A Sampling of Opinions
Frankel, Theodore
COMMUNISM, CONFORMITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES, by Samuel A. Stouffer. Doubleday & Co., New York. 1955. 278 pages. $4. This book, says the author, was designed to "open a window into the mind...
...In Calif.: 6253 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood ing social factors...
...About the rights of socialists (and these are all the answers cited in the book): "Should a Socialist be allowed to make a public speech...
...He will find enough to disturb him deeply...
...Question: "Should an admitted Communist have his citizenship taken away...
...Answer: Yes, 51 per cent...
...No, 54...
...Limitations of space do not permit more extensive quotation, but I think it is quite clear even from the few figures cited that in the United Stats there exists today, in the author's words "a considerable intolerance of Socialists, atheists and other radicals...
...Thus he draws no visible conclusion from the discrepancy in tolerance between churchgoers and non-churchgoers, though he was sufficiently concerned to pose the question in the first place...
...To COME BACK TO THE FIGURES cited above...
...No, 13 per cent...
...Now, every child in this country knows that there are ample historical reasons for, say, intolerance in the South and that no second look will convince the intolerant of their wrongness...
...On the one hand this is, of course, pretty much what one would expect and, in its way, normal and reassuring...
...Stouffer and his associates have set out to explore were the public's reaction to the twin dangers of "the Communist conspiracy outside and inside (the U.S.A...
...Yes, 58% ; No opinion, 11...
...No opinion, 9...
...But what I do want to point out is that this amazingly straightforward way of putting the question and the methods applied in attaining it, this insistence that what the people think is important and that the way to find out is to go ahead and ask them and trust them to tell the truth, the faith that all this can be done scientifically by a mass apparatus subsidized by an industrial empire which can be relied on not to interfere, this melange of good intentions, practical efficiency and conceptual naivety ought to put us on our guard...
...Stouffer had intended because, in a way, its motivation and conception, its mode of procedure and its basic premises are as significant as its findings...
...MR...
...No, 52...
...We also find that those people who did have actual contact with Communists (only 3 per cent of the population) tend to be more tolerant of the rights of non-conformists, though no more fond of their ideology, than those who had no contact...
...Now, I don't wish to suggest for a moment that there was anything slipshod or ingenuous about this procedure...
...Here for instance are some of the questions and answers concerning the rights of an admitted Communist (figures for the National Cross Section...
...Yes, 33...
...And here are some figures cited as corroborative evidence from other surveys: In 1953 those who would deny Socialists the right to publish constituted 45 per cent of the population and those who would forbid newspapers to criticize our form of government comprised 42 per cent...
...I have abbreviated this and some of the following questions — T. F...
...It tells how we can publish, promote and distribute your book, as we have done for hundreds of other writers...
...Question: "Should an admitted Communist be put in jail...
...I should like to emphasize that tolerance in this context does not mean approval of the non-conformists, but respect for the civil liberties of those they disapprove of...
...It is Mr...
...Stouffer's find ings and his personal reaction, an op timism bordering on fatuousness...
...Conversely, intolerance means disrespect for civil liberties, not for persons...
...Only one per cent of all those questioned spontaneously mentioned these two topics as "the kind of thing they worried about most," while 80 per cent answered in terms of personal, family and business problems...
...Here are some of the answers concerning the rights of a man whose loyalty has been questioned but who swears that he is not a Communist...
...No, 31...
...Then, and only then, will it be possible to relegate intoler ance exclusively to the realm of private psychology into which Stouffer has placed it so prematurely...
...All subjects considered...
...Unfortunately, the ameliorative tendencies enumerated above work only when "all other things are being equal"—which they rarely are—and in the long run...
...No, 27 per cent...
...New authors welcomed...
...Yes, 71...
...The way out has been shown by the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court: change the institutions that perpetuate intolerance and you will destroy intolerance as a social phenomenon...
...No opinion, 33...
...This book, says the author, was designed to "open a window into the mind of America" and perhaps it has succeeded even better than Mr...
...Should a Socialist be allowed to teach in a college...
...The reader is well advised to skip the pieties of the exegesis and address himself to the facts...
...BOOK MANUSCRIPTS INVITED If you are looking for a publisher, send for our free, illustrated booklet titled To the Author in Search of a Publisher...
...In the meantime, explanations such as he offers help, wittingly or unwittingly (in his case, 1 am sure, it is unwittingly), to mask the real culprit...
...LET US TURN TO THE FINDINGS first...
...He does, to be sure, mention environmental data such as the South, farms and schools, but they occur only as the locus of individuals, not as determin...
...Stouffer approached the Fund for the Republic, obtained a grant of $125,000, set up a questionnaire of more than eighty questions and many times that number of subquestions and hired two research organizations which, in turn, sent out more than five hundred interviewers who interrogated more than six thousand Americans, all carefully chosen at random...
...Bernard Rosenberg, one of the edi tors of DISSENT, writing in the Jewish Frontier, has pointed out that there exists a startling discrepancy between the grimness of Mr...
...The poignancy of our predicament gets an even sharper point from our contemplation of a checkstudy which is an integral part of this book and which proves conclusively that, on all questions of civil liberties, local leadership was more tolerant than the population at large...
...but in the long run, as Lord Keynes once said, we shall all be dead and meanwhile the present is, to paraphrase our author, starkly difficult...
...No opinion, 10 per cent...
...From the answers cited in the book it is likewise clear that this intolerance goes hand in hand with a not inconsiderable popular uncertainty as to exactly what a Communist is like...
...We have seen that he is very careful to label the intolerant tendencies which his findings show up as predispositions, that is, as the mentaI attitudes of individuals...
...drastic measures of repression, including the forfeiture of rights which were centuries in the making...
...However the reason for this discrepancy lies not, as Rosenberg suggests, in Stouffer's personality, but in his methodology...
...VANTAGE PRESS, INC., 120 W. 31 St., N.Y...
...Probably the single, most important item is the revelation of just how little the American people are worried about either Communism or the threat to civil liberties...
...This finding certainly calls for a good deal of explanation on the part of those who believe that all the answers can be found by going to "the grass roots...
...No, 69...
...On the other hand, this indifference has dangers of its own...
...The particular regions of the American mind which Mr...
...On the government's right to wiretap conversations in order to get evidence against Communists...
...are operating slowly and imperceptibly (!) on the side of spreading tolerance...
...Yes, 35...
...and so far as the intolerance of women is concerned, he wisely refrains from anything even remotely resembling a comment...
...In order to find out what the American people really thought about these problems, Mr...
...Suppose he teaches in a college, should he be fired...
...First, it must be clearly understood that the quoted percentages are sample readings, which means that no individual figure is to be taken as gospel truth, but that the over-all pattern leaves practically no doubt concerning the general validity of the results...
...No opinion, 9%n...
...It certainly places us a long way off from that specter of nationwide hysteria which is so often conjured up...
...Should a book written by a So cialist be removed from the libraries...
...Stouffer's contention that it is then up to the leaders to maintain these civil rights, because when the excitement has died down and the American people have had a second, sober look at the situation, their basic in stincts of fair play will re-assert them selves...
...On the contrary, the questionnaire is a marvel of thoughtfulness and ingenuity, the sampling procedures are as up-to-date as they could Li be and the devotion of all participants to democracy and science no less than total...
...There is, as Rosenberg points out quite correctly, something exasperat ing in the attitude of a man who pre sents the most formidable figures on current intolerance and then blandly states his belief that television shows like "I Love Lucy" will go a long way to combat these tendencies, or who can say that he came to the conclu sion "that most of the seemingly in tolerant people are good, wholesome Americans" (emphasis added—T.F...
...STOUFFER HAS COME UP with the theory of "the second, sober thought" which holds that the instincts of the American people are basically sound, but that every so often they are led astray by the excitements of the day and are ready to "justify...
...This concentration on the individual and the concomitant neglect of political and economic institutions permits Stouffer to "psychologize" intolerance, that is, to declare it to be the temporary mental aberration of individuals rather than the reflection of institutionalized wrongs perpetuated by enduring social interests...
...COMMUNISM, CONFORMITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES, by Samuel A. Stouffer...
...and to those who in thwarting the conspiracy would sacrifice some of the liberties which the enemy would destroy...
...Answer: Yes, 64 per cent...
...Answer: Yes, 77 per cent (of those questioned...
...Hence his no doubt sincere belief that people are only "seemingly intolerant" and that "a sober second look" will show them what is right...
...Write today for Booklet DS...
...Should he be allowed to make a speech in public...
...The figures show that even the local Commanders of the American Legion and the Regents of the Daughters of the American Revolution, two groups which, by and large, are less tolerant than other local leaders, are consistently more tolerant than the man in the street...
...The motivation behind the research is the most laudable in the world, the facts unearthed are of enormous importance, but their interpretation could not be more beside the mark...
...Of the many factors that indubitably influence these dispositions, the author has tabulated six and has shown quite conclusively that, on the question of civil liberties, older people are less tolerant than younger people, Southerners less than the rest of the country, farmers less than city people, women less than men, those who attend church regularly less than those who do not, the uneducated less than the educated...
...Second, the tendencies revealed by the survey are not inflexible laws of conduct, adhered to steadfastly by a certain, unchanging percentage of the population, but are to be understood as predispositions and attitudes which are susceptible to a good deal of change...
...No opinion, 13...
...No opinion, 9 per cent...
...No, 34 per cent...
...It's free...
...No 21...
...These findings point, of course, toward possible avenues of relief and the author does indeed feel that "the rising level of education, geographical movement of the people and other social, economic and technological forces (press, television, radio—T.F...
...Besides, this question covers only the overt attitude of the population, but when the study gets around to probing the covert, or latent, dispositions of the American people, quite a different picture emerges...
...The matter becomes even more amazing when we observe, though the author does not, that in the matter of civil liberties the national Republican administration is considerably more tolerant than the local leaders who in turn are much more tolerant than the average American...
...Stouffer goes to considerable length emphasizing that at least two considerations must be kept in mind in interpreting them...
...No opinion, 15 per cent...
...However, I should like to empha size that the findings of this book far transcend in importance the shortcomings of the interpretation...
...I should like to observe, parenthetically, that the author possesses sufficient prudence not to become a slave to the logic of his own findings...
...Stouffer feels, very optim istically, that that's the way things have always happened in the past and, if the local leaders are stout-hearted enough, that is the way it will happen again...
...Yes, 22...
Vol. 2 • September 1955 • No. 4
