LETTERS FROM THE RIGHT:
CONTENT-ANALYSIS OF A LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN
By
James McEvoy Assistant Project Director Institute for Social Research The University of Michigan
With
Richard Schmuck Mark Chesler Associate Professor Acting Project Director Group Dynamics Center Institute for Social Researcr Temple University The University of Michigan
CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON UTILIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
April, 1966 PREFACE
This research was sponsored by the Office of Research Adminis• tration of The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; administered by the Institute for Social Research, Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge.
We gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Dr. Rudolf
Schmerl, Dr. Floyd Mann, Dr. Lawrence Phillips, Elizabeth McEvoy,
Sharon Pietila, Louis Paskoff, and Esther Schaeffer in securing and completing this project. Our largest debt, however, is to the magazine which supplied us with these letters- and to the letter writers themselves
James McEvoy was responsible for the writing and data analysis;
Richard Schmuck and Mark Chesler were project directors and advisors in the construction of the code.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Preface ii
List of Tables iv
List of Illustrations v
Introduction . r . . 1
Demographic and Comparative Analysis of the Letters ... 10
Sex Differences Between the Two Studies 20
Indexes of the Social Status of the Authors of the
Letters 21
Literacy 24
Group Salience and Literacy 28
Group Salience and "Pressure Tactics" 30
The True Believers 36
The Socio-Economic Status of the True Believer 38
Group Salience 42
Religiosity 44
Conclusions and Implications for Further Research .... 47
Bibliography of References " 51
General References on Super-Patriotism 53
Super-Patriot Literature by Areas of Concern » 55
iii LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
1. Length of Letter 11
2. Type of Stationery 12
3. Size of Writer's Home Community 13
4o Population of Writer's Home Community
(Michigan Study) 14
5. Distribution of 1018 by States 15
6c Distribution of Population by Census Region ... 17
7. Sex of Writers 20
8, Writing Implement
9e Levels of Literacy Compared With Requests for Explanation 27 10, Literacy Related to Group Salience (Would make 10, contact with others on this topic) 29
110 Literacy Related to Group Salience (Reaction of others cited) 29
12. Population of Writers' Home Towns As Related
to the Use of Direct Quotations 39
13. Use of Quotations Related to Value Orientation . . 40
14e Ambiguity Related to Use of Quotations 41
15, Relation of Those Who Threatened.Cancellation
With the Use of Quotations . 6 42
iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure Page
1. Early Vote Intention 18
v Introduction
One of the most significant political phenomena of mid-twentieth century America is the vigorous growth of extreme conservatism8 Variously called extreme conservatism, right-wing extremism, radical rightism or super-patriotism, this movement is a reflection of the ideologies and energies of many Americans who protest the style and content of contemporary American life, Super-patriotism, as President Eisenhower called it, is characterized by political conser• vatism and fervent nationalism, by an active participation in social and political organizations, and by the perception of a major and dangerous internal Communist conspiracy in many areas of American life
(Schmuck and Chesler, 1963a)0 Some of the areas most prominently focused upon as targets of right-wing protest are those involving international relations, civil rights, educational progressivism, and community health services. Also, in many cases, super-patriots see many of the mass media, including television, radio, news magazines and current popular literature as 'channels through which Americans are brainwashed by the "Communists-,"
A story in a recent issue of a national magazine seemed to super-patriots to be an example of just'such usage of meass media. This story told what happened in a major American institution when this institution was taken over by Communists. It depicted the rapid and dramatic takeover of a group of children's minds through the use of rather crude techniques of "brainwashing," In a few minutes, a
"new teacher" was able to convert a group of children's beliefs in
-1- the authority of their parents, their allegiance to their country
and their faith in God, into faith in and adulation of "Our Leader,"
a figure with a strong likeness to the "Big Brother" of Orwell's 1984.
Included in the story were the destruction of the American flag, the
teaching of atheism, and the encouragement of disrespect for parents.
This story was interpreted by Robert Welch, founder and leader of the
John Birch Society, as being strikingly anti-religious, un-American
and generally subversive. In the monthly Bulletin of the John Birch
Society, the following text appeared:
„oo[in a recent number of a national magazine a story appeared in which] "You are gradually given the impres• sion, but only the impression without any outright statement, that this is an account of the wonderful conditions which will prevail when the Communists offi• cially take over the educational system, and replace all of the patriotic and religious old hacks who now serve as teachers with beautiful and considerate young Commu• nists who are rruly dedicated to the children's education, welfare and happiness * Though, of course, the word Communism or Communist are never mentioned,, Even the instructions of the new teachers to the children to disregard their parents, her ridiculing of God and prayer, her cutting of the American flag into pieces and throwing the flagstaff out the window, are all handled very smoothly» In fact this is about the smoothest, while at the very same time being about the most brazen, and also the most infuriating, piece of propaganda against God and Country that I have ever read.
As a result, several thousand letters were received by the author and
editors; and while it is not possible to identify all of the letters as the direct result of the instructions in the Bulletin, or as in
any sense being written only by members of the John Birch Society,
the issue to which they were directed indicates that this sample of writers is exceptionally sensitive to patriotic and nationalistic
content in the media to which they are exposed. -3-
The editors of the magazine and the author of- the- story defended
its theme and content as pro-American, claiming that it was an attempt
to exemplify the subtlety with which a Communist takeover of the
country might be performed. Despite what the authors'of this paper,
the editors, and the author of the story all believe to be the
unmistakable anti-Communism of this story (a view shared by several
readers who complimented the magazine for ...its anti-Communism), it was, nevertheless, seen by more than two thousand people as subversive.
It is the nature of their response to the story, their demographic,
sociological and psychological characteristics, that is the subject
of this monograph. The following two letters represent the two
extremes of negative response received by the magazine: -4-
Dear Editor:
I should like to discuss.. <,
The story is about the New Teacher who explains to her pupils "You're all going to stay overnight with jus" because under the new order parents are not competent to raise their children. The New Teacher admits that the children love their American flag, and so encourages them to cut up the flag in small pieces so that each seven-year old can keep a piece. Apparently the New Teacher is not too well versed in flag etiquette, which prohibits the destruction of the flag except by burning.
Later in the first session the New Teacher advises her pupils that "Praying to God or anything or anyone for something is a waste of time." When the children's prayer to God for candy went unanswered she encourages them to pray to "Our Leader," during which activity she places candy on every desk.
Johnny's father is described as a person who was sent off to school (somewhat against his will) for having "wrong thoughts," and who "wanted other grown-ups to believe them." The New Teacher says that since daddies and mommies have their own secrets it is quite all right for the children to have secrets from them.
Is it the purpose of this story to break down American loyalties to God, country and family as Indicated by the examples cited above? Or is it a deliberate probe to test public reaction to collectivist and socialist rule in this country? I cannot permit such an attack on American institutions to go unchallenged...
Very truly yours, (Stapled to letter in red marker) You haven't got the guts to print this but hope you have the GUTS to read it anyhow.
Dear Editor:
I PROTEST the article...
It is a most infuriating piece of propaganda against God and country, I've ever read.
It is an innocent way of brainwashing and beginning of psychological warfare for ALL of us in America.
Believe you me, none of US will be spared, particularly private enterprise and I assume you are one.
Do you believe for one instant that we don't know that we, the Public and Americans are being sold out by COMMUNISTS, some hypocritical, sanctimonious, psalm singing Leaders?
This is Treason in its highest degree.
What YOU stand for is apparent, by allowing such "RED" filth to be published and ready by uniformed [sic] people.
. Yours truly,
BERIA HAS PLANS FOR ALL AMERICANS. -6-
The method of study selected for these letters was content analysis. After reading several hundred letters, the following categories were employed in our analysis:
L There were five demographic categories. They included the census region of the letter's origin, the sex of its author, his marital status, his occupation, and the population of the city from
which the letter was maileda
2. Measures of social status were taken by coding each letter for the kind of writing implement used by its author, the quality of the stationary employed, the occupation of the writer, and the level of his literacy as measured by frequency of grammatical and syntactical
errors0 A second literacy category which measured the integration of phrases was found to be of little use and was not included in this
report e
3n Group salience or the nature and frequency of group refer• ences of all kinds made by the writers was measured by four separate categories= These included: indication of group salience by mentioning immediate family or families in general; group salience indicated by citing a non-family group as the source of their knowledge of or about the story; groups mentioned as part of the writer's reaction to the story, for example, "many people are upset by this story"; and, finally, indications that the writer had or would discuss the story with a group of one kind or another.,
4e An attempt to measure the identity of the writer was made with two categories. The first of these was simply whether or not the writer claimed membership in the John Birch Society and wrote as a member; the second was the self-expressed identity of a writer such -7-
as "I am a long-time reader and subscriber to..." or "I am a mother..."
The first category proved worthless since less than one per cent of the writers identified themselves as members of the John Birch Society.
The second category was more useful and was employed to a limited extent in the following pages.
50 Other categories dealt with the interpretation of the story.
One of these categories classified each letter on the basis of its position on a continuum of anti-Communist to pro-Communist, another made an attempt to discriminate between the writer's reaction in teims of a personal or general value dimension. If a person wrote expressing that the story was a personal affront to him, then the letter was coded as "personal"; on the other hand, if the common values of the society were seen as under attack In the story and the writer expressed opposition to this, his letter was coded as "general."
A "both" category was also employed (Angeli, 1958, p. 8, 16-26).
6. Several code categories were devised to measure roughly the hostility and affect contained in each letter. Most of these were not considered reliable enough for analysis and have, therefore, been
dropped from this reportB However, one of them, "threat," has proven useful and indicates the number of people who threatened to cancel or cease reading the magazine or employed other sanctions (positive or negative) as the result of the publication of the story. Also employed here was a category which classified the purpose of writing the letter, that is, whether the letter was to praise, damn, or simply inquire about the meaning of the story.
7c Another group of categories measured the memetic frequency of each letter. Here the person to whom the letter was addressed was coded -8-
as was the number of arguments in a letter which paralleled those in the Bulletin. The Bulletin's instructions were broken down into twenty-five separate phrases and the frequency of occurrence of these phrases was recorded for each letter.
8. Two categories coded the letters in the dimensions of patriotism and religiosity. The frequency of references to "holy objects" such as God, the Bible, Jesus, religious practice, the Church and so forth, were recorded as was the number of patriotic phrases and references made in each letter to such things as "Our Flag,"
"Old Glory," and "Our Great Nation."
Finally, we measured the past response of the reader to the magazine to see if he detected a "subversive trend" in the stories or if this was a reaction entirely independent of or in conflict with his former perceptions. It was clear that many readers were involved in a dissonant condition as the result of finding "Communist propaganda" in a magazine which theretofore they- had thoroughly trusted; and this category was an attempt along with the "interpre• tation category" (where a request for an explanation was included in the code) to measure the extent of this dissonance.
Each letter was coded on all of these variables by a single coder*. Since budgetary restrictions prohibited extensive checks on inter-rater reliability, a number of the' categories were excluded from the final analysis or were given only limited attention. In each case, a variable of this nature will be clearly identified in the following report.
* By James McEvoy, senior author -9-
When each letter was numbered, it was found that the size of the entire population was 2,254 letters. A random number was selected as a starting point and every tenth letter was then drawn. This sample was then coded and a second sample selected in the same way was drawn. The samples, therefore, consisted of 226 and 227 letters, respectively. The final N of our sample was 453 letters or 20.1 per cent of our original N of 2,254.
With the completion of the coding and checking, the information was transferred to IBM cards, verified, and the initial comparisons made between our two independent 10 per cent samples. No significant differences were found between these two samples and they were, therefore, combined. This procedure was followed in order to assess more reliably whether or not our letter selection procedure was biased. In no case was the correlation between the two samples on any variable less than +.75. However, at this time, several of our original coding categories were eliminated from further use due to the fact that the coder was unable to discriminate successfully between the components of the codes. Then "using the Michigan filter tau program for the IBM 7090, bivariate frequencies and percentages were calculated for each variable. Correlations were also computed for each variable with every other variable.'
It is important to note that while the magazine received only about 2,254 individual or group protests, there were another 75 duplicates in our original population. The attempt to inflate the apparent size of letter writing protest has been evident in other Birch Society campaigns where as many as 25 per cent of the writers wrote two or more letters. About 200 letters which were identified by the magazine's staff as replies or duplicates were never introduced into the population for study. -10-
Demographic and Comparative Analysis of the Letters
The most interesting and comprehensive work done thus far on
mass letter writing is that of Leila A. Sussmann. Her book, Dear*
F. D. R.: A Study of Political Letter Writing (1963), is of great
value if only for the reason that it brings together the very limited
amount of information collected thus far on Americans1 mass letter
writing behavior. For the purposes of our"study her book is,
strictly speaking, of only ancillary interest. However, because her
findings are useful standards of comparison when the differences in
the two samples are taken into account, and because both studies are
concerned with a growing phenomenon—namely, the expression of personal
opinion by letter—we shall incorporate her findings and the findings
of several other researchers on political letter writing into this
report„
The essential difference between the samples of writers studied
by Sussmann and those writers which make up this study and a similar
study done at Columbia University is that the subject of Sussmann's
work is political letters, mostly letters to Franklin D. Roosevelt and
other governmental officials. As such, their basic nature is essen•
tially different from those written to a magazine's editor. In
addition, Sussmann points to the great heterogeneity among different
groups of letter writers and shows how different issues attract
radically different correspondents. Since we have reason to believe
that many of our letters were solicited by a pressure group, again,
this process of solicitation and writer self-selection must be seen
as dissimilar (if for no other reason than that the person is not
writing solely of his own accord) from letters which are not solicited
by such groups. -11-
A study of 2,930 letters written by super-patriots in a letter writing campaign against the United Nations has been completed by the Bureau of Applied Social Research of Columbia University. While this study focused on the nature of the protest against further American participation in the United Nations, a number of demographic categories were also employed by the researchers. In our analysis, we have used several of these categories in order to compare our results with those of the Columbia University study in as meaningful a manner as possible. The following tables are based on this comparison:
TABLE I
Length of Letter
Columbia Michigan Study Study % ' %
Short letters (42) (65) One paragraph 10 14 Two or three short paragraphs 32 41
Medium length letters (41) (30) Two or three longer paragraphs 9 19 One long paragraph 32 10
Long letters (12) (7)
Postcards 5 7
Other (printed forms, etc.) — 1
100% 100%
The letters in the Michigan study tended to be shorter than those in the Columbia study, Perhaps this is an indication of lower issue salience or it may reflect the lower social status of the Michigan study which is discussed below.
Wartenburg and Thielens, Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research, Limited circulation, Mimeographed. -12-
The second table compared the type of stationery used by the writers. While this is only the very roughest index of the socio• economic status of the individual writers, it seems apparent that the Michigan study's population was slightly lower in socio-economic
status as measured by quality of stationery than was the population studied at Columbia. Three and four-tenths per cent fewer people in
the Michigan study wrote on imprinted paper and 2.1 per cent more used postcards to express themselves. Moreover, 2.8 percentage points fewer people in the Michigan study employed printed personal stationery.
TABLE II
Type of Stationery
Columbia Michigan Study Study % %
Postcards 5 7
Lined pad 5 7 Unimprinted paper (73) (73)
Typewriter paper 50 A3
Personal stationery 23 30 Imprinted paper (15) (13)
Office letterhead 6 6
Personal stationery 9 6
Other, printed forms, etc. 2 1
100% 100%
The demographic distribution of the population of the two studies was, unfortunately, not easily compared. The Columbia Study coded each -13-
letter's city of origin on the simple dichotomy of over/under 100,000 population. As can be seen for the following table, both the Michigan and Columbia populations came from cities of larger size than is characteristic of the national population as a whole. There is only a small difference between the two studies, however, with fewer people in the Michigan study writing from cities less than 100,000 persons.
TABLE III
Size of Writer's Home Community
National Population Columbia Michigan (1960 Census) Study Study % % %
Under 100,000 71.5 63 64
Over 100,000 28.5 37 34
Unknown — — 2
100.0% 100% 100% -14-
TABLE IV
Population of Writer's Home Community (Michigan Study)
National N % Populatii
Below 5,000 87 19.2 40.2
5-10,000 32 7.1 5.5
10-25,000 61 13.5 9.8 [44.8] 25-50,000 60 13.2 • 8.3
50-100,000 50 11.0 7.7
100-500,000 102 22.5 12.5
Above 500,000 50 11.0 16.0
Not available 11 2.4 —
453 100.0% 100.0%
Based on current urban definition, 1960 census. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1966, p. 15. Includes both rural and urban population. -15-
TABLE V
Letter Distribution by States
State No. % State No. %
Alabama 15 3.31 Montana 4 .88 Alaska 0 0 Nebraska 1 .22 Arizona 5' 1.10 Nevada 0 0 Arkansas 2 .44 New Hampshire 1 .22 California 134 29.50 New Jersey 3 .66 Colorado 6 1.32 • New Mexico 1 .22 Connecticut 3 .66 New York 19 4.19 Delaware 1 .22 North Carolina 3 .66 Florida 18 3.99 North Dakota 2 .44 Georgia 3 .66 Ohio 25 5.51 Hawaii 0 0 Oklahoma 3 .66 Idaho 9 1.98 . Oregon 5 1.10 Illinois 15 3.31 Pennsylvania 11 2.42 Indiana 13 2.86 Rhode Island 2 .88 Iowa 0 0 South Carolina 9 1.98 Kansas 2 .44 South Dakota 0 0 Kentucky 4 .88 Tennessee 16 3.53 Lousiana 12 2.64 Texas 25 5.51 Maine 2 .44 Utah 1 .22 Maryland 2 .44 Vermont 0 0 Massachusetts 5 1.10 Virginia 7 1.54 Michigan 11 2.42 Washington 17 3.75 Minnesota 5 1.10 West Virginia 0 0 Mississippi 11 2.42 Wisconsin 6 1.32 Missouri 3 .66 Wyoming 1 .22 Washington, D. C. 2 .44
f
NOTE: Approximatly 2 per cent of the letters lacked an indication of census region. -16-
As can be seen from Table IV, the writers in the Michigan study were grouped largely in the cities ranging from 10,000 to 500,000 people and did not as often as the national population come from the very largest cities or from those with below 5,000 people. This population distribution suggests that relatively few farmers or agricultural workers were among the letter writers and that much of this population (at least 80 per cent) is'' located in urban or suburban areas.
The major difference between the Columbia and Michigan distri• bution appears to be that the greater number of writers were .from cities larger than 100,000 than appear in the Columbia sample.
Interestingly, in both studies, there was a far greater percentage of writers from the State of California (Columbia—33 per cent;
Michigan—29,6 per cent) than would be expected on the basis of population distribution. These percentages exceed by almost three times the percentage of the national population (8.8 per cent) residing in that state. Southern California, in particular Orange and Los Angeles Counties, was the .home of a large number of the writers In the Michigan study. In fact, 24.3 per cent of the writers were from the Southern California area while only 5,3 per cent were from Northern California. The other Far Western States contributed only 10.8 per cent of the letters. California is a state that has been shown to have a very high rate of political letter writing
(third in the top quartile) (Wyant, 1941). However, the distribution of our population is even more heavily represented by California writers, indicating that this state is a center of the super-patriot population and activity. -17-
The distribution of the two populations by census region is as follows:
TABLE VI
Distribution of Population by Census Region
National Columbia Michigan Population Analysis Analysis % % %
California 8.8 33 30
Other Far West 6.8 9 11
South 30.7 29 29
North Central 28.8 18 19
North East 24.9 11 10
Unknown — — 2
100.0% 100% 100%
In studies conducted by the National Opinion Research Center in
1946, the Gallup Poll in 1946 and the Roper Poll in 1954, the distribution of the authors of political letters was found to be concentrated In the Eastern (New England and Mid-Atlantic) states, with only about 12 per cent coming from the West (Sussmann, 1963, p. 146).
As we have seen, the Michigan and Columbia analyses point to a reversal of this trend. An interesting, and perhaps not altogether irrelevant aside, is that the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964 was indeed a "Western" movement in which the "Eastern Establishment" was outvoted in the Republican Party by a vocal and powerful group of conservative
Republicans concentrated in the South and West. The distribution of our population roughly parallels this voting pattern and thus lends -18- furcher credence to the claim made by the Goldwater Republicans that there was a genuine "grass-roots" movement. Many of our letters had
"Goldwater in '64" stickers afixed to them, and some writers used rubber stamps, bearing the same message, with which they imprinted the slogan again and again.
In their insightful analysis of the Goldwater campaign,
"Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election," Converse, Clausen and Miller (1965) draw on their survey interview data to propose
that the "reality" basis of the Goldwater campaign was in part created by a massive letter writing campaign which encouraged the
Goldwater camp in its belief that it could win the election,, "It is to the world of letter opinion or one like it that the Goldwater campaign, in its original design, was addressed" (p* 335). The following figure taken from their study (p. 334) illustrates this very clearly:
FIGURE I
Early Vote Intention
Mass Opinion Letter Opinion
Letter opinion was obtained by analyzing the interviews of persons who indicated that they had written a letter with political rele• vance to any editor, public official or the like, determining the frequency of writing and then comparing these responses with expressed vote preference. -19-
It is interesting to speculate that the kind of letter writing campaign that we have been analyzing here may have been a kind of training ground for those writers that apparently inflated the expectations of the Goldwater camp in the spring of 1964. The irony of this possibility is, we believe, quite obvious.
If this is so, and if our population is in any sense represen• tative of those who advocated Goldwater's candidacy through the mails, we are in many ways dealing with a new generation of political letter writers. They are not only lower on the educational socio-economic status continuum than the Roosevelt correspondents, but are also giving voice to their opinions far more frequently than was the case in the years of the New Deal. ^
Converse, Clausen and Miller found that 15 per cent of the adult population had written politically relevant letters but that most political letters were written by 3 per cent of the population
(p. 333). Of those who wrote in 1964, well over 50 per cent favored the candidacy of Barry Goldwater. It would seem-, then, that there has emerged a new and strong element of conservative letter writers who it may be necessary to consider as "normals" in future analyses of political mail. -20-
Sex Differences Between the Two Studies
TABLE VII
Sex of Writers
Columbia Michigan^ Analysis Analysis % %
Male 38 33
Female 38 57
Husband and wife 13 8
Multiple signatures 1 1
Sex not indicated 9 —
No signature 1 1
100% 100%
In the Michigan study, there was a greater percentage of females, no doubt due to the fact that the magazine in which the story appeared is edited for the woman's market.
Moreover, there is every Indication that female authorship of political mail has been on the increase... Sussmann reports that in
1932, 21 per cent of Roosevelt's correspondents were women, but in the
1948 mail to Eisenhower, 50 per cent of 'the writers were women
(Sussmann, 1963, p. 144).
Since the source of the Michigan letters was a story dealing with children and parents and was published in a magazine with an appeal to women, any extensive comparison based on sex seems rather unprofitable
Nevertheless, the trend noted by Sussmann, which we might define as the
In the Michigan study, all those persons who signed their names with initials prefixed to their last names were presumed to be male. -21-
"liberation of women," is exemplified here by the fact that almost 60 per cent of the Michigan writers were women who wrote apparently without consulting their husbands at all. Many of the letters signed by men or by husbands and wives indicated that the issue had been selected by the wife and that the husband was simply lending the weight of his presumed authority to his wife's complaint.
It is interesting to note that only 1 per cent of the writers in
the Columbia data and only 1 per cent in the Michigan data did not
sign their names. In the Michigan study, at least, those letters which carried no signature were very often highly abusive. One such
response was a postcard which closed with "...to Hell with you and your smutty magazines...An American Mother." These exceptions not• withstanding, most writers gave not only their names but also their
complete return address as well.
Indexes of the Social Status of the Authors of the Letters
Several of our coding categories were designed to discern the
educational, economic and general social status of the writers.
These included the kind of implement used to write the letter, the
quality of the paper employed, the occupation of the writer, if given,
and two literacy categories. When a similar effort was made in the
Columbia study, the authors concluded, on the basis of the very low
frequency of lined tablet paper, pencils and postcards used by that
population, that it was of "middle status." When compared with the
Michigan study, their study appeared to be dealing with a population
of slightly higher status. For example, the types of implements used
by the writers in the Columbia study were of "higher" status than
those in the Michigan study. -22-
TABLE VIII
Writing Implement
Columbia Michigan Analysis Analysis % %
Pencil 1 1
Pen or ballpoint 43 56
Typewritten 49 39
Typewritten by secretary 7 4
100% 100%
In the Michigan study, 13.3 per cent fewer writers used type• writers, and only 3.5 per cent had letters written by secretaries.
This is an indication, we believe, of lower middle status, vis-a-vis
the Columbia study, and may in part be related to- the fact that the population of the Michigan study was drawn from- somewhat smaller
towns (see Table IV, p. 14).
Occupation did not appear to be a fruitful category for analysis
since only 9.5 per cent of the writers in the Michigan study gave
any indication of their occupation at all; Of this group, the
greatest number of writers were from the/ medical profession.
There were forty-eight Doctors of Medicine and Doctors of
Osteopathy in the entire Michigan population, or a total of 2.13 per cent. In addition, there were three doctors' wives, one medical
student and seven dentists. These figures were obtained by sorting
A later study will present findings on this group of physicians. -23- through all the letters and extracting those signed by doctors. When compared with the number of doctors in private practice in the national population, the figure of 2.13 per cent indicates a far greater number of physicians than one would expect. In fact, about twenty-one times as many doctors (M.D.'s and D.O.fs) appear in this sample than there were in the estimated resident civilian population for the year in which the letters were written.
Other professional groups appeared as follows:
Education (teachers, administrators) 2.00 per cent
Ministers «22 per cent
Attorneys .22 per cent
Small businessmen and salesmen 3.10 per cent
Of those occupations we found in this study, the- majority were identified by the letterheads of the writer!s stationery,, Only 27 ' per cent cf these writers had their letters typed by secretaries.
This was especially evident in the case of the doctors where only
13 per cent used secretarial services. Therefore, despite the fact chat, for the purposes of this study, this small group represents an economic/professional elite, it wrote its own letters 72 per cent of the time. Fifty-five per cent of the professionals and businessmen, however, did use typewriters (82 per cent when secretaries are includ which indicates that they are substantially higher in socio-economic status, as measured by the implement with which they wrote, than is the sample as a whole where only 39 per cent (or 43 per cent with secretaries) used a typewriter,, Both these findings tend to confirm our designation of this population of writers as of lower middle status when compared with those of the Columbia study« -24-
The distribution of occupations in the NORC (1946), Gallup (1946), and Roper (1954) samples [reported by Sussmann (1963)], of political letter writers contained a much greater percentage of professionals and executives than did the Michigan study. In these national samples, an average of 35 per cent of the writers were professionals or execu• tives (Sussmann, 1963, p. 137, Table 3) whereas in the Michigan study,
4,5 per cent, at best, were of professional status.
Thus, while the occupational classification of the writers in the
Michigan study is limited in its value, it tends to support the general description of this group of writers as composed primarily of lower-middle status persons. Again, caution must be taken here for several reasons. First, it is entirely possible that because of the large number of women writing letters in this population, a large proportion of professionals' wives were included without it being possible to identify them as such. While this would not directly correct the occupational distribution, it would' certainly be relevant to any general description of the entire population's socio-economic status. Furthermore, some professionals may have been reluctant to identify themselves either by their letterhead or title, and, therefore, were not detected in the coding.
Literacy '
The literacy of' this population of writers was measured by a frequency count of grammatical and syntactical errors. There were four possible conditions within this category: (1) no errors,
(2) simple mistakes (one each allowed: spelling, grammar, usage),
(3) two or three errors in the above, and (4) gross errors. The -25-
Michigan populations scores on these categories were as follows;
50 per cent made no errors; 33 per cent made a simple mistake;
12 per cent made two or three errors; and 5 per cent of the letters were coded as having more than three errors. It was usually the
case that a letter In this last category contained so many errors
that no count was attempted.
In conclusion, the overall social status of the Michigan study's population is distinctly lower than that reported by Sussmann as characteristic of political letter writers and' somewhat lower than
that found in the Columbia study. On the basis of the categories of literacy, implement and stationery, it seems relatively safe to place this population in the middle-class range but relatively lower
in this range than the other studies cited.
McClosky- (1958) in his studies of conservatism' and personality reports that, in contrast to "liberals" who were college educated
47 per cent of the time, 29 per cent' of his sample of "moderate conservatives" had completed a grade school education and only
21 per cent had "some college education." On the other hand,
"extreme conservatives" were much lower in educational level with
49 per cent having a grade school education and only 12 per cent having "some college education" (McClosky, 1958, P. 35). These data
indicate, McClosky says: "..„(that) conservative'beliefs are found most frequently among the uninformed, the poorly educated, and so
far as we can determine, the less intelligent" (McClosky, 1958, p. 35).
If it is true that our population is composed of "moderate and
extreme conservatives," then this group of writers is very different
from political letter writers in general. Sussmann (1963) cites data -26-
from NORC, Gallup and Roper polls which indicate that, for political letter writers, the level of education is usually very high. Again, it should be noted that, as Sussmann points out, the composition of groups of letter writers varies from issue to issue, and that "pressure group" mail varies from unsolicited mail in its sources, structure and content. Nevercheless, the findings of these three polls taken in 1946 and 1954 indicate that an average .of 37 per cent of those sampled had some college education and that there was a trend towards
better educated writers (Sussmann, 1963, pa 136, computed from her reports of NORC, Gallup and Roper surveys).
Her report that "fan mail" to radio stations is most often written by people with much less education and of much lower social
status (1963, p0 139) tends to further confuse the place of the population of the Michigan study in the socio-economic continuum of letter writers,, Since a popular magazine was the source of this issue, perhaps its correspondents are more likely to fit the pattern of movie star or "TV personality" fans than of political constituents despite the political content of their letters.
McClosky1s findings raise the question of whether or not our population conforms to his description of "moderate or extreme conservatives" as relatively poorly educated. Although this cannot be verified in our study, we found, however, that 50 per cent of the writers in our population made -errors of one sort or another with
17 per cent making rather serious grammatical errors. Whether this is more or less than would be committed by a random sample of correspondents to this magazine is, unfortunately, a moot point. -27-
It is interesting that within our population, we found that those writers with high literacy (no errors) were much more likely to ask for an explanation from the magazine rather than denouncing or criticizing it than were those with low literacy (one or more errors)
TABLE IX
Levels of Literacy Compared With Requests for Explanation
No Explanation Explanation Requested Requested
High Literacy 177 (47%) 44 (66%) 221
Low Literacy 199 (53%) 23 (34%) 222
376 (100%) 67 (100%) • 443
7.92; p < .01
This indicates that the better educated portion of our population was less willing to judge what appeared to them to be an ambiguous situation and suggests that education is in part responsible for the flexibility in their style of protest. . This finding tends to support the thesis that lower levels of literacy are associated with greater rigidity of belief.
The work of McClosky and Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and
Sanford (McClosky, 1948; Adorno, et al., 1950), suggests that the super-patriot may be rigid and autistic in his thinking. Looking at our population from this point of view, literacy, and by inference education, have the effect of producing a more flexible reaction to the storyo Nevertheless, 63.3 per cent of our high literacy group -28- did not ask for an explanation and in another measure of "flexibility," there were no significant differences between low and- high literacy groups in the number of phrases they borrowed directly from Welch's text and incorporated into their letters. However, only 30 per cent of our population used those phrases in their replies at all, which, of course, may be the result of their not being exposed to them or it may indicate that a majority of the writers were original and flexible to the extent of composing their,.own texts. Thus, it is difficult, if not impossible, to say very much about the relative "rigidity" of our population vis-a-vis the populations of conserva• tives studied by McClosky (1958), Schmuck and Chesler (1963b) and Rohter (1965) <,
Group Salience and Literacy
Literacy was found to be closely connected with another set of categories which we devised to measure the overall group salience or the generalized group references, motivations of group support and consciousness of groups found among our writers. Within these categories, we coded each letter for indications that its writer saw himself as part of a larger group or that he was attempting to elicit real or mythical group support for his feelings toward the magazine. An example of this sort of letter is:
Dear Editor:
After reading I asked several friends to do likewise. We all agreed it is a very pro- Communist story.
We are surprised and shocked that the
with its standing should stoop so low.
You have just lost five faithful readers.
Sincerely, -29-
A high level of literacy more often produced letters which
lacked indications of group salience. That is, the more literate writers did not, apparently, as frequently need either to justify or support their position by attempting to magnify the effect 'of their protest by introducing others who, they claimed, also supported their position.
TABLE X
Literacy Related to Group Salience (Would make contact with others on this topic'.)
No Group Some Group Salience Salience
High Literacy 203 • (53%) 25 (36%) 228
Low Literacy 180 (47%) 45 (64%) 225
383 (100%) 70 (100%) 453
X2 = 7.11; p < .01
• TABLE XI
Literacy Related to Group Salience (Reaction of others cited.)
No Group Some Group Salience Salience
High Literacy 190 (54%) 38 (38%) 228
Low Literacy 164 (46%) 61 (62%) 225
354 (100%) 99 (100%) 453
X2 = 7.30; p < .01 -30-
High literacy, then, tends to be associated with a more independent group of writers as measured by these categories. As noted above, this is also apparent in the reaction of the high literacy group to the story. They were much more ambivalent or "flexible" in their approach to it then were those writers with relatively low literacy.
Any future study of this type of population should include an extensive analysis of its mobility and should attempt to discover the amount of status anxiety prevailing within it'. Status anxiety has been suggested by Lipset and others as a major cause of super-patriot affiliation (Lipset in Bell, 1964). The analysis of such anxiety would be an especially interesting variable for future study of the
Michigan population since there is a definite range of group identi• fication and cohesiveness within it.
Group Salience and "Pressure Tactics"
Behind our construction of the four categories of group salience was the hypothesis that there would be a significant number of references to other groups with which the writer identified and
that these groups would be used to-support his position. As we have seen in our analysis of the literacy of this population, this trend was more in evidence in the less literate portion of our sample.
We now turn to an examination of the ways in which group pressure was brought to bear on the magazine, and then we shall discuss other manifestations of group salience found in the letters.
Organized political letter writing campaigns are, according to
Kefauver and Levin, destined to about the same fate as huge petitions
to Congress: "...No one reads them. They gather dust in Capitol -31-
files until finally carried away. They seldom influence legislation"
(Kefauver and Levin, 1954, p.-221-226). Therefore, some more
sophisticated pressure mail campaigns may consciously attempt to avoid group references. For instance, Kefauver cites the example
(1954, p. 224) of a series of letters which-he received which were
"...well written and impressive." He only discovered that this was a "campaign" because someone sent him a copy of the bulletin in which
the details of the protest were spelled out. One of the instructions
was "not to mention that.,.(the).0«letter had been suggested by the association" (Kefauver and Levin, 1954, p. 224).
The pattern of avoiding reference to the sponsoring group is evident in our letters where the John Birch Society or Robert Welch were mentioned only four times. One-of• these references was made by a public health physicians-one of the few writers who saw the story as anti-Communist—who wrote violently criticizing the magazine for
its "Birch-like" stories and went- on to denounce it as right-wing.
One other reference to Welch, in which the story was interpreted
as anti-Communist, was made by a self-identified member of the John
Birch Society who had read both the instructions in the Bulletin and
the story and had then decided that Welch was wrong. He wrote compli• menting the magazine for its anti-Communism. The other two references
to Society membership were in protest letters, one of which was a
threatening diatribe signed "Birch Chapter XYZ." Two additional
letters contained references to' membership in a "conservative club."
On the other hand, 38 per cent of the writers used one or more
of the assertions contained in the commentary and instructions which
appeared in the Bulletin and 30 per cent used one' or more of the -32-
phrases from the Bulletin in their protest letters. Sometimes a letter would be simply a word for word copy of the Bulletin's
statementa More often, one or two phrases—particularly those describing the writer's supposed interpretation of and emotional reaction to the story—were integrated into an otherwise original text. The Columbia investigators also found that as much as
29 per cent (Wartenburg and Thielens, 1964, p. 21) of their popu• lation used verbatim quotations and that "closely parallel" arguments appeared in more than 50 per cent of their letters. Noting the obvious consequences of this sort of "parrotting," they conclude:
"...some writers were transparently unsuccessful in their efforts to present the appearance of independent thought" (Wartenburg and
Thielens, 1964, p. 22).
Because of this avoidance of specific references to the Society, there is no feasible way in which the actual proportion of Birch members within both the Michigan and Columbia populations may be determined* It Is certain that many people in the Michigan population wrote out of personal indignation, for many letters arrived at the magazine's editorial offices well before the data of publication of the Bulletin* Although, in the Columbia' study, a misprinted address in the Bulletin, which appeared on almost every letter, suggests that there may have been a greater number of Birch members in it than in the Michigan study, this is by no means certain since several other right-wing newsletters also reported the address incorrectly, following the Bulletin of the John Birch Society. This was also the case with the instructions issued regarding the story in the magazine, since one such reprint, whose source could not be identified, was sent -33-
to the magazine; it did not, however, use similar wording as the
Bulletin article. Apparently the Bulletin serves as a sort of news service to other less well established right-wing publications which report a selection of its contents to their readers who may or may not be Bulletin readers as well.
Obviously, from these data, we may infer-that revealing one's membership in the John Birch Society is either not seen by some of these writers as appropriate or is suppressed to avoid the group identification that Kefauver and others have cited as weakening the effectiveness of protest. Given the fact that nearly 40 per cent of the writers, in one way or another, wrote letters which could easily be identified as stemming from the Bulletin's instructions, it seems rather unlikely that avoiding the image of a group protest was uppermost in the minds of many writers. Perhaps they assumed that merely avoiding mention of the source of their "concern" was sufficient masking, but in comparison to the sophisticated'mail pressure campaigns sometimes staged for Congress, this one failed miserably in retaining its anonymity.
Nevertheless, this is not to say that the fact that it was so readily detected as a "campaign" did not generate a strong reaction from the magazine. On the contrary, the magazine answered every letter personally, trying to explain its interpretation of the story.
It also made a brief content analysis of the letters, published a report to its readers about the campaign, and finally, allowed these letters to be used for research. The magazine lost, if the writers are to be believed, about 485 readers or subscribers as a direct result of publishing this story and 27 per cent of those cancelling -34-
stated that they would attempt to get other people to do likewise.
How many actually did cancel as the result of such a solicitation is, of course, unknown. Furthermore, these statistics say nothing about the thousands of people who must have seen the Bulletin and who may have retaliated in other ways than writing- to the magazine.
Economic sanctions, however, were not the major threats of the
protest0 For every person who wrote to cancel, there were four who simply protested; this, of course, is in part because many writers were not subscribers.
As we have noted before, it is not likely that all of our writers were members of the John Birch Society. Therefore, some part of the protest must be ascribed to genuine "grass-roots" resentment toward a story which, perhaps, with a group of one kind or another was of sufficient concern to them to include a reference to it in their
lettere Of these references, 8 per cent were directly related to the writer's primary group; the majority of these were to the effect that reading the story had disturbed-or angered the-writer's family.
General concern about- primary groups within the whole nation, for
example, "„a.,what will happen to Our Country if stories like this are read by children?" was expressed by 12 per cent of the population.
Only five writers stated that their contact with the story originated from a group; and 24 or 5 per cent indicated that a friend, neighbor or acquaintance had drawn their attention to it. From this fact, it follows that most of these writers, as we noted in.an earlier section of this paper, probably sees protests of this type as more effective if they are presented as based on supposedly individual reactions. -35-
The largest number of references to groups were centered on the reactions of the groups with which a person was in contact. The minority of these expressed either confusion or anger prevailing within a given group; 13 per cent, of those who made reference to a group, however, indicated that they anticipated or hoped for retalia• tion by a group against the magazine for its actions. Thus, on the basis of these measures, groups seem to be more important to these writers as agents or tools which they may manipulate in order to multiply the effect of their personal reactions rather than as significant in formulation or testing of their opinions. This finding is given further weight by the fact that 15 per cent of the population indicated that they would bring this Issue, and their position on it, to the attention of friends or groups of one kind or another presumably to elicit further retaliation and to magnify the power of their own reaction.
Those people who did employ group salience as a means of expres• sion differed somewhat from the remainder of the population. In regard to the variations in level of literacy noted earlier, .one such interesting difference was that those people who exhibited group, salience and who we may presumably identify as Birch members or followers (on the basis of their use of direct quotations from the
Bulletin) tended to be less literate than those exhibiting group salience in their letters but who did not- quote from the Bulletin.
Since the difference, however, is not significant, it therefore may only be considered as an indication of a possible trend toward lower literacy in that part of the population which used direct quotations. -36-
Again, lacking a standard of comparison makes it difficult to characterize adequately the importance of groups to this population.
Nevertheless, the one finding we believe to be most interesting in this analysis of group salience is the fact that secondary groups seem to be perceived by these writers as capable of personal manipu• lation, rather than being defined by them as the source from which their opinions originate, In fact, however, we know that the opposite is the case; for in many instances, these writers' .expres• sions of opinion are in no sense original. This leads us to speculate about the extent to which this population of writers is involved in what Sartre calls "self-deception" (Sartre, Being and
Nothingness, 1956, Ch. 2): Are these writers consciously acting in an
"individualistic" way in order to make their protests more effective; or are they instead so controlled by their group affiliations that they engage in ritualistic assertions of their individualism as one part of an internalized ideological structure?
The True Believers
Eric Hoffer's description of the "True Believer" often fits the behavior of certain members of this sample:
"Mere rejection of the self, even when-not accompanied by a search for a new identity, can lead to increased imitativeness. The rejected self ceases to assert its claim to distinctness, and there is nothing to resist the propensity to copy* The situation- is not unlike that observed in children and undifferentiated adults where the lack of a distinct individuality leaves the mind without guards against the intrusion of influences from without/'
Eric Hoffer-, The True Believer, p. 95 -37-
"The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race- or his holy cause."
Eric Hoffer The True Believer, p. 23
"It must be pseudo-leaders like you who have created the turmoil of today, causing tens of thousand of citizens and taxpayers to begin a tide of protest against our federal lack [sic] or resistance to infiltration of the red butchers. ...This (story) was the most brazen and infuriating piece of propaganda against God and country that I have every read."
A writer
"If the story in your last issue was intended to bring all red-blooded Americans up fighting, then you've succeeded."
"Taken at face value this 'story' makes Communism appear right and beautiful and taken at face value, you deserve the anger and contempt of all who love God and Country."
.scThis (story) was the most brazen and infuriating piece of propaganda against God and Country that I have ever read." '
A writer
Protests of this type have within them- strong elements of mass behavior* Those writers cited above literally see themselves as members of mass movements. Kornhauser, like Hoffer, sees the mass -38-
man as one who "...seek(s) to substitute external identities for inner ones, to replace an unwanted or unknown self with a collective image" (Kornhauser, 1959, p. 112).
Some of the methods used by elites to control mass behavior are to supply a population susceptible to mobilization with an identity, proffer a set of abstract, de-personalized symbols, and control as much as possible the information which reaches this population.
On a small scale, those writers who relied on the leadership'of the
John Birch Society for literal formulation of their opinions exemplify these processes, A single letter by one person is, perhaps, a poor index of his relative autonomy. Yet 30 per cent of these letters were marked by the use of phrasing which was copied directly from the
Bulletin, This indicated to us that a significant number of our writers lacked sufficient autonomy to formulate their own responses and suggested that they might differ in other ways from the remainder of the population.
The Socio-Economic Status of the True Believers
On all measures but one, the writers who quoted from the
Bulletin were lower in their socio-economic status as measured by our categories of analysis than were those writers who did not
quote from it. But, for the-most part, these differences were small
and statistically insignificant. They used slightly (7 percent•
age points) lower status paper, and were less literate (5 percent•
age points) than those writers who did not use the Bulletin*, never-
the less, they wrote with typewriters more often (6 percentage
points) than did the latter group. -39-
The most interesting differences between these two groups were not, however, found to be among our social status variables. Rather, the nature of their response to the article and their means of retaliation were found to be strikingly different as was the popula• tion of the cities in which they live.
The writers who copied from the Bulletin more often came from smaller towns than did those who did not quote from it.
TABLE XII
Population of Writers1 Home Towns As Related to the Use of Direct Quotations
Less than Greater than 10,000 10,000
Those who quoted ! 46 (39%) 1 91 (27%) ; 137
Those who did
73 not quote . (61%) j 243 (73%) ; 316 !
119 (100%) 334 (100%) 453
X2 = 5.41; p < .02
Of the 137 people who quoted from the Bulletin, 46 or 34 per cent came from cities of less than 10,000 people. Only 23 per cent of the writers who did not use direct quotations resided in cities of that size range. These figures compare with 40 per cent of the national population (1960 census) which live in cities of 10,000 or smaller.
Perhaps an absence of cross-pressures In the small town environments of these writers may in turn1 result in more rigid adherence to the ideas of their leaders than would be the case in -AO-
larger cities where social and occupational interaction is likely to
be more heterogeneous and where cross-pressures may be more frequently
experienced by a given individual.
The rigidity or conformity indicated by the writers in their use
of quotations from the Bulletin was further reflected in their
interpretation of and response to the story. Each letter was coded
on the dimension of personal or general va.lue reaction: Whether the
writer saw the story as threatening to his personal values—e.g.,
"I do not believe that this story is in good taste and I don't want
it in my house"—or to general values he believed to be character•
istic of American society—e.g., "Your publishing of this story is wicked. Men have died for liberty and Our Flag. This story is a
disgrace to those men." When both these dimensions appeared, they
were recorded as "both" in a separate code. When this dimension was
analyzed by combining "personal" and "both" in order to separate the
"general value" writer's completely and then comparing this group with the
"general value" group, the following results were obtained:
TABLE XIII
Use of Quotations Related to Value Orientation
Used Quotes , Did Not Quote
Personal and both 49 (38%) 129 (50%) 178
General only 79 (62%) 128 (50%) 207
128 (100%) 257 (100%) 385
X2 = 4.89; p < .05
Sixty-eight cases were excluded because no evaluation was possible. -41-
Of the 128 letters which employed quotes, only 49 or 38 per cent
expressed either "personal" or "both" kinds of value; 62 per cent,
however, stressed "general" values. This emphasis among these
writers follows Hoffer's analysis of the true believer as one who
embraces an abstract set of symbols which separate him from himself.
It must also be recognized, however, that the statement in the
Bulletin was written in abstract or "general value" form, and as a
result, this finding is considerably ambiguous due to the nature of
the symbols taken over by the writers who quoted from the Bulletin.
Again, these same limitations apply to the analysis of the
ambiguity perceived in the story by the two groups of writers.
. TABLE XIV
Ambiguity Related to Use of Quotations
No Ambiguity Some Ambiguity
Used quotes 115 (42%) 16 (20%) j 131
Did not quote 159 (58%) 65 [ (80%) j 224
274 (100%) 81 (100%) 355
X = 13.27; p < .001
Nevertheless, it is readily apparent that those writers quoting from
the Bulletin were far more often willing to accept the conclusions
of Welch than were those who did not use the Bulletin text. This is
a further indication of the extreme conformity characteristic of
those writers who quoted from the Bulletin; they not only use the
* Ninety-eight cases were excluded because no evaluation was possible -42-
symbols of their leaders to reinforce a reaction of their own,
but they also apparently internalized their meanings as well.
Finally, those writers who quoted from the Bulletin were more
likely to take more punitive action against the magazine than were
those who did not. This difference, however, does not reach
significance at the .05 level (X2 = 3.72; p < .10 > .05).
TABLE XV
Relation of Those Who Threatened Cancellation With the Use of Quotations
Threatened Did Not Threaten to Cancel to Cancel
! Used quotes 37. (38%) 100 (28%) \ 137
Did not quote . 60 (62%) 256 (72%) 316
97 (100%) 356 (100%) 453
X2 = 3.72; p < .05
The trend that is evident in this finding, however, suggests that
quoters hold a generally more hostile posture toward the magazine
than that expressed by those who did not- quote.
Group Salience
Another element of this picture is the slightly more threatening
(3 percentage points) tone on the dimension of group contact taken by
those quoting. They more often said that they would attempt to get
others to act against the magazine than did those writers who wrote
original letters. They also more often wrote group letters (5
percentage points), apparently trying to invoke greater sanctions by making their letters the product of more than one writer. -43-
Although none of the difference we found in group salience reached statistical significance, the writers who quoted were, with the exception of the "contact" and "group signature" dimensions noted above, slightly lower in their overall group salience scores.
A negative difference of 2 per cent-on the "source" dimension and
6 per cent on the "family" dimension were found among the group who quoted from the Bulletin, These differences tend to support our earlier description (page 36) of groups serving a "manipulative" as opposed to a "formative" purpose. This tendency is slightly more apparent among those quoting than among those not quoting.
In conclusion, those writers who quoted from the Bulletin are, in some ways, strikingly different from the remainder of our popu• lation. The variables which are apparently most'significant are the population of the cities in which they reside, and those which attempted to measure the nature of their response to the story in terms of ambiguity and personal-general value- interpretation.
As measured by their threat of cancellation and their frequency of group signatures, their protests toward the magazine appear to be more hostile than those writers who did not quote. However, as we have noted, these differences do not reach an acceptable level of significance and appear only to suggest the existence of a relationship,,
On the other hand, differences between the two groups were often inconsequential; hence there^ appears to be no large and readily detected set of variables which easily dichotomize the population.
The phrase "true believer" with which we began this section connotates both a sociological and psychological set of characteristics. -44-
To some degree this term's use is justified-when describing the writers who quoted from the Bulletin simply on the basis of the fact of their high degree of obedience to the instructions which they received from their leaders—manifested not only in their literal use of symbols taken over from the Bulletin, but also in their other expressed responses to the story. The face that their reactions are so strongly controlled by their leadership leads us to suggest that these writers have lost autonomy to a far greater degree than those who did not quote from the Bulletin.
Religiosity
Dear Sir:
I have just read...and I am shocked. How could you print such a story, telling the children to believe there is no God? It smacks of Communism.
I am deeply hurt, and raise my voice in protest against such literature being printed in . I am a firm believer in God and have been a teacher in our local Sunday School for over fifty years, teaching little children to believe THERE-IS A GOD.
Most Sincerely,
Dear Sir:
...I couldn't believe that you would put such an (article) story before the-public's eyes. To me it was brazen, and the most anti-Christ article I have ever read. Do you know, actually know, that God gave us this country? That God only is the One, who not only made a • place in our Wonderful Country for a good magazine and He only has brought you forth- to success? Why did you do it? Why brainwash people with Communist slants? When on Judgment Day you will be asked "Why- sell my people into slavery, by printing as you did? No one can help you then. I know I can't allow such stories in my home and therefore I can't buy the anymore. I wanted you know why [sic].
Former Subscriber, -45-
Religious fundamentalism and super-patriotism are often assumed
to be manifestations of basically similar impulses. For example,
Seymour M. Lipset in Political- Man notes that "...(lower class,
fundamentalist) sects often drain off the discontent and frustration which would otherwise- flow into the channels of political extremism"
(Lipset, 1960, p. 100). In our sample, we found that slightly over
7 per cent of the letters received by the-magazine were almost
wholly religious in content. The thirty-two letters that were highly
religious were extracted from the sample, and like those letters which employed phrases from theBulletin, analyzed and compared with the remaining portion of the sample. As might be expected, this
group of writers was different in several respects from the sample
as a whole.
The social status of this group- appeared to be slightly lower
than that of the remainder of the population. Their "high literacy"
(no errors) percentage of 44 per cent compares with 51 per cent of
the other writers who made no errors, a difference of 7 percentage
points. They also tended to use less imprinted paper than did the
remaining group. These differences, however, do not approach
statistical significance.
On the other hand, there was practically no difference between
the two groups in their choice of implement,• and there were no
significant differences found in the distribution of these writers
by population.
Apparently, then, this group of writers shares roughly the same
social status as was found in the-writers who employed phrases from
the Bulletin—they tend only to be slightly lower in status than the
group as a whole. -46-
Indications of group salience In these writers' letters centered mainly on the family. In 38-per cent of the letters some mention of the family occurred, as compared with 18 per cent of the remaining group which indicated family group salience. Most often this concern with families was general rather than focused on the writer's own primary group. Very frequently a writer would state that this story was, for example, "sure to help break up more American homes..."
Furthermore, he saw it primarily as disintegrative of present social institutions. Thus, a sort of primary group anxiety is character• istic of this group; and it-may be the case that their strong religious beliefs are an attempt to increase the solidarity of the family unit of which they are a part.
This concern with social institutions is evident in the fact that 56 per cent of these highly religious writers expressed their protests wholly on the grounds that publication of the story was in conflict with the most important common values of the nation. Only
42 per cent of the remaining group did likewise. These differences are not, however, significant.
Finally, the highly religious writers tended to be less punitive than the remainder of the population as expressed in their threats of cancellation of their subscription and the like.
Unfortunately, there were too few cases of highly religious letters to permit meaningful statistical analysis along several dimensions. What is, we believe, most interesting about this group of writers is its very small size. Only 7 per cent of the protest
* This difference reaches significance at less than the .01 level (X2 = 6.94). -47-
was made up of these writers in spite of the fact that one striking theme of the story was Its emphasis on the foolishness of believing in a God when "Big Brother" would provide what was necessary.
Largely ignoring the religious theme, most of the letters were strictly secular in content and perceived the threat to their nation• alistic and patriotic values as much more salient than the threat to religion. This tends to confirm our earlier analysts of super- patriot's religious ideology; namely, that many contemporary super-patriots who are essentially modernist in their religious views (McEvoy, 1964a).
There were only four of the- highly religious letters with any material copied from the Bulletin; in percentages this is 13 per cent as compared with 30 per cent of the whole population who used
Bulletin phrases. This indicates again that despite the probable similarity of political views held by many religious fundamentalists and super-patriots, there is, in this population, at least, strong evidence to suggest that alternative institutional means are employed by the fundamentalist super-patriot, and that he is very likely not to be affiliated with the organization which sponsored this protest.
Conclusions and Implications for Further Research
Essentially what we have tried to do in this study is four-fold.
First, we have attempted to present as much factual information about these writers as was practical; secondly, we have attempted to draw conclusions, based primarily on internal analysis, about the social status, group salience, and the strength and meaning of their group -48-
affiliations; thirdly, we have attempted to compare this set of
letters and our results with the few relevant* studies of letter writing; and finally, we attempted to give some careful attention
to the scope and-method of this sort of mass protest.
As we noted earlier in this paper, some economic sanctions were
levied against this magazine by these writers. From our point of view, however, the response of-its editors to this campaign leads us to believe that the latent functions of this incident have been beneficial. Rather than recoiling from further'publicity, the magazine publicly defended its stand, tried to present its point of view to its readers, and, on a microcosmic scale, has demons-
strated that, as Lipset says, institutionalized-conflicts are
integrative. While both sides- in-this controversy used legitimate
means to present their views of the-situationf and while, in large part, these means were visible to the-public who we expect was able
to make a choice between the two-opposing" sides. At the very
least, this issue had the effect of making the phenomenon of right- wing political extremism and its-methods more visible to the public.
Like many such conflicts in communities and businesses throughout
America, it may have strengthened democratic commitments of those being attacked.
One of the primary reasons that this study was undertaken,
despite its inherent defects of lacking controls and having insuf• ficiently structured protocols for more adequate psychological analysis, was that so little information and so few empirical studies have been done on the super-patriots-of the 1960,s. If this phe• nomenon is to be further understood, there are three broad areas -49- into which further research is essential. The first of these is the logical result of the study we have just completed—namely, extensive interviews of these writers, with a set of controls, in order to begin the collection of additional data bout the class, mobility, occupation, political beliefs and affiliations, family patterns, and psychological behavior of the contemporary super- patriot. ^Although some work on this task has begun, the completion of a large-scale interview study drawn from our population would be a major contribution to the literature of super-patriotism.
Secondly, the political strategies of right-wing extremist groups need extensive study. - How do these groups attempt to influence the vote; how do they fit into-contemporary-American party politics; are they effective or ineffective in their efforts at influencing local, state and national policy? These are all, so far as we know, unanswered questions which need investigation.
Finally, the general question of anti-scientific attitudes is of direct interest to us in any further- studies of the super- patriots. Fluoridation of water supplies and the establishment of community facilities for mental health care are, and have been for several years, the object of heavy attacks from the American super- patriot groups. The work of social scientists, including historians, sociologists and psychologists, has also been attacked by the
American right as "pseudo-science." The current controversy over the use of psychological tests in the public schools has in part been generated by super-patriots. With- this in mind, it seems essential that a series of studies be undertaken of the extent to which anti- scientific attitudes appear among the American people. We know that -50-
super-patriots are only one element of the population which holds
such attitudes, and therefore, any future work on this issue should,
in addition, include any analysis of left-wing and centerist anti-
scientific behavior as well. Perhaps the concept of the two cultures expressed by C. P. Snow would serve as a partial model for this research. -51-
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF REFERENCES
1. Adorno, T. W.; Frenkel-Brunswik, Else; Levinson, Daniel J; Sanford, R. Nevitt. . The Authoritarian Personality, New York, 1950.
2. Anderson, Dwight. Write your congressman immediately, Public Opinion Quarterly, January 1939, _3 (No. 1), pp. 147-154.
3. Angell, Robert Cooley. Free Society and Moral Crisis, Ann Arbor, 1958.
4. Bell, Daniel (Ed.). The Radical Right, New York; Anchor Books, 1963.
5. Blalock, Hubert M. Social Statistics, New York, 1960.
6. Chesler, Mark and Schmuck, Richard. Participant observation in a super-patriot discussion group, The Journal of Social Issues, April 1963, 19 (No. 2), pp. 18-30.
7. Converse, Philip E; Clausen, Aage R; and Miller, Warren E; Electoral myth and reality: the 1964 election, American Political Science Review, June 1965, 59 (No. 2), pp. 321-336.
8. Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer, New York: Mentor Books, 1963.
9. Kefauver, Estes and Levin, Jack. Letters that really count, reprinted in Katz, Cartwright, et al., Public Opinion and Propaganda, New York, 1954, pp. 220-226.
10. Lipset, Seymour Martin. Political Man, New York, 1960.
11. McClosky, Herbert. Conservatism and personality, American Political Science Review, March 1958, _52_, pp. 27-45.
12. McEvoy, James. The right as a system of'ideas, Correspondent3 Autumn 1964, pp. 18-22.
13. . Myths, conservatives and pseudo-conservatism, Journal of the Canadian-American Relations Seminar, University of Windsor, 1964, pp. 320-331.
14. Rohter, Ira. Some personal needs met by becoming a radical rightist, paper presented at the Society for the Psycho• logical Study of Social Issues Symposium on "The Socialization and Recruitment of Right-Wing Activists, American"Psychological Association Meetings, September 1964. Mimeographed. A 15. Sartre, Jean Paul. L1 Etre et le Neant (Being and Nothingness), Translated by H. Barnes, New York, 1956. -52-
16. Schmuck, Richard and Chesler, Mark. On super-patriotism: a defunction and analysis, The Journal of Social Issues, April 1963, 19 (No! 2), pp. 31-50.
17. Statistical Abstract of the United States, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1965.
18. Sussmann, Leila A. Dear F.D.R.: A study of Political Letter Writing, Totowa, New Jersey: The Bedminster Press, 1963.
19. . Mass political letter writing: the growth of the institution, Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer 1959, 23, pp. 203-212.
20. Welch, Robert. The Blue .Book of the John Birch Society, Ninth Printing, Belmont, Massachusetts, 1961.
21. Wartenburg, Hannah and Thielens, Wagner, Jr. Against the United Nations: A Letter Writing Campaign by the Birch Movement, New York, Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research, 1964. Limited circulation; mimeographed.
22. Wyant, Rowena. Voting via the senate mailbag, Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall 1941, .5 (No. 3), pp. 359-382.
23. , and Herzog, Herta. Voting via the senate mailbag—Part II, Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 1941, _5 (No. 4), pp. 590-624. -53-
GENERAL REFERENCES ON SUPER-PATRIOTISM
1. Bainbridge, J. Save our schools. McCall's, September, 1952.
2. Barth, A. Report on the rampageous right. New York Times Magazine3 April 29, 1962, 13, pp. 93-96.
3. Baum, W. C. The world of the radical right: implications for political behavior. Paper read at American Psychological Association meetings, St. Louis, Missouri, September, 1962.
4. Bell, D. (Ed.). The New American Right, New York: Criterion, 1955
5. Benson, E. T. The Bed Carpet, Derby, Connecticut: Monarch Books, 1963.
6. Brant, J. The anti-Communist hoax. The New Republic, 1962, May 28, 15-19, and June 4, 17-20.
7. Case, C. The politics of the extremist. Anti-Defamation League Bulletin, January 6, 1962.
8. Cook, F. J. The ultras: aims, affiliations and finances of the
radical right. The Nation, June 30, 1962, 68 pp.
9. Dudman, R. Men of the Far Right, New York: Pyramid Books, 1962.
10. Ellsworth, R. E., and Harris, S. M. The American Right Wing, Washington, D. C„: Public Affairs Press, 1962. 11. First National Directory of "Rightist" Groups, Publications and Some Individuals in the United States (and some foreign countries) (Fourth Ed.), Sausalito, California: The Noontide Press, 1962.
12. Forster, Arnold, and Epstein, Benjamin. Danger on the Right,
New York, 1964.
13. Hoffer, E. The True Believer, New York: Harper, 1951.
14. Holliday, B. What I found inside the John Birch Society. Detroit Free Press, 1962, August 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. 15. Horton, P. Revivalism on the far right. Reporter Magazine, July 20, 1961, pp. 25-29.
16. Lipset, S. M. The sources of the "radical right." In D. Bell (Ed.), The New American Right, New York: Criterion, 1955.
17. Overstreet, Harry, and Bonaro. The Strange Tactics of Extremism, New York, 1964. -54-
18. Parsons, T. Social strains in America. In D. Bell (Ed.), The
New American Eight; New York: Criterion, 1955.
19. Raywid, Mary Anne. The Ax-Grinders, New York: Macmillan, 1962.
20. Roy, R. L. Apostles of Discord, Boston: Beacon Press, 1953.
21. Schwarz, E. C. You Can Trust the Communists...to Be Communists,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1960.
22. Sherwin, M. The Extremists, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1963.
23. Schlesinger, A., Jr. The threat of -the radical right. New York Times Magazine, June 17, 1962. 24. Sowing Dissension in the Churches, New York: Department of Christian Social Relations, The National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 1961. 25. Suall, I. The American Ultras, New York: New America, 1962.
26. Trow, M. A. Small businessmen, political tolerance and support for McCarthy. Amer. J. Sociol., _64, 1958.
27. Viereck, P. The revolt against the elite. In D, Bell (Ed.), The New American Right, New York: Criterion, 1955.
28. Welch, R. The Blue Book of the John Birch Society, Belmont, Mass.: Author, 1961.
29. Westin, A. The deadly parallels: radical right and radical left. Harper's Magazine, 1962, April, 25-32. -55-
SUPER-PATRIOT LITERATURE BY AREAS OF CONCERN
International political change and America's role
1. Mclntire, C. A Bankrupt United Nations, Collingswood, New Jersey: Twentieth Century Reformation Hour.
2. Mclntire, C. Twentieth Century Reformation, Collingswood, New Jersey: Christian Beacon Press, 1946, p. 99. Cited in R. L. Roy, Apostle of Discord, Boston: Beacon Press, 1953, pp. 216-218.
3. Strube, W. P., Jr. Peace or Victory, Houston, Texas: Christian Anti-Communism Crusade.
4. Courtney, K. Disarmament. Tax Fax #29, New Orleans, Louisiana: The Independent American, 1962.
5. Courtney, K. The United Nations. Tax Fax §26, New Orleans, Louisiana
The Independent American, 1962.
6. Poucher, W. Lifelines, Radio transcript, October 7, 1960.
7. Waats, V. 0. Should we strengthen the U. N.? Studies in Human Action, 1961, X (1). 8. Kennedy's Death Trap for U. S.U! Hollywood, California: Cinema
Educational Guild, 1962.
9. Lyons, F. Report on UNESCO. Anaheim Bulletin, November 10, 1962.
10. Schwarz, F. C. You Can Trust the Communists...to Be Communists, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1960. 11. Stormer, John A. None Dare Call it Treason, Florissant, Missouri, 1964.
12. The Truth About the U. N., Hollywood, California: Cinema Educational Guild, 1962. r 13. UNESCO Is a Deadly Menace to American Youth, Hollywood, California: Cinema Educational Guild, 1962.
14. U.S.A. Abolished by Decision of U. N. World Court! Hollywood, California: Cinema Educational Guild, 1962.
15. Walker, E. A.. The military purge. American Mercury, 1963, 95_ (465-467), pp. 9-10.
16. Widener, A. Behind the U. N. Front, New York: The Bookmailer, 1962. -.56-
Domestia political change and social equality
17. Gordon, R. Nine Men Against America, New York: Devin-Adair, 1960.
18. Putnam, C. Race and Reason, a Yankee View, Washington, D. C.: Public Affairs Press, 1961.
19. Wanted! Earl Warren for Impeachment, Hollywood, California: Cinema Educational Guild.
20.. Communism and the NAACP, Volumes I, II> Atlanta, Georgia: Georgia Commission on Education. Testimony of J. B. Matthews before the Florida Legislation Investigation Committee, February 10, 1958.
21. Hargis, B. Jr Communist-America: Must It Be, Tulsa, Oklahoma: Christian Crusade, 1961.
22. Varney, H. L. Mental health—fact or fiction. American Mercury, 1957, 84 (399), pp. 7-16.
23. Welch, R. In a speech made in Cleveland, Ohio; reported in the
Religious News Service, February 14, 1962.
Economic changes in private and public enterprises
24. Smoot, D. The Dan Smoot Report, Radio transcript, October 2, 1960. 25. South Carolina Approves the Liberty Amendment, Bulletin of the
National Committee for Economic Freedom, March 29, 1962.
26. We, The People! Chicago: 1961.
27. If It's "EURAMERICA" It's Not YOUR America! Washington, D. C: The Liberty Lobby. 28. Brengel, M. H. Americans protest sale of Communist goods- The Independent American, 1962, _8 (7). 29. Brengel, M. H. Nationwide boycott, of red goods grows. The Independent American, 1963, 9_ (2).
30. Committee to Warn of the Arrival of Communist Mercltandise on the Local Business Scene, Miami, Florida.
Religious institutions and social change
31. Hargis, B. J. Three Christian'giants in a world of dwarfs. American Mercury, 1957, 84 (403), pp. 14-20. -57-
32. A Manual for Survival, Wheaton, 111.: Church League of America, 1961.
33. Mclntire, C. Church Union and the Great Property "Steal," Collingswood, New Jersey: Christian Beacon Press, 1953.
34. Brustat, A. W. Oppose the National Council of Churches. American Mercury, 1960, 91 (441), pp. 83-86.
35. Garman, W. 0. H. How Bed Are the Translators of the National Council of Churches' Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Collingswood, New Jersey: The Christian Beacon, 1953.
36. National Council of Christian Laymen: Declaration of Purpose, Phoenix, Arizona: 1962.
37. Poling, D. An Expanded Statement, Phoenix, Arizona: The Committee
of Christian Laymen, 1961.
38. Affiliations of 660 Baptist Clergymen, Cincinnati, Ohio: Circuit Riders
39. Certain Activities of Certain Congregational Clergymen (1014), Wheaton, 111.: Church League of America. 40. Mclntire, C. Communist influence in the Baptist World Alliance. American Mercury, 1960, 91. (441), pp. 93-101.
41. Public Records of 2019 Methodist Ministers, Cincinnati, Ohio: Circuit Riders.
42. Public Records of 614 Presbyterian Ministers, Cincinnati, Ohio: Circuit Riders.
43. Public Records of 42% of the Unitarian Clergymen and 450 Rabbis, Cincinnati, Ohio: Circuit Riders.
Changes in educational institutions and practices
44. Hard to Believe, but True. The National Health Federation Bulletin, 1962, 8 (1), pp. 23-29.
45. Kaub, V. Satan Goes to School, Madison, Wisconsin: American Council of Christian Laymen.
46. The "Left Swing" in Education, Pasadena, California: Institute for Special Research.
47. Smoot, D. McGuffey!s readers. The Dan Smoot Report, 1960, 6_ (8), pp. 57-64. -58-
48. Gordon, R. What's Happened to Our Schools? New Rochelle, New York: America's Future, Inc., 1956.
49. Hindeman, J. Project TALENT: federal brain-pick. American Mercury, 1960, 91 (441), pp. 3-10.
50. Lorenz, A. Federal aid to education. National Health Federation Bulletin, 1962, 8 (1), pp. 19-22.
51. Smoot D. Progressive education. The Dan Smoot Report, 1962, _8 (43), pp. 337-344.
52. Cvetic, M. Reds in Education, Kansas City, Missouri: Gospel Tract Society.
53. Hindeman, J. Discussion groups a leftist trap. American Mercury, 1957, 84 (403), pp. 29-36.
Mental health of individuals
54. American Public Relations Forum Bulletin §93, Burbank, California.
55. Brengel, M. H. Mental health bill—a new weapon for the Kennedy
brothers? The Independent American, 1963, 9_ (1).
56. Friends of General Walker, Houston, Texas: 1962.
57. Wanderer Forum Reprint, St. Paul, Minn.: 1960.
58. Alcorn, Mrs. Gerald. Information sources—school mental health. The National Health Federation Bulletin, 1962, 8_ (1), pp. 30-32. 59. Ashbrook, J. A. Brainpicking in school. Human Events, 1962, 19 (46), pp. 883-886.
60. Matthews, J. B. The World Health Organization. American Opinion, 1958, May, 7-35.