Millions more can read the words but cannot understand them. Of those
who can both read and understand, a good three-quarters we may assume
have some part of half an hour a day to spare for the subject. To them
the words so acquired are the cue for a whole train of ideas on which
ultimately a vote of untold consequences may be based. Necessarily the
ideas which we allow the words we read to evoke form the biggest part
of the original data of our opinions. The world is vast, the
situations that concern us are intricate, the messages are few, the
biggest part of opinion must be constructed in the imagination.
When we use the word "Mexico" what picture does it evoke in a resident
of New York? Likely as not, it is some composite of sand, cactus, oil
wells, greasers, rum-drinking Indians, testy old cavaliers flourishing
whiskers and sovereignty, or perhaps an idyllic peasantry ? la Jean
Jacques, assailed by the prospect of smoky industrialism, and fighting
for the Rights of Man. What does the word "Japan" evoke? Is it a vague
horde of slant-eyed yellow men, surrounded by Yellow Perils, picture
brides, fans, Samurai, banzais, art, and cherry blossoms? Or the word
"alien"? According to a group of New England college students, writing
in the year 1920, an alien was the following: [Footnote: _The New
Republic_: December 29, 1920, p. 142. ]
"A person hostile to this country.
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