Public Opinion From FDR to Ike
MUHLEN, NORBERT
Public Opinion From FDR to Ike Reviewed by Norbert Muhlen Contributor, "Reader's Digest "Saturday Evening Post," "Commonweal" You and Your Leaders. By Elmo Roper. Morrow. 288 pp. $3.95. When...
...By now, the archives of the pollsters are bulging with their findings gathered over 25 years...
...When the American voter elects his leaders, his choice boils down to one basic alternative: Does he feel (with the opposition), that "it's time for a change"—or rather (with the party in power) that "one mustn't change horses in midstream...
...If he nevertheless defeated Dewey in 1948, personalities rather than policies were decisive...
...try nothing new," even the majority of previous New Dealers then advised...
...Looking back over his yellowing clippings of poll data, Mr...
...Future and more thorough studies of this kind, of course, need not necessarily be undertaken by the pollsters themselves...
...After the panic of the Depression had somewhat abated and the New Deal proved its worth, the large majority, while approving of the reforms undertaken, rejected any more changes and new radical innovations...
...The first American publication to come to the defense of the polls immediately after the election was The New Leader, in an article written by this reviewer on November 20, 1948...
...As the leaders under scrutiny he singles out nine very different men— Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower, their defeated opponents Willkie, Dewey and Stevenson, and finally General Marshall, Senator Taft and General MacArthur (who in 1952 stood second only to Eisenhower among the living persons whom Americans admired most...
...Although Roper presents only a somewhat sketchy outline of the interactions between leadership and the public, he has proved that a more profound understanding of the public mind can be won from a systematic long-term study of the public-opinion data which he and his colleagues have gathered...
...Roper concentrates on what Americans think of their leaders, and why they do so...
...in that period, more than 100,000 questions relating to public life have been asked and answered by their organizations...
...Roper's report demonstrates that "the American people"—which is only a short term for its decisive majority—have been leaning toward "the middle of the road" since as far back as 1936...
...The majority wanted a safe and sensible middle way rather than "left-of-center" measures...
...Roosevelt's standing with the people fell seriously after his court-packing attempt...
...Both Roosevelt and Eisenhower were, on frequent occasions, more popular than their policies...
...Yet so close was the race that, as we remember, every single pollster conceded Truman's defeat in what turned out to be merely the defeat of the pollsters...
...This trend continued under Truman when, in the first months of his Presidency, his policy was "still being interpreted by most as leading down the popular 'middle of the road.' " His popularity rating sank conspicuously when the Fair Deal got under way...
...With the marked popular trend toward the "middle of the road" in domestic politics, the people's choice was bound to be strongly influenced by personalities, as Roper's evaluation of poll data demonstrates...
...And in January 1939, the large majority pronounced its desire for a new conservatism...
...Why the people followed one appeal or the otner in the last six Presidential elections is here lucidly explained by pollster Elmo Roper in the light of his own and other data...
...In 1935, Roper with his Fortune Survey—and, only three months later, Dr...
...their personalities, much as they impressed the people, seemed to lack qualities expected from American leaders...
...Roper has now set out on a new pioneering attempt—the selection and use of such data for a long-term analysis and history of popular thought and behavior...
...Roper—himself an active liberal much closer to Roosevelt than to his enemies—concludes that it was only the war which saved Roosevelt from a defeat after his second term...
...Incidentally, Roper is not quite correct when he reports that the only American editorial to defend the polls after the election was written by Jacob Potofsky for his union paper...
...In turn and somewhat ironically, Stevenson and Mac-Arthur shared the fate of being admired more as men than accepted as leaders...
...George Gallup with his American Institute of Public Opinion—presented their findings to the American public for the first time...
Vol. 41 • June 1958 • No. 22
