They argue from the one to the other and reach their conclusions without much difficulty. They do not stop to think that agreement in point of view between the public and these institutions may often be the result of the control exercised by the public mind over these institutions.
Many outside forces, however, do go to influence public opinion. The most obvious of these forces are parental influence, the school room, the press, motion pictures, advertising, magazines, lectures, the church, the radio.
To answer the question as to the stubbornness or malleability of the public, let us analyze the press in its relation to public opinion, since the press stands preëminent among the various institutions which are commonly designated as leaders or moulders of the public mind. By the press, in this instance, I mean the daily press. Americans are a newspaper-reading public. They have become accustomed to look to their morning and evening papers for the news of the world and for the opinions of their leaders. And while the individual newspaper reader does not give a very considerable portion of his day to this occupation, many persons find time to read more than one newspaper every day.
It is not surprising that the man who is outside the current of prevailing public opinion should regard the daily press as a coercive force.
Discussions of the public’s reaction to the press are two-sided, just as are discussions of the influence of the pulpit or other forces. Some authorities hold that the public mind is stubborn in regard to the press and that the press has little influence upon it. There are graphic instances of the stubbornness of the public point of view. A most interesting example is the reëlection of Mayor Hylan of New York by an overwhelming majority in the face of the opposition of all but two of the metropolitan dailies. It is also noteworthy that in 1909, Gaynor was elected Mayor of New York with every paper except one opposing his