While looking for some old Gallup polls in Lexis-Nexis, I came across the following poll question from May of 1946. Some readers may find either the results or the answer options interesting:
Which of the following statements comes closest to describing how you feel, on the whole, about the people who live in Japan?
The Japanese people will always want to go to war to make themselves as powerful as possible – 35%
The Japanese people may not like war, but they have shown that they are too easily led into war by powerful leaders – 39
The Japanese people do not like war. If they could have the same chance as people in other countries, they would become good citizens of the world – 19
Don’t know – 7
ORGANIZATION CONDUCTING SURVEY: NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER
POPULATION: National adult
NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 2,589
INTERVIEW METHOD: Personal
BEGINNING DATE: May 1946
ENDING DATE: May 1946
SOURCE DOCUMENT: MINORITIES, UNITED NATIONS
DATE OF RELEASE OF SOURCE DOCUMENT: May 1946
QUESTION ID: USNORC.460241, R11B
One thing I use in class sometimes is the 1944 Gallup poll on what to do with Japan after the U.S. wins the war. As I recall, “Kill all Japanese people” came in at 11%. I got the impression that even the Gallup people were a bit put off by some of the answers they got. I assume someone has written something on Gallup and how to read the polls from the 40s.