The Oklahoma miner. [volume] (Krebs, Okla.) 1912-192?, 1920-10-28
Canvass Of 5,154 Editors Shows
4,466 Communities Against
SoCiaIi3tiC Experiment.
OPPOSITION GROWlNG
Eighty seven Per Cent In 1g2o as
Against 80 Per Cent In 1919
Think Public Is Opposed
to Radicalism.

The American public Is mNse In.
teusely opposed TO Government opera
tion Than It was Il year ago according
to the newspaper editors of the coun-
try ont Of 5,l54 editors replying 10
Questlonuaire sent out by the Press
Service Company OF New York, 4,466,
or Sc per cent gave 1t as their judg'
uent that the people Of their commu-
miles we're Overwhelmingly against
the Government competing IN business
with its own citizens.
In 1919 the Press Service Company
conducted a similar canvass Of editors
on the government operation of rail-
roads That questionable showed that
So per cent OF the editors considered
their communities against Govern.
ment operado of public utilities
Apparently, then, If editors estimate
public opinion accurately, that opin-
ion in year, considered by commu-
mites. has swung per cent farther
away from soclaiistlc experiments
Eleven Hilllon Circulation.
The combined circulation of the pa
pers whose editors replied Is l1,42S,-
ST, which means according TO the
usual estimated ratio between circula.
ton and readers, constituency of at
east 4I,0GO,O50. And this consutuen.
Cy Is pretty evenly scattered through
out the country, no considerable Sec
tou OF any stale being unrevresented.
The estimate of opinion based on this
thoroughly dirfused A per cent of the
countrys population may, therefore,
be considered fair representation Of
the people as whole,
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 1887 Republican and
1850 Democratic. There are also l,4sj
independent and 4G2 miscellaneous,
including labor organs, etc.
How little the results are affected
by the politics of the papers is shown
in an analysis 10y sections. In the
Southern section, for instance, where
replies came from 50 Republican pa
pers and $50 Democratic, the per-
centage against Government operation
was So in the Great Lake section,
with conditions reversed, AS Repub-
lican and l55 Democratic, the oppo-
sitiou was 81 per cent
Replies from the West, Middle West
and Southwest show that it 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 % per cent Of un-
favorable replies. Out Of the 244 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
GLIDING Arizona, California, Idahe,
Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Colo
rado Utah and Washington, are sig
nfcant 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-