664 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW [December

Booke in Review . * . Jewel Bellush, Editor

Political Parties and Politics THE MOYNIHAN REPORT AND THE

POLITICS OF CONTROVERSY. By Lee Rain- water and William Yancey. M. I. T. Press, 50 Ames Street, Cambridge, Mas- sachusetts 02142, 1%7. xviii, 493 pp.

Social science is increasingly called upon to help in the understanding of complex political problems and to pro- vide alternatives for their solution. Both activities always have and always will lead to controversy. This study is a fine contribution to the knowledge of why social scientists’ findings make political disputes inevitable,

The famous Moynihan report on the serious condition of Negro life evoked reactions from government, the press, civil rights groups and intellectuals which, in turn, helped create such an emotional fervor that the contents of the study were distorted if not destroyed.

Moynihan claimed that the Negro family was being desecrated by the con- ditions of history and present-day life. He did not, as some critics unjustifiably alleged, treat family pathology as iso- lated from the institutions which were the sources of victimization and depriva- tion.

Social Welfare POOR KIDS. By Alvin Schorr. Basic

Books, 404 Park Avenue South, New York 10016, 1966. 205 pp.

This past summer, bold headlines dramatically told the story of how Bruce T a y l o r 4 13 year old dying of gangrene -was saved by the speed and responsive- ness of people who cared. One might think that, where kids were concerned, all Americans had a heart-until they read Alvin Schorr’s book, that is. Who really cares about the 15.6 million poor

children? One response came from a man of great influence in national decision making-Wilbur Mills, chairman of the congressional Ways and Means Commit- tee. His morality play went something like this: “We’ll fix illegitimacy. We gotta get tough. We’ll cut them off the welfare.” Another response was congres- sional refusal to pass the rat control bill. More recently, the budget balancers are seeking to cut corners a t youth‘s expense.

Schorr suggests that we try some form of income maintenance, since the welfare programs as presently constituted have not been reaching the needs of the poor kids. For the first time, we have in this book a carefully constructed piece of research which supplies policy makers with the data necessary to judge which kind of income program might best suit the most children: fatherless child in- surance, the negative income tax, the family allowances. While Schorr doesn’t opt for any single plan, he does urge that hard cash be added to hot lunch programs, home helps, park aunts, vaca- tions, etc.

One of the significant parts of the study is the author’s view that a child‘s needs must be assessed over tim+i.e., a t different stages of his life there will be different needs, requiring different programs and policies.

Planning THE URBAN COMMUNITY: Housing and

Planning in the Progressive Era. By Roy Lubove. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967. vi, 148 pp.

Too often, we think of the progressive era as being dominated by the ‘<city corrupt,” thanks to Lincoln Steffens. This little book-a short essay and a number of valuable historical documents of the period-proves that more con-