Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/176

 164 people who will not listen to him, and possibly more good can be accomplished in the long run, by moving slowly and carrying the public gradually than by shocking them by new and unsuspected and unwelcome views.

Besides the ways mentioned we have direct efforts made to shape public opinion by certain classes and societies organized for especially that purpose, as, for example, the New York Reform Club, the National Tariff League, the lately formed municipal leagues in our great cities, etc.; and our schools, churches and public institutions of various kinds each plays an important part in certain lines of thought.

These circumstances—that our people with all their prejudices are so ready to take up ideas here and there; that they are omniverous newspaper readers; that they have so active minds with, on the whole, it must be said, so little exact information, and probably it is not too much to say also with so little soundness of judgment in determining what their views on public matters shall be—give an unusual chance for guiding public opinion in the right way, if any one will take the trouble deliberately to set about the work. One may be fairly sure that the leaders of our political parties are willing to take up any issue that is likely to win when placed before the people, whether that issue be in accordance with the previous line of policy of the party or not. But it is also true that no new idea is likely to be accepted by either the party or the people without effort to inculcate it. Our people are very conservative in their nature; they believe in the established order of things, and political abuses as a rule grow gradually out of well established institutions. The people are not likely to know these abuses and they go on increasing without any protest, until some few individuals seeing the extent of the abuses start a crusade against them. The duty, in consequence, lies not merely on our politicians, but it lies on all intelligent, moral men who have the welfare of the country at heart, to rouse, guide, shape public opinion. What right has one to sit idly by and let the state drift on, always in the direction that leads toward disaster? Unless he is watched the average