The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1917-06-07
THE FATE OF NATIONS
Or Who and What Constitutes Public Opinion
in the United States
By Mr.. L. J. w.

By Mr.. L. j. w.

1t is for such .jaded readers that
the press is driven to provide glori-
fled police reports. The news
habit, merely for the sake of news,
has so thoroughly mastered them
that they cannot tolerate the Sec
ond reading of a paragraph, much
less discuss it at length and in de-
tail. The foible is a perfectly
natural one, born of an innate
thirst for novelty. and finds par
allel in the Indifference with which
one is apt to skim through the
illustrations of a magazine. after a
first glance through it's pages. Ow-
ing to very different causes over
one-half of the population of all
countries are precluded from the
formation of articulate or public
opinion. The ease with which a
news fend culls the zest from a
dozen pages of letter-press con-
tributes to his undoing as a
thought factor. With the masses
the trouble lies in not being able
to take in half a line at a glance,
and understand it, or in not being
able to read at all. There are null
titudes of illlterate people to be
found in all countries. Fortunate
ly not as a great number here in
the United States as there are in
some of the other countries. There
are great many of the illiterate
who are limited to even decipher-
ing the figures on money, especial
ly paper money, or to tell the time
by the clock. He will also jest at
the fireside reader who is willing
to retail scraps of printed news to
him.
Working Class Not Fully Informed
Now the average illiterate, while
ashamed of his deficiencies, usually
assumes lofty scorn of readers
and reading when he has occasion
to listen to news or discuss any
topic which he suspects has come
out of a newspaper. So that the
habitual reader of the laboring
classes, rather than become the
butt of coarse witticisms and in
cur the charge of priggishness,
prefers to keep his small stock
of instructions to himself. Yet we
all do feel deep sorrow for those
who have not learned to read dur
ing the comparatively prosperous
years of the last decade; it is safe
to say that most of their relatives
are in like state of blissful litter
acy. There are thousands of work
men who can read the news at a
pinch, find that the labor of SPELL
ing out long sentences and unfa-
miliar words is not an incentive to
reading as a habit, all the more so
as they are quite ignorant of out
side general knowledge, especially
in matters geographical. With a
rough working notion of hemi-
spheres and the countries he reads
about, the casual reader might
muster sufficient interest to enable
him to become useful unit of
public opinion and to his country
as we'll.
Government Represents Public Opinion
In these perilous days of press
censorship, news fends and inar-
ticulate masses, therefore. the
government arrogates to itself the
expression of public opinion in
word and deed. And in view of
the wholesale prevalence of the
news habit, and the consequent
chaos of superficial estimates, it is
perhaps as we'll. There is no bet
ter example of the popular miscon-
ception of public opinion could be
found than questions like What
will such and such country say
to this? Why. have you not read
Senator KS address? He says so
and So And Senator KS ad-
dress, providing the senator, or