Arizona sun., 1952-04-25
"ST TRAIGHT
AHEAD"
BY Julius j. Adams

New York (GlobaD With the
Presidential campaigns shaping up,
attention naturally turns to sur
veys, polls and analyses. 1t is true
that the pCllssters took an awful
shellacking after the 1948 election.
yet it is doubtful if their value
can be completely denied.
Immediately after the election.
the Republicans looked back to ap.
praise the situation in an effort to
ascertain where they made their
mistake. At the same time. the
public opinion poll takers looked
over their shoulders tC, locate the
errors in the calculations which
brought them to the conclusion
that Gov. Thomas E. Dewey would
| win in a walk.
Now as we look back over the
| 1948 campaign, it is apparent that
both the Republican party and the
poll-taking gentry committed ;den-
sumed a theory that was correct
in August, and mapped their strate-
gy accordingly. But in October,
when the original theory was no
longer correct, they failed to bring
their strategy up to date to meet
| the new situation
This was especially true in the
case of Poll Taker Elmo Roper.
who took his poll in the late sum-
mer and didn't bother to recover
the territory It was true in the
case of Gallup and the others be-
cause they failed to follow through
OH their polling right down to the
last days of the campaign. 1t must
be admitted, however, that it is
not possible to poll the nation in
a few hours or days, and any Sc
we're or sharp shift in public opinion
will inevitably throw any poll off
considerably, perhaps fatally.
Back in August of 1948 when the
Henry A. Wallace Progressive Par
| ty held its nominating Conven-
ton in Philadelphia, the prestige
Of the former Vice President was
at its height. 1t was believed then
| by most observers that q conSerVa-
tive estimate of his vote, should he
remain in the campaign, was be-
tween 100000 and 100000. 1t
was on the basis cf this finding
that Roper concluded that Dewey
| would win because it W3S assumed,
and doubtless correctly so, that q
vast majority of these votes would
come from people who otherwise
would vote for President Truman.
This was, too, the assumption of
the Republican high command and
ii was upon this basis that the COP
policy makers mapped their cam
paign strategy. 1t was wise at the
time and, in all probability, would
| have been successful if the other
factors had remained constant.
But what happened! While the
prestige of Henry Wallace reached
its peak at the time Of the Con-
venticn, it should be noted that
it began rcceding almost from that
very moment. This was admitted
by the most casual observer AS q
matter Of fact, along toward the
end Of the campaign, it was freely
and openly stated that the Wallace
campaign had flopped completely,
ano newspaper writer's began to re-
wise his probable total downward
until no one was willing to give
him a chance of getting more than
100000 votes.
1t was doubtless the collapse Of
the Wallace strength that changed
the course of the election. When
the poll takers failed to re-appraiSe
the situation in nid-Octob3r, they
were putting their regulations on
the line; and the world kncWs
now how severely those regulations
suffered.
: 1t is hardly likely the same mis-
takes will be made twice So, let's
| ont fn1,