The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1920-11-03
PUBLIC OPPOSES
Govt OPERATION
Canvass of 1854 Editors Show;
A,A66 Communities Against
SociaIistic Experiment.
OPPOSITION GR 0 w | N {
Eiuhty seven Per Cent In 1920 al
Against 80 Per Cent In 1919
Think Public Is Opposed
to Radicallsm.

! to the newspaper editors of the coun.
ftry. Out of 5,154 editors replying to-
a QUESTIONABLE sent out by the Press
Service Company Of New York, 4,4GG,V
or sc per cent, gave it as their judg-
.ment that the people of their commu-
mites were overwhelmingly against)
1.-THE Government competing in business
with its own citizens.
In 1910 the Press Service Company
Conducted a similar canvass Of editors
on the government operation of rall'
Roads. That questionable showed that
kS3 per cent of the editors considered
their communities against Govern.
knent operation of public utilities. II
Apparently, then, if editors estimate,
tpublic opinion accurately, that opin-'
ion in year, considered by commu-l
mites, has swung per cent fartherl
II away from socialistic experiments.
Eleven Million Circulation.
The combined circulation of the pa
pers whose editors replied Is 11,42S,-
SIT, which means, according to the
usual estimated ratio between circula.
ion and readers, constituency Of at
feast 44,O00,0OO. And this constituent
sey is pretty evenly scattered through
out the country, no considerable Sec
don Of any state being unrepresented',
yhe estimate of opinion based on this
thoroughly diffused A per cent of the
country's population may, therefore,
be considered a fair representation Of
the people as whole. i
Another feature of the result Is Its
evident lack Of partisan bias. The
major political affiliations of the pa
pers represented are fairly evenly di-
vided, being 1857 Republican and
1850 Democratic. There are also 1,4So
Independent and 462 miscellaneous,
including labor organs, etc.
/, How little the results are affected
by the politics of the papers is shown
in an analysis by sections. In the
Southern section, for instance, where
replies came from 65 Republican pa
pers and $50 Democratic, the per-
centage against Government operation
was So; in the Great Lake section,
with conditions reversed, Ats Repub-
lcan and 155 Democratic, the oppo.
sition was 81 per cent.
Replies from the West, Middle West
and Southwest show that 1t Is mis-
take to consider those sections vastly
more favorable to radical Government
experiments than the East. The rad
icals can get little comfort out Of the
50 per cent of thumbs DOWN. per
cent above the average-in the South
west, including Arkansas, Louisiana,
Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Tex
as. Texas, once supposed to be much
given to Government regulation eX-
periments, returned 90 per cent of I'M
favorable replies Out of the pa edi-
tors replying from that state only
three edited Republican papers, The
81 per cent opposition Of the North,
west, including Iowa, Minnesota, Mon
tana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South
Dakota and Wyoming, and the SO per
cent veto of the Far West group, in
Guiding Arizona, California, Idal:o,
Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Colo.
RADIO, Utah and Washington. are sig
nihcant of the prevailing conservative
sentiment on this question even in
the more radical sections.
Judgment Apparently Unbiased.
The QUESTIONABLE closes with a re-
quest for the editors personal opin-
ion on certain concrete cases as fol.
. lows:
"Do you personally believe that the
Federal Government should own and
operate competitive industries to pro-
vide: (a) Fertilizer? (b) Clothing?
(c) Automobiles? (d) Farm imple-
ments? (e) Foodstuffs?
Substantially all the editors who
gave estimates of their readers Opin-
ions also expressed their own by re-
plying to this last question. Proof Of
!: considerable effort to avoid personal
!. bias is found in the fact that in many
; cases the editor differed from the
. opinion he credited to his community.
The percentage of mos" ran: (a)
&c; (b) SO; (c) Sc; td) 50; (e) 70
While the questions were based on
general principles involved in the
Government participating in competi-
tive business, the so-called Muscle
Shoals Bill now before Congress WA |
used as concrete example of Go,
eminent operation scheme Under th |
bill GOvernment-oWned corporation |
would be given broad powers to opel
ate and develop Government plant |
and properties. 1t would produce a
Muscle Shoals various fertilizer proc |
ucts and sell them in competition wit |
producers and merchants In the fei /
tiliZer business.
Tho strength of the opposition til
Government operation is Indicated b,I
tho replies from Alabama, where th,l
Muscla Shoals war plant is and where |
of course. there is intense interest
and local pride in getting its expected
peace-time operation under way at the
earliest possible date. Fifty editors
from that state replied, of whom SO
were opposed to Government opera.
ton, s in favor and doubtful,