PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

e indicated by them. Where the incidence of policy is remote, all
that is essential is that the program shall be verbally and
emotionally connected at the start with what has become vocal in the
multitude. Trusted men in a familiar role subscribing to the accepted
symbols can go a very long way on their own initiative without
explaining the substance of their programs.
But wise leaders are not content to do that. Provided they think
publicity will not strengthen opposition too much, and that debate
will not delay action too long, they seek a certain measure of
consent. They take, if not the whole mass, then the subordinates of
the hierarchy sufficiently into their confidence to prepare them for
what might happen, and to make them feel that they have freely willed
the result. But however sincere the leader may be, there is always,
when the facts are very complicated, a certain amount of illusion in
these consultations. For it is impossible that all the contingencies
shall be as vivid to the whole public as they are to the more
experienced and the more imaginative. A fairly large percentage are
bound to agree without having taken the time, or without possessing
the background, for appreciating the choices which the leader presents
to them. No one, however, can ask for more. And only theorists do. If
we have had our day in court, if what we had to say was heard, and
then if what is done comes out well, most of us do not stop to
consider how much our opinion affected the business in hand.
And therefore, if the established powers are sensitive and
well-informed, if they are visibly trying to meet popular feeling, and
actually removing some of the causes of dissatisfaction, no matter how
slowly they proceed, provided they are seen to be proceeding, they
have little to fear. It takes stupendous and persistent blundering,
plus almost infinite tactlessness, to start a revolution from below.
Palace revolutions, interdepartmental revolutions, are a different
matter. So, too, is demagogy. That stops at relieving the tension by
expressing the feeling. But the statesman knows that such relief is
temporary, and if indulged too often, unsanitary. He, therefore, sees
to it that he arouses no feeling which he cannot sluice into a program
that deals with the facts to which the feelings refer.
But all leaders are not statesmen, all leaders hate to resign, and
most leaders find it hard to believe that bad as things are, the other
fellow would not make them worse. They do not passively wait for the
public to feel the incidence of policy, because the incidence of that
discovery is generally upon their own heads. They are, therefore,
intermittently engaged in mending their fences and consolidating their
position.
The mending of fences consists in offering an occasional scapegoat, in
redressing a minor grievance affecting a powerful individual or