Evening star., 1948-12-12

! dCGlplIlcS W IL lOIclSn CUuliIllcS III
cluding England under the banner
of affiliated Gallup institutes 4"
Elmer Roper has set up an organi-
zation called International Puhlic
Opinion Research now operating ex-
! tensively abroad. Pollsters follow
on the heels of Marshall Plan aid
to ascertain the recipients opinions.
Even the American Military Gov
ernment in Germany has given a
! high place to pollsters in its Infor-
nation Services Division.
/ 1t is not so much the Made in
America" label which disturbs our
British friends as it is some of the
assumptions underlying this tech
nique, and the relation of these as
sumptions to political leadership in
a democratic society. Since their
perturbation is shared by manv
astute political and social scientists
in the United States, it might be
we'll to review some of the most
pertinent basic criticisms of opinion
polling.
The entire public opinion polling
process, as currently practiced. can
be attacked successfully on the basis
of its technique. The spectacular
failure of all our major opinion
polls-and of those political pundits
who relied upon them-to correctly
assess the voting intentions of the
American electorate last month, was
principally a failure in technique
Many of the technical difficulties
may never be resolved satisfactorily.
but. for the sake of argument, as
suming that opinion polls can esti-
mate correctly the responses of the
entire public to any given question
from the answers given by a cross
section of respondents, what then?
We are brought face to face with
basic problem of political pliloso-
ply: Given theoretically perfect
opinion poll, what use. if any, are
political leaders to make of the re-
suits?
Direct Democracy's Failings
No democracy has ever been
direct democracy with every adult
voting on each and every problem
of public policy. Even in the an
cient Athenian Demos, when all
citizens voted in an assemblage
constituting the government, most
of the population was composed of
slaves and noncitizens dncluding
all women). who were represented"
by the citizens. If direct democracy
was not feasible in simple societies
it is certainly impossible in a high
ly complex civilization constantly
faced with highly complex social,
economic and political questions.
Yet the principal exponents of pub
lie opinion polling have indicated
that the peoples voice" should be
the deciding voice on issues. Un-
fortunately we have already seen
instances where persons elected to
important political positions have
forsaken their own Judgment on
various critical issues in favor of
what they believed to be prevailing
public opinion. So far we have
operated our Government on the
theory that the judgment of some
persons is better than that of 9TH
ers, and that those of superior
judgment should be elected or ap-
pointed to decision-making and
power welding political Office.
AS a safeguard against despotism
we held frequent elections when the
entire record of a candidate for Of
flee (and of the persons he may
have appointed to subsidiary Of
fices) is reviewed and either ap-
proved or disapproved. Would we
really prefer to have our govern
mental officials dependent upon us
for decisions regarding every mat
ter involving the public interest
that comes before them?
Ours is not a simple agrarlan
or pastoral society, but q highly
organized complex society based
upon an extensive division of labor.
Our political leaders are not only
expected to be expert in making
political decisions. but to be suf-
ficiently we'll informed so that the
bases for their decisions are reason
ably sound. We do not expect to
have to take time out from our own
Jobs to seek out this information
for ourselves.
The UNIFORMED Public
A recently released report by
Leonard Cottrell and Sylvia Eber-
hart in American Opinion on World
Affairs in the Atomic Age reveals
that the average person in the
United States has never heard OF
uranium or plutonium, cannot tell
what the objectives of the United
Nations are and knows next to
nothing about the Baruch report.
1t serves no purpose to deplore such
facts, but they should be recognized.
Let public leaders make their de-
cisions on specific matters of ma
tional or international policy on
the basis of their own superior in
formation, not on the inferior
information possessed by the rest
of us.
+ Champions of public opinion polls
Justly have been accused of har-
boring an extremely naive view OF
the nature of public opinion itself
Only on election day has the
opinion of every registered voter
the same weight as the opinion OF
every other registered voter. Each
has the opportunity of casting one
ballot, whether he exercises it or
not, whether or not he knows any
thing about the candidates ana
MT he