TAKING COUNT

Slowly but surely the idea that public opinion might be a good gauge of the success of the Eighteenth Amendment has been penetrating into the administrative consciousness of our country. At last the need is felt for a dispassionate compilation of facts with which to back up after-dinner arguments. Until now this undertaking has been almost entirely in unofficial hands, the most noteworthy counts of wet sentiment having been taken by the Literary Digest in 1922 and again in 1930. But now the new research division of the Prohibition Bureau is mailing questionnaires to three thousand editors of American newspapers, asking whether they are wet, dry or neutral, in order to get an idea of public opinion through a presumably representative press.

The results of this poll will probably not be startlingly different from those shown by the Literary Digest count of 1930, which were, according to the New York Moderation League, that in the entire United States "over two to one are against the present law."

It is often said with justice, however, that statistics may be made to show any desired result, and so this data may not be as significant as it might seem when taken to represent the public opinion of the country at large. There is no reason to suppose that the vote of three thousand editors will be any more accurate a gauge of the people's feelings than were the votes of the magazine reading public who voted in the Literary Digest ballot. And so if is suggested that a third type of poll be taken, by secret ballot, in little booths, on some "first Tuesday" in November. This, at least, ought to be conclusive.