Abraham Lincoln, when he was
a young attorney, put a question to
a hostile witness. "If you call his tail
a leg," he asked, "how many legs
does a donkey have?" The witness'
quick reply was "Five."
Lincoln
looked at the jury and shook his
head. "No, just four," he said, "calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one."
But this was before the electronic
age: today calling a tail a leg may
make it so-with the help of the
mass media. Ideas are spread so
quickly that people have no time to
formulate what they mean, and a
slogan becomes a more powerful
force than the idea it may or may not represent.
This was written in an article FIFTY YEARS AGO!!! Pre internet, smartphone, whatsapp, instagram, twitter - prehistory!!
How incredibly true is it today.
