ABSTRACT
The reformers believed that the people of the slums, too, must have a voice in any programme of their behalf. The grey area projects were to 'plan with people, not for people'' and the President's Committee insisted upon 'evidence that individuals and organizations in the target community recognize in the project a legitimate force for change. The reformers in the Foundation and the President's Committee were attacking just those features of American life which de Tocqueville saw as the liabilities of a democratic creed—the gross social neglect, inconsequential policies, uncoordinated effort, carelessness of skilled application—and yet they were deeply committed to it. The President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, which had always been closely identified with Mobilization, was losing its position within the Federal bureaucracy. Mobilization was not a militant radical organization, but an experimental application of a theoretical analysis of the roots of delinquency.
