  Adopting the philosophy \`a la Donnachie and Landshoff that simple pole
exchanges could account for all data of total, elastic and diffractive
scattering cross sections to present energies, we show that such simple pole
fits to $pp$ and ${\bar p}p$ total cross sections are indeed very successful.
We assess the uncertainties of the various parameters by making careful
statistical analysis of the data and their correlations. In particular, the
pomeron intercept which controls total cross sections and the real part of the
elastic amplitude at high energies is shown to lie anywhere between 1.07 and
1.11, with a preferred value 1.096.
