Word: pollster
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Such proceedings suggest that the individual who voluntarily offers himself as a guinea pig for the social science pollster be precisely advised, at all times, of the risk he assumes. All realistic persons know that we live in an age of Loyalty Commissions and Congressional Investigations: letter carriers are fired for subscribing to "New Masses" and Navy Yard workers are dismissed for possessing Howard Fast's "Freedom Road." Any "scientist" who would investigate people's political, social, sexual, or religious attitudes and values owes a duty to the privacy and dignity of the people he questions. That duty...
Only about one out of ten Americans has ever gone to college, but almost all of them have ideas on the subject. Last week FORTUNE gave its summary of their views. With Pollster Elmo Roper, and an advisory board of educators, it had just completed a nationwide survey probing into everything from costs to Communism and coeducation...
...little old voter fooled everybody. The experts thought they had him analyzed, charted, taped and ready for delivery. One pollster loftily dismissed him two months ago and would not even take another look. But the independent voter apparently wasn't telling anybody anything. This week he went to the polls and cast his secret ballot. In Illinois, a victorious Democratic candidate for the Senate, Paul Douglas, declared: "This is ... a people's victory." He was right. The little old independent voter was the hero of Election Day. There was only one thing to his discredit and that...
Redder-faced still was FORTUNE'S Pollster Elmo Roper. He had predicted a Dewey landslide comparable only to Roosevelt's victory over Landon. He was so sure of it that, on Sept. 9, he said he would report no more figures unless there was a significant change. On election eve, he had found none, said: "I stand by my prediction. Mr. Dewey is in." But Roper, who had predicted the three previous presidential elections within .2 to 1.2% of accuracy, had no alibis. Said he: "How did we go wrong? I frankly do not know...
Political prophets like Pollster Elmo Roper were publicly advising the President to throw in the sponge (see above). Eleanor Roosevelt practically conceded a Republican sweep; she included in one of her daily columns a friendly warning for President-apparent Tom Dewey on the problem of getting along with Congress. Heading back from a swing through the West, Columnist Marquis Childs reported the Pacific Coast in the bag for the Republicans, gave the Democrats a fighting chance in only five of eleven western states...