PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$Morning Session $9:00â12:00$ - Virginia Tech English Department ...$

state symbols exhausted their political interest. An interstate idea, like the Confederation, represented a powerless abstraction. It was an omnibus, rather than a symbol, and the harmony among divergent groups, which the omnibus creates, is transient. I have said that the idea of confederation was a powerless abstraction. Yet the need of unity existed in the decade before the Constitution was adopted. The need existed, in the sense that affairs were askew unless the need of unity was taken into account. Gradually certain classes in each colony began to break through the state experience. Their personal interests led across the state lines to interstate experiences, and gradually there was constructed in their minds a picture of the American environment which was truly national in scope. For them the idea of federation became a true symbol, and ceased to be an omnibus. The most imaginative of these men was Alexander Hamilton. It happened that he had no primitive attachment to any one state, for he was born in the West Indies, and had, from the very beginning of his active life, been associated with the common interests of all the states. Thus to most men of the time the question of whether the capital should be in Virginia or in Philadelphia was of enormous importance, because they were locally minded. To Hamilton this question was of no emotional consequence; what he wanted was the assumption of the state debts because they would further nationalize the proposed union. So he gladly traded the site of the capitol for two necessary votes from men who represented the Potomac district. To Hamilton the Union was a symbol that represented all his interests and his whole experience; to White and Lee from the Potomac, the symbol of their province was the highest political entity they served, and they served it though they hated to pay the price. They agreed, says Jefferson, to change their votes, "White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive." [Footnote: _Works,_ Vol. IX, p. 87. Cited by Beard, _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy,_ p. 172.] In the crystallizing of a common will, there is always an Alexander Hamilton at work. CHAPTER XIV YES OR NO 1 Symbols are often so useful and so mysteriously powerful that the word itself exhales a magical glamor. In thinking about symbols it is tempting to treat them as if they possessed independent energy. Yet no
end of symbols which once provoked ecstasy have quite ceased to affect anybody. The museums and the books of folklore are full of dead emblems and incantations, since there is no power in the symbol, except that which it acquires by association in the human mind. The symbols that have lost their power, and the symbols incessantly suggested which fail to take root, remind us that if we were patient enough to study in detail the circulation of a symbol, we should behold an entirely secular history. In the Hughes campaign speech, in the Fourteen Points, in Hamilton's project, symbols are employed. But they are employed by somebody at a particular moment. The words themselves do not crystallize random feeling. The words must be spoken by people who are strategically placed, and they must be spoken at the opportune moment. Otherwise they are mere wind. The symbols must be earmarked. For in themselves they mean nothing, and the choice of possible symbols is always so great that we should, like the donkey who stood equidistant between two bales of hay, perish from sheer indecision among the symbols that compete for our attention. Here, for example, are the reasons for their vote as stated by certain private citizens to a newspaper just before the election of 1920. For Harding: "The patriotic men and women of to-day, who cast their ballots for Harding and Coolidge will be held by posterity to have signed our Second Declaration of Independence." Mr. Wilmot--, inventor. "He will see to it that the United States does not enter into 'entangling alliances,' Washington as a city will benefit by changing the control of the government from the Democrats to the Republicans." Mr. Clarence--, salesman. For Cox: "The people of the United States realize that it is our duty pledged on the fields of France, to join the League of Nations. We must shoulder our share of the burden of enforcing peace throughout the world." Miss Marie--, stenographer. "We should lose our own respect and the respect of other nations were we to refuse to enter the League of Nations in obtaining international
Page 1 and 2:
TO FAYE LIPPMANN Wading River, Long
Page 3 and 4:
CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTION THE WORLD
Page 5 and 6:
Far less should he go to the Antipo
Page 7 and 8:
darkened brains toward him as towar
Page 9 and 10:
Pennsylvania mining town, plunged s
Page 11 and 12:
of American marines on the Dalmatia
Page 13 and 14:
describe. Yet these fictions determ
Page 15 and 16:
[Footnote: _Cf_. Wallas, _Our Socia
Page 17 and 18:
p. 151.] What for a sociologist is
Page 19 and 20:
task of a political science that ha
Page 21 and 22:
eal one was. But a few days later a
Page 23 and 24:
already at the front. There will re
Page 25 and 26:
treaties, or when Mr. Hughes invest
Page 27 and 28:
that a change in the art of shipbui
Page 29 and 30:
iological clan. Membership is intim
Page 31 and 32:
It is no part of our inquiry to att
Page 33 and 34:
ated themselves at more than fiftee
Page 35 and 36:
Chicago business men in 1916 for pr
Page 37 and 38:
It is doubtful whether a supreme ma
Page 39 and 40:
"A native of an unfriendly country.
Page 41 and 42:
9% increase of clang in the second
Page 43 and 44:
difference between Frege and Peano,
Page 45 and 46:
otherwise vague and wavering." But
Page 47 and 48:
_Cf._ also his comment on _Dante's
Page 49 and 50:
painter, for example, or a cultivat
Page 51 and 52:
world, however, during the last few
Page 53 and 54:
have arranged their lives as if the
Page 55 and 56:
happens. If the man is no longer pl
Page 57 and 58:
an ecclesiastical bearing and "conf
Page 59 and 60:
once more the purely technical conc
Page 61 and 62:
overcrowding; they pointed with pri
Page 63 and 64:
will be known by the governors. In
Page 65 and 66:
uildings which rose, and the bank a
Page 67 and 68: misjudged the facts, imagined the a
Page 69 and 70: professing the same stock of religi
Page 71 and 72: of thing is, I believe, less preval
Page 73 and 74: that it seems less dangerous to fig
Page 75 and 76: tells me it is three miles and thin
Page 77 and 78: seasons. If born in winter, we shou
Page 79 and 80: the main highway for ninety-nine ye
Page 81 and 82: and assistance "until such time as
Page 83 and 84: the most troublesome employee or th
Page 85 and 86: time, and sampling. We must note no
Page 87 and 88: Morgan or the King become ideas and
Page 89 and 90: to be easily popular where the mark
Page 91 and 92: they find, or pay the price of frus
Page 93 and 94: lives that seem at first glance dul
Page 95 and 96: sharply separated. He would say tha
Page 97 and 98: are never exercised again in the wh
Page 99 and 100: Thus it may be true enough, as Jame
Page 101 and 102: described in economic materialism w
Page 103 and 104: _Op. cit._, Vol. II, p. 390.] "ever
Page 105 and 106: what proportion, by the motives of
Page 107 and 108: that wizardry which popular leaders
Page 109 and 110: stability and prosperity. We should
Page 111 and 112: People differ widely in their susce
Page 113 and 114: pervaded the whole of western Europ
Page 115 and 116: All these considerations entered in
Page 117: every corner of the earth. No docum
Page 121 and 122: likely as not, too busy to be consu
Page 123 and 124: services in a feudal system, to job
Page 125 and 126: same reaction takes place in many p
Page 127 and 128: CHAPTER XV LEADERS AND THE RANK AND
Page 129 and 130: most practiced, and reaches to high
Page 131 and 132: impinge upon the private habits of
Page 133 and 134: e indicated by them. Where the inci
Page 135 and 136: persuasion has become a self-consci
Page 137 and 138: infallible origin for the new socia
Page 139 and 140: dignity of all men, were immediatel
Page 141 and 142: 2 To circumvent this conclusion one
Page 143 and 144: They looked about them. In the city
Page 145 and 146: consent or community beyond the fro
Page 147 and 148: without the labor of earning new tr
Page 149 and 150: They could not consider in their ca
Page 151 and 152: Jefferson who first taught the Amer
Page 153 and 154: sense of common interest, have torn
Page 155 and 156: document has to thank the enterpris
Page 157 and 158: impose law and order on the localit
Page 159 and 160: 141.] Everyone who shares that hope
Page 161 and 162: constitute the internal affairs of
Page 163 and 164: about other people's views of that
Page 165 and 166: gather together its strength, and f
Page 167 and 168: absorbed by one interest: self-gove
Page 169 and 170:
was to come from on which the will
Page 171 and 172:
difficult and often dangerous servi
Page 173 and 174:
undertakes to discuss the press. Mr
Page 175 and 176:
a number of obscure elements that i
Page 177 and 178:
imaginary people, with whose gorgeo
Page 179 and 180:
set of well founded hopes, which ar
Page 181 and 182:
in a crudely overt act. Smith's fri
Page 183 and 184:
tradition of privacy, they may not
Page 185 and 186:
worker in the Pittsburgh district,
Page 187 and 188:
phase of a situation. It comes from
Page 189 and 190:
headline of the second is "Mrs. Sti
Page 191 and 192:
eport that he is dead from a source
Page 193 and 194:
encouraged a democracy, still bound
Page 195 and 196:
system of truth than that which ari
Page 197 and 198:
conclusions of a sort that could no
Page 199 and 200:
shaking the foundations of society.
Page 201 and 202:
2 It is no accident that the best d
Page 203 and 204:
in order to effect a truly logical
Page 205 and 206:
lumber, hire carpenters, or constru
Page 207 and 208:
the national university and teacher
Page 209 and 210:
isolated community of people whose
Page 211 and 212:
some study of this material by news
Page 213 and 214:
the intelligence men for wage table
Page 215 and 216:
fate, but with the fate of the oute
Page 217 and 218:
When Plato came to the point where
Page 219 and 220:
slower than the rate at which actio
Page 221:
quality which a human being has exh
show all

PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?