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Pressure Groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Mary Earhart Dillon
Mary Earhart Dillon
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

In recent political literature, pressure groups have frequently been condemned as a deleterious element in American government. One scholar in the field of political parties writes: “In the economy of democratic government the pressure group is definitely a parasite on the wastage of power exercised by the sovereign majority.” Another scholar uses the following harsh language: “There exist socially created constraints which emanate from less sanctioned or less responsible sources, informal and opportunistic in their operation; they fluctuate incessantly in intensity and direction. These constraints may be called social pressures…. In R. E. Park's comment: ‘The pressure group is not an army which seeks to win battles by frontal attacks on hostile positions; it is, rather, a body of sharp-shooters which pick off its enemies one by one.’” Another student of politics, in a denunciation of pressure groups, says: “It is a testimonial to the faith, the tenacity, or the credulity of the American people that after 150 years they still cling to the forms—without the substance—of democratic government. Since the founding of the Republic the democratic process has been perverted to a greater or less degree by cunning and powerful minorities bent on serving their own interests. The ideal of rule by the majority for the good of the many has been illusory from the start.”

Type
American Government and Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , June 1942 , pp. 471 - 481
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1942

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References

1 Schattschneider, E. E., Party Government (New York, 1942), p. 190.Google Scholar

2 MacIver, R. M., “Pressures, Social,” in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1934), Vol. 12, pp. 344–345.Google Scholar

3 Crawford, Kenneth G., The Pressure Boys (New York, 1939), p. 38.Google Scholar

4 Cong. Rec., 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Vol. 79, Pt. 12 (Aug. 6–17, 1935), p. 12770.

5 The Program Explained (National League of Women Voters, 1940), p. vi. See also Wells, Marguerite, A Portrait of the League of Women Voters (National League of Women Voters, 1940), p. 14.Google Scholar

6 Odegard, Peter H., The American Public Mind (New York, 1930), p. 168.Google Scholar

7 Herring, Pendleton, Group Representation Before Congress (Baltimore, 1929), p. 268.Google Scholar

8 Annals of the Congress of the United States, 4th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1796–1797), Vol. 6, p. 2874.

9 Cf. Development of the League of Nations Idea: Documents and Correspondence of Theodore Marburg (New York, 1932), Vol. II, pp. 713–717.

10 Haynes, Fred E., Third Party Movements Since the Civil War (Iowa City, 1916), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

11 Professor Odegard discusses the hazards involved in creating a new party. See American Politics; A Study in Political Dynamics (New York, 1938), pp. 790–794.

11a Compare the party platform of the Prohibition party in 1884 with the platform of the Democratic party in 1888. Art. 6 of the former declared against prison labor and cheap immigrant labor; the Democratic platform of 1888 devoted several paragraphs to the protection and betterment of labor. The Anti-Monopoly party of 1884 devoted nearly its entire platform to a denunciation of monopolies, while the Democratic and Republican platforms of 1888 opposed the unbridled expansion of the corporations. Porter, Kirk H. (ed.), National Party Platforms (New York, 1924).Google Scholar

12 Prior to the Eighteenth Amendment, according to the statistics of the Anti-Saloon League, prohibition was in force in 90 per cent of all the townships and rural precincts of the nation, in 75 per cent of all the villages, and in 85 per cent of all the counties. Seventy per cent of the entire population of the nation lived in legislated-dry areas, and more than 95 per cent of the entire area of the nation was legally prohibition territory. The Anti-Saloon League Year Book, 1922 (Westerville, Ohio, 1923), p. 5.

13 See H. R. No. 6770. This bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee of the 74th Cong., 1st Sess. (1935), but was never reported back to the House.

14 Bonbright, James C., Public Utilities and the National Power Policies (New York, 1940), pp. 10–11, 71–72.Google Scholar

15 Childs, Harwood L., An Introduction to Public Opinion (New York, 1940), p. 75Google Scholar; also Doob, Leonard W., Propaganda; Its Psychology and Technique (New York, 1935), pp. 71–77Google Scholar; Lasswell, Harold D., Psychopathology and Politics (Chicago, 1930), pp. 188–190Google Scholar, and Democracy Through Public Opinion (Menasha, Wis., 1941), pp. 36–44.

16 New York Times (Jan. 30, 1935), p. 1, col. 8. The National Union for Social Justice was incorporated by Father Coughlin in December, 1934; the tabloid paper called Social Justice, now under indictment before prefederal grand jury for its subversive character, was established by him in March, 1936.

17 See articles by Smothers, Frank in the Chicago Daily News, Jan. 18, 20, 21, 22, Feb. 14, 15, 1941.Google Scholar

18 See the Chicago Times, Sept. 11, 1941.

19 Herring, Pendleton, The Politics of Democracy (New York, 1940), pp. 179–186.Google Scholar

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