records I have read and studied, it seems to me that it is very
difficult to draw a line between desertion and non-support cases,
either in the kind of problem they present, or in the treatment of
them. Do we know enough about non-supporters who later become
deserters; and isn't it possible that every non-support case,
certainly every beginning non-support case, is a potential desertion
case?"

There is no doubt that the two groups grade imperceptibly into each
other; but of the twenty or more case workers who were consulted in the
preparation of this material, nearly all felt that the out-and-out
deserter, if he can be got hold of, is more promising material to work
with than the man who sits about the home and lets others maintain it.
They all recognize a common middle ground where the two groups merge
into each other; but they see decided differences in the two "wings" so
to speak, outside of this common ground.

Seen through their eyes, the non-supporter has less courage, initiative
and aggressiveness than the deserter. "He is less deliberately
cruel--for at least he 'sticks around.'" He has not the roving
disposition, but is apt to be intemperate and industrially inefficient
as compared with the deserter. Often the married vagabond, as he has
been called, is a "home-loving man who simply shirks responsibility and
dislikes effort." He may "sometimes feel parental responsibility even
though he does not support," and he is likely to have less physical and
mental stamina than the deserter. That phrase in which the psychiatrists
take refuge, "constitutional inferiority," is more likely to describe
the stay-at-home than the wanderer. However, one social worker
(non-medical) says "a mental twist more often enters into the problem of
the deserter than into that of the non-supporter, from my experience."

The head of a large probation department writes: "Many of the deserters
with whom we have dealt were non-supporters before coming to our
attention. Among the men convicted of abandonment, however, is a group
which is above the average in intelligence--skilled workers or men in
professional occupations."

If this concurrence of observation is sound the reason for the social
worker's preference for the deserter as material with which to work is
not far to seek. With the deserter as described, the problem is chiefly
to alter his point of view; with the non-supporter it is, in addition,
to stiffen