranteed annual income,
family allowances, and an enriched, restructured public assistance sys-
tem were largely discussed in theoretical terms by the economist,
welfare administrator, social work faculty members and by some busi-
ness leaders and government officials. Automation, and later cyber-
nation, which in certain cases have led to displacement of human
labor by machinery, has further intensified the discussion of this sub-
ject. In the year 1966, the National Commission on Technology, Auto-
mation and Economic Progress in its report suggested that Congress
go beyond merely improving such existing programs of income support
as social security and "examine wholly new approaches to the prob-
lem of income maintenance." It also recomended for consideration
the question of providing a minimum income allowance of negative
income tax program to approach by stages the goal of eliminating the
need for means to test public assistance programs, by providing a floor
of adequate incomes. 4

Similarly, the broadly representative Advisory Council on Public
Welfare in its report, issued in 1966, called for sweeping changes in
both welfare concept and program. Two of the basic proposals made
in this report are stated below very briefly:

One proposal recognizes that, in the last analysis, the only cure for
poverty is money and that if the seriously deprived are to take prom-
ises seriously and to do their part in using the educational, employ-
ment, and other opportunities opened to them through the anti-pov-
erty, education, and other new programs, they must have immediate
relief from the grinding poverty that saps their energies, destroys their
incentives, and literally prohibits their aspirations. This proposal will
therefore make need the only criterion for eligibility for public as-
sistance, eliminating the present categorical programs with their many
legal requirements of age, residence, physical, social, and other condi-
tions of eligibility which have nothing to do with financial need. It
would further simplify the establishment of eligibility by relying pri-
marily on the applicant's declarations of income and resources, with
spot checks and sample studies to ascertain that the system is working
properly and without abuse.

To assure adequacy of income, the Council proposes that the
federal government establish a standard minimum level of living below
which no one in the affluent United States would need to live. 5 While

there has been a loss of some 200,000 jobs in auto industry. In Flint,
Michigan, the United Auto Workers local membership dropped from about
28,000 in 1956 to 13,000 in 1962, and the men still produced the same number
of cars. Similarly, in the railroad industry, total employment dropped from
1.4 million in 1947 to 800,000 in 1960. A year later, it was down to 730,000.
Most of the loss has been attributed to technological change.

Not only the factory, but the office is being computerized which will

necessarily mean loss of jobs for hundreds and thousands of office workers.

Automation also threatens to slow down job expansion in government.
4 The Council was appointed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and

Welfare in accordance with a provision of the 1962 amendments to the Social

Security Act of 1935.
5 In aggregate wealth and individual opportunity, no nation in the world

22

allowances could be made for statistically defensible regional varia-
tions in living costs, the standard would be applied nationwide, with
the federal government making up the difference between that part of
the cost of a specific State government could afford to pay determined
in an objective manner in relation to the state's income and the amount
needed to meet the standard.

The second proposal related to the public welfare agency which
would become community's and every neighborhood's focal point for
the broad range of human services needed to counteract the dehuman-
izing trend of modern society. 6 Some services would be rendered, of
course, by a variety of other agencies in the same or nearby locations.
In addition to providing the poor with enough income to maintain,
hopefully, not just an emergency but a really wholesome living stan-
dard, the public welfare agency would offer them a variety of other
services, some designed to help them become able to earn adequate
incomes, others designed to remove cultural, health, or other barriers
to their absorption into the mainstream of community life.

The Characteristics of the Poor

Poverty in the United States is complex and widespread and the
poor have many different faces. Many families are poor because the
heads of households cannot work: they are either too old or too sick
or too severely handicapped, or they are the widowed or deserted
mothers of young children. Or, they may be the structurally unem-
ployed whose skills have either been replaced by automated mach-
inery, or they are unable to be retained to get suitable jobs. Or, in
certain exceptional cases, they are too "old" to get jobs because they
happen to be in their early forties and the employer would not like
to hire them because of extra expense by way of social security con-
tributions and pension plans. 7

For many of the poor, particularly in households headed by women,
it was the inability of the family breadwinner to find a job or keep
one that accounted for their economic plight. When the family head
did not work at all in 1966, one out of three families was counted
poor, compared with only one in seventeen when the family head was
on a job every week in the year. Nine and one-half million persons
were poor though they were in the family of a breadwinner who did
have a job throughout 1966. However, many families were poor be-
cause the head was unemployed part of the year. All told, among poor

matches the U.S. With the GNP going to be around $850 billion, the median
income of a family is approaching $8000. Yet, in the midst of this unparalleled
abundance, another nation dwells in grinding deprivation.
6 The Council's proposal that the guarantee of an adequate income be handled
through public welfare agencies, under an updated, greatly simplified public
assistance program rather than adapting some other federal mechanism to do
the job, reflects the growing concern about nonfinancial factors which isolate
the poor and tend to perpetuate their poverty. For details, see Ellen Winston,
"The Government's Role in Social Intervention", Welfare in Review, January

1967, p. 3.

7 For a detailed analysis, see Helen O. Nicol in Welfare in Review, June-
July, 1967, pp. 1-13, and Mollie Orshansky, Social Security Bulletin, March,

1968, pp. 3-33.

23

families headed by men under age 65, five out of six of the heads
worked some time in 1966, and the majority of those who did not
work were simply disabled and therefore unable to work. As could
be expected, the kind of job held was intimately related to the risk
of poverty. The most poverty-prone calling for men was farming or
unskilled labor; for women workers, it was domestic service. 8

Some of the other characteristics are the minority poor in urban
slums, the Appalachian poor in the "hollows", Indians on reservations
and farming, the Negro, and impoverished farmers wherever they try
to earn a living from the soil. Also included will be the Puerto Ricans
and the Mexican Americans in the southwest. We could also include
the working poor, who despite their minimum wage of $1.60 an hour,
effective February 1968, would hardly earn enough to be out of the
poverty limit of about $3350. 9 These workers include laborers, work-
ers in low skill service industries, farm and migrant workers, domestic
workers, owners of marginal businesses and marginal farms.

Included among the 45 million Americans designated as poor or
near poor in 1966 were 18-28 per cent children, and from 30-43 per
cent of the aged groups whose members could do little on their own
to improve their income. Minorities, however defined, were less
favored than the rest. Counted poor were nearly 25 per cent of those
living on the farms as compared with one in seven of the nonfarm
population. The total with low incomes included from 12 to 19 per
cent of the white population and from 41 to 54 per cent of the non-
white. Of the total in poverty, however, two out of three were white,
and among the near poor, four out of five were white. Some of the
characteristics of the poor are presented in a tabular form.

Table I
Characteristics of Poor Families, 1963

Poor

Percentage

Number of poor

families as

distribution

J

families (in

% of all US

of all poor

Characteristic

millions)

families

families

All poor families

7.2

15

100

Residence :

Farm

0.7

23

10

Nonfarm

6.5

15

90

Race of head:

White

5.2

12

72

Nonwhite

2.0

42

28

Type of family:

Husband and wife

5.0

12

70

Wife in paid labor force

0.9

7

13

Wife not in paid

labor force

4.1

15

57

Other male head

0.2

17

3

Female head

2.0

40

27

Source: Social Security Bulletin,

January 1965,

p. 12.

8 Orshansky, op. cit., p. 12.

9 When legislation creating the antipoverty program was first proposed in 1964,

24

The total for the poverty roster in 1966 denoted a drop of 9.3
million from the number counted poor in 1959, a year when nearly
every fourth person was living in a household with income insufficient
to cover even the barest necessities. The number called near poor 10
is now 15.2 million, very little different from the 15.8 million so char-
acterized in 1959. Where do these poor people live? We find that
about half of all the poor families one-seventh of the white poor
and two-thirds of the nonwhite lived in the southern states in 1966.
Incomes in that area continue to be lower than elsewhere by more
than could possibly be compensated for by any price differential; to
wit, the average per capita income for the period 1961-63 was $3,-
182 in the District of Columbia and only $1,305 in Miss., with
Alabama, Arkansas, and South Carolina having a little more than
$1,500. Despite the exodus of many nonwhite persons from the South
in recent years, the South still spells home for about half of all non-
white families in the country. It is thus the nonwhite population that
is most immediately affected by the region's economic disadvantage.
Moreover, the southern states support a larger proportion of their
population on public assistance than is true of the rest of the nation.

Mechanisms for Support

The income per head in the United States has been constantly on
the increase. The rapid and extraodinary economic growth exper-
ienced by the United States over the last 200 year period and the
wide distribution of the benefits of economic enterprises have enor-
mously reduced the extent of poverty in any absolute sense. How-
ever, poverty is in part a relative concept, and despite the enormous
increases in the per capita income, we still find many living in condi-
tions which are not deemed desirable. It is estimated that one out of
seven non-institutionalized Americans is in a household with money
income for the year below the poverty line. The poor, it has been
claimed, are distributed throughout eleven million households, which
contained one-sixth of the U. S. children under age 18. Indeed, such
youngsters in the year 1966 accounted for one half of all the poor
persons, as it was true in 1959.

Origin of Assistance Programs

Most of the present programs of helping the poor started only a
short time ago. State assistance to the poor started in the sixteenth

the figure of $3,000 was cited as the dividing line between the poor and the
non-poor. The figure was merely an approximation and it was estimated at
that time that some 30 million Americans would qualify as poor under this
definition. The Social Security Administration later completed a definition
of poverty and its standard has been in use by the Office of Economic Op-
portunity and other agencies. There are regional variations, but basically
this formula works out to mean that an average nonfarm family of four
with an income below $65 a week ($3,380) is classified as poor. The
formula also is used to define "near poor" families, for whom the maximum
is $85 a week.

10 Please refer to footnote No. 9 for explanation.

25

century, but on a large scale, beginnings of the state assistance pro-
grams can be traced to the decade of 1930s. During the Great Depres-
sion, local and state relief agencies were unable to cope with the
thousands of previously self-supporting workers who were unemployed
and required assistance. Thus the responsibility for providing funds
for relief, which up to then had rested with local authorities, shifted
to the Federal government. And with the passage of time, the amount
of assistance has increased very substantially. When we happen to
look at the whole problem in its historical perspective, we find that
as modern economies have advanced, governments in various coun-
tries of the world (with highly industrialized economies) have ac-
cepted increasing responsibility for maintaining the incomes of people
who do not have the ability to earn an adequate income through their
own efforts. People beyond the working age, the disabled, the invol-
untarily unemployed, dependent children and their families, and
other people with little or no incomes have received rising amounts
of social insurance and public assistance. 11 In the United States, there
are two broadly different approaches to income maintenance. On the
one hand, there are large programs of social insurance, financed by
earmarked payroll taxes with benefits fixed by formula and without
any suggestion of "charity". Such program include the Federal OAS-
DHI and unemployment insurance. The other approach is public as-
sistance, which is wholly based on need and financed out of general
revenues. Public assistance is given on a "case" basis, with each
recipient's "need" to be determined by budget studies of living costs
and analyses of his resources.

While social welfare programs, broadly defined, affected millions
of persons in the United States and accounted for nearly $66 billion
in benefits in 1963, there are still important gaps in various programs
of income maintenance. Although OASDHI benefits could be claimed
as a matter of right, families suffering from chronic unemployment
are ineligible for public assistance in many states, or for any prolonged
period. 12 Furthermore there are only limited provisions against loss of
earning power due to temporary disability. There are still many
individuals and families who receive little help because they do not
know how to seek, or who are poor for such reasons as mental illness,
alcoholism, or drug addition. 13 There are also great variations in
the intensity of effort with which communities search out the people
who need help.

Furthermore, various income maintenance programs have other

1:L In 1966, it was estimated that these income maintenance payments will total
about $35 billion, representing 17 per cent of all public expenditures, and
abut 5 per cent of gross national product. For a detailed account, please
refer to Christopher Green, Negative Taxes and the Poverty Problem (Wash-
ington, D.C. 1967).

12 Unemployment compensation, on an average, amounts to $24 a week and is
limited in most states to 26 weeks for employees under covered industries.

13 For a detailed analysis, please refer to Michael Harrington, The Other
America (New York, 1962), and Robert Shaplen, The Lost Revolution (New
York, 1966).

26

weaknesses. The levels of benefits are frequently inadequate: social
insurance benefits have not kept pace with the rise of real incomes in
our society; public assistance benefits vary widely among states and
among categories of low-income cases. In comparison to the systems
of other industrially developed nations, those in the United States
make less provision for the expenses of illness. 14 The federal govern-
ment has placed particular emphasis in the last few years on removal
of the causes of poverty through investment in education and train-
ing, promotion of equality of opportunity, and job creation through
an expansionary economic policy.

New Income Maintenance Proposals

Among the earliest proponents of some form of new income main-
tenance program were Robert Theobald, Milton Friedman and Robert
Lampman. These noted writers, as well as others in favor of a
guaranteed annual income, are not necessarily wedded irrevocably to
a specific income guarantee. Rather, the proposals advanced by all
the writers in expaining their programs are offered more for the pur-
pose of illustration than as a precise income support program.

According to Robert Theobald in his Free Men and Free Markets,
the way to eliminate poverty is to supply "money rather than moral
uplift, cultural refinements, extended education, retraining programs
or makework jobs." Accordingly, he argues that a program of income
guarantee is necessary because automation will ultimately erode the
availability of conventional jobs, and therefore make it necessary to
substitute a way of providing some income unrelated to work. Theo-
bald accordingly approaches the whole subject of guaranteed annual
income from the standpoint of automation and its impact on employ-
ment. Or, he poses the question that what practical steps need to be
taken in order to reap the benefits of the scientific and technological
revolution. Rather than facing the destructive effects of man's ability
to increase production with cybernation, it is suggested that we could
turn the science of economics into a blessing by enabling the society
to increase its aggregate demand by guaranteeing an annual income
to every one without regard to work availability. From Theobald's
point of view, it is the attempt to keep the economy growing fast
enough to provide for jobs for all that harnesses man to the juggernaut
of science and technological change and that keeps us living with "a
whirling-dervish economy dependent on compulsive consumption."

Another equally important proposal is made by Friedman in his
Capitalism and Freedom wherein Friedman accepting the neighbor-
hood effect of public assistance justifies governmental action to al-
leviate poverty; to set a floor under the standard of life of every person

14 In Henry Aaron's view, the age or maturity of the social security system
is clearly relevant to a country's expenditure on the program. For some
programs, such as pensions, eligibility for and participation in benefits often
depend on the length of past covered employment. For details, see Otto
Eckstein (ed), Studies in the Economics of Income Maintenance (Washing-
ton, D.C., 1967), pp. 15-16.

27

in the community. 15 If the objective is to alleviate poverty, there
should be a program directed at helping the poor, and as far as pos-
sible, the program should, while operating through the market, not
distort the market or impede its functioning, The arrangement, ac-
cording to Friedman, that recommends itself on purely mechanical
grounds is a negative income tax. 16 Under his plan, if the family of
four had no income, it would receive a payment from the government
of $1,500, or 50 per cent of the $3,000 break-even figure. 17 If the
family had a pre-tax income of $2,000, it would have a negative tax-
able income of $1,000 and thus would be entitled to a $500 payment
from the government. Friedman proposes the negative income tax
proposal "as a substitute for present welfare programs; as a device for
accomplishing the objective of those programs more efficiently, at
lower cost to the taxpayer and with a sharp reduction in bureaucracy."

Another widely discussed mechanism for providing the poor with
an adequate income is a children's or family allowance. Every highly
developed nation, with the exception of the United States, does have
its family allowance laws. Two of the leading exponents of this plan
are Alvin Schorr and Daniel Moynihan. Criticizing a negative income
tax system of income maintenance as totally inadequate and set "in
a poor-law framework", Schorr has argued that a family allowance
plan would be simpler to administer, more equitable and have the
added benefit of being essentially an income-by-right program. Under
Schorr's family plan, a benefit of $50 a month would be paid for each
child under six years old, and ten dollars a month for each older
child, in rich and poor families alike. However, present income tax
exemptions for children would be eliminated and the allowance itself
would be taxed. Thus, high income families would have to pay more
taxes while low income families would have a net gain in income. Such
a program, it is argued, would take three out of four children out of
poverty, does not interfere with work incentives for the family and
would not affect the birth rate. According to Schorr, a family allow-
ance "is only one means of bolstering income in order to close the
widening gap between the haves and the havenots."

According to Keyserling, former chairman of the Council of Eco-
nomic Advisers, a guaranteed annual income would be achieved if
"an adequate, national full-employment and income policy" were
adopted which was really the mandate of the Employment Act of
1946. Grafted on that, he says, should be guaranteed income to
"those who cannot or should not" qualify for gainful employment be-
cause of age or other disability. This kind of pluralistic approach to

15 Friendman is, however, opposed to parity price support programs for
agriculture, tariffs on imports, rent control, minimum wage laws, present
social security program, national parks, etc. For details, see pp. 35-36.

16 ibid., pp. 191-92.

17 As explained by Friedman, under current tax laws, a family of four has
exemptions plus standard deductions equal to $3,000. Hence, if the family
had income of $3,000, itt would pay no tax $3,000 would be break-even
point. Above this figure, the family would have to pay income tax under
the current law.

28

a guaranteed income for all calls for better wages for those who have
jobs, expanded job opportunities for those without jobs as well as ex-
panded job training programs, improved unemployment benefits for
those temporarily out of work, increased wage-related benefits such
as Social Security for those too old to work and finally, some form
of limited income tax plan for those who are unable to work. Equally
important are some of the proposals under consideration by some
congressmen to raise incomes to certain acceptable minimum stan-
dards by a program of guaranteeing jobs for all who want them.

Before concluding it will be pertinent to point out that there are two
different approaches to this whole question of guaranteed annual in-
come. One by Theobald refers to the fact that policies of non-interven-
tion on the part of government in the economic functionings resulted
from the belief that the efficient operation of free markets also pro-
vide the individual with increasing freedom. However, the favorable
effect of the efficient operation of the market on the freedom of the
individual was never as great as was assumed by much of the econom-
ic and political thought of the nineteenth century. The Great Depres-
sion of the 1930 forced the final abandonment of the extreme, Adam
Smith version of the free market mechanism. Governments therefore
found throughout the world more so, in the United States that they
had to intervene increasingly in the socioeconomic system as it became
obvious that the operation of the market, however efficient, would
not furnish enough employment.

According to Theobald, the same concern underlies the present
proposals under consideration for a guaranteed income. Two im-
portant factors have been the stimuli to this discussion. First, a grow-
ing number of experts have concluded that the continuing impact of
technological change will make it impossible to provide jobs for all
who seek them. And the second factor is the growing realization that
extreme poverty could be eliminated by spending less than 2 per cent
of the gross national product.

On the other hand, however, many believe that the present market
system can keep on providing the necessary number of jobs, if left
to itself. Considering the increase in labor force amounting to 1.5
million a year, a current growth rate of more than 6 per cent, and the
rate of unemployment of less than 4 per cent, we could be somewhat
optimistic about the efficient working of the market economy. How-
ever, the present period of prosperity could not be expected to last
for ever; the Vietnam war has much to do with it. Looking back to
the decade of 1950s, the rate of growth was less than 3 per cent, and
the rate of unemployment was more than 5 per cent, on an average.
Since then, rapid rate of innovations has further eroded the job op-
portunities while the population keeps on growing at an annual rate
of 2 per cent. To conclude, therefore, the ever-growing threat of un-
employment resulting from advanced technology, the growing abun-
dance made possible by this technology, and the manifest inapplicabil-
ity of the only existing accepted theory of income distribution have
made it inevitable that a wide range of ideas on the subject of income

29

distribution and organization of human activity would be advanced;
hence various proposals of guaranteed annual income.

30

Economic Development And

The Developing Nations

by
Sarvan K. Bhatia*
Introduction:

While science and technology are making rapid strides, adding to
the convenience and comforts of men at an alarming rate, and man's
venture into outer space has achieved spectacular results, we find
significantly large numbers of the human race still living in sub-human
conditions and working much the same way as their ancestors. Only
a relatively small proportion of the world population has been able
to enjoy the fruits of modern technology and has forged ahead to
ever-higher levels of productivity and standards of living. Moreover,
we find that with the exception of Japan, which is situated in the
Asian continent, all other highly industrialized countries of the world
are either in North America or in Western Europe; there is, so to
speak, a geographical disparity among the developed and the develop-
ing nations of the world. Furthermore, it is to be noted that of the
aggregate national income of all the countries that are members of
the International Monetary Fund, a special agency of the United Na-
tions, the share of the most industrialized countries the United States,
Western Europe, and Japan is about 75 per cent, while their share
of total population is only about 25 per cent. On the other hand, how-
ever, the share of national income of the primary producing countries
is 25 per cent, and their share of population is about 75 per cent
the shares being reversed among the developed and developing na-
tions of the world. 1

The income gap

Of greater significance is the fact that the share of the aggregate
national income among the highly industrialized countries of the world
has been constanly growing while that of the less developed nations
has been persistently on the decline despite concerted efforts on their
part to grow, economically speaking. 2 The table on page 32 gives
details of distribution of world income among various countries of
the world.

Looking at the above figures, it is to be noticed that the largest
percentage increase in share of world income has occurred in respect
to North America: from 14.8 per cent in 1860 to 37.4 per cent, that
is, over a period of one century. Again, in percentage terms, the
Soviet Union has also shown a remarkable economic development
and growth: from 4.0 per cent in 1860 to 17.4 per cent in 1960.
Rather less spectacular is the growth of Latin America, Oceania and

^Professor of Economics, Armstrong State College, Savannah, Ga.

1 Per Jacobsson, International Monetary Problems, 1957-1963 (Washington,

1964) pp. 182-3.
2 For details, see Stephen Enke, Economics for Development (Englewood

Cliffs, N.J., 1963), pp. 16-62.

31

Table

1

The Distribution of World Income

Share of

Percentage

share

Population

of income

Region

1860

1913

1960

1860

1913

1960

North America

3.1

6.3

8.0

14.8

34.3

37.3

Oceania

0.1

0.4

0.5

0.5

1.4

1.0

Europe

19.1

19.7

16.2

39.1

35.0

14.0

Latin America

3.3

6.3

8.0

4.0

4.1

6.3

Soviet Union

6.8

8.7

8.6

4.0

7.4

17.4

Far East

2.3

3.9

5.1

1.4

1.8

1.3

China

40.2

32.5

27.1

19.8

8.0

7.3

Japan

2.9

3.2

3.7

1.6

1.5

2.5

Southeast Asia

22.3

20.3

22.7

11.8

6.9

2.6

Source; Adapted from L. J. Zimmerman, Poor Lands, Rich Lands: The Widen-
ing Gap (New York, 1965), pp. 35-37.

Japan. But on the other hand, Europe's relative position has worsened;
its share having dropped from a high of 39.1 per cent to only 14 per
cent a century later thereby indicative of rapid economic growth in
other countries of the world following the industrial revolution of the
eighteenth century. At the other extreme, however, the cases of China
and Southeast Asia, in particular, point out the rapid and drastic
decline in the income distribution. In respect of the Southeast Asian
countries, among others India and Pakistan, while the loss in percent-
age share of world income is considerable, the population has re-
mained at almost the same level. As Higgins mentions the fact, in
the course of one century, "the share of the quarter of world's pop-
ulation living in the world's richest countries increased from 58 per
cent to 72 per cent; the share of the next richest quarter rose from
15.5 per cent to 19 per cent; the share of the next quarter fell from
14 per cent to 7 per cent, and the share of the quarter of the pop-
ulation living in the poorest countries dropped from 12.5 per cent to
a mere 3 per cent." 3

The Historical Perspective

When we hapen to look at the world's economic history, we find
that the present-day poor and developing nations of the world in
terms of per capita income have remained at the lowest ladder al-
ways. Rather, some of the less developed nations were, just a few
hundred years ago, some of the richest countries in the world; at a
time, when the American continent had not been found, and most of
Europe was, economically speaking, a backward region, these coun-
tries had possessed most of the riches. As Barbara Ward points to

3 Benjamin Higgins, Economic Development (New York, 1968), p. 5.

Also see William N. Loucks, Comparative Economic System (New York.
1965) for an analysis of various economic systems and development of
present-day industrially advanced countries of the world.

32

the facts of history, "for centuries, for millennia, the East had been the
region of known and admired wealth. It was to the Orient that men
looked when they spoke of traditional forms of riches: gold and dia-
monds, precious ointments, rare spices, extravagant brocades and
silks. In fact, for over a thousand years, one of the great drives in the
Western economy was to open trade with the wealthier East. And
one of the problems facing that trade . . . was the West's inability to
provide very much in return." 4

Over the centuries, however, the situation has very considerably
changed. It started about two hundred years ago with the advent of
industrial revolution, and the whole environment has so completely
changed the relative economic positions of the countries that in the
decade of 1960s, the percentage share of some of the developing na-
tions, i.e., China and countries in Southeast Asia, dropped from
almost one-third of world income in 1860 to less than one-tenth in
1960. The countries in these regions have 49.8 per cent of world
population; in other words, almost one-half of world population has
about 10 per cent of world income.

What is even more frustrating for the developing nations is that
the income gap between the industrially advanced nations and them is
widening, instead of being narrowed down. As will be seen from the
table below, the gap in per capita incomes between the developed and
developing countries is still growing rapidly. This is due to the fact
that the rates of population growth for the underdeveloped countries,
taken as a whole, are much higher as compared with the developed
countries.

Table 2

Current Growth Rates of Income and of Population,

Average for Developed and Developing Nations

Per cent growth rates per year

Of income
Of population
Of income per capita
GNP per capita

Growth of GNP per capita,
in dollars (US) per year

Developed

Developing

nations

nations

4.4

4.7

1.3

2.4

3.1

2.3

$1,828

$400 - 800

$57

9-11

Source: Theodore Morgan, "Economic Planning-Points of Success and Failure'
in The Philippine Economic Journal, 1965, p. 404.

4 Barbara Ward, The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations (New York, 1962),
p. 39.

Also see Asa Briggs in Technology and Economic Development (1936), p.
4 wherein he remarks, "Poverty is not, of course, a new condition in human
affairs. Some of the poor nations were once world powers and were held
to be rich as well as powerful."

On the subject of development through trade, refer to Gerald M. Meier,
International Trade and Development (New York, 1963), pp. 151-192.

33

The plight of developing nations, therefore, does not seem to be
very promising. The United Nations had declared the decade of 1960s
as the Development Decade. Yet, in the light of poor performance by
these countries, it is being sometimes referred to as the Decade of
Disappointment by some noted authorities. Furthermore, disaster is
being predicted if conditions do not improve for more than two billion
people living in these developing nations out of nearly 3.5 billion
which is the total world population. Nearly 60 percent of the world
population, therefore, lives under conditions which cannot be toler-
ated. 5 The table below indicates an average annual rate of growth of
nearly 5 per cent for the real gross national product of various regions
in the world and yet the last column relating to per capita gross na-
tional product shows a very small increase primarily because of enor-
mous population increase.

Table 3

Real Gross National Product of Developing

Nations: Rates of growth in total output,
population and per capita GNP- 1960-65

Percentage increase in

Region

Gross National

Population

Per capita

Product

GNP

Africa

3.6

2.2

1.4

South Asia*

3.2

2.4

0.8

East Asia*

5.0

2.6

2.3

South Europe

7.2

1.4

5.7

Latin America

4.7

2.9

1.7

Middle East

7.2

3.2

3.9

All Developing Nations

4.8

2.4

2.3

*In Table 1, these two regions were put together because separate data were
not available.

Source: "World Bank and U.N." in World Bank and IDA, p. 26.

Growth Theories

The publication of Keynes' General Theory of Employment, In-
terest, and Money in 1936 was followed by a spate of theories relating
to the requirements for steady economic growth. Some writers, in-
cluding the famous French economist, Francois Perroux, have sought
to distinguish "growth" from "development". Fundamentally, growth
consists of rising national and per capita real income; development
entails a good deal more structural change, technological advance,

5 For a detailed study, please refer to Alan B. Mountjoy, Industrialization and
Underdeveloped Countries (Chicago, 1967), pp. 45-79.

34

resource discovery, and closing sectoral and regional gaps. The prob-
lem of maintaining steady growth where it is already occurring is
complex enough, according to Higgins, but it is simple in comparison
to the problem of launching and sustaining development in an under-
developed country. It may be questioned whether high rates of growth
can be maintained for very long without development. Conceptually,
however, it is possible for an economy to grow without developing;
indeed, India seems to have done just that in the early postwar years,
as Higgins points out. Development without growth is a little harder
to imagine.

Of the various theories on the subject, two merit special attention.
One is by Hansen which contains elements of a true development the-
ory, and the second is by Harrod which is a pure theory of growth.
Harrod's essay "Towards a Dynamic Economics" has the main attri-
butes of a truly dynamic theory. He concentrates upon the explana-
tion of secular trends; insisting that it is precisely this explanation of
trends that is the distinguishing characteristic of dynamic economics.
Comparative statics, he argues, are still statics; more than imperfect
foresight, or imperfect knowledge, or mere change, or presence of
expectations, or lags and frictions, or "dating" of variables is needed
to take us into the realm of economic dynamics. Harrod's theory is,
therefore, directed toward an explanation of the secular causes of un-
employment and inflation, and of the factors determining the optimum
and the actual rate of capital accumlation. On the basis of his analysis,
Harrod concludes that advanced countries will soon confront the
problems of a chronic deflationary gap (and by inference that deve-
loping nations will continue to be handicapped by a chronic inflation-
ary gap, as it is true in respect of all of these countries without ex-
ception) unless appropriate policies are pursued.

In Harrod's system of growth, three "fundamental elements" are
involved: 1. manpower, 2. output per head, and 3. quantity of capital
available. 7 The second of these presumably breaks down into (a) level
of technique, and (b) supplies of known resources. Changes in out-
put are however discussed purely in terms of "inventions", which in
turn are linked to the ratio of required capital to output. More gener-
ally, Harrod's concept of capital requirements, C r , could be translated
as follows. Let I r be required net savings and investment, Y be na-
tional income, and p (period of investment) be the "capital coef-
ficient" in terms of the ratio of required capital to output. Then

I r = AY . p and C r = I r

Y AY

In an economy with a growing population and no technological
progress, capital requirements will increase proportionately to the
population. So also, according to Harrod, will "hump" savings and
corporate savings. Of course, total savings may tend to grow faster

3 See Higgins, op. cit., for details, pp. 106-46.

'For details, see R. F. Harrod, Towards a Dynamic Economics (London,
1948).

35

than capital requirements, leading to a condition of chronic excess
savings; this however has not hapepned in developing nations. Harrod
was concerned with conditions that would keep entrepreneurs content
with their investment plans so that they would repeat in each period
the investment decisions of earlier periods. However, if wages are too
high in relation to prices, profits are squeezed, investment falls, and
with it income and employment. On the other hand, if wages are too
low in relation to prices, there is a "shift to profits", the propensity
to consume falls, investment follows, and income and employment fall
again. These are being referred to as "lapses from steady growth".

The main contributions of the Hansen thesis to a general theory of
development are 1 . Providing a more complete theory of autonomous
(long run) investment, 2. Recognition that chronic and growing gaps
between potential gross national product and actual gross national
product can arise from acceleration or deceleration of the growth rates
of basic factors influencing autonomous investment, and 3. Putting
empirical content into his model by applying it to a particular country
at a particular time. Dividing investment into its major components
and spelling out the multiplier formula, we obtain the following equa-
tion according to Higgins:

1

o a = (mo.) + i g + Ia (l, k, t)

dS/dO a + d r /dO a

where O a k . I a (O a stands for actual output, gross national prod-
uct, or income at constant prices) , I a for total net investment, and
K for the Keynesian multiplier. 8 S is saving; r is taxes; O a = do a /dt,
or the variation in gross national product through time, Ii is induced
investment, I g is government investment, Ia is autonomous invest-
ment, L is dL/dt, the rate of population growth, K is dK/dt, the
rate of resource discovery, and T is dT/dt, the rate of technological
progress.

Using O p for potential output (gross national product at full em-
ployment) , we also have

O p = f (L, K, Q, T)

This equation expresses the now familiar production function that
has appeared in most of the development systems. Here, L, K, Q, and
T stand for the supplies of labor, resources, capital equipment, and
technology available, rather than the amounts actually used in produc-
tion. Looking at developing nations, we find that both K and T are
low and are not increasing rapidly, that is, the rates of technological
progress and resource discovery are not particularly high, and are
not noticeably rising. Autonomous investment is on a very low level,
too. Public investment is also low, because of limited tax and borrow-
ing capacity of the governments concerned. Thus, national income is
not rising very rapidly either and induced investment will be close
to zero. With low levels of income, the average and marginal propen-

8 Higgins, op. cit., p. 122. Also please refer to Wallace C. Peterson, Income,
Employment and Economic Growth (New York, 1962), pp. 491-503.

36

sity to save is also low. The multiplier accordingly is high, but there
is nothing to multiply. The result is an economy which stagnates with
levels of per capita income close to the subsistence level. 9

Technology and Role of Government

This brings us to the points at issue raised above as to how to
tackle the questions of growth and development. The side by side
existence in the modern world of developed and underdeveloped
countries has suggested to hopeful citizens that the poverty can be
cured by rapid, systematic and large-scale transfer of technology that
has produced such great wealth for the industrially advanced nations.
The developing nations, however, according to numerous authorities
cannot simply import the industrial revolution from abroad, uncrate
it like a piece of machinery, and set it in motion. While the availability
of modern industrial technology is a possibility and thereby the
developing countries can bypass the difficult period of transition which
the developed nations had to undergo, there are certain prerequisites
for borrowing advanced technology. For example, the borrowing
involves the recipient country in economic and political as well as
cultural relations with the lending country. As the more extensive
development process of Nigeria, India, and Brazil indicates these
countries have entered on their present course of development from
diverse historical backgrounds and a variety of economic situations. 10
At the same time, there is Burma for example in which material
improvement does not rank high in the scale of values accepted by
most of the population.

Economic development in turn also requires a set of institutions,
habits, incentives, and motivations such that the inputs necessary to
a continuous increase in output are self-generating. The essential in-
puts are capital, trained manpower, and technology, and they are
likely to be self-generating only in an environment in which the
population seeks to improve its physical well-being and in which the
rewards of effort are roughly in proportion to the productivity of
effort. Despite many problems and shortcomings, however, in most
of the developing nations, national income and GNP have been grow-
ing somewhat faster than population, as mentioned earlier in Table 3.
By and large, in all the underdeveloped countries, savings as a
proportion of income are increasing, education and training programs
are producing results, and the spread and adaptation of advanced
technology, assisted in some cases by extensive foreign aid, is stimulat-
ing productivity. 11

9 ibid, pp. 121-22, 23, and 145. For a detailed analysis, please look to Han-
sen's Presidential Address to the AEA, 1939, and his Full Recovery or Stag-
nation (New York, 1938).

10 For details, see Technology and Economic Development, op. cit.

"Government of India, India in Perspective (New Delhi, 1967), p. 4. wherein
the proportion of savings to national income is stated as 5.3% in 1951-52,
9.5% in 1956-57, and 11% in 1967.

37

Role of Government

Many of the developing nations joined the community of twentieth-
century nation-states in the decades of 1940s, 1950s, and in respect
of the African continent, in 1960s. The people having won their
independence, the nationalist leaders recognized that the pledges of
the independence movement would not be redeemed until the mass
of the people were assured work, a tolerable standard of life, and
opportunity for continued advancement. All these countries are now,
therefore, committed to a crucial experiment in economic development.
These nations believe that industrialization and the attendant radical
reconstruction of society can be achieved fairly rapidly and without
reliance on class hatred or the invocation of violence and coercion.
And yet, the frustrations of not being able to develop rapidly, or to
provide a better standard of living during the last few years to
the growing populations, have made these developing nations think
which resume of "revolutions" to follow. As Barbara Ward points
out:

Communism claims to be the pattern of the future and
to hold the secret of the next phase of history for mankind.
In one sense, the claim is serious. Communism is a sort of
resume of the revolutions that make up modernization and
it offers a method of applying them speedily to societies
caught fast in the dilemmas of transition. We must, there-
fore, admit that, at the present, the poor nations, the
uncommitted nations, face a double challenge. They face
an enormous challenge of change. But, in addition, they face
an equally vast challenge of choice. 12

The dominance of private sector in the life of developing nations
obscures the role their governments seek or are called upon to
play in their economic development. If one looks at the figures for
new investment, that role becomes clearer. In Latin-American coun-
tries, for example, from 40 to 50 per cent of new investment is
typically public. In India, well over 50 per cent of planned investment
in the Third Five-Year Plan was in the public sector, and in Pakistan,
the figure is closer to two-thirds. Nor is the role of government in the
channeling of economic activity limited to the area of public invest-
ment as conventionally defined. Economic functions, as for example,
the exploitation of mineral resources and development of such in-
dustries as steel, fertilizer, and cement, are typically in public sector
in developing nations.

A question could be raised why is it necessary for the government
to undertake such economic functions? Foremost among the objective
considerations for developing nations is the large priority that must
be given to roads, railways, industrial estates, harbors, power gen-
eration and distribution, communications, irrigation, and the like.
The capital requirements for such facilities will normally account for
something more than half the total investment. And unless the
infrastructure is provided for, it is almost impossible to think of any

12 Ward, op. cit., pp. 60-61.

38

economic development. Since the private capital is not interested in
these projects, for obvious reasons, it has fallen upon the governments
of developing nations to provide the necessary capital finance, organ-
ization, planning and management, and the operation of such under-
takings. 13

Similarly, the government is likely to be active in the transfer of
technology. During the nineteenth century, foreign private investment
and enterprise were the overwhelmingly important agencies of technical
transfer and capital in most countries. Currently, these programs
involve expenditures of at least $500 million a year. This type of
technical transfer inevitably involves the extensive participation of
government in the aid-receiving country. Much the same sort of
experience is to be noticed in the area of capital transfer. In 1961, of
the total flow of $8.75 billion in long-term funds from developed to
developing nations outside the Soviet bloc, nearly $6 billion repre-
sented public loans and grants. (Aid from the Soviet bloc to develop-
ing nations comes to about one billion dollars, mostly in the form
of long-term loans at low interest rates and payable in commodities.)
Most of these funds were used to finance activities in the public sec-
tor. This tendency is reinforced by the fact that the international and
national lending and granting agencies prefer large projects; large
projects, in turn, fall in the public sector in developing nations without
highly developed private enterprise.

Development: A Multi-Faceted Problem

The problems of developing nations can be approached in many
ways. For, example, it could be solved through increased foreign aid,
more trade with these countries by industrially advanced countries on
a preferential basis, or by stabilizing the export earnings of these
countries through various compensatory, financing schemes that are
proposed by International Monetary Fund and the Bank for Recon-
struction and Development. Other proposals include long-run stabil-
ization plans for agricultural output, an intensified effort to build up
manufacturing facilities, and often a significantly expanded role for
the government sector.

In the past several years, renewed emphasis has been placed on the
development assistance provided by direct investment from the in-
dustrialized countries, in particular the United States. 14 The difficulty

13 Perhaps the foremost example of government-stimulated and government-
guided development in any private enterprise economy is provided by Japan.
Here, the state directed investment by establishing public-owned enterprises,
undertaking joint ventures with private capital, subsidizing private investment
and guaranteeing returns, and buying extensively for its own military and
civilian accounts. See TECHNOLOGY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOP-
MENT, op. cit., pp. 186-87.

14 Such assistance, however, is not new. In the latter half of the nineteenth
century, private investors from Britain were investing annually large sums
overseas and that by 1913 this amounted annually to 7 per cent of the
British national income. But this episode perhaps cannot be repeated. For
details, see J. P. Belshaw, in Economic Development (Boston, 1964), pp.
2-8.

39

with direct, private, foreign investment has been the limited amounts
available. However, another approach towards development has been
the use of regional development programs as for example in East
Africa and in Latin America. Although the East African and Central
American regional cooperations appear to be making some progress,
the big Latin American Free Trade Association is bogged down in
frustration. Economic growth is slow, internal reforms are minimal
and the development program, known as the Alliance for Progress,
is confronted by impasse after impasse because of political consider-
ations.

One of the best ways to accelerate the pace of development is by
heavy doses of foreign aid to developing nations by the highly ad-
vanced and industrialized nations. The United States extends by far
the largest amount of aid to such countries. Now, most of the U.S.
development loans are used for specific social and economic develop-
ment projects, or to finance programs benefitting the private sector
as a way of supporting economic growth. (Somewhere between 90 to
95% of these funds are incidentally spent within the U.S.) U.S. aid
is now also restricted to the developing countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America. Though some 70 countries benefit by this aid, more
than 90 per cent of the aid is concentrated in about 25 countries
which are better able to utilize it. Total aid at present is only
about one-half of one per cent of the U.S. GNP; the table below
shows the percentage amount of aid in relation to GNP for various
countries.

Table 4

Official Foreign Aid as Percentage of

Gross National Product

1961

Country

%age of GNP

France

1.50

Belgium

0.73

United States

0.67

United Kingdom

0.59

Netherlands

0.56

Western Germany

0.53

Australia

0.46

Japan

0.45

Canada

0.17

i '-.

Source: United Nations, World Economic Survey 1963.

To make the matters even more depressing, the four largest Western
donors did not increase their aid between 1961 and 1966, while
France, though giving the highest assistance in relation to national
income, has actually a declining trend in development aid since

40

V'fc*?

1962. 15 Similarly, the U.S. last year, 1967, extended foreign aid to
the extent of less than $2.3 billion dollars out of nearly $800 billion
GNP, and in the year 1968, the U.S. congress voted for less than
$2 billion when the GNP is expected to reach $850 billion, i.e., less
than one-fourth of 1%. Contrast it with the foreign aid extended
during the second half of 1940s to the western European countries
which enabled such countries to develop and remain free and dem-
ocratic. During the years 1945-48, $16.8 billion was given in aid,
or on an average about $5.6 billion a year when the average GNP
during this period was about $220 billion, or more than 2.7% of
the GNP. In 1948 the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan)
was started, and well over $10 billion were channeled into this pro-
gram, virtually all of it in the form of outright grants, during a brief
period of about four years. And immediately thereafter started the
Mutual Security Programs which enabled Europe to obtain further
assistance from the United States. In addition, the International
Monetary Fund, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development provided the development finance to help rehabilitate
the war-torn European economies.

It is this kind of aid which is so badly needed by the developing
nations to help them to stay alive, to stay free from totalitarian regimes,
and above all to bring a higher standard of living for their masses
which will in turn promote the economic well-being of developed
nations also. A major problem of developing countries is the dif-
ficulty of maintaining economic development plans when aid is
inadequate, while at the same time having a very substantial, external
debt problem. The substantial size of such external debt and the
service payments on this debt in 1966 are shown below.

Table 5

External Debt outstanding and Debt Service Payments

of the Debtor Countries 1966

Country

Debt outstanding
including undisbursed
(billions)

Service
Amount
(billions)

payments
As %age of exports

India

$6.90

$0.35

22.0%

Brazil

2.93

0.55

29.4

Mexico

2.15

0.46

21.4

Yugoslavia

1.67

0.27

20.0

Iran

1.10

0.07

5.0

Nigeria

0.61

0.05

5.4

Source: World

Bank and IDA Annual Report, 1966/67

5 IBRD, World Bank and IDA Annual Report, 1966/67 (Washington, 1967),
p.34. In spite of the declining percentage of resources which the developed
nations are devoting to developing countries, such assistance has been in-
valuable in countries as for example Iran, Israel, South Korea, Malaysia,
Mexico, Pakistan, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, etc. In these countries and
others, development has been successful and has been greatly attributed to

f rei8n aSSiStanCe - 41 SAVANNAH STATE COLLEGE llBHm

STATE COLLEGE BRANCH

To conclude, the problems facing all developing nations are not the
same. There are some countries, the majority of them, in which the
population in relation to their resources is too large, and so the prob-
lem of underdevelopment. There are others, as for example, in Latin
America, where the population being scattered and small in proportion
to the market hinders the process of growth. And, beyond doubt, most
of the underdeveloped countries have meager natural resources with
the result that many cannot simply dream of ever coming to the
levels of economic development as in many European countries.
However, over the course of the last two decades, many lessons have
been learned, as the former president of World Bank, George Woods,
points out. First, technologies do exist that can provide the developing
countries of the world with the basis for a satisfactory rate of
economic growth. The job, so to say, is not hopeless as some pes-
simists would like to make it believe taking into account the various
setbacks at infinite stages of growth.

Second, despite an impression in some quarters that foreign aid
is not working and that the developing countries are not progressing,
economic development is taking place in many countries, and with
a vigor that cannot be denied. The process almost invariably involves
the employment of modern technologies. Furthermore, more than 80
per cent of total investment is being provided for by the developing
nations; the rest, 20 per cent, is the foreign aid.

Third, technologies cannot be transferred without also adapting
habits, standards and institutions. The World Bank and other in-
stitutions, as well as governments, spend a great deal of effort, and
not an inconsiderable amount of money, on institution-building and
in trying to improve the management of economic affairs in the
underdeveloped countries.

Fourth, the road ahead is probably even longer than the road we
have already traversed. In late 1940s, there was a prevalent notion
that existing technologies could easily be applied in countries that had
no part in their creation. Today, we know that it is not so simple.
The task will take a long time; it requires much patience just as it
took the present developed nations a long time to reach their present
stage of economic development. 16

According to Woods, birth control, along with education and
agriculture, offers an excellent example of what is believed to be a
general principle of development: there are no purely technological
solutions to economic and social problems.

3 For details, see U. S. House of Representatives, Applied Science and World
Economy (Washington, 1968).

42

Individualized Learning in the Introductory
Social Science Course: Progress Report

by
Thomas H. Byers

One of the most difficult and frustrating problems which confronts
teachers of college Social Science courses is, the problem of the
reading gap. 1 This problem, which in all probability is not unique to
the Social Sciences, has at least two facets. The first and most
conspicuous facet of the problem is the obvious gap between the
reading difficulty of college level social studies materials and the
reading ability of the students. The second facet of the problem is
the divergent levels of ability among students enrolled in the same
course, thus complicating the task of adapting instruction to the
reading level of the class. The research project described in this
report represents the beginnings of an effort to meet head-on both
facets of the reading gap problem.

The research project was made possible by a grant from the
Research Development in Professional Education Project of the
United States Office of Education. 2 To facilitate the organization
and teaching of the experimental course which comprised the project
the writer was released from one-third of his teaching load at Savannah
State College, with that part of his salary for the quarter being paid
by the Research Development Project. The project was designed to
test two hypotheses: (1) that Social Science materials could be
adapted to the reading levels of individual members of a Freshman
level class without distorting the meaning of the basic concepts
involved; 3 and (2) that individualizing instruction would result in
improving the students' reading skills as well as their understanding
of society.

The course which was designed to test the above hypotheses was
given the same number as the regular general education course at the
freshman level, and one section of the regular course was set up as
a control group. The randomness of the sample for both the ex-
perimental and the control groups was assumed, since the students
in both groups were, for the most part, entering Freshmen, and all
had registered originally for the regular general education course. The
experimental group became the "guinea pigs" for the new course,
Social Science 101: Contemporary Civilization, while the control
group continued in the regular course, Social Science 101: Western
Culture. Both groups were given the STEP Reading Test (Form A) 4

1 Miriam Schleich and Sidney J. Rauch, "Combining A Program Of Reading
Improvement With the Study Of History," (Mimeographed Article, Hofstra
University).

2 Project #7-D-D49, a cooperative project among Georgia Colleges under the
general directorship of Dr. Ralph Lightsey at Georgia Southern College.

3 See Jerome S. Bruner, The Process of Education (Cambridge: Harvard Un-
iversity Press, 1960), ch. 3.

Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (Published by the Cooperative Test
Division, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N. J.)

43

and Social Studies Test (Form A) at the beginning of the term, and
Form B of both tests at the end of the term.

The control group was taught the "traditional" Western Culture
course in the "traditional" manner, i.e., with a heavy emphasis on
lectures, with the few opportunities for discussion very seldom taken
advantage of, and with no deliberate attempt to focus on improvement
of reading and other study skills. The experimental course, on the
other hand, began by deliberately focusing on reading skills, de-
emphasized lectures, and strove continually for active involvement of
students in reports and discussions. The remainder of this paper
will present a summary sketch of the materials, the procedures, and
the student activities of the experimental course, and conclude with
an evaluation of the results in terms of the hypotheses which the
research project was designed to test.

The general objectives of the course were listed in the first of the
"learning packages" which the students were given. These objectives
were of two kinds: those relating to the acquisition of information or
knowledge; and those relating to the cultivation of essential study
skills. Both the general objectives and the specific objectives (which
were developed for each separate unit) were stated in behavioral
terms, that is, in terms of what students would be doing when they
were demonstrating the extent to which they had achieved the ob-
jectives. 5 The knowledge objectives indicated that students should
be able:

1. to demonstrate an understanding of how modern society oper-
ates;

2. to list and discuss intelligently those "universals" which are
common to all societies and cultures;

3. to explain in broad outline those social and historical processes
which are responsible for the present condition of society; and

4. to demonstrate an awareness of the interrelationship between
society and the individual by discussing specific instances of
society's effect upon the individual and the individual's effect
upon society.

The objectives relating to study skills stated that students' would
be expected to improve their abilities in the following areas:

1 . in listening to oral presentations of information and to organize
such information into meaningful patterns;

2. in grasping the central point, and the implicit or explicit as-
sumptions of lectures and printed materials;

3. in communicating accurately and clearly, both verbally and in
writing, the ideas which they acquired through listening and
reading; and

5 Robert F. Mager, Preparing Instructional Objectives. (Palo Alto, Calif.:
Fearon Publishers, 1962).

44

4. in detecting unsound arguments and illogical statements, and in
criticizing them constructively, using factually based argu-
ments and logical reasoning.

These, then, were the general objectives of the experimental course,
and an attempt was made to utilize them as guides to the selection
of materials, the development of student activities, and the choice of
instructional and evaluation procedures.

Since one of the hypotheses which the research project set out to test
had to do with matching materials to the reading levels of the students,
one of the first steps was that of locating materials on the same
topics at several levels of reading difficulty. Because these materials
had to be selected before the composition of the class was known,
the assumption was made that the reading levels of those Freshmen
who entered college at the beginning of the Spring Quarter would
parallel roughly the levels of those who had entered earlier. Acting
on this assumption, three reading levels were established: grade 12
and above; grade 10 through 12; and grades 6 through 9. The selec-
tion of materials was guided further by two additional assumptions:
( 1 ) that students at all levels could profit by learning materials which
focused specifically on study skills; and (2) that programed instruc-
tional materials would be suitable for students at all levels.

On the basis of the above considerations, together with the advice
and counsel of the Director of the Reading Program at Savannah
State, Mrs. Abbie Jordan, the following materials were selected for
the course. First, Man's Behavior, by Jules Karlin, was chosen as
the basic text. The reading level of this text was established at grades
10-11. In addition, it contained other features, such as italicized print
for new concepts, bold faced headings for chapter sub-divisions, and
study questions at the end of each chapter, which our reading consul-
tant felt added to its usefulness. Other materials selected were: (1)
How To Study Workshop, an inexpensive (25^ ea.) pamphlet which
contained lessons under the headings "Vocabulary Skills," "Assign-
ment Skills," and "Organization Skills"; (2) Anthropology In Today's
World, another inexpensive pamphlet; (3) Understanding Other
Cultures, by Ina Corinne Brown; (4) Ruth Benedict's Patterns of
Culture; and (5) four programed texts in economics. Students were
required to buy the basic text only with the other materials being
provided out of funds made available from the research grant.

Student activities for the course, organized in relation to three,
distinct units, were designed to facilitate improvement in reading and
study skills as a means of helping along the acquisition of knowledge
and increasing understanding of specific aspects of culture and society.
In Unit I: Studying Man's Behavior, emphasis was placed upon mak-
ing students aware of some of the important skills which would help
them in studying man's behavior, and of the importance of improving
these skills as a means of increasing their abilities to understand any
materials they might read, for this course or for any other purpose.
In addition, the first chapter of Man's Behavior was included in the
assignment so that students might be studying man's behavior and

45

learning how to study at the same time. Students were encouraged to
follow this pattern for succeeding units as well, even though the
specific study skills assignments would not be a formal part of the
units. Some of the activities included in this first unit were: (1)
identifying prefixes and suffixes; (2) skimming; (3) making notes;
(4) developing "leading questions" and finding "key answers," (5)
summarizing and outlining. Activities (2) through (5) were per-
formed with readings from Chapter I of Man's Behavior.

In Unit II: Society, Culture, and The Individual, the differential
assignment based on student's reading levels was used for the first
time. Three similar sets of activities were prepared, with the only
difference being the reading material on which the student activities
were to be based. Students were required to read their respective
materials, and then to prepare oral and written reports based on
the unit objectives. Those students who scored in the top group on
the Reading Test were assigned Patterns of Culture; those who scored
in the middle range were given Understanding Other Cultures as
their assignment; and the lowest scoring group (which was the largest)
used Anthropology In Today's World. The reading level of Patterns
of Culture is Grades 13-15; that of Understanding Other Cultures
9-10; and Anthropology In Today's World 6-8. Since the oral and
written reports were based on the unit objectives, these reports were
used to evaluate the extent to which the objectives had been achieved.

Unit Two was used to introduce students to the concepts of cul-
ture and society, the way in which culture, society, and the individuals
who make up society interact, and the manner in which the several
dimensions of culture might be used in understanding, analyzing, and
comparing different cultures. In contrast, Unit Three (and the
units which will comprise the subject matter of Social Science 102)
focused on one of the dimensions which all known cultures contain.
For Unit III: The Economic Dimension of Culture, students used
programed texts to secure an understanding of how the free enter-
prise system works, of some of the special problems and modifications
of the system as it operates in the economy of the United States, and
how the free enterprise system compares with socialist and com-
munist systems. Through individual reports and class discussion,
students who had worked through different programs shared their
knowledge and understanding with each other.

It will be seen from the above discussion that the evidence tends
to support the validity of our first hypothesis. That is to say, that
it was possible to adapt social studies materials to the differential
reading levels of the students who comprised the social science class.
The basic text, the materials selected for the unit on Culture, and the
programed material on Economics all provide examples of the fact
that if one looks for such materials, they can be found. With respect
to the second of the two hypotheses, however, the results were in-
conclusive. This hypothesis maintained that the individualizing of
instruction would enable students to improve their reading abilities
and their knowledge of society. In general, the students in the ex-

46

perimental class showed a slight gain in their reading scores and a slight
loss in their social studies scores, while the control group showed
a slight loss in reading, while remaining about the same in Social
Studies. The mean scores for the two groups were as follows:

1. Experimental Group

Reading, Form A - 24.69
Reading, Form B - 26.19
Social Studies A - 23.75
Social Studies B - 21.62

2. Control Group

Reading, Form A - 30.38

Reading, Form B - 28.06

Social Studies A - 23.88

Social Studies B - 24.00

While the results of the experiment were not at all conclusive with
respect to the second hypothesis, neither should they be considered
discouraging. The experiment thus far has been based on only the
first part of a two-part course. Moreover, the organization of this
first course was heavily weighted toward establishing a sound founda-
tion, both in terms of general study skills and of a conceptual frame-
work for studying cultures, on which to build subsequent leearning
experiences. Thus, out of a projected five-dimensional scheme for
studying cultures and societies only one dimension was included in the
first course. When the other four dimensions the political, the
social, the religious, and the aesthetic are rounded out in the second
course, a completely different, and hopefully more positive, picture
should emerge.

47

Teaching Counting And The Fundamental
Operations To Elementary School Teachers

by

Prince A. Jackson, Jr.

Instructors of mathematics for elementary school teachers have
found through the years that their students can count 1 but do not
know the principles of counting. While most elementary school teach-
ers can count "ad infinitum," very few can really explain why 100
is-the next integer after 99. Indubitably, most elementary school
teachers rely heavily on memory when they count. As a result, ele-
mentary school children have suffered because they often are taught
how to count without any ideas of what they are doing.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a method of teaching
counting to elementary school teachers that will minimize the role of
rote in the process of counting. The method for using counting in the
operations of addition and multiplication will be discussed. To build
as strong a case as possible for the teaching method, the writer will
utilize abstract symbols rather than the usual Hindu- Arabic symbols.
The rationale for utilization of abstract symbols is that a student who
learns to count with abstract symbols can handle the Hindu-Arabic
symbols with great facility. It should be noted also that the concept
of "base" can be discovered when the principles of counting are
learned.

Let the symbols *, $, #, % and & be the digits of a numeration
system. Let it be understood that the order of the digits are *, $, #,
% and &. The student begins to learn how to count by merely re-
peating in the given order the names assigned the symbols above. Thus
the student writes *, $, #, %, and &. 2 The next step is crucial in that
it is the basic principle of counting. It is how the successor (the first
double digit numeral) of the last single digit numeral is formed.

Since * has been used as the first digit in writing the first $ *
numerals 3 of the system, the next digit in order after * is used as the
first digit and * as the second digit of the numeral that succeeds &.
Thus the student writes $*. He can easily see that the next numeral
after $* is $$. Continuing in this manner, he reaches $&. Since $ has
been used as the first digit in the series of numerals succeeding &,
the student will have no difficulty in realizing that another digit
must now be used as the first digit in the numeral that succeeds $&.
By now, he realizes that the first digit in the successor of $& is #
and should write #* as the successor of $&.

1 Counting can be defined as naming consecutively, a set of numbers in order

of their size.
2 It is vitally important that the student understands that the numerals can

be written, **, *$, *#, *%, and *&. In ordinary counting, the first ten

integers are 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, and 09.
3 $* is a better symbol to use than 5 since it is undesirable for any notions of

"base" to enter at this time.

48

To test understanding of this principle, the instructor might ask the
student to write the last double digit numeral of the system. If the
student fails to write && after a brief consideration of the question,
the instructor should review the basic principle of counting.

To write the successor of &&, the student must recognize that it
is a three-digit numeral. On the basis of the fundamental priniciple
he realizes that $ succeeds & as the first numeral and * replaces & in
the second place. Thus * is the third place digit since it is always
the beginning digit in counting. Hence, it should be clear to the
student that $** is the first three-digit numeral.

The student should be allowed to count through $*&. If he has
really learned the basic principle of counting he will have no difficulty
in writing $$* as the successor of $*&. If he can carry out this
procedure, he will recognize &&& as the last three-digit numeral and
$*** as the first four-digit numeral. By now, he is able to count
and knows how to form the successor of any numeral in the system.

To teach addition, the instructor should have his students to
construct a table similar to the following:

+

*

$

#

%

&

*

*

$

#

%

&

$

$

#

%

&

$*

#

#

%

&

$*

$$

%

%

&

$*

$$

$#
$%

&

&

$*

$$

$#

TABLE I

It is easy to lead the student to discover that the rows or columns
can be completed by merely counting. Using Table I, he can learn
the addition facts of the numeration system. 4 For example, he sees
that %+& is $#. The student should study the table and its con-
struction thoroughly.

Once he is familiar with the table, the student can now proceed to
more difficult problems of addition. For example, he should attack
addition problems such as $ #-\- % . He can solve this problem as
follows :

(Carry) $

#
%

#*
Note that "carrying" is used here as it is used in familiar addition.

4 It is not necessary for the student to memorize these addition facts. However .,
he must recognize * as the zero and $ as the unit of the system.

49

Other problems for example are (&&) + (%$) and (&$%) -f-
(%#$). The student can solve these as follows:

(Carry) $

&

&

#

%

&

$

%

%

$

%

#

$

# * %

$ # % &

Adding & and %, the sum is $#. When $ is added to this sum,
the new sum is $%. Writing % under the second column, we can
begin to add the first column with $ carried from the last sum. Adding
$ and &, the sum is $*. Adding # to this sum the new sum is $#.
When % is added to the latter sum, the final sum is #*. The second
problem is rather easily handled and will not be discussed here.

To sharpen the skills of the students, the instructor should supply
adequate problems for this purpose.

Once the students have mastered addition with the use of the table,
they are ready to develop skills in multiplication in the system of
numeration. Since the symbols are abstract, the students will have
to construct a multiplication table. The multiplication table should
be constructed by using the addition table. The multiplication table
is similar to the following:

X

$

#

%

&

$

$

#

%

&

#

#

&

$$

$%

%

%

$$

$&

##

&

&

$%

##

%$

TABLE II

It is easy to lead the student to discover that the rows or columns
can be completed by addition. For example, the #th row can be
completed in the following manner. To get the first entry, simply
write # since it is # X $- 5 To get the second entry, add # to

# and get & from the addition table. To get the third entry, add

# to & and get $$ from the addition table. To get the final entry
of the row, add # to $$ and get $% by use of the addition table.
Any column may be completed in an analogous manner. As an
exercise to strengthen the counting skill of the students, the instructor
could have them to complete the tables by counting. To complete the
%th row, simply count by %'s. 6

3 $ is the unit of the system. By the identity property, $X any numeral of the
system = that numeral.

3 To count by %'s, write the numerals of the system in ascending order. The
order is *, $, #, %, &, $, *, $, $, $$#, $%, $&, #*, #$, ##, #%,
#&, . . . counting by %'s would yield the sequence %, $$, $&, ##. . .

50

Using Table II, the students can learn to work with the multiplica-
tion facts of numeration system. 7 For example it is obvious that
%X & is # # Th e student should study the table and its construction
intensively since many problems of multiplication require the use
of the addition table:

A typical exercise that the instructor might assign to the students
is ($ #) X (# % &) This is carried out in the usual manner:

# % &

$ #

$ * # %

# % &

% & $ %

Many more exercises of this kind will sharpen the students' skills in
multiplication.

Since subtraction is the inverse operation of addition and division
is the inverse operation of multiplication, the instructor can lead the
students to discover how they can perform these operations by use of
the tables. Subtraction is defined in the usual way. That is, to find
m n is to find a number p such that n -f- p is m. Using this definition,
the student can solve problems similar to and check the answers by
addition.

# & % $
& & #

& % &

Division is defined in the usual way. That is, to find m/n is to find p
such that np is m. Using this definition, the student can solve problems
similar to and check the answers by multiplication.

%

&

$# ) $ *
&

$
$

%

$
$

*

%
%

The concept of "base" can now be developed. This is done by
using the regular digits, 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. The students will have no
difficulty in constructing the addition and multiplication tables. By
setting up a one-to-one correspondence between the regular numerals
and the abstract numerals, the students will discover that the abstract
system is really no different from the regular quinary arithemetic. At
this point, other bases may be introduced with little or no real
difficulty.

7 It is not necessary for the student to memorize these facts.

51

In conclusion, the writer wishes to impress upon the reader that
the above method of teaching counting with the use of an abstract
system of numeration with no reference to "base" seems to produce
superior results when compared with the method using the integers
and base ten. The abstract system seems to produce better compre-
hension of the operations of addition and multiplication. As a result of
this better comprehension, elementary school teachers can do a better
job of teaching counting, addition, multiplication, subtraction, and
division to their pupils.

52

Use Of The Instrumental Activation Analysis

For The Characterization Of The Terrestrial

And Extra-Terrestrial Material*

by
M. P. Menon

Introduction

There has been considerable interest in the past several years in
developing modern analytical techniques to determine the chemical
composition of the terrestrial rock samples, with better precision and
accuracy than the conventional methods, for comparison with that of
extra-terrestrial material for possible explanations of the latter's origin.
For instance a long controversy still exists as to the possible origin
of tektites. Schwarcz 1 has proposed that tektites are probably
formed by the rapid fusion of the soil during the impact of extra-
terrestrial objects on earth. Urey 2 believes that tektite may have
resulted from the impact of comet on earth, while Vaisavsky 3
suggests that tektites are ejected material from the moon. However,
the oxygen isotope studies of Taylor et al. 4 and the work of Fleischer
and others 5 reveal a similarity between the tektites and natural
glasses. Unlike meteorites, knowledge of the chemical composition
of tektites is largely based on the conventional methods of analysis. 6
Chemical composition is at least one of the important criteria which
could give new light about the origin of tektites.

Urey 7 has recently pointed out the superiority of the activation
analysis results from meteorites when compared with those previously
reported from conventional methods. He has largely used the acti-
vation analysis results to make a new table of atomic abundances of
most of the elements present in chondritic meteorites. Although
chondritic meteorites were believed to be remarkably constant in
chemical composition wide variations have been noticed more recently
in the analytical results of Fe, Al, Co and some other trace ele-

*This work was performed in Activation Analysis Research Laboratory at
Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas.

Schwarcz, H. P. (1962), Nature, 194, 8.

2 Urey, H. C. (1957), Nature, 179, 556.

3 Vaisavsky, C. M. (1958), Geochim. et Comochim. Acta, 14, 291.

4 Taylor, H. P., Jr., and Epstein, S. (1966), Science, 153, 173.

5 Fleischer, R. L., Price, P. B. and Walker, R. M. (1965), Geohim. et Com-
ochim. Acta, 29, 161.

6 Barnes, V. E. (1958), Geochim. et Comochim. Acta, 14, 267.

7 Urey, H. C. (1964), Rev. Geophysics, 2, No. 1, 1.

53

ments. 7 ' 8 These variations can either be due to analytical errors
inherent in the measurements or due to the real differences in their
concentrations because of the inhomogenity or possible fractionation
of certain elements in the sample material. Since there are marked
differences between the published concentrations of both the major
and minor elements in chondritic meteorites and the solar abundances
obtained by Goldberg et a/. 9 from astrophysical studies it appears
that the analysis should be performed on a large number of samples
with improved techniques to determine whether chondrite really re-
presents the primitive solar matter.

Neutron activation technique has also been proposed to study
the chemical composition of the lunar surface material by Hislop and
Wainerdi. 10 These authors have performed the analysis of five major
elements in several granite and basalt samples using 14 MeV neutrons.
Activation analysis using different bombarding particles and measure-
ment techniques will undoubtedly be one of the major methods that
could be employed for the characterization of the recovered lunar
material in the future.

The purpose of this study was to show the advantages of the
instrumental activation analysis, using both fast and thermal neutrons,
for the characterization of the major and a few minor constituents
of chondritic meteorites and tektites for a possible application to the
analysis of lunar material. No attempt has been made to do the
analysis of a large number of samples for a meaningful geochemical
study. However, such an analysis of a larger number of samples
in a short time is quite feasible with the automated activation analysis
systems developed by Wainerdi et al. 11 Since the technique is non-
destructive, it will permit inter-laboratory comparison of the results
on the same sample. The availability of the high resolution German-
ium-Lithium detectors for gamma ray spectrometry makes it possible
to improve the analytical results as well as to increase the number of
elements detected with purely instrumental techniques.

Experimental Methods

Description of Samples

The tektite and meteorites used for this study were obtained from
Wards Natural Science Establishment, Inc., Rochester, New York.
The description of the samples quoted by the suppliers is as follows:

Tektite: Bohemia, translucent green

Siderolite: Pallasite Brenham, Kiowa County, Kansas; Olivine
Stony- iron (thick block)

8 Fisher, D. E. and Currie, R. L. (1965), Proc. Symp., Salzburg "Radio-
chemical Methods of Analysis," Salzburg, Vol. I, 217.

9 Goldberg, E., Mueller, E. A. and Aller, L. H. (1960), Astrophys. J. Suppl.
Sev., 5, 1.
10 Hislop, J. S. and Wainerdi, R. E. (1967), Anal. Chem. 39, 29 A.
lx Wainerdi, R. E., Fite, L. E., Gibbons, D., Wilkins, W. W., Jimenez, P. and
Drew, D. (1965), Proc. Symp. Salzburg, "Radiochemical Methods of Analy-
sis," Vol. II, 149.

' : ; 54

Aerolite: Potter, Cheyenne County, Nebraska; Grey brecciated
chondrite (small fragments)

Aerolite: Willowdale, Kingman County, Kansas; Grey brecciated
chondrite (small fragments)

The above samples were pulverized separately in a clean grind-
ing mill and several 0,5 - 2.5 g size material from each sample were
enclosed in polyethylene vials and heat sealed. Particular care has
been taken to see that these samples were not contaminated during
their preparation.

14 MeV Neutron Activation Analysis

The major elements, namely, oxygen, silicon, aluminum, mag-
nesium and iron were determined using a 150 KV Cockcroft- Walton
accelerator and Mark III automated activation analysis system which
have been described elsewhere. 12 The useable flux that is available
from this machine is -~^10 9 n/cm 2 /sec although a slightly higher flux
for short irradiations may be obtained. Rapid determinations of
oxygen in metallic and geological samples using 14 MeV neutrons
have been carried out by several investigators in the past. 10 ' 13 ' 14
This method is based on counting the total gamma ray activity in the
energy range of 4.65 - 7.6 MeV resulting from the 7.35 sec 16 N pro-
duced by the 16 0(n,p) 1(i N reaction. A twenty sec irradiation, 5 sec
delay and 20 sec counting times were selected for the oxygen deter-
mination in this study. A single channel analyzer, with a dead time
of '- ' 2/a sec/count, was used to count the 16 N activity. The standard
used for oxygen measurement is reagent grade oxalic acid. Silicon
was determined by irradiating the standards (reagent grade silica)
and the samples for 1 min and following the decay of the 2.3 min
28 A1 produced by the 28 Si (n,p) 28 A1 reaction. The activated stand-
ards and samples were counted using two 3" x 3" Nal(Tl) detectors
and an RIDL 400 channel pulse height analyzer.

Aluminum, iron and magnesium concentrations were measured
simultaneously in each sample by irradiating the samples and the
respective standards for 5 min and taking several recounts. The
nuclear reactions used for the production of the respective activities
and the energies of the gamma rays usually chosen for the activity
measurement to determine all the above five elements are well known
and presented in references 10 and 12. In all irradiations the neutron
dose to which each sample and every standard was exposed was
measured using a BF 3 neutron detector connected to an RIDL scaler
for corrections to be made in the variation of the neutron fluxes.
The analyzer data was punched on the paper tape which were sub-
sequently printed on IBM cards.

12 Cuypers, M. and Cuypers, J. (1966), "Gamma Ray Spectra and Sensitiv-
ities for 14 MeV Neutron Activation Analysis," Activation Analysis Re-
search Laboratory, Texas A&M University College Station, Texas.

13 Pasztor, L. C. and Wood, D. E. (1966), Talanta, 13, 389.

14 Vogt, J. R. and Ehmann, W. D. (1965), Radiochim. Acta, 4, 24.

94091

Reactor Neutron Activation Analysis

Although by reactor neutron activation analysis many trace ele-
ments may be determined in the above samples by a proper choice
of irradiation, decay and counting times only the analysis of Fe, Cr
and Co was attempted in this study. The samples of different sizes
and the appropriate standards were irradiated at a flux of ^lO 10
n/cm 2 /sec for 1 hour and also for 8 hours. These were cooled for
several weeks and then counted using a 3" x 3" Nal(Tl) spectrometer
as well as a 2 cm 3 lithium drifted germanium detector with a resolution
of 4.1 KeV for the 1.332 MeV y-ray of 60 Co. The data from the
Ge(Li) detector was stored in a 3200 channel analyzer and sub-
sequently printed out using a Teletype punch print readout. All
the samples and the standards were counted with a registered dead
time of 40% or less for the Nal(Tl) spectrometer and 10% or less
for the Ge(Li) detector. The influence of the dead time on the
shape and the analysis of the solid state detector spectra has been
discussed elsewhere. 15

Results and Discussion

The time dependent gamma ray spectra of a typical chondrite
sample activated by 14 MeV neutrons are presented in Figure 1.
Although silicon was determined separately in all of the samples
with an activation time of 1.0 min, it is obvious from these spectra
that four of the five major elements can be measured simultaneously
in a meteoritic sample using 14 MeV neutron activation technique.
Since the activation products from 27 A1 and 56 Fe emit gamma rays of
identical energies (''.84 MeV) the individual activities should be
resolved by a decay analysis, as is shown in Figure 2, for the measure-
ment of Al and Fe concentrations in the sample. It is quite clear
from this figure that the relative abundances of Al and Fe in typical
tektite and chondritic meteoritic samples differ significantly.

Figure 3 shows the characteristic spectra of the same tektite and
another chondrite activated by reactor neutrons for 8 hours and
counted with a Nal(Tl) spectrometer. Although these spectra differ
qualitatively in terms of the gamma ray peaks, some of the peaks
are not well enough resolved to make a correct estimate of the con-
centrations of the elements present. However, the use of a high
resolution Ge(Li) detector coupled to a 3200 channel analyzer made
it possible to resolve most of the gamma ray peaks as shown in
Figure 4. Figure 3 and Figure 4 also demonstrate that the analysis
of Fe, Co and probably Sc using activation analysis with conventional
gamma ray spectrometry may be wrong even though some corrections
may have been made for mutual interferences of gamma ray peaks.

The results of the analysis of three chondrites and one tektite using
both 14 MeV and reactor neutrons for activation are presented in
Table I. In each measurement, with the exception of O, the photopeak

15 Wainerdi, R. E. and Menon, M. P. (1967), Proc. Symp. "Nuclear Activa-
tion Techniques in Life Sciences," May 8-13, 1967, Amsterdam (in press).

56

area of the prominent gamma ray peaks was computed using Covell's
method 16 and this activity, after correction for the decay, was com-
pared with that of the standard to estimate the concentrations. The
half life of each isoope was checked with a decay curve analysis and
corrections were made for the variation in neutron fluxes between the
standard and the sample. It is to be pointed out that the analysis,
using reactor neutrons, was performed only for a few trace elements
but not for all the possible ones using only instrumental techniques.
The five major elements, O, Si, Al, Mg and Fe, were determined using
14 MeV neutron activation technique while the rarer elements Cr and
Co were measured by the reactor neutron activation analysis. The
results of the iron analysis were also checked with the latter proce-
dure. Table I also includes the most recent analytical results for the
above elements calculated from the atomic abundances tabulated by
Urey 7 for the L group of chondrites and also for the G-l granite
chosen by Fleischer. 17 The oxygen abundance for the chondrite
is not listed in Urey's table, but Wiik's work 18 from which Urey
has taken most of the data, indicates that the oxygen abundance is
36.82% by weight for a typical chondrite. Although the present results
of the analysis of chondrites are comparable with those reported by
Urey, two exceptions may be noticed. In all the three cases, the iron
content is very similar, but all the values are slightly lower than the
average value for the L group of chondrites chosen by Urey. The
magnesium content of at least two chondrites seem to deviate consider-
ably from the average value reported previously. There are indications,
however, that fractionation of some of the lithophile elements like Si
and Mg takes place in certain type of chondrites. 18 From the
results reported by Taylor et al. 19 it appears that the concentrations
of Si, Al and Mg in tektites vary within the ranges 32.2-37.2%, 5.3-
8.2% and 0.8-1.5%, respectively and an inverse relation exists be-
tween Si0 2 and other major constituents. Although the present results
of analysis of Si and Al fall in this range within the experimental
errors, Mg result deviates significantly. Since tektites have not been
analyzed so extensively as meteorites using modern analytical tech-
niques, it appears that newer data on tektites of different groups 5
are needed for a general comparison. The present work on Bohemian
Tektite shows that it is nearer to granite than to chondrites in its
chemical composition (see Table I and ref. 10).

Various postulates have been advanced about the origin of meteor-
ites and tektites 1 ' 5 ' 7 and the possible similarity between these and
other terrestrial rock samples and lunar surface material in chem-
ical composition. Although none of these hypotheses can be absolute-
ly proved or disproved until an analysis is carried out on the lunar
material it is important to have a reliable technique to analyze the
lunar material when it becomes available, and good analytical data on
the suspected samples for comparison with the composition of this

16 Covell, D. F. (1959), Anal. Chem. 31, 1785.
"Fleischer, M. (1965), Geochim. et Cosmochim. Acta, 29, 1263.
18 Wiik, H. B. (1955), Geochim. et Cosmochim. Acta 9, 279.
19 Ahrens, L. H. (1964), Geochim. et Cosmochim. Acta, 28, 411.

57

precious material. It appears that the instrumental activation analysis
is at least one of the modern techniques which affords tremendous
promise for a rapid and non-destructive analysis of most of the im-
portant elements and for inter-laboratory comparison of the findings.
The automated activation analysis system, known as Mark II, devel-
oped by Wainerdi et al. lx in this laboratory will be unique in per-
forming a large number of such analyses on geological samples of
different origin, including the lunar material, for some of the major
and minor elements.

Conclusion

It has been shown that the instrumental activation analysis using
both 14 MeV and reactor neutrons and high resolution gamma ray
spectrometry yield results comparable with other techniques most of
which require the destruction of the sample. All of the available ter-
restrial and extra-terrestrial samples can be characterized both quali-
tatively and quantitatively by this technique with less effort and time
than some of the other techniques. In views of the existing controversy
on the origin of tektites and its possible association with the lunar
material 3 more information regarding their chemical composition
should be obtained using modern analytical techniques.

The present comparative study on the composition of tektite and
chondrites together with the previous work reported from this labora-
tory 10 on granite and basalt using the same technique reveal that
the above four geological samples differ significantly in their chemical
composition so that a similarity between any of these and the lunar
material may be established.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Dr. R. E. Wainerdi, Head of Activation
Analysis Research Laboratory of Texas A&M University for his en-
couragement and also to the other laboratory staff for their assistance
for this work.

20 Taylor, S. R., Sachs, M. and Cherry, R. D. (1961), Geochim. et Cosmo-
chim. Acta, 22, 155.

58

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U

9+1

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00 o

vo
9+1

</->

tN

o

o

(N

"*

o <<

t->

. tN

tN

O ,-N

onJ

O

>' r-

rH O

^t-o

on in

oo

rr ' , ,'

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OR

+l

q ^

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<o o

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MB

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59

SIDEROLITE, (2.5g)
ACTIVATION TIME (5.0 MIN)
WAIT TIME; A. (6.4 MIN)
B. (305 MIN)
COUNT TIME (1.0 MIN)

I NERGY (MeV

Figure 1. Time dependent spectra of a typical chondrite activated
by 14 MeV neutrons.

60

,.fv.

A. TEKTITE. BOH. (1.9211s)

B. CHONDRITE, NEB.(0.500g)

TIME (MIK.)

Tigure .2. Decay curves of 27 Mg and 56 Mn in activated tektite and
chondrite samples. - -, w;v u cj*n -, - -. c

61 olATL COLLEGE BRANCH

SAVANNAH, QE( RGiA

COUNTS PER CHANNEL

1

1 1 1 1 1 II

1 1

II MM

Ml 1 1 1 Mil 1

a

s

-r

r

t

ns>o>
0$ o -

m
z

Z H < 2 I

m " ^ 53 -1

o

^Hom

i

S^S**

-Dn~>

ccrtj?"^

' ^ ^ i

p

~> g" w

IZZr=> #&

Figure 3. Nal(Tl) spectrometer spectra of the reactor neutron ac-
tivated tektite and chondrite.

62

A. CH0NDR1TE, KANS. (2.0g)

B. TEKT1TE, BOH. (l.lg)
ACTIVATION TIME: 8 His.
WAIT TIME: 63.8 Days
COUNT TIME: 10 Min.

ENERGY (Mev)

Figure 4. Ge(Li) detector spectra of the reactor neutron activated
tektite and chondrite.

63

Cottonseed Protein Structure I.

Isolation of Protein, and Determination of

N-Terminal Acids and Sulfhydryl Groups

by
Charles Pratt and Laura Grant

Introduction

This is the first of a series of papers which deal with work designed
to determine the sequence of amino acids in cottonseed protein.

Attempts to isolate a large quantity of a single pure protein for
study showed that at least three different proteins are present in cot-
tonseed in large quantities. One of these was isolated, labelled Protein
"A", and studied.

The following was found:

1. The protein is fibrous and consists of two strands.

2. The strands are held together by disulfide bridges.

3. There are six sulfhydryl groups in the protein, and these exist
as disulfide bridges.

4. Arginine and Methionine were found to be the N-terminal amino
acids of the two peptide strands of Protein "A".

Determination of N-terminal Acids

Of the protein isolated by the scheme on the next page, one gram
was redisolved and streaked on large sheets (18^ x 22V2t) of What-
man #3 MM filter paper and developed in n-butanol-acetic acid-
water (6:1:2 v/v). After developing 12-14 hours, the chromato-
grams were dried and a 2-inch vertical strip cut from each. The strips
were sprayed with ninhydrin, 0.5% in alcohol, in order to locate the
protein zone. There were 3 zones present, and the one which ap-
peared to be in the largest quantity was selected. This was labelled
Protein "A".

Each sprayed strip was placed back beside the paper from which
it had been originally cut, and the zones marked off. The zone label-
led Protein "A" was cut from each chromatogram and eluted. The
"Protein A" eluants were combined and treated as follows to deter-
mine the N-terminal amino acid.

Twenty-five ml of the isolated solution were added to 25 ml of
pyridine and brought to a pH of 9.5 using NaOH solution. To this
was added 25 drops of phenylisothiocyanate and the mixture stirred
at 37-40C, keeping the pH 9-10 by occasional addition of NaOH

64

Experimental

Protein Isolation

The following scheme illustrates the general procedure used in
the isolation of Cottonseed Protein.

General Procedure for Protein:

Cottonseed Meal

H-...0

Solid

Solid

Strained through linen

Liquid

6N HC1

ppt

Filtrate

wash with distilled
H2O

Filtrate

wash with methanol

acetone

ether

J

Dry Protein

65

solution (as the reaction proceeded the pH tended to become acidic).
When there was no longer a tendency for the pH to decrease (about
40 minutes), the reaction was assumed to be complete.

The mixture was cooled and washed with benzine to remove the
pyridine and excess phenylisothiocyanate. The pH was then lowered
to 3 and the phenylthiocarbamyl precipitated. The material was fil-
tered.

A small portion of the phenylthiocarbamyl was dissolved, streaked
on a small sheet (8" x 8") of chromatographic paper and developed
in a solvent system of nitromethane saturated with dry HCL gas.
The solvent brought about a formation of phenylthiohydantoin with
the N-terminal amino acid. This hydantoin moved on the chromato-
gram, while the remaining peptide remained at the origin.

The hydantoins were identified by chromatographic comparison
with hydantoins of known amino acids.

It was found that two hydantoins were present, that of methionine
and arginine. This led to the conclusion that there must have been
2 N-terminal acids. Therefore, the protein must have contained two
strands.

Determination of Sulfhydryl Groups

Following the conclusion that two strands were present in the pro-
tein under study, an attempt was made to determine how many disul-
fide bridges were involved. Briefly, the method used was as follows:

A sample of protein was dissolved in saturated guanidine hydro-
chloride and titrated with CH 3 HgN0 3 . Under these conditions all
the sulfhydryl groups react.

Fifty mg of protein were dissolved in 1 ml. of saturated guanidine
hydrochloride in M/15 phosphate buffer, pH 7 at 0C in a 15 ml.
tube. The air in the tube was displaced with nitrogen, and 10 mg of
solid indicator (sodium nitroprusside) added, to the solution of pH 9.

Three ml of 10 _3 M CH 3 HgN0 3 were titrated into the solution until
the red color disappeared.

From experiment calculations, it was concluded that there are only
six available sulfhydryl groups.

Acknowledgements

Financial support from the U.S. Army Research Office-Durham,
N. C. is gratefully acknowledged.

66

Synthesis of Certain Chalcones

by
Kamalakar B. Raut*

Preparations of certain chalcones for biological studies 1 ' 2 using
two different temperatures, 0C and 60 C is reported. The yields
in cold condensations are better than yields at 60 C. The reactions
are described below.

Experimental.

Preparation of l-(4-nitropheny)-3-(2-methoxypheny propenone. (I)

In a 125 ml erlenmayerflask 1.65 g. (0.01 mole) of-nitroaceto-
phenone and 1.51 g. (0.01 mole) of o-methoxybenzaldehyde were
dissolved in 50 ml of ethanol. Seven drops of 50% potassium hy-
droxide solution were added to the reacting mixture. The mixture was
then kept at 0C for 14 hours. After that period the solution was
neutralized with a 3% hydrochloric acid solution dropwise. The pre-
cipitate was washed with water and crystallized from hot ethanol.
Similarly other compounds were prepared. These compounds are be-
ing tested for biological activity at the Medical College in Charleston,
South Carolina. The results of these tests will be communicated later.

O

O2N // 7 C-CH = CH

OCHs

iClerk, Samuel F., U. S. Patent 3,805, 184, September 3, 1957, C. A. 62,

2325 (1958).

2 Marrian, D. H., Russel, P. B. and Todd, A. R., J. Chem. Soc, 1934, 218.
*The investigator is indebted to Mr. Johnny Weatherspoon, Chemistry Student

at Savannah State College for his cooperation and assistance.

67

Condensation products formed by reacting p-nitroacetophenone with
aldehydes.

Aldehyde

M.P.

Reaction
Time

Coloration with Con.
H 2 S0 4

o-methoxybenzaldehyde

143-4

40 hrs.

From yellow to light red

Anisaldehyde

142-3

20 "

Ditto

1 -naphthaldehy de

183-5

36 "

From yellow to green

p-dimethylaminoben-
zaldehyde

210-2

19 "

From red to yellow

Vanillin

74-6

16 "

None

68

Synthesis of soine new azo dyes
By

Kamalakar B. Raut

Friz Ullman discovered two very useful copper-catalysed reactions
of aryl halides, and both bear his name in common usage. In the
second of his reactions he found that O-chlorobenzoic acid and copper
powder in refluxing analine gave N-phenylanthranilic acid. Subse-
quently study showed that pure O-chlorobenzoic acid does not react
with aniline, but that minute quantities of copper salts are sufficient to
catalyse the reaction, leading to a satisfactory yield. Salts of iron,
nickel, platinum and zinc also had some catalytic activity, but man-
ganese and tin salts were ineffective. Performing the reaction in the
presence of potassium carbonate gave superior results, because alkali
salts of N-phenylanthranilic acid are less prone to undergo decarboxi-
lation and because acid catalysed resinification reactions are avoided.
Additional papers from Ullmann's laboratory showed that a wide
variety of anthranilic acids and other dairylamines can be prepared
by condensing aniline with O-chlorobenzoic acids or other aryl halides,
or by employing, for instance anthranilic acid and bromobenzene.
These variations of the synthesis were usually run in refluxing amyl
alcohol or nitrobenzene.

It was soon recognized that copper facilitates the condensation of
unactivated or slightly activated aryl halides with all sorts of nucleo-
philic reagents. For instance, the reaction of bromobenzene with
potassium phenoxide at 200C for 12 hours gives only a trace of
diphenyl ether, but the same ingredients with a little copper powder
give an 87 per cent yield of diphenyl ether in only 2.5 hours. Copper
catalysis of condensations of slightly activated aryl halides with
amines, ammonia, phenoxides, alkoxides, and hydroxide has found
wide application in synthetic work.

The Rosenmund-von Braun nitrile synthesis, which involves the
condensation of aryl halides with cuprous cyanide, can be regarded
as a special case of the Ullmann reaction. Good yields of aromatic
nitriles are obtained by means of it, but in the absence of ions of
copper (or neighboring metals) scarcely any nitrile is produced from
aryl halides and alkali cyanides.

Another interesting variation is the copper-catalysed condensation
of sodium O-bromobenzoate with the sodium derivatives of ethyl
malonate and similar active methylene compounds. Both copper metal
and copper acetate were effective; the latter also catalysed the hydroly-
ses of O-bromobenzoic acid to salicylic acid by only 30 minutes boiling
in aqueous sodium acetate solution. Strangly, ethyl O-bromobenzoate
would enter into none of these reactions, nor would p-bromobenzoic
acid.

From the above review it will be seen that copper serves as an
efficient catalyst in many organic reactions. All these reactions how-

69

ever consist in the replacement of the aromatic halogen by other
groups. Ordinarily use of copper powder for activating halogen in
monohalogen aliphatic compounds is not necessary. But with increas-
ing number of halogen atoms the reactivity of the halogen atoms dim-
inishes considerably. Thus chloroform and carbon tetrachloride are
only feebly reactive and require high temperature with amino com-
pounds.

We are interested in finding out whether copper powder will react
similarly as a catalyst in the reactions of aromatic amines and poly-
halogenated compounds like carbon tetrachloride and chloroform.

In our preliminary work we have isolated a number of new com-
pounds (Table I). It was expected that these compounds will have a
secondary or tertiary amino group but all these compounds gave a
positive test for a primary amine. These compounds have been coupled
with B-naphthol and a new series of azo dyes have been synthesized.
The properties of these azo dyes are under investigation and will be
reported separately.

Table I
Summary of Results

Condensations of

Reacting
Period

M. P.

M.P. OF

the dye

1.

Aniline -f- Chloroform

9 hours

90C

168-9C

126

2.

Aniline -f- Carbon
Tetrachloride

8 hours

90C

146

118-20

3.

Aniline -f- Bromoform

12 hours
90

140

110

4.

Aniline + 1, 1, 2, 2-
tetrachloroethane

8 hours
196-8

150-2

97

5.

p-phenetidine -f- Chloroform

3 days 171
Room temp.

98

6.

p-phenetidine -f-
Carbontetrachloride

\i days 189-90
Room temp.

157-8

7.

p-phenetidine -j- 1, 1, 2, 2,
tetra chloroethane

8 hours

198

178

80-3

8.

p-Toluidine -f- Carbon
tetrachloride

8 hours
90

158

113-4

9.

p-Anisidine -f- Chloroform

4 hours
90

167

105-8

10.

p-Anisidine -(- Carbon
tetrachloride

21 hours

119

119

70

Effect of Cofoalt-60 Irradiation on the

Morphology of Schistosoma Mansoni*

by

John B. Villella, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology

Department of Biology, Savannah State College

For an understanding of the significance of ionizing radiation on
Schistosoma mansoni, it is desirable to review briefly the life cycle
and background of the disease produced by this parasite. S. mansoni
produces a disease called schistosomiasis. In Africa and Arab coun-
tries it is better known as bilharziasis. The disease affects many ver-
tebrate animals, including birds and mammals. Recent estimates have
placed the number of persons infected with schistosomiasis between
150 to 200 millions. 1 Man may be affected by three different species
of schistosoma worms which are found in different parts of the world :
Schistosoma haematobium in Africa, and southern Asia, S. japonicum
in China, Japan, Formosa and the Philippines, and S. monsoni in
Africa, the West Indies and the more northern parts of South America.
The parasite requires both a definitive host, such as man, in which
the adult worms develop, and an intermediate host, a specific kind of
snail, in which the larval form of the parasite develops. The adult form
is a thread-like flatworm, between 10 and 25 mm. in length and 0.5
to 1 .0 mm in width, depending on the species. The worms, sometimes
called blood flukes, live in the blood vessels of the definitive host
where the adult females lay eggs which eventually reach the tissue of
the host.

When eggs from the body in the excreta of the host reach fresh
water, they hatch into free-swimming forms known as miracidia,
which penetrate a suitable snail. In the snail the miracidia reproduce
many thousandfold. When they leave the snail, the larval forms are
known as cercariae. These forms are also free-swimming, on or near
the surface of fresh-water streams. They penetrate the skin of the
adult host to reach the blood vessels. About 5 weeks after exposure,
the adult female worms in the veins begin to deposit their eggs in the
tissues, principally of the small intestine and liver. Some of the eggs
are discharged with the feces, and reach water in which they hatch as
miracidia. The miracidia then penetrate a suitable species of snail
and the cycle is repeated.

The eggs are irritating and are deposited chiefly in the liver, intes-
tines, or urinary bladder, but may also affect other vital organs such
as the lungs and the brain. The eggs produce localized foci of damage,

iMcMullen, D., 1962. 27th Annual Chas. Franklin Craig Lecture, 11th meet-
ing of Am. Soc. Trop. Med. & Hyg.

*Part of this study was carried out at The Puerto Rico Nuclear Center, Univer-
sity of Puerto Rico.

71

and are walled off at multiple sites. In man, if the infection in the
liver is severe a cirrhosis or hardening of the liver results. The bladder
involvement may produce severe urinary symptoms and lead to cancer
of the bladder. Involvement of lungs may produce strain on the right
side of the heart. 2 - 3

Irradiated cercariae have been used to induce resistance in mice and
monkeys to subsequent experimental schistosomiasis. 4 ' 5 ' 6 ' 7 In order
to induce such protection, the developing schistosomules (migrating
cercarial form) must migrate some distance through the tissues of
the host. Although some of the parasites may reach the portal-mesen-
teric circulation and develop to adult forms, they may be morpholog-
ically as well as physiologically rudimentary and produce few eggs
or none at all.

The purpose of this paper is to report observations on: (1) the
number of worms recovered from mice following their infection with
irradiated cercariae, and (2) some gross morphologic changes oc-
curring in the adult form of S. mansoni developed from gamma-ir-
radiated cercariae.

Materials and Methods

Cercariae of S. mansoni were collected from pools of 50 or more
snails of the Puerto Rican strain of Australorbis glabratus. The ex-
perimental animals consisted of 6 groups of 15 female CF1 mice
weighing 18 to 20 grams and maintained with laboratory chow and
water-bottles. Each mouse was inoculated percutaneously with 200
cercariae. Mice of group 1 were inoculated with non-irradiated cer-
cariae; those of groups 2 to 5 were inoculated with cercariae which
had been subjected to gamma radiation from Co 60 in doses ranging
from 1000 to 3500 rad (radiation absorbed dose). Thee cercariae,
while being irradiated, were suspended in 8 ml. of dechlorinated tap
water in a plastic tube 50 mm. long by 21 mm. in diameter. The ir-

2 Faust, E. C, and Russel, P. F., 1964. Clinical Parastiology . Phila., Pa., Lea
& Febiger, pp. 530-566.

3 Gould, S. E., 1962. Talk prepared for broadcast to Arab countries by Voice
of America.

4 Villella, J. B., Gomberg, H. J., and Gould, S. E., 1961. Immunization to
Schistosoma mansoni in mice inoculated with radiated cercariae. Science,
134:1073-1074

5 Hsu, H. F., Hsu, S. Y. Li, and Osborne, J. W., 1962. Immunization against
Schistosoma japonicum in rhesus monkeys produced by irradiated cercariae.
Nature, 194:98-99.

6 Radke, M. G., and Sadun, E. H., 1963. Resistance produced in mice by ex-
posure to irradiated Schistosoma mansoni cercariae. Exper. Parasitol., 13:
134-142.

7 Litchenberg, F. von, and Sadun, E. H., 1963. The parasite migration and
host reaction in mice exposed to irradiated cercariae of Schistosoma mansoni
Exper. Parasitol., 13: 256-265.

72

radiation was carried out in a 70-curie "gamma-cell" (cylindrical
source) cobalt-60 unit which at the time was yielding 810 rad/min.
in a reasonably uniform field. The radiation was measured by means
of ferrous sulfate dosimeters, according to the method of Weiss 8 .
From 12 to 16 weeks after inoculation with cercariae, the mice were
killed by chloroform, after which their portal-mesenteric vessels were
perfused by the technique of Moore et al. 9 After perfusion, the liver
and intestine of both experimental and control mice were cut into
thin slices, pressed between glass slides, and searched for eggs with
the aid of a dissecting microscope. The tissues were then ground in
hypertonic saline, and the resulting homogenate was placed into a
water-filled McMullen-Beaver side-arm flask to test for hatching of
miracidia.

Schistosomes were collected and washed in a solution containing 1
percent sodium citrate and 0.85 percent sodium chloride. All of the
recovered worms were relaxed at 4 C. for 12 to 15 hours, fixed in
Bouin's solution, and stained with Delafield's hematoxylin. Measure-
ments of the worms were made on a microscope fitted with a cali-
brated ocular micrometer. Some of the worms were used for mor-
phologic studies.

Observations

The data in Table 1 shows the number of schistosomes recovered
from mice which were alive 12 to 16 weeks after exposure to cer-
cariae. In mice that were inoculated with cercariae irradiated at 1000
rad, no changes were noted in the adult worms that developed, but
fewer worms were recovered than from the controls. Among animals
that were inoculated with cercariae exposed to 3000 rad, all of the
worms recovered were malformed, and the number of worms that
developed was less than 3 percent of the number that matured among
controls. Of the 15 mice that were inoculated with cercariae exposed
to this level of radiation, only 2 yielded adult worms. The mice in-
oculated with cercariae which were exposed to 2000 or 2500 rad
yielded 23 percent and 11 percent, respectively, of the number of
worms obtained from the controls. Eggs were not found in the liver
and intestine of mice exposed to cercariae irradiated with 2500 or
3000 rad, whereas considerable numbers were found among the
controls.

The following morphologic changes in the worms occurred:

Retardation in growth: Examination of worms removed from mice
between 12 and 16 weeks after inoculation with cercariae irradiated
at levels from 2000 rad to 3000 rad showed retardation in their
growth. Measurements of body length in Bouin-fixed specimens re-
vealed an appreciable degree of stunting of worms of both sexes in
comparison with non-irradiated controls.

8 Weiss, J., 1952. Chemical dosimetry using ferrous and eerie sulfates. Nu-
cleonics, 10::(7), 28-31.

9 Moore, D. V., Yolles, T. K., and Meleney, H. E., 1945. A comparison of
common laboratory animals as experimental hosts for Schistosoma man-
soni. J. Parasitol., 55:156-170

73

Ten male worms developing from cercariae exposed to 2500 rad
and recovered 12 weeks after infection had an average length after
fixation of 6.2 mm., whereas the average length of 10 fixed non-
irradiated control worms was 10 mm. At 16 weeks, the average length
of 10 male worms which had developed from cercariae exposed to
3000 rad was only 1.3 mm. At 15 weeks, the average length of 10
fixed specimens of female worms which had developed from cercariae
exposed to 2000 rad was 7.4 mm. compared with 11.0 mm. for 10
fixed non-irradiated controls.

Malformation of the reproductive structures. Among 10 males de-
veloped from cercariae irradiated at 2000 rad, 8 had malformed
testes, while another showed distal testicular displacement. At 12 to
16 weeks female worms developed from cercariae exposed to 2000
rad invariably showed one or more malformations. In a pair of worms
recovered in copula from a mesenteric vein, the female lacked both
gonad and accessory structures, while the testes of the male were
rudimentary.

Among 5 female worms developed from cercariae exposed to 2500
rad, one or more reproductive structures were absent. Some female
worms showed duplicate abortive ovarian development but no other
structure of the reproductive complex. In another instance, examina-
tion revealed intestinal ceca and an empty ootype; the ovary, however,
normally cradled between the intestinal crura, was apparently missing.
Two of 5 females which had developed from cercariae exposed to
2500 rad displayed intestinal ceca but only a few scattered clusters of
vitellaria.

Discussion

In the present study all live worms recovered after exposure to ir-
radiated cercariae exhibited a drastic ratardation in growth, especially
at the higher radiation levels. Hsu et al. 10 , noted similar stunting ef-
fects in adult worms developed from irradiated S. japonicum cer-
cariae, while Erickson and Caldwell 11 reported the recovery of 2
stunted worms in 1 of 15 mice exposed to S. mansoni cercariae ir-
radiated with 4000 rad of gamma radiation. The above mentioned
authors did not indicate the size of the irradiated worms. In this
study, the average length of 10 male worms, which developed from
cercariae irradiated with 3000 rad, was only 1.3 mm., whereas the
average length of 10 non-irradiated males was 10.0 mm. One would
expect 4000 rad, employed by Erickson, to produce considerably
more stunting in males than I observed in the present experiments.

10 Hsu, H. F., Hsu, S. Y. Li, and Osborne, J. W., 1962. Immunization against
Schistosoma japonicum in rhesus monkeys produced by irradiated cercariae.
Nature, 194:98-99.

1:L Erickson, D. G., and Caldwell, W. L., 1965. Acquired resistance in rats
after exposure to gamma-irradiated cercariae. Am. J. Trop. Med. & Hyg.,
74:566-573.

74

Body changes were seen more frequently in males developing from
irradiated rather than from non-irradiated cercariae. In the present
study, 5 of 10 males developing from cercariae irradiated with 2500
rad displayed granule-filled pouches, whereas only 1 of 286 non-ir-
radiated males displayed a similar granule-filled pouch. It is of interest
that pouches were not seen in either irradiated or non-irradiated
female schistosomes. Standen 12 , who in chemotherapeutic studies,
observed similar malformations in the parenchyma of S. mansoni,
suggested that the granular material within the affected area might
be leucocytic congregations related to the process of phagocytosis.

Summary

Observations were made on morphologic changes occurring in
adult Schistosoma mansoni which developed from cercariae exposed to
gamma radiation from cobalt-60 at levels up to 3500 rad. No mor-
phologic changes were evident in worms maturing from cercariae ir-
radiated at 1000 rad, but adults of both sexes which developed from
cercariae exposed to 2000 rad or more exhibited a variety of changes
which include stunting and displacement or complete absence of re-
productive structures.

Table 1

Number Of Schistosomes Recovered From Mice 12 To 16 Weeks

After Percutaneous Exposure To 200 Cercariae Irradiated At

Designated Doses

Group

No. of Mice

Radiation Dose

No.

of Worms

No.

Used

To Cercariae

: (Rads)

Mean

S. D.

1

12

(C)

46.3

19.02

2

12

1,000

27.4

8.81

3

14

2,000

11.0

4.86

4

13

2,500

5.2

3.67

5

15

3,000

1.4

1.18

6

11

3,500

0.0

S. D., STANDARD DEVIATION.

C, CONTROLS. Worms from control mice were recovered 6 to 8 weeks
after infection

12 Standen, O. D., 1962. Bilharziasis. Boston, Mass., Little, Brown and Co.,
pp. 266-268.

75

Myths, Symbolism and the Measurement
Technique*

by
Hanes Walton, Jr.

The most refined method for measuring public opinion is through
the use of the attitude scales. The attitude tester seeks to obtain a
quantitative measure of the degree to which an individual or a
group of individuals possesses an attitude. 1

Attitude scales are of various types and almost all of them involve
a degree of statistical complexity, certain general procedures and a
philosophy of measurement.

The first serious attempt at developing such a technique was made
by L. L. Thurstone. 2 Although Thurstone's scales represent a step in
the right direction his technique of construction has been criticized on
several counts. Most important, perhaps, is its complete dependency
upon the opinions of judges who may themselves be biased. 3 Then,
too, it is an extremely cumbersome procedure requiring a tremendous
amount of effort for the results produced.

In an attempt to overcome these difficulties, Rensis Likert deve-
loped an alternative method of scale construction. 4 Although Likert's
technique succeeded in eliminating some of the pitfalls in Thurstone
scaling, both procedures share a comomn weakness. Both allow two
individuals to get the same rank while exhibiting very different pat-
terns of response. However, neither Thurstone nor Likert provides
any procedure for evaluating response-regularity; therefore, neither
is capable of demonstrating the presence of an attitude. This being
the case, individual measurements are non-comparable, and rank
positions are arbitrary. They lack descriptive meaning.

Louis Guttman has developed a technique of scale analysis which
provides criteria for solving this problem. 5 The Guttman technique
affords a method by which the scalability of a set of items may be

*The author would like to acknowledge his indebtedness to Dr. Harold F.
Gosnell for his helpful criticism of an earlier draft.

1 Emory S. Bogardus, The Making of Public Opinion (New York: Association
Press, 1951), pp. 195-99. See also W. Albig, Public Opinion (New York:
McGraw-Hill Book, Co., 1939), pp. 181-214.

2 L. L. Thurstone & E. J. Chave, The Measurement of Attitudes (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1929).

3 Hadley Cantril, et al., Gauging Public Opinion. (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1944), Chap. 4. See also, Albig, op. cit., Chaps. 11-13; and
Bogardus, op. cit., pp. 190-8.

4 Rensis Likert, "A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes," Archives of
Psychology (1932, No. 140).

5 Louis Guttman, "A Basis for Scaling Qualitative Data," American Sociologi-
cal Review, (Sept., 1944), pp. 139-150.

76

determined by the criterion of internal consistency or unidimensional-
ity. 6 However, the Guttman's model is an abstraction. It is seldom
realized completely when applied to empirical data. It provides one
with conventional criteria of scalability by which we may determine
whether or not, in any particular instance, the arrangement of the
data is such that they may be considered unidimensional. 7 If a
scale is present, the variables which make it up are considered to
vary together and the presence of a single attitude is indicated. 8 If
not, the concept under investigation is complex and cannot be con-
sidered as a unitary entity.

Unidimensionality, therefore, exists if, and only if, responses are
patterned in such a way that both individuals and items may be ar-
ranged from "most extreme" to "least extreme" without contradictions
or ambiguity. A universe is scalable if, and only if, unidimensionality
can be established. Thus, the Guttman scaling technique, although not
the complete answer, represents a substantial improvement over its
predecessors.

Therefore, viewing the measurement problem in this perspective,
we are able to see many loopholes, and gaps in the technique. This
paper aims at filling one of those gaps. It seeks to offer a new method
for measurement and prediction. Thus, by using myths and symbolism
in an operationally defined manner, it is hoped that the measurement
technique can become more efficacious.

In other words, this paper proposes to give or describe a general
theory for the measurement of the intensity of one's opinion, by using
myths and symbolism in an operationally defined manner. The mea-
surement of the intensity of one's opinion has been one of those gaps
or loopholes in the field in which the other techniques have not ade-
quately covered, 9 and this paper hopes to shed some new light on
the matter by using certain basic assumptions. On the other hand,
however, this paper is in no way a comprehensive review and discus-
sion of the entire area but only of some of the more important phases
of the measurement of one's intensity.

However, on the basis of the theory put forward to measure one's
intensity, it is hoped that this paper can also offer some general con-
clusions on how this may be used in predictions one's future behavior.

Myths and Symbolism: The Contextual Approach

As Daniel Katz states:

For if we are able to measure the intensity of opinion
.... we shall know a great deal more about the individuals
whose opinion we are studying. We shall know, for one

Hbid.
Hbid.
Hbid.

9 V. O. Key, Jr. Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1964), pp. 208-212.

77

thing, something of the permanence of opinion, its crystal-
lization, the extent to which it is structured, and the degree
to which an individual may be expected to be suggestible.
If we can determine the intensity of opinion, we should be
be able to predict much more accurately than we might
otherwise what action opinion may lead to . . . 10

With this statement in mind, the measurement of intensity of opinion
assumes enormous significance.

Therefore, since a conditioning factor in public opinion is the so-
called myths, then the intensity of one's attitudes is definitely colored
by his beliefs in myths.

Myth is the term used to denote those narratives, common among
all people, which serve to explain the origin of natural phenomena
and also of existing beliefs and practices, especially those connected
with religious and political mores. 11 In this sense the myth is essen-
tially explanatory (aetiological in character) and this is the connota-
tion of the word as it is used in this article.

However, since myths from the viewpoint of man in society fulfill
two functions: (1) it is an attempt to explain the world about him,
and (2) it is an attempt to set forth his aspiration to "the good life."
Thus, Professor Maclver defines them as:

The value-impregnated beliefs and notions that men
hold, that they live by or live for. Every society is held
together by a myth-system, a complex of dominating
thought forms that determine and sanction all its activ-
ities, all social relations, the very textures of human society,
are myth-born and myth-sustained. 12

On the other hand, Sorel states that:

A myth cannot be refuted since it is, at bottom, identical
with the convictions of a group, being the expression of
those convictions in the movement; and it is, in conse-
quence, impossible to analyze it into parts which could be
placed on the plane of historical descriptions. 13

However, Cassirer states that:

. . . perhaps the most important and the most alarming
feature in the development of modern political thought is
the appearance of a new power; the power of mythical
thought. The preponderance of mythical thought over ra-
tional thought in some of our modern political systems is
obvious. 14

10 Cantril, op. cit., p. 51

xl Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1951), p. 350

and Chapter 8.
12 R. Maclver, The Web of Government (New York: MacMillan, 1947), p. 4.
13 George Sorel, Reflections on Violence trans, by T. E. Hulme, (London:

George Allen & Unwin, 1915), p. 37.
14 Emest Cassirer, The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale Univesity Press,

1946), p. 1

78

Therefore, the characteristic of a myth is its nonlogical or perhaps
better, alogical nature. However, it should not be inferred from
these terms that myths are necessarily illogical or crazy; they simply
are not subject to logical demonstration as is an Euclidan hypothesis
in geometry.

Summarizing then, ( 1 ) the myth is alogical, that is, it is not amen-
able to proof; (2) it expresses the hopes and aspirations of the believ-
er; (3) inasmuch as the individual who accepts it becomes emotion-
ally concerned with it, the myth postulates the completion of a course
of action designed to fulfill the terms of the myth itself. Myths, then,
might be defined as a nonlogical idea which draws its motivating
force from the emotions rather than from reason. Belief in a myth
necessarily predicates a given course of action which the believer must
undertake in order to carry out the terms of his belief. Finally, the
myth expresses the basic hopes of the believer and of the society in
which he lives.

Therefore, the value of the myth concept as a tool for political
analysis and prediction should now have beome clear. It is a concept
by means of which the political analyst is enabled to consider the
ideals that cement a people together and that are basically responsible
for their social motivations. The fact that this concept has been clar-
ified, defined and formalized makes it possible for the analyst to use
it as a tool in his attempt to understand the reason why people behave
like human beings. Moreover, since we recognize that the statement
of aspirations contained in the myth is always stated in a positive
form, it becomes clear that once we know we are dealing with John
Birchers, or possibly Ku Klux Klaners, or Black Muslims, that know-
ledge makes it possible for us to predict for the individuals in ques-
tion a course of action based upon our knowledge of the myths to
which they subscribe. In other words, the more extreme the group, the
stronger the myth is held. Therefore, with a knowledge of the myth
that a group holds one can predict its future course of action in re-
gards to both domestic and foreign policy. Put otherwise, one would
not expect a Klanman to behave like a liberal A.D.A. man, nor would
one expect a Bircher to act in the same fashion as a member of
S.N.C.C. on a certain domestic policy concerning race relations.

Thus, it is possible, further to differentiate between social myths.
Because each group with its fundamental beliefs, conditioned by its
own peculiar environmental factors, behaves differently from those
whose environment is conditioned by various other factors.

Hence, the social myth as a means for the analysis and prediction
of future action of any given extreme group in society can be ascer-
tained through an analysis of the aspiration of the myth itself.

It is difficult perhaps impossible for the analyst to apply himself
to a purely objective analysis of the social myth to which he himself
subscribes. Because value judgements which are inherent in the myth's
structure make them objectively difficult to be carefully analyzed.
Hence, a quantitative model can be helpful in two ways; (1) to mea-
sure it and (2) aid in objectively predicting and evaluating with it.

79

Symbolism which represents in reality the abstract myths aids in
the transmission of ideas, and the persuasive and imperative functions
of the myths. In other words, for our purposes here, symbolism is
the perceptual-manipulatory or the representational form of the myth
in reality. 15

Toward A Theory of Intensity Measurement: Model Building

For the quantitative measurement of the intensity of one's opinion
based upon the myth he holds, backed up by symbolism, (IOMS),
it is submitted that the terms in the equation are as follows :

*The extremists group control (direct & indirect) = CON.

*The extremists group ability to put their myth in practice. = AP

*The extremists group constancy of strategy = STRAT.

*The extremists group flexibility of tactics = TAC.

*The extremists group dynamism of policy (individually and col-
lectively) = POL.

*The capabilities of the opposing group and individual measures
to resist this myth = CAP.

*The determination of the opposing group and individual measures
to resist this myth = DET.

Expressed as a simple mathematical equation, we have:

IOMS = CON -f AP + STRAT -f TAC -f- POL
CAP x DET

In this equation, the numerator is a sum, and the denominator is
a product. The insertion of this mathematical bias is deliberate, in
order to be consistent with the nature of the myth and the philosophy
of reaction by opposing groups and individuals who do not accept
the myth.

The assignment of numbers ranging from 1 to 5 for the various
terms in the equation followed by simple arithmetic enables a
qualitative mathematical "measurement" of the degree of intensity of
one's opinion (or lack thereof) for any particular occurrence or event.

The numbers "1" and "5" represent the extremes. In the assign-
ment of a number (from 1 to 5) for any term in the equation, the
number "1" represents "very poor," "extremely weak," etc. The num-
ber "5" represents "outstanding," "extremely strong," etc., as ap-
plicable for that particular term in the equation.

15 Martin Scheerer, "Cognitive Theory," in Gardner Lindzey, (Ed.) Handbook
of Social Psychology (Cambridge: Addison-Wesley, 1954), vol. 1, p. 126.

80

Using this system, the maximun numerical value obtainable is:

IOMS = 5+5+5+5+5 = 25 = 25.00
lxl 1

The minimum value obtainable is:

IOMS = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = _5 = 0.20
5x5 25

Therefore, a calculation resulting in unity 1 is indicative of
equilibrim (though unstable) or stalemate. In other words, indif-
ference.

Calculations resulting in numbers less than 1 are indicative of the
fact that the myth is not held strongly. And the smaller the number,
the less the myth is believed. Calculations resulting in numbers greater
than 1 are indicative of the fact that the myth is held in increasing
degree of intensity (strongly). And the greater the number, the
stronger the myth is held. 16

This system can be used in determining both the group's intensity
on a particular policy because of an underlying myth and the individ-
ual intensity. To arrive at the average individual intensity first arrive
at the groups' intensity and then divide through by the number of
persons in the group to get the average individual intensity.

Summary and Conclusions

Several assumptions were made in connection with this theory; ( 1 )
myths color opinions; (2) on the basis of the nature of the myth
strongly held, behavior was predictable; and (3) that extreme groups
held myths very strongly; and sought to fulfill them.

Therefore, with this simple mathematical formula, one could mea-
sure how strongly a certain group held a myth, divide through by the
number of persons in the group to arrive at the average intensity of
individuals. Also on this basis, the behavior of this extreme group
could be predicted and a numerical assessment of the general intensity
of the group could be measured at or for any particular event for
instance, their reaction to a particular policy in any span of time;
past, present or future, can be effectively measured. However, the
theory only seems to offer the greatest possible advantage in the
measuring of extreme groups, individuals and movements.

16 For a different approach see James G. March "An Introduction to the
Theory and Measurement of Influence." American Political Science Review
(June, 1955), pp. 431-51.

81

A Selected Bibliography

Albig, W. Public Opinion. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959.

Bogardus, Emory. The Making of Public Opinion. New York: Association
Press, 1951.

Cantril, Hadley, ed. Gauging Public Opinion. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1944.

Cassirer, Ernst. The Myth of the State. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1946.

Key, Jr., V. O. Public Opinion and American Democracy. New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1964.

Lindzey, Gardner, ed. Handbook of Social Psychology. Cambridge: Addison-
Wesley, 1954.

Maclver, Robert. The Web of Government. New York: MacMillian, 1947

Parson, Talcott. The Social System. Glencoe: Free Press, 1951.

Sorel, George. Reflections on Violence, trans, by T. E. Hulme London: George
Allen and Unwin, 1915.

Stouffer, Samuel, et al. Measurement and Prediction. Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1950.

Thurstone, L. L. and E. J. Chave. The Measurement of Attitudes. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1929.

Articles and Periodicals

Guttman, Louis. "A Basis for Scaling Qualitative Data," American Sociological
Review (Sept., 1944), 139-150.

Libert, Rensis. "A Technique for the Measurement of Attitudes," Archives of
Psychology, 1932 no. 140.

March, James G. "An Introduction to the Theory of Influence," American
Political Science Review (June, 1955), pp. 431-51.

82

Communist Insurrection and Mass Support in

Malaya, 1920-1966

By Hanes Walton, Jr.

Malaya is a new country. This nation, the Federation of Malaya,
is made up of eleven States which were brought together as a unit for
the first time as recently as 1946. The Federation has been an in-
dependent nation since 1957. 1

The former Federation of Malaya took its place among the several
Asian nations which have acquired their independence since the end
of World War II. The process of self-determination, which has been
transforming southern and southeastern Asia from a region of colonies
and dependencies to an area of independent states, has almost run
its course.

"Postwar Malaya has, in general, been typical of Southeast Asia,
politically and economically. Among the resemblances have been hos-
tility to colonial rule, a widespread demand for expansion of social
forces and the like." 2 It is fitting, therefore, that some attempt be
made to examine Communism as a political, social, and economic
force in the Malayan Federation and governmental structure. To gain
a better insight into Malayan politics in general and Communism in
particular.

This study is an attempt to provide a descriptive and analytical
basis for understanding Communist insurrection and mass support in
Malaya, especially after independence. It is concerned principally
with the strategy and tactics of the Communist revolutionary move-
ment in Malaya during the "period of the emergency." 3 However,
some attention will be given to history and background for purposes
of illumination and clarity. In addition, it will analyze, describe and
appraise some of the key problems that faced both the Communist
and the British-Malayan Colonial government in terms of social, eco-
nomical, political, and environmental characteristics.

This study, however, does not claim to be a comprehensive review
and discussion of the entire Communist insurrection and mass support
movement during the "emergency", but only some of the more im-
portant phases of the military, political, and security problems.

The Communist Revolt

Communism first became a significant force in Malaya in the mid-
dle 1920's when under the cloak of its association with the Chinese

1 Malaysia, Dept. of Information, A Brief Guide to Malaysia, (July, 1964).
28-29.

2 L. A. Mills, Malaya: A Political and Economic Appraisal (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1958), p. VII.

3 Malaysia, A Brief Guide to Malaysia, op. cit., pp. 26-27.

83

nationalism of the KMT (Kuomintang) it took hold on the emergent
labour movement. 4 After a set-back in the early 1930's it succeeded
in widening its influence among Malayan Chin&se labour by exploiting
the wave of patriotic support for China when its struggle with Japan
was renewed in 1937. 5 During the period of Japanese occupation of
Malaya, the Communist had led the Chinese resistance movement and
built up a guerilla force (the Malayan People's Anti- Japanese Army,
hereafter MPAJA) with the aid of the British force 136. 6 This guerilla
force was aided by a civilian underground organization, whose pur-
pose and function were to collect food, money, and information for
the army. 7

The Malayan Communist Party (MCP) emerged from the end
of the war in a position of great strength. Its military arm, the MPA-
JA, was the only Malayan armed body in being. As a result of its
anti- Japanese activities the MCP had captured from the KMT (now a
mere shadow of its prewar self) the leadership of Chinese nation-
alism in Malaya. The middle-class Chinese had for the time being
lost all influence. 8 Yet the Communists lacked a clear-cut policy and
organization for exploiting their strength and their leaders were
divided in their views on what should be done. 9 Some wished to turn
immediately against the British before the latter could re-establish
their rule. Others, who prevailed in the first instance, advocated a
policy of rebuilding their hold over the "masses" before the coming
struggle. There was also the case of the communist fight that was
going on in mainland China that added impetus to the internal splits
and factions which existed. 10

However, with the return of the British, the MPAJA in December
1945 paid each man from British funds $350 to turn in his carbine. 11
Even though the MPAJA did turn in some their arms, they kept back
a large quantity and organized the disbanded men in an Old Com-
rades' Association to facilitate remobilization if there was a need. 12

However, by early 1946 the school of MCP leader which advocated
a trial strength with the British was in ascendancy. Following the
police arrest of thirty ex-guerilla on criminal charges, the MCP called
a general strike throughout Malaya for January 29, 1946 and by well-
organized intimidation brought working life to a stand still for one
day. An attempt to repeat this success on February 15, of the same
year (the anniversary of the British surrender in 1942) was foiled

4 N. Ginsburg and C. F. Roberts, Jr. Malaya (Seattle: University of Washing-
ton Press, 1958), p. 270.

5 Gene Z. Hanrahan, The Communist Struggle in Malaya (New York: Insti-
tute of Pacific Relations, 1954), pp. 4-23.
6 Ibid., p. 40-44.
"Ibid., pp. 31-40.

8 Ginsburg and Roberts, Malaya, op. cit., pp. 243-266.

9 Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Malaya (London: Oxford University Press,
1948), pp. 250-330.
10 Ibid., p. 276.
11 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 50.
12 1 bid., p. 51.

84

by effective preventive measures taken by the British authorities. 13

Meanwhile there had been a reversion of the basic communist
strategy of infiltrating political bodies and trade unions so as to
build up a mass popular movement under communist leadership 14
The serious unrest among workers owing to the scarcity and high
prices of rice and other necessaries made it easy for the MCP to
establish very rapidly a network of Communist-dominated unions. The
ensuing wave of strikes was directed by headquarters "Federations"
into which new unions were regimented. 15 Two visiting British trade
unionists reported that:

The Federations call strikes, but pay no strike pay or
similar benefits; frame demands but carry out no negotia-
tions, preferring to remain in the background and to act
as 'the power behind the throne', while pushing forward
union leaders whom they interfere with and often intim-
idate. 16

It was the Communist strategy to prevent economic recovery by en-
gineering an epidemic of strikes. 17 "The ultimate purpose was political,
to undermine and bring down the Brisith government by using the
weapon of the general strike." 18 However, in May 1948, the British
enacted trade union legislation to prohibit federations of unions from
extending over several different industries and required union officers
to be experienced people. 19 The legislation, coupled with zealous
government enforcement, resulted in "a marked decline in the in-
fluence of the Communist over the population." 20 This in turn lead
to a rapid decline in membership of leftist organizations and their
affiliates. 21 The communist movement was almost brought to a stand
still and they in turn changed their tactics.

The Insurrection and The Emergency

At this point the MCP received new instructions from Moscow
through contacts at the Communist Youth Conference held in Calcutta
in February 1948. 22 Russia had broken with her war-time allies and

13 Mills, op. cit., p. 46.

14 Hanrahan, op. cit., pp. 55-60.

15 J. Norman Parmer, "Trade Unions and Politics in Malaya", Far Eastern
Survey (March, 1955), pp. 33-39.

16 S. S. Awberry and F. W. Dalley, Labour and Trade Union Organization in
the Federation of Malaya and Singapore. (London: H. M. Stationery Office,
1948), p. 27.

17 Mills, op. cit., p. 45.

18 Ibid.

19 Purcell, op. cit., p. 267-275.

20 Mills, op. cit., p. 46.

21 Purcell, op. cit., p. 267-275.

22 This is the generally accepted version (J. H. Brimmell, Communism in South-
east Asia, (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 210. However, some
authorities consider that the connection between the Calcutta Conference and
subsequent events in Malaya is not proven. Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 63.

85

her global strategy now required that trouble should be fomented in
the far Eastern colonial dependencies of Britain and other European
powers so as to divert their military resources and also weaken their
economic strength. 23 The MCP, like other Communist parties in
Southeast Asia, was summoned to revolt. The outcome in China Be-
tween the nationalist and the Communist also added some impetus to
the situation.

The MCP reacted quickly and their revolt began in June of 1948. 24
The former members of the MPAJA and the Old Comrades' associa-
tion were quickly mobilized. Weapons sent into the MPAJA by the
British during the war, which had been cached in the jungle, were
dug up and put into use. The jungle provided the MCP with a con-
venient base of operations with it's dense cover. Along the fringe of
the jungle were many thousands of Chinese squatters among whom the
war-time civilian support organization (later called the Min Yuen)
could easily be revived. 25

The Communist strategy was; (1) to dislocate the Malayan eco-
nomy by attacks on plantations and mines, many of which bordered
the junge; (2) to establish liberated areas under their control; and
(3) to lead a popular revolt in the form of a liberation army which
could link the liberated areas and complete the conquest of Malaya. 26
This strategy, modelled on the successful communist campaigns in
China, was over-ambitious in Malayan conditions and did not succeed
as we shall see later. The Communist did a great deal of damage but
they did not achieve the total economic dislocation planned for Phase
1 ; and Phases 2 and 3 remained a dream.

As stated previously, after Mao Tse-Tung seized power in China,
many Malayan Chinese shifted their sentimental attachments to the
communists. The communist appeal grew out of their frustrations with
an oppressive social system and colonial status and intensified their
sense of being Chinese. 27 Thus Chin Peng, a Malayan Chinese who
had been a hero in the struggle with Japan, built within this com-
munity of disgruntled Chinese the Malayan Races Liberation Army
(MRLA). 2S The MRLA was an outgrowth of the MPAJA.

However, the Malayans, who made up roughly half the population,
always remained cool to communism. 29 Devoutly religious Moslems
in the countryside held fast to tradition and remained satisfied with
simple village life. Those who migrated to the cities usually joined
the army, service industries, the police force or the government, and
maintained friendly relations with the British. 30 The Indians and

23 OHver, Clubb, Jr. The United States and the Sino-Soviet Bloc in Southeast
Asia (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1962), p. 18.

24 Mills, op. cit., p. 50.

25 Ibid., p. 51.

26 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 63.

27 Ginsburg and Roberts, op. cit., pp. 243-315.

28 Lucian W. Pye, Guerrilla Communism in Malaya (Princeton: University
Press, 1956, p. 45-51.

29 Ginsburg and Roberts, op. cit., pp. 191-243.

30 Pye, op. cit., pp. 49-51.

86

Ceylonese, numbering some 600,000, were recipients of extensive
welfare programs and showed little enthusuiasm for the communism
advocated by the Chinese. 31

On the other hand, the MLRA was able to muster some 7,000-8,-
000 guerrillas at the start of the revolt. 32 These guerrillas, in turn,
relied for logistic support and intelligence chiefly upon somewhat
less than one-half million illiterate and impoverished Chinese squat-
ters. Most of the squatters had lived at the edge of the jungle since
the depression of the 1930's when unemployment had driven them to
subsistence farming; others had drifted into this precarious existence
during the Japanese occupation when food became scarce in the
towns. 33 The MRLA organized these squatters into their civilian arm,
the Min Yen. Many of the Chinese, reacting to real or imagined
grievances, as well as new pride in being Chinese, eagerly volunteered
their services. Some were intimidated into supporting the guerrillas.
Still others refused to participate. However, we can see a certain pat-
tern developing and that is the reliance on only the Chinese part of
the population.

The MRLA and its civilian arm, began their terroristic activities,
nevertheless, with what they had. As one observer saw it:

The revolt was in no sense a national uprising, although
Communist propaganda inside Malaya and without always
so represented it. The Malays firmly supported the govern-
ment, and enlisted by thousands in the Malay Regiment
and the police. The large majority of the Chinese were
opposed to the Communists. 34

"The guerrillas divided into bands and set up camps in the jungle
which covers four fifths of Malaya." 35 From these key points they
made attacks on various isolated plantations, police stations and
mines. As their terrorist activities continued to increase and mount
in intensity the Federation Government proclaimed a state of "emer-
gency" to augment its legal power on June 16, 1948. 36 To cope with
the terrorist the government deployed some 40,000 regulars soldiers
(including several battalions of the Malay Regiment) supported on
occasion by aircraft, artillery and naval vessels, some 70,000 police
and a quarter of a million village "Home Guards" plus any adminis-
trative or technical services of the local government which were re-
quired. 37 The disparity in the strength of the opposing forces is
striking. However, "the terrorists" losses rose each year, but the
ominous discovery was made that for a long time, the inflow of

31 Ginsburg and Roberts, op. cit., pp. 316-362.

32 Mills, op. cit., p. 67.

33 Lt. Col. Rowland Mans "Victory in Malaya" in T. N. Greene (ed.). The

Guerrilla and How to Fight Him (New York: Praeger, 1962).
34 Mills, op. cit., p. 51.
35 Ibid.

36 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 65.
37 Ginsburg and Roberts, op. cit., p. 272. This information can also be seen in

Mills, op. cit., p. 53-54, and Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 65.

87

Chinese volunteers equaled the casualties, so the guerrillas in the
jungle never grew less." 38 This continued for some time until the tide
began to turn in 1954.

However, for several years the terrorists retained the local initia-
tive in areas of their own choice and did great damage. The tasks of
the security forces were to protect lives, and property against ter-
rorist attacks and then to eliminate the terrorist forces themselves. The
first task called for an elaborate and costly defensive system of barbed
wire fences, floodlighting, wireless communications, armoured vehicles
and other equipment manned by armed and trained men. There were
innumerable possible targets of Communist attack and some of them
were human beings who had to go about their essential duties. Hence,
the defensive system could never completely guarantee the safety of
anyone or anything. The all-pervasive nature of the risk was exempli-
fied in the death of the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney,
in a roadside terrorist ambush in October 195 1. 39

However, these various defense measures, especially for the ex-
posed member of the community, like managers of plantations and
mines and their staff began to take effect. These people had been
singled out for assassination as part of Phase 1. With increasing ef-
forts made to protect these people the Communist terrorist had to
shift their efforts to the minor staff of such employer thus undermining
some of their sympathizers. But the Communist continued their ter-
rorist activities. Great damage was done to property. Buildings and
vehicles were burned, rubber trees were slashed. And attacks on pop-
ulation became less and less discriminatory in character. Frequently,
an individual was murdered in atrocious fashion as a warning to
others that they should not refuse to supply food or information to
the terrorists on demand. 40 This, however, helped to win people over
to the government or make neutrals of them. By becoming indiscrimin-
ate, the Communists were undermining their own power.

The terrorist did not stand and fight. They had no strong points or
territory to defend. Their tactics were to use their own mobility and
the cover afforded by the jungle to escape contact with their pur-
suers and then reappear elsewhere to take the local initiative against
undefended or weakly held targets. But the grim game of "hide and
seek" proved to be a very laborious and weary task for the govern-
ment even with its numerical superiority. 41 Thus, the government
shifted tactics. They began to wait in ambush for terrorists emerging
from the jungle to obtain supplies. For this purpose it was essential
to have accurate information and considerable efforts were made to
build up an effective system of intelligence.

The terrorists' supply system proved to be the weak link in the
chain. Their losses by supply parties falling into ambush were not
severe. The mortal blow was the government decision to remove and

3S Mills, op. cit., p. 53.
39 Mills, op. cit., p. 58.
40 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 67.
41 Mills, op. cit., p. 53.

resettle the Chinese squatters from whom the armed terrorists ob-
tained foodstuffs. 42 This operation, planned and executed as a method
of starving out the elusive terrorists, was a major effort of social
and economic reconstruction. The "New Villages" were the most
significant legacy of the whole campaign.

The New Villages.

In the early stages of the campaign against the terrorists whole
squatter villages were rounded up and consigned to internment camps
from which the majority were eventually repatriated to China. 43 In
the first ten months of 1949 over 6,000 people were thus interned
and 700 of them had already been repatriated by April 1950. 44 How-
ever, it was not possible, nor humane nor even sound economic policy
to deal with half a million people in this way. The eventual solution,
known as the Briggs plan, was to move the squatters and others to
new settlements or sometimes to gather them together (called re-
grouping) in the same locality. 45 In either case the old scattered
settlements were replaced with compact new villages fortified with a
barbed wire perimeter fence and protected by a police station. The
squatters were thus safeguarded against intimidation, brought under
government control and administration for the first time, and cut off
from contact with the terrorists in the jungle whom, willingly or other-
wise, they had until then supplied with food and information. 46

The resettlement of about half a million people in the space of
three years (1951-53) was carried through in haste as a military
necessity. The sites of the new villages were sometimes chosen with
more regard to their defensibility than to agricultural and economic
considerations. These stakes were remedied in time. 47 In general, the
new villages were a success and their inhabitants benefited from the
move. Eighty-five percent of the resettled people were Chinese and
the remainder were Malays. 4S Also out of the projected 550 new
villages, about 483 were built. "The opinion was expressed that in
1953 there were some fifty exceptionally good villages, .... a block
of 400 reasonably good ones and another block of 100 bad ones. 49

"As a counter-move, the MPLA stepped up its terrorist policies and
began to blackmail and terrorize local Chinese into giving them
additional money and assistance." 50 They turned on the very people
who were helping them and their active supporters and sympathizers.

42 "The Emergency in Malaya". The World Today (November, 1954), pp. 476-

87.
43 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 65.
44 Victor Purcell, Malaya: Communist or Free? (London: Victor Gollancz,

1954), p. 21-89. See Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 65.
45 Mills, op. cit., p. 272.
46 Ginsburg and Roberts, op. cit., p. 272.
47 Mills, op. cit., p. 56.
iS Ibid.

49 Ibid., p. 57.
5 "Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 67.

89

They attempted to control or influence the people in the New villages
by means of terror and threats. In describing the Communist tactics,
one author states that:

With little time available, efforts were made to exert
control through the medium of fear, rather than through
the slower and more costly method of political work and
propaganda. As time passed, Communist traitor-killing
groups began to reapper in large numbers. 51

However, terror, as it has been suggested, is a weapon of the weak
and usually the first form of violence undertaken by insurgents. The
degree to which it proves effective depends on the ability of the gov-
ernment to provide protection, to mount counter-terror tactics and to
control the tide of military and political battle. 52 In other words, terror
can work both ways, for and against. And in the case of the MCP it
worked against them. 53 As Professor Pye points out, the MCP "was
. . . clearly a prisoner of terrorism. It could neither give up use of
violence nor employ it effectively." 54

Finally, the MPLA gradually began to lose active control, support
and sympathy of the masses. This in turn caused a drop in food sup-
plies. Therefore, the Communist guerrillas moved further inland to
grow food and escape the security forces. Here they grew their own
food in jungle clearings and bided their time. Terrorist attacks, re-
duced in scale, were now aimed more at the security forces and less
at the local population in order to avoid antagonising the latter.
Nevertheless, the MCP was quite unable to find a wider basis of
popular appeal.

However, in 1951 a change of world Communist strategy gave
priority to attracting and making use of nationalist sentiment in Asian
countries so as to build up a Communist-neutralist bloc against the
Western powers. 55 The MCP Politburo immediately issued an order
to change policy. The members were told to win the masses over
first, stop their indiscriminate terror tactic, and to make friends and
influence people. 56 "This new order tacitly admitted that the policy
of 1948 to conquer Malaya by guerrilla warfare had failed and that
the party must gradually return to its earlier program of political and
economic action." 57

However, this new policy reversal of indiscriminate method of
killing, such as shooting blindly into a crowd, derailing civilian trains,
etc. was not activated soon enough. Hampered by the continued secur-
ity forces and the new villages programs the Communist could not

51 Ibid.

52 F. M. Osanka, "Population Control Techniques of Communist Insurgents,"

Australian Army Journal (January, 1964), p. 11.
53 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 67.
54 Pye, op. cit., p. 106.
55 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 73.
56 Ibid., p. 73-74.
57 Mills, op. cit., p. 58.

90

give up their terror tactics long enough to do something constructive
for the people. All they could do was shout that they were fighting for
independence. They had not time to widen their political and eco-
nomic base, nor win back the people they had alienated by their harsh
tactics.

On the other hand, however, the government was working vigorous-
ly to do something for the people and to correct mistakes thay they
had made in preparing hastily to fight the insurgents.

The Templer Regime

After the assassination of the High Commissioner, Sir Henry
Gurney, a successor was appointed early in 1952. His successor was
General Gerald Templer. 5S He combined in the same hand for the
first time direction of military operations and the civil administration
in support of them. He attempted to do something for the people.

Under his rule, the squatters were given leases to their land, and
thus afforded improved security of tenure, a major consideration to
the land-hungry Chinese peasant. Some of the villages were provided
with piped water supply, electric light, schools, community centres,
and the like. 59 Talks and demonstrations helped to educate the vil-
lagers and increase their sense of identity with their Malayan environ-
ment. They were allowed to share in their own affairs through village
councils and to share in their own defense by raising home guard de-
tachments. In effect, the Chinese squatter was for the first time inte-
grated into the Malayan political and social structure which demanded
his loyalty. Previously the Chinese were excluded or discriminated
against in favor of the Malays/'

An immediate and unqualified response was not to be expected
but this constructive approach was undoubtedly worthwhile. Tactical-
ly, it tipped the balance in the struggle with Communist terrorism
without alienating (as other harsher measures tended to) the sym-
pathies of the general body of Malayan Chinese. In the long-term the
new villages helped to turn the Chinese squatter into a Malayan
citizen.

In addition to the resettlement of squatters a variety of measures,
some liberal and some repressive were devised to build up the pres-
sure of the blockade on the terrorists and to isolate them psycholog-
ically as much as spatially from the general body of the Malayan
people. 61 There was an elaborate administrative apparatus of food
rationing, restriction on movement of food and other essential sup-
plies. The population were all issued identity cards, a system which
has since provided the illiterate Malayan with invaluable evidence of
his identity and recent residence in Malaya. Villages with a bad record

5S V. Bartlett, Report from Malaya (London: Derek Verschoyle, 1954), pp. 39-

78. See also Mills, op. cit., p. 62-67.
50 Ginsburg and Roberts, op. cit., p. 272-273.
60 Purcell, Malaya: Communist or Free? op. cit., p. 200-26.
61 Mills, op. cit., p. 63-66.

SAVANNAH "V r i COLLEGE ' ,

91

riATE. COLLEGE BRAN

X

CJ-

SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

of support for the terrorists were subjected to collective fines, long
daily curfews, etc., as a punishment. Captured terrorists, if deemed
likely material for reformation, were sent to a special centre for
rehabilitation and and for instruction in a trade. Moreover, rewards, a
general amnesty and bounties were offered. All these methods,
coupled with various propaganda techniques, such as use of leaflets
and loudspeakers promising immunity, caused the terrorists to desert,
and leave the guerrilla forces in moderate numbers. 62

Meanwhile the military effort against Communist terrorism went
on year after year with steady rather than dramatic success. It had
become a war of attrition. It was found that the best results were ob-
tained by concentrating military and police forces, intelligence work,
food control, psychological warfare, etc. in certain selected areas
throughout Malaya. 63 Intensive pressure was maintained within each
locality for months on end in order to wear down the terrorist band
sometimes a mere twenty or thirty men still active there. At the out-
set few results were expected or achieved but months of relentless
pressure exhausted the terrorists' food reserves and weakened their
morale. Artillery bombarded the stretches of jungle in which they were
known to be hiding. Loudspeakers in aircraft circling overhead
emanated propaganda, often the voice of a captured comrade calling
on the others to follow his example and surrender. The guerrillas cas-
ualties mounted, desertion increased and morale dropped to an all
time low.

Once an area had been permanently cleared of Communists it was
declared "white", i.e., the innumerable and irksome restrictions of
the anti-terrorist campaign could at last be relaxed with consequent
improvement in public morale. The focus of intensive pressure was
then switched to some other area and the whole laborious operation
repeated. Parachute detachments, or ground patrols supplied from the
air, were sent to harass the terrorists deep in the jungle. Incendiary
bombs were dropped to set fire to their crops. In time the Communist
terrorists were reduced to a mere 500 or so and were driven back to
north Malaya from which they could not be dislodged because of
Thai Malaya border complications. 64 There in the border they could
obtain supplies and take refuge in Thai territory. 65

Here on the Thai-Malay border the guerrillas became less and less
a threat to internal peace and security. 66 The end of the emergency
was in sight.

The End Of The Emergency

Sir Gerald Templer's emergency appointment ended in 1954. He
was succeeded by his deputy, Sir Donald MacGillivary who continued

62 Mills, op. cit., p. 64.

63 Hanrahan, op. cit., p. 76-82.

64 Robert A. Scalapino (ed.), The Communist Revolution in Asia (Englewood

Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1965) pp. 222-251.
65 Ibid., p. 222-251.
66 Ibid.

92

in the same manner as Templer. 67 And in November of 1955 he an-
nounced that the people of Malaya could move toward self-govern-
ment. It was granted in 1957.

However, prior to independence in 1957, the UMNO (the alliance
which had been formed to take over the government) had a confer-
ence with the Communist leader Chin Peng. This meeting was held
in Baling in December, 1955. 68 The Communist leader had called
the conference. They had become aware of the fact that they were no
longer winning and their tactics had proven unsuccessful. Sensing
ultimate failure they attempted to return to legitimate political activity
on their own terms. 69

However, the meeting became deadlocked between, the Communist
leader Chin Peng and Federation President Tegku Abduk Rahman.
Chin Peng demanded that the MCP be legalized and its members be
allowed to resume normal political life without restraint. He also
sought complete amnesty for all his men and all criminal charges
against them be completely dropped. Furthermore, he refused to give
up his arms. The chief Ministers were nor prepared to concede so
much, so they rejected Chin Peng's demands. 70

Therefore, the MCP opted to go on fighting although there was
no hope of victory nor any apparent possibility of getting better terms
than it had chosen to refuse. The MCP leaders were out of harm's
way in the deep jungle or over the Thai border. They were apparently
indifferent to the deteriorating position of their rank and file harassed
by the security forces. Followers were expendable so long as they
prolonged the struggle and thereby kept up the pressure on the other
side to negotiate again. This however was a miscalculation. 71

In the sustained drive against the terrorists which continued after
the abortive talks of 1955 the Malayan political leaders who were now
Ministers made their own personal contribution. In many parts of
Malaya there were rallies and processions in which the general body
of the electorate were invited to join. The purpose of these demonstra-
tions was to make it clear to the fence-sitters and to the MCP where
the ordinary people and their elected leaders stood in the long
struggle.

With independence in 1957, the Federation government made its
last appeal to the insurgents. Afterwards, they continued the military
operation and with the situation continually improving all the time,
the emergency was declared over. "The Federation of Malaya's

67 Mills, op. cit., p. 67.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Mills, op. cit., p. 69.

71 The Alliance Government did in fact offer a second invitation to the MCP
to lay down its arms in 1957 when independence had been won and also
offered an amnesty of which the despondent rank and file took some ad-
vantage. But the MCP leaders themselves rejected it. See Mills, op. cit., p.
70.

93

twelve-year emergency officially ended in July 1960, with the Com-
munist guerrilla force once numbering an estimated 11,000 reduced
to fewer than 450 terrorists." 72

Summary and Conclusions

In terms of assessment and evaluation of the Communist guerrilla
struggle and subsequent government action, several observations can
be drawn and stated.

First, the MCP was hemmed in within the Chinese community
from which it drew almost all its support basing its appeal upon
Chinese nationalism rather than Communist ideology. Its essentially
communal nature and the violence and abuses of its post-war heyday
of 1946-1948 made it anathema to the Malays and unacceptable to
the Indians in Malaya. 73 Secondly, the MCP was a prisoner of external
direction, subservient to the basic rule of colonial communism, obey-
ing the Cominform. The directives which percolated through by de-
vious routes from Moscow were designed to serve the ends of Russian
international policy rather than of Malayan Communism. On receipt
they were interpreted in terms of the successful campaigns of Mao Tse
Tung in China rather than the local strategic and political situation.
The result was rigidity and irrelevancy.

Thirdly, this long campaign was fought to the bitter end outside the
towns. The original conception of the Communist strategy, based on
the victories of Mao Tse Tung, was of an uprising at the periphery
and in the last phase a converging drive on the towns. Even in 1948
the towns in Malaya were relatively calm and secure and stayed that
way during the entire emergency, for the most part.

Fourthly, the Communist-dominated trade unions collapsed and
the reformed unions which replaced them were put mainly under
Indian leadership, who were anti-Communist in nature. Also a close
watch was kept on the unions and the Chinese schools as possible
centres of subversion. In other words, everything Chinese was close-
ly watched, because the entire movement was only based on the
Chinese part of the population. It never diversified itself. The Com-
munist insurrection against the British in Malaya never gained mass
support.

Fifthly, there seemed to have been significant weakness in the
calibre of MCP leadership. Although, Chin Peng, the MCP Secretary-
General from 1947 down to the present time, who had made his
reputation against the Japanese as a guerrilla leader still remains a
mere shadowy figure. And still more his lieutenants, also remain in
the background. They seem to be men of some education but none of
them theoreticians or strategists capable of redefining the party line.
In other words, they seem mediocre.

72 Clubb, op. cit., p. 36.

"Communism to Malaya is something Chinese, Chinese in origin (as far as

Malaya is concerned), Chinese in inspiration and Chinese in Following. See,

Ginsburg and Roberts, pp. 191-242.

94

However, even if the MCP leaders had been men of more original
and percipient views it is unlikely that they could have broken out of
the double ring-fence in which Communist strategy and policy in
Malaya was confined.

On the government side, as William J. Pomeroy, states:

. . . the British could claim success with 'strategic hamlet'
measures only because of special circumstances in that
country; they had to relocate but a minority of the pop-
ulation, of the forested regions and who to a greater degree
than the Malays supported the Malayan Liberation Army. 74

This can also be said of the food control measures, because Malaya
is a food deficit area and not a food surplus area. And furthermore,
"in Malaya, as in the Philippines and Indonesia, geography prevented
outside support of the uprising." 75 However, it can be said that the
government did enact favorable programs to help the people and win
their support.

Concluding then, the Communist revolt was a digression up a blind
alley which took MCP still further out of the mainstream of Malayan
political development at a critical time. At the end of a decade of
armed struggle the Communists found themselves discredited and
without either allies or influence. Malaya had achieved its independ-
ence and they had had no part in it.

However, the struggle still goes on now in the form of subversion
rather than terrorism.

Bibliography

Books

Awbery, S. S., and Dalley, F. W. Labour and Trade Union Organization in the
Federation of Malaya and Singapore London: H. M. Stationery Office,
1948.

Bartlett, Vernom. Report From Malaya London: Derek Verschoyle, 1954.

Brimmell, J. H. Communism in Southeast Asia London: Oxford University
Press, 1959.

Clubb, Jr. Oliver E. The United States and The Sino-Soviet Bloc in Southeast
Asia Wash., D. C: The Brooking Institution, 1962.

Ginsburg, Norton and Roberts, Jr., Chester F. Malaya Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1958.

Green, T. N. ed. The Guerrilla and How to Fight Him New York: Praeger,
1962.

Hanrahan, Gene Z. The Communist Struggle in Malaya New York: Institute
of Pacific Relations, 1954.

Mills, Lennox, A. Malaya: A Political and Economic Appraisal Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1958.

74 William J. Pomeroy, Guerrilla and Counter-Guerrilla Warfare (New York:
International Publishers, 1964), pp. 49-50.

95

Pomeroy, William J. Guerrilla & Counter-Guerrilla Warfare New York: In-
ternational Publishers, 1964.

Purcell, Victor. The Chinese in Malaya London: Oxford University Press,
1948.

Malaya: Communist or Free. London: Victor Gollancz, 1954.

Pye, Lucian W. Guerrilla Communism in Malaya Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1956.

Scalapino, Robert A. ed. The Communist Revolution in Asia Englewood, Cliffs,
N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1965.

Bibliography

Articles and Periodicals

Malaysia, Dept. of Information, A Brief Guide to Malaysia July, 1964.

Osanka, F. M. "Population Control Techniques of Communist Insurgents"
Australian Army Journal January, 1964.

Parmer, J. Norman. "Trade Unions and Politics in Malaya" Far Eastern Sur-
vey March, 1955.

"The Emergency in Malaya" The World Today November, 1954.

96

The Funeral Industry

By Hanes Walton, Jr.

Much has been written of late about the affluent society
in which we live, and much fun poked at some of the irra-
tional 'status symbols' set out like golden snares to trap the
unwary consumer at every turn. Until recently, little has
been said about the most irrational and weirdest of the
lot, lying in ambush for all of us at the end of the road
the modern American funeral. 1

Funerals in the United States are the objects of a wide variety
of emotional reactions, frequently contradictory as between different
individuals, and not infrequently inconsistent for the same individual
on different occasions. Often reactions to funerals reflect the at-
titudes toward death and dead bodies; and these attitudes, in turn,
are as diverse as horror and amusement. To discuss funerals is not
the proper thing to do in some social circles, and yet the subject is
of considerable interest. 2

In its secular aspects the American funeral appears to be an
anachronism, an elaboration of early customs rather than the
adaptation to modern needs that it should be. 3 Properly employed,
it is a highly useful and essential function of society. Improperly
used it deteriorates into little more than a shabby opportunity for
an undertaker to exploit bereaved families. 4

Against protests over the lavish display of expensive caskets and
the multitude of costly floral decorations to be seen at most final
rites, the funeral directors raise their voices to proclaim the lasting
satisfaction they furnish their customers. 5 Bereaved families, they
point with pride and some justification, need solace regardless of
price. 6 Moreover, they contend, the social status and prestige of
sorrowing survivors must be proclaimed by appearances at the
funeral. 7

Therefore, the thesis of this paper concerns itself with the basis
of charges of commercial exploitation directed at undertakers, to
ascertain what peculiar circumstances influence the methods they

^Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death (New York: Crests Books,

1963), p. 13.
2 Ibid., pp. 14-17.
3 Ruth M. Harmer, The High Cost of Dying (New York: Collier Books, 1963),

pp. 78-97.
4 Mitford, op. cit., pp. 18-44.
5 U. S., Congress, Senate, Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, Hearings,

Antitrust Aspects of the Funeral Industry, 88th Cong., 2nd Sess., 1964, pp.

255-262.
6 1 bid., pp. 259-261.
Ubid.

97

use, and to uncover the social and psychological factors that
underlie conspicuous display. While these aspects of the funeral
industry are taken into account, the main aspects, that of monopolistic
tendencies, fraud and misrepresentation shall be the chief subject
of the paper. Also to provide a more vivid insight into the area,
some possible remedies shall be discussed.

This study, however, does not claim to be a comprehensive review
and discussion of the entire area, but of the most important parts.

Death In America: The Factual Situation

As stated, the purpose of this paper is to explore some of the
economic conditions and practices in the funeral industry. Therefore,
since we are concerned with antitrust and trade ramifications of the
industry, some vital statistics about death in our society, about the
cost cf funerals and national expenditures on funerals, will be highly
illuminating, informative, and revelant.

The American Funeral Industry is an exceedingly important sector
of the American economy. Not including burials by public and
private institutions for example, burials of welfare recipients, indi-
gents, and Armed Forces dead; not including the cost of flowers;
not including so-called preneed expenditures for cemetery plots and
crypts not including all these items, the Department of Commerce's
Census of Business Bureau puts personal expenditures for death
expenses in 1960, which is the last year available, at $1.6 billion,
or an average of approximately $1,160 for each regular funeral. 8
This is only slightly less than what Americans spent in 1960 for all
higher education, more than was spent for dental care, more than
was spent for police protection, and more than was spent for fire
protection. 9 "The cost of providing medical care for the aged, the
16 million Americans who are 65 or older, under a medical-hospital
insurance program, would be less than the annual cost of dying
in the United States." 10 And finally, "the federal government spends
less each year for conservation and development of natural resources
than we spend on funerals." 11

However, on this point one author has stated that:

The Department of Commerce figure of $1.6 billion
averages out to $1,160 for each regular adult funeral. The
more realistic figure of $2 billion yields a nation wide aver-
age of $1,450 for the disposition of the mortal remains of
an adult American. 12

This more realistic figure of author Mitford, $2 billion dollars as a
national expenditure of $1,160 for an average adult funeral is arrived

8 U. S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee. . . . , Hearings, Ibid., p. 1.

8 Ibid., See also, Mitford, op. cit., p. 33.
10 Mitford, op. cit., p. 33.
^Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 32.

98

at by including what she calls "other substantial items", 13 is the
cost for the casket and other services, and the cost of shipping the
dead by train or plane. 14

As author Mitford states:

These charges must be considerable; one in ten of all
the dead are shipped else where for burial. Train fare for a
corpse is double the cost of a single first-class ticket for a
live passenger. Air transport is, . . . becoming the preferred
means of carriage for the modishly attired corpse, . . .
The standard rate for the air shipment of human remains
is two and one-half times the rate of other air freight; the
average transcontinental fare for a dead body is $255. 78. 15

Other additional items which author Mitford includes and the
Department of Commerce excludes in its figures are funeral flowers,
graves, and mausoleum crypts. Therefore, "it would be a conserva-
tive guess that these extras, if added to the Commerce Department's
base figure of $1.6 billion would bring the nation's burial bill to
well over $2 billion," 16 for 1960. "By mid- 1962 the cost . . .
indicated a rise of more than 40 percent in a decade. In some places
it was even higher." 17 Early in 1963, an Illinois commission study-
ing the subject was told that the cost of dying in the U.S. "counting
the trimmings" came to $1,545. 18

There is, of course, nothing intrinsically wrong with expenditures
of this magnitude if they are the product of untrammeled freedom
of choice on the part of those who purchase funeral services and if
the markets for such services respond readily to the natural forces
of competition and are devoid of unfair selling practices. However,
no such situation exists in the funeral industry. Everyone knows
that the average funeral purchaser, most often the bereaved next
of kin, has his normal bargaining defenses down when making such
a purchase and is not emotionally equipped to make rational de-
cisions. Secondly, the demand for the services is always limited by
the death rate. For example, in 1940, the U.S. with a population of
131,000,000, had only 1,417,000 deaths; in 1960, the U.S. with a
population of almost 178,500,000 had only 1,702,000 deaths. 19 Yet
in that time the amount of money annually expended on funerals

13 Ibid., p. 31-33.

14 Ibid., p. 31.

15 Ibid., p. 31-32. Also, "rates seem even more disproportionate when sea
travel is involved. The cost of shipping a corpse from Mediterranean ports
... in 1962, amounts to $605; an urn of ashes, $544. To send a body from
Brazil to the U. S. costs $440 . . . , the cost of sending a body from or to a
Japanese-American Port is $631.50 . . . human ashes $252.75." This is too
high. Hamer, op. cit., p. 83-84.

16 Ibid., p. 32.
17 Harmer, op. cit., p. 9.
ls Ibid.
19 Ibid., p. 163.

99

rose from about one-half billion to almost two billion dollars. What
caused this? One author has stated the reason in this manner:

Thus in 1880 there were 993,000 deaths and 5,100 fun-
eral establishments, giving each a potential clientele of 194
cases per year. By 1960 the number of funeral establish-
ments had grown fivefold, to 25,000, each new one bigger
and more lavishly appointed than the last, and they had to
share a mere 1,700,000 deaths, for an average of fewer than
70 cases each year. It is easy to see how, with the business
so thinly distributed, there is an ever-present compulsion
to make each sale a big one, to regard each opportunity as
a golden one. 20

In other words, the field is overcrowded. 21 And the oversupply of
funeral homes has been a serious economic problem for many years.

So many undertakers competing for so few funerals should create,
one would expect, a buyer's market, leading to lower prices. The
opposite, we know, has occurred, and funerals prices have increased
terribly in the last fifty years. This paradoxical state of affairs
can be explained in part, but not entirely, by the special features of
the funeral transaction, and the trade associations, which help strip
the customer of the bargaining advantages he would normally enjoy
in a competitive market.

The truth of the matter is that price competition in the funeral
industry has in many parts of the country been stifled virtually to
extinction by price-fixing agreements. 22 Since price fixing agree-
ments are illegal under the antitrust laws, 23 there can be no question
of the undertakers in a given area getting together and publishing
a minimum price schedule.

How, is it done? Members of local associations of funeral di-
rectors, arrive at an understanding that "the lowest price at which
the funeral director will be fairly compensated in a given area is
"X" dollars." 24 This figure is arrived at by estimating the average
overhead per case in that particular area.

Since, the average overhead is estimated to be $475, and the
wholesale cost of the cheapest coffin sold is $40, then $515 becomes
the lowest price at which the director can be fully compensates. 25
Once the minimum is set, the maximum is the sky.

The American Funeral Industry: An Overview

A brief word here about the structure and composition of the

20 Mitford, op. cit., p. 41.

2 interview with W. D. Sparks, Assistant Counsel, Senate Antitrust Subcom-
mittee, March 1, 1966.

22 U. S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee . . . Hearings, Ibid. pp. 158-219.

23 C. Wilcox, Public Policies Toward Business. (Homewood, Illinois: Richard
Irwin, 1960), pp 49-60.

24 Mitford, op. cit., p. 42.

25 Ibid.

100

funeral service industry will be very helpful to provide a vivid under-
standing of the practices in question.

The estimated 24,000 funeral firms in the United States essentially
include three types of persons, firms, or corporations. 26

First is the funeral establishment which is equipped to handle
within one building, or through branches, and with one staff, all
aspects of mortuary sales and services, including care, preparation
and embalming of the deceased, sale of caskets, vaults, and sometimes
urns, and arrangements for cremation and/or burial. 27

In some instances, they lease their motor equipment, but more
generally they own and operate their vehicles. 28

A second type of funeral firm maintains only a partial establish-
ment. Such a business owns or rents its building but is dependent
upon outside sources for rental of motor vehicles, for specialized
equipment and other facilities, and for staff. In some instances,
the owner of the business engages in the undertaking business as a
sideline or as a byproduct of some other business endeavor. 29

A third category consists of the "broker" or "curbstoner" operator
who holds some form of license. Either limited or no facilities are
maintained by this type of operator. Generally, he is wholly de-
pendent upon the outside sources including trade embalmers, the
showroom of the casket manufacturer for display and sale facilities,
automobile equipment rental firms and nonpayroll personnel. 30

"Brokers" or "curbstoners" are usually located in large metropoli-
tan areas such as the cities of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pitts-
burgh, and Detroit. 31

It is the "curbstoners" that the big funeral establishment blame
for the high prices in the industry. Appearing before the Senate
Antitrust Subcommittee, W. M. Krieger, managing director of the
National Selected Morticians (of whom we shall discuss later)
claimed that it is the "curbstoners" who take advantage of the
consumer, victimize the public, embarrass the industry, and will
not permit low-cost funerals for low-income families because of
their greedy actions. 32 He states that:

Since each curbstoner typically handles only a handful
of funerals each year, he generally tries to make a maximum
profit on each case. A majority of the trade deplores this

26 Harmer, op. cit., p. 17, 96. See also, Robert Habenstein, The History of
American Funeral Directing (Milwaukee: National Funeral Directors As-
sociation, 1955).

"Interview with W. D. Sparks, Assistant Counsel, Senate Antitrust Subcom-
mittee, March 1, 1966.

28 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

30 U. S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee . . . , Hearings, Ibid., p. 15.

31 Ibid.

32 1 bid.

101

wholly selfish approach because it does not permit low-
priced funerals for low-income families.

The curbstoner . . . charges the family whatever price he
pleases or applies a formula which customarily results in
high prices. 33

These practices, Krieger feels should be stopped. This is the
area the government should regulate, because it is not only against
the trade practices of the National Selected Morticians but human
decency as well. He asserts that "the Federal Trade Commission
presently has sufficient statutory authority to require affirmative
disclosures of this character in order to avoid deception." 34 There-
fore, if the federal government cracks down on this part of the
industry, things would be all right and people would be better
off, according to Krieger. But Krieger is only trying to cover up
for the corrupt practices present in the rest of the industry by
reverting public interest to another area.

To be sure, the "curbstoners" are corrupt, their practices fraudulent,
but the rest of the industry are the same also in varying degrees. The
bigger funeral establishments would like to rid the industry of the
little or smaller establishments so profits for them will soar, because
the demands for their services are limited by the death rate. To
decrease the number of establishments means more business for
the remaining ones. Thus, the industry as a whole needs regulation
and not just one small portion of it.

Casket Arrangement and Sales Psychology

An important feature of the negotiations between customer and
mortician is found in the display room in which caskets of various
prices are exhibited. However, the arrangement of caskets shows
up glamorously. 35 In most display rooms the lowest priced casket
is unfavorably shown, and is sometimes difficult to find without
the help of the undertaker. To begin with the most expensive caskets
are not always pointed out. The suggestion of high cost may dis-
courage the customer.

The cleverest device used is outlined by Krieger in his trade
journal. He divides the showroom into four "quartiles" "two above
and two below the median price which in his example is $400. " 36
Then, the attempt should be made to sell in the third quartile, or at
prices above the median sales price. "The psychological reasons
for this are explained. While the difference in quality is demonstrable,
the price is not so low as to make the buyer feel belittled." 37 In
other words, the highest price caskets are placed next to the lowest
priced ones for contrast and the customer is always led to a

S3 Ibid.

3 *Ibid.

35 Mitford, op. cit., p. 19.

S6 Ibid., p. 20.

37 Ibid.

102

third set which is just above the median. The fourth quartile is
hardly ever used.

Another plan used to improve on Krieger's method because it
was only effective for right-handed people, is the triangle approach. 38

Here the buyer is lead around in a triangle. He starts at point A,
a casket costing $597, which he is told is in the $500 range, but
actually only 14 dollars short of $600. If no reaction is forthcoming
from the customer he is then lead to point B, a better casket in the
$600 range, actually $647, which he thinks is only $60 more, if the
customer balks, he is carried to position C, here he can save, he
is told $100. The range here is $400, actually $487. Thus, the crux
of the triangle plan is that the buyer can go around the entire triangle
and end up knowingly within forty dollars of the starting point. 39
It will be noted that the prices all end in the number seven, "pur-
posely styled to allow you to quote as: 'sixty dollars additional' or
'save a hundred dollars.' " 40

Therefore, the bargaining funeral situation is different from the
ordinary transaction. The funeral situation is one which coerces the
family into action without the usual safeguards for the customer.
The funeral director can use several devices to clearly illustrate how
much the client can pay. First the newspaper obituary item, the
larger the column a person wants gives the director a hint on how
much he can pay; next is the floral pieces, the kind of services he
gets and finally the casket. The caskets are in most cases marked
up 100% or higher, and not three or six times the cost to the
funeral director. As stated in the Senate Hearings there are 12
different types of caskets and nearly four times that many variations,
styles, designs and makes. Not only do they vary in styles and
designs they vary greatly in material, finish, interior, trim and
basic make-up. 41 This causes the cost to vary considerably from
one section of the country to another. For example, in Missouri,
Casket type 1 costs $50 but sells for $150. Whereas in California
the same type (1) costs 47 dollars and sells for $489.00. 42 In
Missouri, casket type XII costs only $439.15 but sells for $1,989.00,
a profit of $1,549.85 is made on the casket alone. 43 Whereas in
California, the same type casket (XII) cost 352 dollars, but sells
for $1,144.00, a profit of $1,093.00 is made. 44 This is too high for
just one item because of the flexible service fees that can be arranged
to go up or down at the funeral director's discretion. But the whole
thing behind service is that the director doesn't increase the services
for one funeral any more than he does for another, but he will increase
the prices if the funeral costs more. 45

3 8 Ibid., p. 21.
39 Ibid., p. 22.
40 Ibid.

41 U. S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee . . . Hearings, Ibid., pp. 199-202.
42 Ibid.
43 1 bid.
"Ibid.

4 interview with W. D. Sparks, Assistant Counsel, Senate Antitrust Subcom-

mittee, March 1, 1966.

103

The Trade Associations and Their Philosophies

The commerical influences on the funeral industry cannot be fully
appreciated without knowledge of the organizational structures
through which the leaders operate and the assumptions and ideology
they express. There are two major trade associations which dominate
the funeral industry.

First, there is the National Selected Morticians (NSM) which is
formed on the Rotary Club plan whereby only selected firms meet-
ing certain requirements of investment, establishment, equipment,
sponsorship, and reputation, are taken into membership. 46 It is a
service organization for its approximately 700 member firms in 30
or more states. "The N.S.M. emphasis is on merchandising, sound
business methods. They are in favor of prearranged, pre-financed
funerals and price advertising, because their member establishments
depend primarily on big volume." 47 In other words, they see them-
selves as businessmen, selling a product.

Next, there is the National Funeral Directors Association, a fed-
eration of state and local associations. Forty seven states and the
District of Columbia are represented. The NFDA has over 14,000
members. It makes studies, publishes bulletins, lobbies, keeps watch
on legislative developments, conducts annual conventions, advises
member firms on methods of cost accounting and other business
practices. 48 It also concerns itself deeply with public relations.
However, the NFDA itself "sets no educational, moral, or ethical
standards for membership. It has little or no control over who be-
longs. It has to accept any member of an affiliated state associa-
tion." 49 This includes the "curbstoner" also, because there are no
minimum standards for membership either. There is no restriction
whatever on the curbstoner. The NFDA people see themselves as
professionals, who have services to offer; they therefore abhor ad-
vertising and publicity.

In regard to their lobbying efforts, they were able to get in
California a law passed requiring that all ashes of cremated remains
be kept permanently in urns at registered cemeteries or mausoleums. 50
In other states, there are laws requiring that the body be embalmed
and placed in a casket when even being cremated. 51 In other words,
these laws forbid the scattering of human ashes over water and etc.
They help to increase the profits of the industry.

In regard to advertising, which the NSM support and the NFDA
rejects, it is mostly "bait advertising". That is the practice of ad-
vertising funerals at bargain prices to lure more customers into
their individual firms. It does not result in any competition within

46 Mitford, op. cit., p. 185.
"Ibid., p. 185.
iS Ibid., p. 186.
49 1 bid., p. 189.
50 Harmer, op. cit., p. 168.
51 1 bid.

104

the industry as a whole. However, the NFDA with no membership
standards, is more likely to subject members to discipline, up to and
including expulsion, for such offenses as advertising low-cost funerals.
This has resulted in several court cases which are still being fought. 52

The Artifacts, Memorial Societies and Cremation

The burial vault is a relative newcomer in funeral wares. However,
cemeteries now compete with the funeral directors for the lucrative
vault business. The selling point is made to the customer of eternal
preservation. However, the unitiated might expect that having paid
$600-to-$3,000 for a crypt or vault, or $150-to-$ 1,500 for a grave,
the cost of upkeep might be borne by the cemetery. Not at all.
There is added to the cost of cemetery and mausoleum space a
subcharge of 10 to 20% for future care.

Also the cemeteries, through the magic of pre-need selling, have
swelled their funds in many cases to huge proportions. "More than
a thousand cemeteries have perpetual care funds in excess of $100,-
000; more than fifty have over $1 billion in the kitty." 53 The ag-
gregate total is over $1 billion. In other words, the cemeteries make
their share of the money from the markup of grave sites, general
up-keep, vault care and the selling of lots at extremely high prices.

On the other hand, nearly 65 to 70% of the flower industry's
revenue or $404 million a year comes from the sale of funeral
flowers. 54 This comes to a nationwide average of over $246 for
flowers per funeral. 55 Out of this comes a small commission for the
funeral director for recommending a certain florist.

"Forest Lawn Memorial Park of Southern California is the greatest
nonprofit cemetery of them all" as it claims. 56 However, this is just
an errorneous claim. At Forest Lawn there are many types of
churches of all sizes furnished with wall to wall carpeting highlighting
every theme possible. There are also statues, tons of them, and the
cemetery itself is divided into different sections. Each section is
zoned and named according to the price of the burial plots. 57
"Medium-priced graves range from $434.50 in Haven of Peace to
$599.50 in Triumphant Faith to $649.50 in Ascension. The cheapest
is $308 in Brotherly love." 58 "Ten percent must be added to the price
for Endowment Care, and $89 for opening and closing the grave, and
$70 - $145 for a vault." 59 However, for those who want something
better, one can spend as much as he likes in the Gardens of Memory
section.

52 U. S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee . . . , Hearings, Ibid. pp. 235, 240,

241, 264, 288.
53 Mitford, op. cit., p. 113. See also Harmer, op. cit., p. 117-40.
5i Ibid., p. 87.
55 Ibid.

56 1 bid., p. 119.
57 Ibid., p. 120.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

105

"The present population of Forest Lawn is over 200,000 with
new arrivals at the rate of 6,500 a year." 60 This enabled them to
realize a net profit for 1960 of about $2,500,000. 61 This is too much
profit by the wildest imagination. Thus, hundreds of so called non-
profit memorial cemeteries each year make several hundred thousands
of dollars following the lead set up by Forest Lawn.

Another aspect of the funeral industry's racket is cremation.
"Many people are under the vague impression that the undertaker
can be bypassed altogether, and embalming dispensed with; this is
an illusion. 62 Also most people feel that the "Crematorium will
arrange to place the body in a suitable container, and that the only
expenses incurred will be the crematorium's charge, something under
$100." 63 This is not true. No funeral establishment in the country
will accept a body for cremation without its being embalmed and in
a coffin, for which he will charge no less than $250. 64

The Cremation Association of America (CAA) holds that the
cost of the average cremation should be about $60 (public authorities
charge only $15); interment space for the remains $55; interment
space for the containers about $85. The most expensive space for
the container in a columbarium is about $150. 65 Thus, one can
readily see that cremation is also a profitable venture in the industry.

"In 1960 almost half of the total number of cremations in this
country 28,000 out of 59,000 took place in the Pacific states. 66
In California the proportion is one out of six. It is also high in big
cities.

Summary and Conclusions

Summarizing therefore, it can be said that the American Funeral
Industry and it allied branches through the use of various methods
of fraud, deceit, and clandestine practices are cheating the American
public. Through these various and sundry methods the Industry
has maintained certain price levels, has reduced competition to a
state of nonexistence, and has continued to move in approximate
lock-step.

The problem of high funeral charges and the pricing and selling
practices contributing to them cannot be properly understood in
terms of the defects or virtues of funeral directors. This would be
a gross and unfair oversimplification of the problem. Fundamentally
the problem of high funeral costs, arises out of the economics of the
industry.

60 1 bid.

61 Harmer, op. cit., p. 21.

62 Mitford, op. cit., p. 129.

63 Ibid.

6i Ibid., p. 28.

65 Ibid., p. 133.

e6 Ibid., p. 135.

106

With an excessive number of establishments, a small volume of
funerals a year makes it difficult to cover the year round overhead
costs and make a living. This structure of the industry inevitably
results in pressure for higher prices to keep the many marginal
operators in business which gives rise to some of the pricing and
selling practices described. Paradoxically, however, special condi-
tions surrounding the buying and selling of funeral services limit
the degree of competition one would normally expect under such
circumstances.

The unusual features of the funeral transaction operate to limit
competition. The average person arranging a funeral, after the
death of a member of the family, is emotionally upset, is usually
unprepared for the task, is in no position to judge quality, to compare
prices and to act rationally.

In a sense the typical funeral establishment has a kind of "captive
market" a situation limiting price competition that might put many
out of business in the overcrowded funeral industry. Instead of
normal competition offering lower prices, there is "trading up" of
the "quality" of the funeral with more expensive features offered
at higher prices.

Concluding therefore, the states must act, similar to New York
which passed a bill authored by the Attorney General Leftowitz to
make the funeral director provide an itemized statement of goods
supplied and service rendered for the price demanded on funeral
bills. 67 Next, individual communities must act. They can set up
cooperatives, that is cooperative memorial societies which can offer
decent and respectful services for as low as $100. 68 And finally the
Federal Government must act with both a truth-in-packing bill and
a regulation of the allied industries.

All these endeavors working concurrently may affect the industry
so as to restore a normal state of competition.

Bibliography

Books

Bowan, LeRoy. The American Funeral. Washington, D. C: Public Affairs
Press, 1959.

Habenstein, Robert. The History of American Funeral Directing. Milwaukee:
National Funeral Directors Association, 1955.

Harmer, Ruth M. The High Cost of Dying. New York: Colliers Books, 1963.

Mitford, Jessica. The American Way of Death. New York: Crests Books, 1963.

Wilcox, Clair. Public Policies Toward Business. Homewood, Illinois: Richard
D. Irwin, Inc., 1960.

67 U. S. Congress, Senate, Subcommittee . . . , Hearings, Ibid., p. 2.
68 Harmer, op. cit., pp. 197-228; Mitford, op. cit., pp. 225-28; Bowman, op. cit.,
p. 129.

107

Public Documents

U. S. Senate, Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly. Antitrust Aspects of
the Funeral Industry. Part 1, 88th Congress, 2nd. Session, 1964.

Others Sources

Senate Office Building. Personal Interview with W. D. Sparks, Assistant
Counsel, Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, March 1, 1966.

Wilno Funeral Office. Personal Interview with Authur Foster, Funeral Worker,
May 2, 1966.

108

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