The Shaping of Public Opinion – Sunday, November 15, 1942
We hear much these days, as we always have, concerning the shaping of public opinion. Always a vital concern to men who live together, public opinion has become yet more so with the extension 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, with our far-reaching facilities for communication, and with the ever-widening control of the sources of information in so much of the world.
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 spellbinder and a scalawag at the same time. He may wield great influence without regard to his morals or his ethics or his purposes. A silver-tongued orator may use his gift either for good or questionable ends.
Eloquence is not always the companion of truth. Persuasive leaders have often been able to misdirect the sentiments and the actions of followers more honest but less discriminating than they. The first recorded occurrence that we have of such misguidance 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 not alone do the leaders pay the penalties of their follies, but likewise the followers, 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 a grievous 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.
By RICHARD L. EVANS, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Nov. 15, 1942, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1942.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
November 15, 1942
Broadcast Number 0,691