Dropouts appear with the regularity of automobiles rolling off the assembly line. Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz describes them as "the outlaw pack" who are "unemployed today and will be for the rest of their lives at a cost to us of $1,000 a head a year . . . ." Michael Harrington calls them "The New Lost Generation" and James B. Conant's more strikingly descriptive phrase, "social dynamite," is enough to pull every citizen up sharp. J. Edgar Hoover, in a report on the outbreak of violence in nine Northern communities, pointed his finger at the dropout, rather than racists or...