year writing and lecturing about government without producing one
single, significant study of the process of public opinion?" And then
they will recall the centuries in which the church enjoyed immunity from
criticism, and perhaps they will insist that the news structure of
secular society was not seriously examined for analogous reasons.

7. The Psychology of Propaganda[272]

Paper bullets, according to Mr. Creel, won the war. But they have
forever disturbed our peace of mind. The war is long since over, all but
saying so; but our consciousness of the immanence of propaganda bids
fair to be permanent. It has been discovered by individuals, by
associations, and by governments that a certain kind of advertising can
be used to mold public opinion and control democratic majorities. As
long as public opinion rules the destinies of human affairs, there will
be no end to an instrument that controls it.

The tremendous forces of propaganda are now common property. They are
available for the unscrupulous and the destructive as well as for the
constructive and the moral. This gives us a new interest in its
technique, namely, to inquire if anywhere there is an opportunity for
regulative and protective interference with its indiscriminate
exploitation.

Until recently the most famous historical use of the term propaganda
made it synonymous with foreign missions. It was Pope Gregory XV who
almost exactly three centuries ago, after many years of preparation,
finally founded the great Propaganda College to care for the interests
of the church in non-Catholic countries. With its centuries of
experience this is probably the most efficient organization for
propaganda in the world. Probably most apologetics is propaganda. No
religion and no age has been entirely free from it.

One of the classical psychoanalytic case histories is that of Breuer's
water glass and the puppy dog. A young lady patient was utterly unable
to drink water from a glass. It was a deep embarrassment. Even under the
stress of great thirst in warm weather and the earnest effort to break
up a foolish phobia, the glass might be taken and raised, but it
couldn't be drunk from. Psychoanalysis disclosed the following facts.
Underlying this particular phobia was an intense antipathy to dogs. The
young lady's roommate had been discovered giving a dog a drink from the
common drinking-glass. The antipathy to the dog was simply transferred
to the glass.

The case is