Gardner Murphy

Dr. Gardner Murphy

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Days Well when you're at every stage you bring that lesson of another broadcast in the weekly very clear that in fact right now the College of the city of New York broadcast for me after expert information on many pages about what happened three after the. Hour get thank you this afternoon what could be a Professor Gardner might head of the department I probably think you want that because I'm right however Professor Murphy is you know and Dr Allan from a really psychology department of the three college has graciously consented to read Professor Murphy speech on morale now we present Dr probably. One reason why we shall win this war is the fact that from the al of our enemies will practice it is important that you consider the nature of morality of the earliest war in country and try to make we had a reason why our morale was that would last long while the morale of Germany Italy and Japan will fail and the prices I believe that our superiority in morale is possible three things First we and our allies have been attacked. Self defense has moral superiority you've messed with today may seem too hard boiled from need any excuses for that but the fact remains that began in Italian and Japanese leaders have tried to prove to their people at home the purely defensive character of each new military step their people at home only half believe this and as they grow more and more sick of the war they grow less and less willing to support a pious lot of aggression causing a self defense. But those whose existence is threatened by aggression those who fight because they must fight to live are subject to no such misgivings we pay for what we will see it through because by those attack there is no alternative the end of your response is proportional to the magnitude of the threat. The second reason the disappearing already of Alamo rally over that of our enemies lies in the open than fearless way in which democracy from its difficulties to be faced and cooperatively worked out in totalitarian countries no criticism of the leaders is in that it and the ruthless espionage system is employed against those they have to whisper them as giving even to their friends in Britain and in our own country opinions are voiced emphatically the Congress the press the recall and a conversation up forever raising questions government must take account of criticism of the ultimate sovereign power as the system of forces called public opinion we may criticize the president for doing something as we say for the sake of politics and practice this often means that he is doing something under pressure from the old who are at the moment our own political opponents tomorrow our own pressure upon the president will be greater and our opponents will rightly say that Neil being the US The Is that also influenced by politics the essential thing is that everyone has a right to be heard it's remarkable how much gravest how much backseat driving we allow but it is really best self that is not just the safety valve or from all this ceaseless discussion of arises from time to time oppressed allies the Penya a unified mass response which like a tidal wave. Pushes Congress and the president it was by virtue of this principle of free discussion and criticism that the Bill of Rights was incorporated within our own Federal Constitution the public applied mass pressure and the death results a morale that arises from the deep convictions of millions of ordinary citizens is a lot tougher than any which relies solely upon blind trust in a leader the matter how great that leader made big the third reason for the morality of Perry aready of the Democratic lies in the fact that free institutions encourage not only discussion but technical research procedures this is not a weakness as in morale and the best means of removing just as our engineers get a plane or a tank the cattle drive checking its performance in action and introducing improvement after improvement so the specialist in human engineering studies the morale weaknesses of the population and instead of cracking down on people looks closely at the death of all these and develops correct thoughts for example it has been in the last dozen years and enormous development in methods of public the. Developing more and more accurate many of the startling of what people are thinking about their government and how they would like to see it function. One of the best of these methods began several years ago when the Department of Agriculture. This is help farmers everywhere the voice their opinion their complaints their suggestions the secretary of agriculture and the president have been far better informed than Constantine's similar services and more recently developed in pounds and cities the viewpoints of industrial workers business and professional white collar and service groups and be estimated the far greater accuracy than before. One especially important result of exact knowledge of such a thing is that the effects of the height of world affairs upon American opinion can be measured month by month it is becoming more and more feasible to tell just what they have morale is high where low and what to do about it thus if we suspect that the existing degree of malnutrition illness or job insecurity makes the morale of specific under-privileged groups dangerously low we can systematically study the degree of the thank goodness of different constructive measures being used in various areas and see how much is accomplished by each one to be even walk and create when the federal government forms you over the radio gets and use and the need both financial support and various self-imposed sacrifices it will be possible to find out by carefully planned end of the schedules administered to many samples of the public how well each message was understood how led you liked it and in what respects you think such radio messages could be improved instead of a vague comment on what the public mind is thinking one can ascertain today precisely what the Colorado because the trite mechanics the main lumberjacks the New York needle trades workers are thinking and how much their thinking changes month by month one can describe not merely the typical opinion of each such group but even the individual variations typically encountered within each morale is removed then from the round of guest work and at the same time it is removed from the realm of propaganda. Well the democratic process aims to ascertain people's opinions fears and hopes and to find in the realm of government practical steps which incorporate the broad principles upon which we had really as little Mellot of the Office of Government reports as explain the duties of democratic government will not include the function of indoctrination but do include with emphasis the function of enabling people to communicate with one another and with their government this emphasis upon the need for research and they have the morale prompts me to mention the fact that our universities and colleges are not only doing a large amount of the fence research in the field of engineering but in the field of civilian morale as well these studies are closely tied to the work of three government agencies in Washington our own research recently begun in this field at City College is concerned chiefly with analyzing day by day expressions of hope and confidence on the one hand that out and things diety on the other in response to daily changes in the war situation the projects are conducted with of the Able to discovering means of giving them a long range time perspective we are in particular studying the morale consequences of certain movies news casts and press dispatches let us consider briefly one other L.S.D. ration of the value of scientific investigation in connection with our war effort all of us know how vitally important it is that the rate of production of the implements of war of the increased and many of us believed that if we need twice as much of a commodity as we did before this need might be met very simply by working twice as hard. Research on this matter conducted in many large factories has given us information which not only helps to increase our efficiency but which also overcomes the temptation to think of the human being simply as a machine a mere increase in hours it has been found is not necessarily ensure increased production it may lead as a matter of fact to win creased absenteeism lateness and accident rate so that the increase amounts to one on paper only and production may even fall well in one munitions factory the reduction in hours of work was actually followed by an increase in production the introduction of over time despite financial reward may increase production but not enough to justify the cost the problem then is to be sure complex and the health morale and the fish and sea of the work of the man is more consideration than rash opinions generally awful In summary then I believe that giving Americans the essential facts letting them work out democratically and scientifically their own solutions to their present tremendous problems will give them they only have tougher and tougher morale Meanwhile the aggressor is gradually taking the measure of the forces which they can and frantically endeavoring to suppress the sand and mounting anxiety at home or find themselves unable to rally their the Marlise people and will be swept over the brink of disaster I should like to turn now to several questions which Mr Ross the final one of the students at City College has for me a couple of questions probably first did you say that we would produce more world goods if we show up and hours of labor. I said that this might well be the case in the light of her industrial experience in World War I number one and many other industrial investigations but my main contention was not that Al is what to be she left but rather that the number of hours ought to be determined by scientific research rather than guesswork it is natural and what time to demand more and more of people in a blind or even hysterical way but if we have to give the utmost of which we are capable it must be a careful study of what each type of work you can do so that we don't find someone insufficient work and others being driven to the breaking point I see one of the difficulty and counted they do say that in a democracy each individual can be encouraged to go his own way to think as he likes there was he pleases frankly I don't see how the heartlessly could work on that basis there is no implication that democracy ever entails unlimited freedom to do is one pleasers least of all that time of great peril but them a credit principle as I say it has to do with the process of these by which the thoughts and will of each individual citizen is considered and a group decision formulated which expresses a consensus stuff and they should when such of the station is reached the citizen identifies himself with the life of the world thank you Dr from me ladies and gentlemen you have just heard Dr Allen from the other department of psychology at City College first both you on the subject of morale Dr from a substitute for Professor Gardiner Murphy head of the department psychology for us to speak to you on that subject I have a Professor Murphy was ill and Dr from me read Professor Murphy's speech this was the last program of the democracy when series next week however will mark the beginning of a new series entitled our stake in the world and our guest speaker will be Professor Nelson's team either the City College. If you're interested in Dr from me stalker or any of the others perceiving here is your brain a copy of the script by sending ten cents and stamps through the City College one hundred thirty eighth Street in Amsterdam Avenue in New York. City station for the program to come on at five.