Attitude Research and Government.

The application of interview surveys as a tool of public administration is a recent development in the U.S. Although the technique has been accepted for many years as a useful device for large-scale management in the field of private industry, question as to the propriety of its sponsorship by government is still sometimes raised. There are those who praise it as a basic line of attack on the great problem of democratizing administrative policy-making. And there are those who condemn it as an instrument for destroying the American two-party system. This article presents the study of public attitudes and opinions being carried on both in the U.S. and in the totalitarian states of Germany and Japan during the war. It compares the methods used, the purposes served, and the results achieved in the three countries which demonstrate the fundamentally democratic character of the technique and emphasize certain traits of totalitarian governments which are commonly suspected but seldom documented.