Jeremiah Whipple Jenks

“ The second great organ as well as guide of public opinion is the press. I have already intimated that our press is not independent; that it is not an influence that always tends toward good in the shaping of public opinion. Almost without exception, as has been said, our editors feel called upon to present questions of public interest from a partisan standpoint, giving facts and arguments on one side, suppressing facts and arguments on the other, instead of furnishing material on both sides by which the people will be encouraged to think out independently the issue of the day. ”

“ We have seen still further that it is perhaps one of the greatest misfortunes of our time and country that public opinion is so little a matter of judgment based on ripe consideration; and the present condition of affairs makes it evident that it is the duty of thoughtful men first to take the lead consciously and conscientiously on important questions of the day, as best they can; to use their influence in shaping public opinion, not by concealment of the facts but by open statement of the facts and fair argument so far as possible ”

“ We shall never have a paper thoroughly independent in stating its views on public questions until we have a paper entirely independent of its circulation and advertising. Probably no greater service could be done to the country by any wealthy man or group of men than the liberal endowment of a paper with a sum so large that it would be a matter of indifference whether people subscribed or not. ”

“ It is probably not too much to say that not 25 per cent, of our adult voting population have deliberately made up an opinion on a public question after anything like a reasonably full and fair study of the facts in the case. Public opinion, then, seems to be a mixture of sense and nonsense, of sentiment, of prejudice, of more or less clearly defined feelings coming from influences of various kinds that have been brought to bear upon the citizens, these influences perhaps being mostly those of sentiment rather than those acting upon the judgment. ”

“ In the United States, on the other hand, so far as political matters are concerned, we find that our politicians as a rule rather follow than lead public opinion. Our leaders apparently often wait and find it hard to determine which side of prominent questions they shall take until they are able to gauge which way the public is likely to act. Indeed at all times the politicians say that they deem it their duty to follow public opinion, and that their votes in Congress shall be guided by the wishes of their constituents. ”

“ These circumstances—that our people with all their prejudices are so ready to take up ideas here and there; that they are omniverous newspaper readers; that they have so active minds with, on the whole, it must be said, so little exact information, and probably it is not too much to say also with so little soundness of judgment in determining what their views on public matters shall be—give an unusual chance for guiding public opinion in the right way, if any one will take the trouble deliberately to set about the work. ”

“ Perhaps no other one influence is so much needed in our political life today as is a press that is truly independent—not one that, cutting loose from the two or three leading parties of the day, is equally under the control of some commercial class in the community, and is simply exploiting both parties for the benefit of that one class. ”

“ I have more than once seen one man within two days practically change, or formulate, one might better say, the opinion of a large part of a community by a dozen conversations with as many different men, each representing some special social or business class.
It is of course a commonplace that along many lines that are chiefly moral, public opinion is shaped by the influence of our churches, by public lectures, university extension lectures, meetings called especially for purposes of agitation ”

“ There can be no question that many of the professors in our universities are themselves chiefly responsible for the wrong attitude of the public on this question of the influence of universities upon public opinion. They have themselves, by their bigoted habit of mind and their desire to indoctrinate the youths with what they believe to be correct opinions, encouraged the public belief that the universities were places for the propagation of specific doctrines. ”

“ Our schools and colleges ought not to attempt to teach specific doctrines of political policy. The purpose rather should be so to foster and cultivate thorough habits of investigation and independent judicial habits of mind in the discussion of political matters, that whatever question arises young men who have come from the universities will feel in conscience bound not to accept the theories and opinions of others, but carefully to investigate for themselves. The issue of today will be dead when our younger students become voters. ”

“ If we ask who it is that first gives expression to the leading facts or views that tend to shape public opinion, we find the reply not much more definite or satisfactory. The originators of opinion are different ones on different questions, and perhaps in almost no case can we say that the opinion is one clearly taken from certain individuals. The opinion itself grows in part by reflex action. ”

“ What has been said regarding the nature of public opinion and the way in which it is formed, suggests in itself the best methods of guiding it.
Few people who have not made the effort have any clear conception as to the amount of influence, especially in local matters, that one individual may exert by a little judicious talk with a few men of influence in different classes in society. ”

“ Among the working classes the opinions of the socialistic leaders are often taken as authoritative and followed directly; and so on through the different political parties, a comparatively few leaders not merely suggest the beginning of public opinion, as in this country in some cases, but they themselves by giving direct expression to their views almost absolutely control it. On general questions of economic policy the professors in the universities, who are supposed to be special authorities on those questions, have far more influence than do men in similar positions in this country. ”

“ While the people cannot soon be ready to vote intelligently on complicated questions, they can so vote on simple fundamental questions, if they will; and they can, far better than they now do, put men in power who will faithfully work for the public good. ”

“ It is simple and natural for them to believe, whether it is true or not, that if money has appreciated in value it costs them a greater effort to pay a debt than would have been needed under a system of free coinage of silver, and that consequently they have been wronged. Almost every person is likely to feel a sense of injury under the pressure of an unpleasant burden. ”

“ Often editors with positive opinions are forbidden by the proprietors to express them, because such expression might affect the sales of the paper; and still more often it is true that a paper is compelled to modify its statements for fear that the influence on public opinion might affect unfavorably some outside business in which the proprietor of the paper is engaged. ”

“ But it is probable that the feelings of the people, as determined in good part by consideration on subjects of politics, of morals, of business, etc., have so modified the opinions expressed by the preachers themselves, and have so reacted upon the feelings of the theological leaders, that our present dogmas, as believed by the public, are rather the result of conflicts of pew versus pulpit than of the direct action of the pulpit over the pew. ”

“ There, though in many of the cantons the people themselves directly make their own laws in popular meeting, or by general vote, they still are guided in great part by the executive or by the legislative assembly, that drafts bills and presents them to the people for their approval. It is the assumption there that the body which drafts the laws, as the servant of the people, is acting in the people's interests, and the people are strongly inclined to accept its advice. ”

“ Not a few, probably, of the less well-informed citizens of the community, blindly follow what their party newspaper says, and these perhaps whose opinions are formed almost wholly at second-hand are the ones that hold their opinions most tenaciously and are most positive in the promulgation of them. It is quite possible that the number of voters who have been Protectionists because they were formerly Republicans is greater than the number of voters who have become Republicans because they were Protectionists. ”

“ One chief reason, perhaps, of the comparatively small influence of our press is that the people know the fact that the papers are run from motives of personal profits, and that the policy of the paper is largely determined by the amount to which its opinions will affect its sales and advertising. ”

“ One must not be like Hamlet, unable to decide when the emergency arises.
Persons who have any far-sighted interest, however, in the political future of our country can but deprecate such teaching of political doctrine in our colleges. ”

“ What right has one to sit idly by and let the state drift on, always in the direction that leads toward disaster? Unless he is watched the average office-holder is in a position so exposed to temptation that he will ultimately yield. ”

“ One may be fairly sure that the leaders of our political parties are willing to take up any issue that is likely to win when placed before the people, whether that issue be in accordance with the previous line of policy of the party or not. ”

“ The public opinion that anv democratic country most needs is not an opinion shaped by positive teaching on the part of the few and blindly followed by the many, but is an opinion deliberately formed by the citizens on careful investigation of the subjects. ”

“ Then again, we all of us doubtless have our opinions formed from former prejudices, we ourselves unconsciously selecting the facts and statements that fit into these former prejudices, and thus tend to confirm us in our own beliefs. We approve the opinions of the editor of our party organ much more readily than those of his opponent, though the question be an entirely new one. ”

“ We know that at the present day we have throughout the country also a league of Republican Clubs in the universities, whose purpose it is so to commit the young men to the doctrines of the Republican party of the day that they will not only have influence in carrying current elections but will also be committed to the party machine for the future. ”

“ We have here no few leaders who are generally followed. Public opinion seems to be rather, as intimated before, something that grows by a process of accretion.
And yet there are exceptions, and the positively expressed opinion of a man in prominent position doubtless counts. Nobody questions that the positive statements of President Cleveland regarding money, regarding the tariff, have had great influence. Nobody questions that the positive statements of McKinley on the tariff have had great influence ”

“ It is rather the duty of young people not yet voters to hold their opinions on these great questions in abeyance till they have had time to work them out, or, if they cannot do that, they ought at least to gather all the information they can before their voting age is reached. ”

“ The paper feared that these young men, returning and taking positions in our universities in this country, would corrupt the youth by teaching specifically the doctrine of protection instead of that of free trade, which the paper believed ought to be taught. Some of our universities have already felt themselves compelled by the politicians to have lectures given, partisan in their nature, upon both sides of such questions as the tariff and money. ”

“ Ordinarily the same men serve year after year in the legislature; and the executive officers frequently remain the same almost throughout a generation. These men largely guide, and the people follow. It is expected that minority parties will be represented on executive boards, and the defeat of a minister's plans is no reason for his resignation, as in England and France. ”

“ It is perhaps, however, too much to expect from any newspaper that must be run more or less from motives of commercial profit to take a thoroughly judicial attitude on all questions, whatever they may be, that arise. ”

“ It is stated on trustworthy authority that the subscription list of a well-known republican weekly newspaper dropped almost immediately from 12,000 to 8,000 when in 1876 that paper intimated that possibly Tilden was rightfully elected. Another prominent partisan daily lost a profit currently reported at $100,000 a year upon becoming independent in politics. With so shifting a constituency, one can hardly expect an editor to make very bold attempts to guide public opinion. The facts are useful to show the part played by prejudice and habit. ”