CHAPTER VI

THE GROUP AND HERD ARE THE BASIC MECHANISMS OF PUBLIC CHANGE

The institutions that make public opinion carry on against a background which is in itself a controlling factor. The real character of this controlling background we shall take up later. Let us first consider some examples that prove its existence--then we can look into its origin and its standards.

Powerful standards control the very institutions which are supposed to help form public opinion. It is necessary to understand the origin, the working and the strength of these institutions in order to understand the institutions themselves and their effect upon the public.

In tracing the interaction of institution upon public and public upon institution, one finds a circle of obedience and leadership. The press, the school and other leaders of thought are themselves working in a background which they cannot entirely control.

Let us turn to the press again for a text.

That the press is so frequently unable to achieve a result on which its combined members are unanimously set makes it evident that the press itself is working in a medium which it cannot entirely control. The _New York Times_ motto, “All the news that’s fit to print,” drives this point home. The standards of fitness created in the minds of the publishers express the point of view of a mass of readers, and this enables the newspapers to achieve and maintain circulation and financial success.

The very fact that newspapers must sell to the public is an evidence that they must please the public and in a measure obey it. In the press there is a very human tendency to compromise between giving the public what it wants and giving the public what it _should_ want. This is equally true in music, where artists like McCormack or Rachmaninoff popularize their programs. It is true in the drama, where managers, producers and authors combine to adjust plots, situations and endings to what the public will be willing to pay to see. It is true in art, in architecture, in motion pictures. It is true of the lecture platform and of the pulpit.

So-called radical preachers, for example, usually succeed in broadcasting their radical ideas only when their following is prepared to accept their views. The Rev. Percy Stickney Grant was a great problem to the upholders of the accepted order, only because there was so large a body of parishioners eager to hear and accept his _dicta_. The Rev. Billy Sunday, evangelist, derived his following from among people who were awaiting a faith-stirring appeal.

Another evidence of the fact that a powerful outside influence helps make the forces that mould public opinion is shown by the newspapers in the actual selection of news. The public actually demands that certain types of facts be omitted. The standing problem of every newspaper office--the winnowing of the day’s news from the mass of material that reaches the editorial desks--illustrates pointedly the need there is to examine the reasons which prompt the editors in selection.

In an exceedingly interesting advertisement published by the _New York Tribune_, on April 19, 1922, the _Tribune’s_ editors state the problem most graphically. The advertisement is headed, “What Else Happened That Day?” and it reads as follows:

“Madame Caillaux was on trial in Paris for killing Gaston Calmette.

“In Long Island a woman was mysteriously shot in a doctor’s office while on a night visit.

“Forty-five stage coaches were held up in Yellowstone Park by two masked bandits who took all the cash of 165 tourists.

“Romantic crime, mystery crime, adventurous crime, a public eagerly interested--and they suddenly dropped from the newspapers. The public forgot them. As news, these events became as if they had never happened. Something else had happened.

“The day of Madame Caillaux’s acquittal Austria declared war on Serbia. Russia mobilized fourteen army corps on the German border and the price of wheat in this country soared.

“All the news that a newspaper prints is affected by what else happened that day. If an earthquake occurs the day you announce your daughter’s engagement her picture may be left out of the newspaper.

“The man who made a golf hole in one the day of the Dempsey-Carpentiér fight was out of luck so far as an item on the sporting page was concerned.

“When real news breaks, semi-news must go. When real news is scarce, semi-news returns to the front page. A very great man picked out Sunday night to dine at a Bowery mission. Monday is usually a dull day for news, although some big events, notably the sinking of the _Titanic_, came over the wires Sunday night.

“All papers feature big news. When there is no big news, real editing is needed to select the real news from the semi-news.

“What you read on dull news days is what fixes your opinions of your country and of your compatriots. It is from the non-sensational news that you see the world and assess, rightly or wrongly, the true value of persons and events.

“The relative importance your newspaper gives to an occurrence affects your thought, your character, and your children’s thought and character. For few daily habits are as firmly established as the habit of reading the newspaper.”

Now each of the items mentioned in the _Tribune’s_ advertisement was news. Comparison of the newspapers of that day will undoubtedly show a wide divergence in the manner in which these items were treated and in the relative importance assigned to each. The basis of the selection was clearly the general standard of the clientele of each individual paper.

And this selection of ideas for presentation goes on in every medium of thought communication.

This basis of selection has long been recognized. Thus in an article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1911, Professor Hargar, formerly head of the Department of Journalism at the University of Kansas, draws attention to it in regard to newspapers, and points out that “the province of the city paper is one of news selection.[22] Out of the vast skein of the day’s happenings what shall it select? More ‘copy’ is thrown away than is used. The _New York Sun_ is written as definitely for a given constituency as is a technical journal. Out of the day’s news it gives prominence to that which fits into its scheme of treatment, and there is so much news that it can fill its columns with interesting materials, yet leave untouched a myriad of events. The _New York Evening Post_ appeals to another constituency, and is made accordingly. The _World_ and the _Journal_ have a far different plan, and ‘play up’ stories that are mentioned briefly, or ignored, by some of their contemporaries. So the writer on the metropolitan paper is trained to sift news, to choose from his wealth of material that which the paper’s traditions demand shall receive attention; and so abundant is the supply that he can easily set a feast without exhausting the market’s offering. Unconsciously he becomes an epicure, and knows no day will dawn without bringing him his opportunity.”

Mr. Lippmann makes the same observation. He says:[23] “Every newspaper when it reaches the reader is the result of a whole series of selections as to what items shall be printed, in what position they shall be printed, how much space each shall occupy, what emphasis each shall have. There are no objective standards here. There are conventions. Take two newspapers published in the same city on the same morning. The headline of one reads: ‘Britain pledges aid to Berlin against French Aggression. France Openly Backs Poles.’ The headline of the second is: ‘Mrs. Stillman’s Other Love.’ Which you prefer is a matter of taste, but _not entirely a matter of the editor’s taste_. It is a matter of his _judgment as to what will absorb the half hour’s attention a certain set of readers will give to his newspaper_.”

The American stage continually bows to public demand and consciously ascribes to the public the changes it undergoes. The character of advertising has definitely yielded to public demand and fake advertising has been to a great extent eliminated. Motion pictures have responded, too, to public taste and public pressure, both as to the kind of picture presented and, in isolated instances, to the type of action permitted to appear.

It is therefore apparent that these and the other institutions which modify public opinion carry on against a background which is also in itself a controlling factor. What the real character of this controlling background is we shall now consider.