Evening star., 1948-12-12


cisions, one prominent pollster ar
gued that he saw no need to refine
his methods since he was already
going further than election booth
ballots by allowing his respondents
to give no opinion vote.
Except for the artificial situation
created on election day as our social
for checking despotic ex-
ercise of political power, it Is obvi-
GUS, as Prof. Blumer of the Uni
versity of Chicago has emphasized.
that public opinion is organic and
not an aggregate of equally weighted
opinions" Opinion poll"
ing cannot take account Of the
varying pressures and interests
which mold and reform mass
opinion, nor of the wide variance
of intensity of feeling bound UP with
variances of self-interest in different
issues. So it falls back on the
analogue of the ballot boX-one
person, one vote. Yet even MEM
ber of Congress who closely follows
the opinion polls knows that on an
issue, such as the importation OF
Argentine beef, it is wholly unreal
istic to give as much weight to the
opinion of, say, a California fruit
grower as that of a Texas rancher.
Snap Decisions
The pollsters also draw an analogy
between their technique and the
voting behavior that occurs when an
advisory referendum on some issue
is placed before the electorate. Prof.
Ranney of Smith College has been
most vigorous in exploding this
argument The essence of a refer
endum is that the issue and the date
upon which voting will take place
are known in advance. There is
time for public discussion and de-
those who are ignorant
Of the issue have an opportunity to
inform themselves and make de-
to vote one way or the
other, or to duck the issue by staying
away from the voting booth. Those
who are most intensely interested
have an opportunity to proselyte
and persuade. In other words, the
organic process of opinion formation
is called into functioning
at very low level OF in
terest, depending upon the issue.
In an ipinion poll, however, with
no advance warning, respondent Is
accosted by an interviewer, and.
after brief how-do-you-do, asked:
IF Russia continues to follow her
present course, what should we do,
if anything?" No deliberation. no
discussion. Says Prof. Ranney
Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall.
1946): There is something not only
pathetic but indicative of basic
weakness in the polls conception OF
democracy in the stories Of those
who tell interviewers they could give
a better answer to the questions II
only they had time to read UP q
bit or think things over"
James West has pointed out In his
analysis of a typical small town,
u. S. A., that soon after
the Inauguration Of the New Deal
he found many people making full
use of AAA, NRA, WPA and other
alphabetical-agency benefits who, at
the same time were expressing
themselves as being dead-set against
such "socialistic" innovations. BY
the same token, it is at this very
possible to find multitudes
of persons in England and Europe
themselves as opposed to
the Marshall Plan-but enthusiastic
cally scrambling for ECA supplies.
One wonders also about the recently
reported opinion poll of ABG-Ger-
many showing majority Western
German opinion favoring immediate
withdrawal of all Allied troops from
Germany. Many of the persons who
voted for this principle would doubt
less beg us to stay if we actually
started pulling out.
Paradox in Reliance
We might. for example, conduct
an opinion poll on the question OF
whether aged and dependent moth
ers should be cared for by their
children or by the state. The re-
suits would be based on the stereo-
type of filial love and be heavily in
favor of Should be cared for by
children" However. as people, we
place more of our mothers in homes
for the aged than any other country
in so-called Western civilization.
Thus the political leader who tries
to rely for his decisions on opinion
polls is faced with this paradox:
People will express opinions in favor
of some stereotyped abstraction
which they consider good" but
their actions will be inconsistent
with their opinions" OF import
ance to any leader is not what
people say they think, but what
people actually will do.
The entertainment world slogan
of Give the public what 1t wants"
is a very persuasive one for political
leaders who are more interested in
and in compromise than
they are in being statesmen. But If
public opinion is taken as meaning
majority public opinion on any
given issue, the politician who con-
stantly trims his sails accordingly
will find himself riding bucking
bronco. For such opinion, more
often than not based upon misinfor-
nation and stereotypes and snap
judgments, is liable to be tickle and
changeable. Great statesmen in our
history have been those who have
made known their principles, stood
on those principles and mapped out
a co,,rca of action This iS mt To