ELECTORAL CROWDS
General characteristics of electoral crowds--The manner of persuading them--The qualities that should be possessed by a candidate--Necessity of prestige--Why working men and peasants so rarely choose candidates from their own class--The influence of words and formulas on the elector--The general aspect of election oratory--How the opinions of the elector are formed--The power of political committees--They represent the most redoubtable form of tyranny--The committees of the Revolution-- Universal suffrage cannot be replaced in spite of its slight psychological value--Why it is that the votes recorded would remain the same even if the right of voting were restricted to a limited class of citizens--What universal suffrage expresses in all countries.
ELECTORAL crowds--that is to say, collectivities invested with the power of electing the holders of certain functions--constitute heterogeneous crowds, but as their action is confined to a single clearly determined matter, namely, to choosing between different candidates, they present only a few of the characteristics previously described.Of the characteristics peculiar to crowds, they display in particular but slight aptitude for reasoning, the absence of the critical spirit, irritability, credulity, and simplicity.In their decision, moreover, is to be traced the influence of the leaders of crowds and the part played by the factors we have enumerated:
affirmation, repetition, prestige, and contagion.
Let us examine by what methods electoral crowds are to be persuaded.It will be easy to deduce their psychology from the methods that are most successful.
It is of primary importance that the candidate should possess prestige.Personal prestige can only be replaced by that resulting from wealth.Talent and even genius are not elements of success of serious importance.
Of capital importance, on the other hand, is the necessity for the candidate of possessing prestige, of being able, that is, to force himself upon the electorate without discussion.The reason why the electors, of whom a majority are working men or peasants, so rarely choose a man from their own ranks to represent them is that such a person enjoys no prestige among them.When, by chance, they do elect a man who is their equal, it is as a rule for subsidiary reasons--for instance, to spite an eminent man, or an influential employer of labour on whom the elector is in daily dependence, and whose master he has the illusion he becomes in this way for a moment.
The possession of prestige does not suffice, however, to assure the success of a candidate.The elector stickles in particular for the flattery of his greed and vanity.He must be overwhelmed with the most extravagant blandishments, and there must be no hesitation in making him the most fantastic promises.If he is a working man it is impossible to go too far in insulting and stigmatising employers of labour.As for the rival candidate, an effort must be made to destroy his chance by establishing by dint of affirmation, repetition, and contagion that he is an arrant scoundrel, and that it is a matter of common knowledge that he has been guilty of several crimes.It is, of course, useless to trouble about any semblance of proof.Should the adversary be ill-acquainted with the psychology of crowds he will try to justify himself by arguments instead of confining himself to replying to one set of affirmations by another; and he will have no chance whatever of being successful.
The candidate's written programme should not be too categorical, since later on his adversaries might bring it up against him; in his verbal programme, however, there cannot be too much exaggeration.The most important reforms may be fearlessly promised.At the moment they are made these exaggerations produce a great effect, and they are not binding for the future, it being a matter of constant observation that the elector never troubles himself to know how far the candidate he has returned has followed out the electoral programme he applauded, and in virtue of which the election was supposed to have been secured.
In what precedes, all the factors of persuasion which we have described are to be recognised.We shall come across them again in the action exerted by words and formulas, whose magical sway we have already insisted upon.An orator who knows how to make use of these means of persuasion can do what he will with a crowd.Expressions such as infamous capital, vile exploiters, the admirable working man, the socialisation of wealth, &c., always produce the same effect, although already somewhat worn by use.But the candidate who hits on a new formula as devoid as possible of precise meaning, and apt in consequence to flatter the most varied aspirations, infallibly obtains a success.The sanguinary Spanish revolution of 1873 was brought about by one of these magical phrases of complex meaning on which everybody can put his own interpretation.A contemporary writer has described the launching of this phrase in terms that deserve to be quoted:--"The radicals have made the discovery that a centralised republic is a monarchy in disguise, and to humour them the Cortes had unanimously proclaimed a FEDERAL REPUBLIC, though none of the voters could have explained what it was he had just voted for.
This formula, however, delighted everybody; the joy was intoxicating, delirious.The reign of virtue and happiness had just been inaugurated on earth.A republican whose opponent refused him the title of federalist considered himself to be mortally insulted.People addressed each other in the streets with the words: `Long live the federal republic!' After which the praises were sung of the mystic virtue of the absence of discipline in the army, and of the autonomy of the soldiers.