They generally do. For the pictures in their minds are,
as we have already noted, varied in subtle and intimate ways. But this
subtlety remains within their minds; it becomes represented publicly
by a number of symbolic phrases which carry the individual emotion
after evacuating most of the intention. The hierarchy, or, if it is a
contest, then the two hierarchies, associate the symbols with a
definite action, a vote of Yes or No, an attitude pro or con. Then
Smith who was against the League and Jones who was against Article X,
and Brown who was against Mr. Wilson and all his works, each for his
own reason, all in the name of more or less the same symbolic phrase,
register a vote _against_ the Democrats by voting for the
Republicans. A common will has been expressed.
A concrete choice had to be presented, the choice had to be connected,
by the transfer of interest through the symbols, with individual
opinion. The professional politicians learned this long before the
democratic philosophers. And so they organized the caucus, the
nominating convention, and the steering committee, as the means of
formulating a definite choice. Everyone who wishes to accomplish
anything that requires the cooperation of a large number of people
follows their example. Sometimes it is done rather brutally as when
the Peace Conference reduced itself to the Council of Ten, and the
Council of Ten to the Big Three or Four; and wrote a treaty which the
minor allies, their own constituents, and the enemy were permitted to
take or leave.
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