The Shaping of Public Opinion – Sunday, August 25, 1940
We hear a good deal these days, as we always have, concerning the molding of public opinion. Always a vital concern to men who live together, it has become yet more so with the ex- tension of mass communication as the spoken word has been added to the printed page in its appeals to the millions.
Abraham Lincoln once said: “He who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.” And-what was true in his day is true with increased intensity in ours. The difficulty arises in the fact that the ability to influence public opinion is not always accompanied by a like degree of integrity or honesty or honorable motive. A man may be a spell-binder and a scalawag at the same time. A man may wield great influence without regard to his morals or his ethics or his purposes. A silver-tongued orator may use his gift for either good or questionable ends. Eloquence is not always the companion of truth. A persuasive leader can sway the sentiments and the actions of many followers more honest but less discriminating than he. The first recorded occurrence that we have of such misdirection on the part of an able but not honorable leader comes down to us from the account of things before time began when Lucifer, a brilliant personality, waged war in heaven and misled a third of the hosts thereof to their own downfall and to his. And that is one of the regrettable things about misdirected leadership – that the leaders not alone pay the penalties of their follies, but likewise the followers as well, of which current history offers altogether too many tragic examples. To mislead men either in mind or in spirit is as serious an offense as abusing them physically, even though it is not as easy to apprehend nor as quick to arouse resentment, nor as definitely punishable by the laws of men – yet it is an offense against man and God and will not go unnoticed or unrequited. And all this we should remember – we who read and listen, and we who write and speak — for the molding of public opinion is a solemn and sacred trust.
August 25, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,575