The Government

Public Opinion Series

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann, 1921, Excerpts

Political bodies set armies in motion or make peace, conscript life, tax, exile, imprison, protect property or confiscate it, encourage one kind of enterprise and discourage another, facilitate immigration or obstruct it, improve communication or censor it, establish schools, build navies, proclaim “policies,” and “destiny,” raise economic barriers, make property or unmake it, bring one people under the rule of another, or favor one class as against another.

Representative government cannot be worked successfully unless there is an independent, expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions.