The people and democracy

Modern democracies are founded on the belief that those elected to represent the people will actually do so. This does not mean that they ought to be rubber stamps for public opinion. In fact, political leaders often earn great respect when they risk popularity to abide by their principles.

Nevertheless, in a representative government, elected officials should at least know the people's feelings on various issues. Obtaining this knowl­edge does not seem difficult today—it is virtually impossible to open a newspaper or watch the nightly news on TV without learning the results of the latest opinion poll.

Chapter 4 mentioned that the most famous "SLOPS" study was a "poll" conducted by the Literary Digest before the 1936 presidential elec­tion. Although it was based on millions of post­cards returned by persons selected from various commercial mailing lists, it predicted a landslide victory for Alf Landon. Instead, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reelected by a landslide. Mean­while, in 1936 another poll on the election ap­peared in a number of newspapers. Unlike the Literary Digest's poll, it was based not on mil­lions of respondents but on fewer than 2,000; yet, it correctly predicted an easy Roosevelt vic­tory. This poll was conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion (AIPO). AIPO had been founded in 1935, and on October 20 of that year its first weekly report on public opinion about current issues appeared in several newspa­pers. This proved to be a very popular feature, and soon it was carried by scores of leading pa­pers across the country. A year later, AIPO's cor­rect prediction of the election made it an author­itative source of information on public opinion. The name of the president and founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion soon be­came well known: George Gallup.

Gallup's aim was to provide frequent reports of public opinion on major political, social, and moral issues. As he put it in his first newspaper report in 1935, his was a “nonpartisan fact-finding organization which will report the trend of public opinion on one major issue each week… The results of these polls are being published for the first time today in leading newspapers – representing every shade of political preference.”

Gallup's first report demonstrated the difficulties of gauging public opinion without conduct­ing a poll. In 1935 most of the world was in the midst of the Great Depression. Millions were out of work, many banks had failed, factories were closed or running at very reduced levels, and thousands of homeless people had taken to the highways in search of a livelihood. In the United States, after three years in office, Franklin De­lano Roosevelt's "New Deal" had contributed little toward economic recovery. As a result, a widespread campaign was begun to greatly in­crease government spending to feed and clothe the needy and to stimulate the economy. Count­less public speakers claiming to represent the public demanded that Roosevelt increase federal spending. Many members of Congress joined in these demands, and press accounts frequently echoed the cry that "the people demand action now."

Along came the Gallup Poll. The first Gallup Poll ever published reported national responses to the question "Do you think the expenditures by the Government for relief and recovery are too little, too great, or just about right?" Only 9 percent of Americans thought the government was spending too little. Sixty percent thought it was spending too much. Thirty-one percent thought the current level of spending was about right. Whether or not increased public spending would have helped recovery, clearly those who supported it as representing the will of the peo­ple were incorrect.

This was only the first of many instances in which Gallup findings revealed widespread misperception and misrepresentation of public opin­ion.

In time, political leaders and the mass media earned how hard it was to judge public opinion without taking a poll, and polling became a major industry. But the Gallup Poll, which now has affiliates in more than fifty nations, remains the most influential source of information on politi­cal and social issues.