ABSTRACT
The qualities that made Walter Lippmann's editorials so impressive — their elegance, subtlety, and emphasis on underlying principles — also made them seem remote to the World's blue-collar readers. The paper had made its reputation as the voice of the "little man," flagellating injustice, calling public officials to task, extolling the virtues — as well as pandering to the more lurid tastes — of the masses. In a review of the book, H. L. Mencken described Lippmann as one who "started out life with high hopes for democracy and an almost mystical belief in the congenital wisdom of the masses," and had come around to the conclusion that the masses were "ignorant and un-teachable". The power of legislatures was "far more harassing and dangerous to freedom of thought" than that of rich donors on private universities, he argued. Democracy did not have to mean majority tyranny.
