 In a "New York Times" article published only a year after the book, writer Lucy Freeman makes this comparison directly, describing mental hospital officials as operating “what have been called the country’s ‘snake pits’ and ‘shame of the states’.” She also quotes Dr. George S. Stevenson, president of the APA and director of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene at the time, and a figure also quoted by Deutsch, on the reaction of the public.“Dr.Stevenson said that he did not believe that it was so much a matter of apathy, but of a feeling in people that makes them say, ‘I don’t want to see the movie, ‘The Snake Pit,’’ or, ‘It makes me sick just to think of a mental hospital.’ There is an aroused interest in mental hospitals, but it is shown mainly by ‘pointing a finger at a Governor or a superintendent,’ he said, so that an unsatisfactory situation can be explained in terms ‘outside themselves.’” This was the very attitude that Deutsch was trying to counteract with "The Shame of the States", and while the book did have a major effect on public opinion, it did not single-handedly galvanize a national movement.