PREFACE

Nowadays when popular government is a truism, when the perennial debate between democracy and autocracy has been replaced by an equally promising battle between traditional democracy and pluralism of varying shades and colors, the study of public opinion, which the supporters of traditional democracy assume as existent and which the proponents of pluralism brand as fiction, is bound to assume an unprecedented importance. When the traditional democrats speak of public opinion, they assume the existence of a common will into which the people's individual wills have been integrated. The pluralists contend that this is all very well but that the democrats are taking a lot for granted. They point out that in our complex civilization, no such integrated public opinion can ever

exist.

The discrepancy thus arises from an identical conception of public opinion. This sketch is partly an attempt to show that the pluralist contention that public opinion as the democrats conceive it is a fiction is true, but that public opinion such as it exists today is as reliable and as trustworthy a guide. To the democrats, the falsity of their assumption is pointed; to the pluralists, the existence of a public opinion different in nature from what they demand but equally useful and perhaps a better guide, is demonstrated.

To do this it has been thought the best procedure to

examine the biological and the sociological heritage of man and the part it plays upon his conduct. We have traced the formation of individual and group opinions and discussed their relative value. We have pointed out how, with individual and group opinions for raw material, leadership creates universal sentiment and crystalizes a common opinion. We have assigned to the public press the most influential leadership in this process of crystalization.

The method has been to cite and quote authorities often at variance on the same aspect of the subject, and, following the preponderance of authority, we have attempted to arrive at conclusions.

For

Prof. Willard G. Bleyer, as adviser, is largely responsible for the general organization of this thesis, but has given me almost absolute independence in arriving at my conclusions. his valuable ideas availed of in Chapter V, I have given him due credit in the footnotes.