Probing the Public Mind

...643 Your Letter (verse...

...Walter Lippmann, ventures to say, in his new book, The Phantom Public, that "when public opinion attempts to govern directly it is either a failure or a tyranny," the rest of us can hardly avoid sitting up and taking notice...

...Henry Longan Stuart, George N. Shuster...

...You can't fool all the people all the time," said Lincoln...

...Ernest Sutherland Bates...

...655 PUBLIC MIND impact...

...63 z East and West...

...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts, and Public Affairs...

...As time goes on, however, it becomes more and more doubtful that the public mind can serve as a reliable arbiter of questions which are moral in character...

...and the ancient Gospel, whatever its present form may be, is today still the best auxiliary to social instinct...

...So frank a dis-avowal of the democratic theory is starkly opposed to what at least half a million school-children are busily reciting every day...

...Lippmann's book (reviewed in this issue of The Commonweal) we shall not go far astray if we hold that, in this country, the theory of a governing public opinion is based upon the belief that the majority can be trusted to distinguish between moral right and wrong, rather than upon a desire to guarantee the largest possible success to economic aspirations or cul- tural ambitions...

...which has been created for an eternal life of union with God beyond the narrow horizons of this terrestrial journey...

...Lippmann that right and wrong are relative terms~that in every case the moralist is speaking merely for his group...

...These discoveries antedated and later ran parallel to the activity of "public opinion," and derived their sanc- tion from a Church which by Divine decree had been made the supreme representative of justice on earth...

...However few the scriptural in-junctions on social action may be, the "imitatio Christi" which has been the life of the Church could hardly have failed to arrive at a certain view of com- munal living...

...Public opinion, probed by so many minds that report its chaotic state, will find a foundation in reason and a program for its will toward righteousness when the Catholics of the world cease giving lip homage to the social principles of their faith and organize to give them practical expression...

...Ronald Knox 645 Communications...

...Eternal life is an individual hope for another world . . . We in modern life believe in eternal life but without asceticism...

...And when a man as discerning, and as well supplied with opportunities for observing the progress of affairs as Mr...

...Eugene C. Dolson 645 My Irreligion...

...But what is this "public" and this "opinion...

...When men so regard them, they are imperative...

...H. Pinard de la Boullaye...

...635 State Universities, I...

...and the democratic principle insists particularly that you can't fool them about good and evil...

...Now, regardless of many other things asserted in Mr...

...647 The Play...

...The American public sometimes concentrates its vague desire for righteousness into abrupt edicts or manifestos...

...And so a larger public than can be mustered for almost any other instruction listens reverently to these words by the bishops of Belgiummwords destined to survive multitudinous changes in government~"There is a Christian moral teaching which ordains, above all, re- spect for social standards of a higher order: the trans- cendent dignity of the human personality which is free and immortal...

...They will ferret out a Louis XV, and they will erect statues to men "who would rather be right than President...

...The intricate business of framing laws and administering them through several hundred thousand public officials is in no sense the act of the voters nor a translation of their will...

...There is much to be said in favor of these planks in the national idealistic program...

...634 United College Men...

...Lipp- mann's onslaught is manifold and dexterous...

...65 I The Quiet Corner...

...638 At Dawn (verse...

...Not in such a fashion will the principles of Chris- tian actions be realized...

...A crusade to "make the world safe for democracy" ought really to start out with a reliable idea of what democracy is, and of precisely why nothing else can be tolerated in other people...

...It is a frontal attack upon a point of view not without its aura of pseudo-sacrednessna view which has, in fact, radically modi- fied the nature of American government...

...This is a fiction...

...And many a man who has gone adrift from the faith of the fathers will concede with Tainem"It alone can keep us on the upward path and stop the insensate back- sliding by which our race returns unceasingly to its natural baseness...

...The Catholic knows that the science of casuistry, repudiated by those who held to vague generalizations about "righteousness" and "brotherhood," is nothing less than the necessary method by which a satisfactory moral condt4slon can be reached...

...R. Dana Skinner 65o Books...

...It is simply further evidence that the Church will not be separated, in these times, from the massive social problems about which the public is supposed to have an opinion...

...In other words, the Communion of Saints is here identi- fied as far as possible with a public organized to promote the improvement of terrestrial communities...

...They lead, it seems to us, quite unavoidably to one of two conclusions...

...Fundamentally, one can say, with no desire to disparage, that the current democratic theory derives from the Protestant trust in the in630 THE COMMONWEAL November 4, I925 dividual...

...They may seem merely the repeti...

...629 Week by Week...

...Mark O. Shriver 64~ Ethnologists at Milan...

...To many observers it seems hopelessly unqualified to sift the evidence pro and con, and its standards appear to fluctuate with the passions of an hour...

...Mary Dixon Thayer 64z PROBING THE T HE courageous pastoral letter of the Belgian bishops has aroused heated discussion because of its tenets regarding the present position of Socialism...

...Yet, when we consider Chris- tendom historically, we must perforce agree with Harnack--"Never has any religion, not even Budd-hism, presented itself with so powerful a social mes- sage, nor identified itself so perfectly with a message of this kind, as the religion of the Gospel...

...These facts are important because they testify to an inchoate public will, struggling ignorantly to achieve action and flinging shafts that are boomerangs...

...When men act upon them, their innate truth becomes effective...

...Rauschenbusch's com-ment upon the social teaching of the Gospel~"The kingdom of God is a social and collective hope for this world...

...They are, in fact, the re-utterance of principles which have animated the social teaching of the Catholic Church from its beginning...

...and it has bitterly repudiated ev;ery venture in communism with a verdict, not of chaotic economic policy, but of moral degeneracy...

...It may be said to have found the following compact formula-- "It [public opinion] is not able to master a problem intellectually, nor to deal with it except by wholesale ENTS Catholic Lay Organization...

...Robert F. Keegan...

...If you believe that every man may be relied upon for dogmatic truth and spiritual illumination, you can hardly fail to conclude that all men are equally entitled to express their opinions upon social right and wrong, and to share in the enforcement of a moral conclusion...

...If, therefore, in our time the teaching body of this Church sets forth its opinion upon matters of import- ance to the communal conscience, it may not always be speaking with the ultimate finality of Peter's voice, but it will express a doctrine germinated by the seeds of charity and justice placed in those Gospels that were to serve as a constitution for the Kingdom of God...

...tion of commonplaces...

...They will--it is assumed--perennially dis- tinguish between the corrupt grafter and the inflexible just steward...

...How shall a public which knows nothing of moral authority or moral method, which gives over its emotions to the control of zealots, decide issues in this workaday world...

...636 Autumn Song (verse...

...and it divined, at least in many instances, the right and wrong aspects of issues which embroiled classes or groups...

...You may hold with Mr...

...and which is obliged to realize in the ennobling struggles of a temporary existence, through love of duty, discipline of virtue, and sacrifice, the fulness of its destiny...

...It is very interesting to observe how strikingly this stand is borne out in Dr...

...It found the just basis upon which men's relations with each other might be established...

...But we see more and more dearly that, at least in practice, the public decisions have been arbitrary and minus necessary distinctions...

...Volume II New York, Wednesday, November 4, 1925 Number z6 CONT Probing the Public Mind...

...it has declared a world crusade in favor of all nationalistic separatism...

...Clinton Scollard 637 Crime Problems and the Church...

...To ask the question is to see the need for an adequate reply...

...Thus it has said that any and all traffic in liquor is morally and politically reprehensible...

...or you may hold the Catholic view of the question--there are immutable and everlasting standards, but these can be applied only when the circumstances and elements in the case are properly collated, and weighed...

...The theory of democracy has not recognized this truth because it has identified the functioning of government with the will of the people...

...The words have a familiar sound to those who are acquainted with the joint pastoral letter of the American bishops, and the encyclicals of Leo XIII...

...We think this life is sweet and that the one to come will be still better...