Harris Describes An Angry. America Lacking Leaders

Louis Harris, one of the nation's best known surveyers of public opinion, last night decried a lack of political leadership from elected officials in a talk before the Harvard Law School Forum.

Harris presented the audience with some of the data he had provided Monday to members of the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations. He said that the leadership of America has "never been so out of touch with the people as it has been in the last decade."

"In 27 years of public opinion research, I have never seen so bleak an outlook by the people," Harris said.

Harris added that the upward trend in alienation and disenchantment was not a feature of Richard Nixon's presidency alone, but has been increasing since 1963.

He said that there was a growing sense of powerlessness--"a feeling that those in power are trying to deny the people their rights."

Harris revealed that in his latest survey, garbagemen were more respected than the president--only 18 per cent of the American public now feel confident in the actions of the president and the executive branch, according to his figures.

Harris said most people now believe that inflation and a deterioration in the quality of life are the most serious problems facing the United States, as opposed to 1968 when law and order was the major concern.

He said that people now believe that prisons do not correct offenders, that organized crime has been dealt with too leniently, and that the majority of those who preach law and order are crooks themselves.

Harris said that 71 per cent of the American public would accept gasoline rationing as long as it were equitable--as long as the "fat cats" wouldn't benefit from high prices. But he said that the views held by a majority of Americans are not the positions President Nixon has advocated to solve the energy crisis.

"This country is just aching for an issue like the energy problem to unite them, to give them a feeling of national unity. But that leadership is sorely lacking," he said.

He said that the Watergate affair and inept handling of the energy crisis have caused "political maps to be torn up daily."

"What will emerge will be beyond all recognition," Harris said.

"The American people may have lost confidence in their leaders," he added, "but they have not lost faith in themselves."

Freshmen: Organizational meeting for the Freshman darkroom at 7:30 p.m., Dec. 10, in the Mirror room of the Union. (10