Salt Lake Tribune | 1905-06-12 | Page 17 | Why Do Crowds Yell?

Why Do Crowds Yell? Why do crowds yell? Prof. George E. Vincent, son of the bishop who founded the Chautauqua association, who Is given to the Investigation of curious cu-rious Phenomena, has undertaken to answer this question. Like the man who swore with a good round oath that he never swore, many people have been yelling in crowds all their lives and never noticed it. From Prof. Vincent many a quiet, silent man will learn that he has gone to a political meeting, meet-ing, and Just because he was no longer an Individual, but part of a hypnotized crowd, he has yelled like mad. This same taciturn man has gone to a baseball base-ball game nnd yelled again, and If his tem won he tried to embrace everybody every-body he knew, held his plug hat up on a cane, While yelling like a Comanche. An hour later, at home, his children could hardly get a word out of him about the game. Let a thousand people peo-ple stroll out into a big park, and scatter scat-ter in small groups, and they will be extremely quiet Let the formation closo up and they get more and more noisy. The college yell Is not an Isolated Iso-lated phenomenon, but Just the outcropping out-cropping of the common, universal de-sire de-sire to whoop when two or more are gathered together. Prof. Vincent after a study of the 'psychology of mobs." reaches the conclusion that hypnosis BOCOunts for this propensity. A 'hypnotize1 'hypno-tize1 crowd, he says; loses Itself individually indi-vidually through concentration the central attitude toward life gets askew and suggestion" takes control With all due respect to Prof. Vincent, we venture to say that the nroblem is much simpler than that. Man being a gregarlius animal, he naturally feels go... it. a crowd, and when he feels 1S loh thm he Is on the eaith There is no psychic mystery nbout he yell. It is' not picked Up along the way; It Is not a colle-c product. pro-duct. It begins in the cradle. Leslie's Vv eekly.