Behind the Mirrors

t business has lost it. Someone certainly has the final word about the pictures to put in our heads. A

mentalist about humanity, whose ideas have so profoundly affected the history of the last century and a half, was a convinced believ

Neuve des Petits Champs I had opposite my windows a clock face on which I tried during several months to teach her to tell time. She can scarcely do it even now. She has never known in their order the twelve months of the year, and she does not know a single figure in spite of all the pains I have taken to explain them to her.... But this person, so li

or a serious discussion of today's crisis in popular government. The truth probably is that Rousseau reached a priori the conclusions about the sound sense of the simple and natural man that captivated

was furnished by the unlettered and unteachable Thérèse, who had "le c?ur d'un ange" and "devant les dames du plus haut rang,

ry man, even in the most unpromising man, of the mental level of Thérèse, "si bornée et, si l'on veu

necessity. The world at the time when modern democracies had their birth accepted government only

right. Those who established the modern system could never have sold self-government to the people as self government. There had to be some miracle about it, something supernatural, l

on. Just as the anointment or the coronation turned a mere human being by a miracle into the chosen of God ruling by divine right, so by

by Mr. Walter Lippmann in his Public Opinion, has to say about the divine basis for popular government: "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen pe

ublic opinion. Nothing was lost of the sanctions of mon

ur government from the Rousseauist notion that the farmer, being near to nature, thrusting his hands into the soil, wa

n this country and in his day, it was the opinion of farmers, who were "the chosen people

went along further with Rousseau than Jefferson had need to do; we said that the breasts of all men "He has made the peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue." The art of uncoveri

ond, in a democracy the press and public men had to flatter the mass of voters and readers by declaring on every possible occasion that wisdom reposed in their breasts. And third, the public mind

"si bornée et si stupide" gave such excellent advice on difficult occasions. No processes by which results were reached could be perceived by the trained mind. The mystery of the publ

ar way at this moment, public opinion by its excesses has made men question whether any "deposit for substan

m 1914 on furnished the most perfect exhibition of public opinion and its workings that the world has ever seen. You saw on a grand scale its miraculous capacity fo

tribes meeting accidentally in the night and, precipitated into pani

herself. Either the German Thérèse or the French Thérèse and the English Thérèse and the American Thérèse must have been wrong. The fight could

danger arises Thérèse is inevitably wrong; her mind, such as it is, closes up and she fails to show those sentiments and that bon sens which

at Thérèse always reacts a certain way. In that large range of situations which may be artfully presented to her simple mind as perils she is

ence unencumbered by mental processes. You must at least assure that intelligence a

terials. Opinion was then unmistakable. The methods by which it was formed were clear. In tim

tion inconsistent with the state of mind which it was deemed expedient to create and maintain. We probably always in the forming of opinion tacitly impose

termined was during the war a great virtue. Playing upon prejudice, rousing

. In war we merely throw off the restraints of peace and impose others which operate in the reverse direction. In peace we are shamefaced

annot learn to tell time by the clock, you have to make out a case for her-or for yourself. When like Jefferson and his successors you t

sed and one hundred million people come to think-thinking is not the word-to feel, as one man. Minorities, the g

inct of self-preservation subdued all capacity for independent thinking, so that one who has ordinarily the habit of making up his own mind, a most difficult habit to maintain in modern society, can

Private organizations of endless number co-operated to this laudable end. The press submitted itself to a voluntary censorship, passing the responsibility for what it printed o

Everyone realizes the immense power of public opinion. Many seek to direct its formation. The

all a little afraid of public opinion, its tyranny, its excesses, its blind tendencies. We do not find it, as Jefferson thought we should, a "deposit for substantial and genuine virtue," and we are all more or le

meet together the speaker addresses them invariably as, "You makers of public opinion," b

exclusion of his opinion from the editorial pages and finally to its exclusion from his own mind. I am speaking only of

e in an intellectual vacuum, and journalism strives successfully to please. With the world cras

s are young men destined for great parts in world

everywhere most cordially received, and returned home informed and refreshed by

e the guest of the country for a month. The arrangements for his entertainment are elaborate, and insure him wit

ays. Young men for action; and here are two young men who when they get into act

ce a week may edit the papers of the entire country, or Mr. Hughes may do it every day,-or Mr. Hoover or Mr. Daugherty for that matter, even hav

ormation or answering questions. Mr. Hughes holds daily receptions. E

wspapers, yet no one of them at these conferences will assume responsibility

dents must not quote Mr. Hardi

es said as a fact; that is, they must put the authority of their paper behind it or, if they doubt, they

lumns to Mr. Harding's or Mr. Hughes's opinions, giving no guide to the reader whethe

ding said so and so." But what is printed is, "so and so is a fact" or,

ing to the rules, must the source of certain information be regarded

plots was described. Very soon every intelligent correspondent felt sure that Mr. Palmer was largely propaganding. But to say so would have been to violate that law against the expression of opinion in news columns, so essential to the trut

onary plots to combat a certain radicalism in the labor movement. As printed it was that Attorney

off his guard, for in the limited space available for captions, mere assertions tend to become facts. As it reached the reader's mind the fact that Mr. Pa

ponsibility to the editor. The British during the Washington Conference introduced an improvement. They put out prop

nd told nothing. Riddell's was a private enterprise. He was just a journalist willing to share with other journalists what information he collected. Just a journalist? Well, it

fternoon correspondents must either rush them through as facts-they could not even say "on

Sunday publication, sensational and trashy, of which 3,500,000 copies or some such preposterous number are sold. He started in during t

e could leak when he had anything to leak. He could guess, near the truth or far from the truth, for, after all, he was only "imagining." He joked. He indulged in buffoonery. He put out

blic in the same undress way that he does in his Sunday newspaper. "Ex-tra-ter-ri-to-ri-al-ity," he would say, "that's a long word. I never hear

e in the committee room when he got this story. He knows more about it than I do." He was humorous. "The Conference means to do good and, acco

Empire benefited. It was a publicity "stunt" that has never been equalled. Never before did one man have world opinion so much in his hands. Only Riddell's personality, his f

RID

cond only to that of news collecting has been built up for the purpose of conveying op

The American newspaper proprietor has avoided competition by steadily restricting the expression of opinion first in the news columns and then on the editorial page, so as to o

adequate, too little edited by its editors and too much edited by others. The trouble with Thérèse is her lack of mind. In spite of her good sense and habit of giving ex

e mob and we know that the psychology of the public is not different. Like the mind of Thérèse, the public mind has neve

n thinking that its mind was not the sum of the individual minds: nevertheless, it is not a "deposit for virtue." Men act in a mass quite differently fro

widely scattered people into a public, for giving it a sense of

instant bulletin going everywhere, we can stir the whole people as a m

e a developed mind. In a hundr

that there will be as much freedom of thinking in a democratic society as there once was in an aristocratic society. It is

negative force. It does nothing constructive. It can only be thoroughly aroused by a suggestion of danger. Sta

vernment by business, or executive government or party government or any one of the various governments upon wh

e arts it used during the war shaping public opinion to its own ends. It must have been hard for a king's minister

cessors. No new Rousseau will discern a new Thérèse. Mr. Walter Lippmann would set

es based on interest will at least be constructive. Organized, they may offer

he farm bloc contained the "deposit for substantial

taught us to fear, there might be organized a thinkers