the public relations counsel; the increased and increasing importance of the profession
the rise of the modern public relations counsel is based on the need for and the value of his services. perhaps the most significant social, political and industrial fact about the present century is the increased attention which is paid to public opinion, not only by individuals, groups or movements that are dependent on public support for their success, but also by men and organizations which until very recently stood aloof from the general public and were able to say, “the public be damned.”
the public to-day demands information and expects also to be accepted as judge and jury in matters that have a wide public import. the public, whether it invests its money in subway or railroad tickets, in hotel rooms or restaurant fare, in silk or soap, is a highly sophisticated body. it asks questions, and if the answer in word or action is not forthcoming or satisfactory, it turns to other sources for information or relief.
the willingness to spend thousands of dollars
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in obtaining professional advice on how best to present one’s views or products to a public is based on this fact.
on every side of american life, whether political, industrial, social, religious or scientific, the increasing pressure of public judgment has made itself felt. generally speaking, the relationship and interaction of the public and any movement is rather obvious. the charitable society which depends upon voluntary contributions for its support has a clear and direct interest in being favorably represented before the public. in the same way, the great corporation which is in danger of having its profits taxed away or its sales fall off or its freedom impeded by legislative action must have recourse to the public to combat successfully these menaces. behind these obvious phenomena, however, lie three recent tendencies of fundamental importance; first, the tendency of small organizations to aggregate into groups of such size and importance that the public tends to regard them as semi-public services; second, the increased readiness of the public, due to the spread of literacy and democratic forms of government, to feel that it is entitled to its voice in the conduct of these large aggregations, political, capitalist or labor, or whatever they may be; third, the keen competition for public favor due to modern methods of “selling.”
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an example of the first tendency—that is, the tendency toward an increased public interest in industrial activity, because of the increasing social importance of industrial aggregations—may be found in an article on “the critic and the law” by richard washburn child, published in the atlantic monthly for may, 1906.
mr. child discusses in that article the right of the critic to say uncomplimentary things about matters of public interest. he points out the legal basis for the right to criticize plays and novels. then he adds, “a vastly more important and interesting theory, and one which must arise from the present state and tendency of industrial conditions, is whether the acts of men in commercial activity may ever become so prominent and so far reaching in their effect that they compel a universal public interest and that public comment is impliedly invited by reason of their conspicuous and semi-public nature. it may be said that at no time have private industries become of such startling interest to the community at large as at present in the united states.” how far present-day tendencies have borne out mr. child’s expectation of a growing and accepted public interest in important industrial enterprises, the reader can judge for himself.
with regard to the second tendency—the increased readiness of the public to expect information
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about and to be heard on matters of political and social interest—ray stannard baker’s description of the american journalist at the peace conference of versailles gives an excellent picture. mr. baker tells what a shock american newspaper men gave old world diplomats because at the paris conference they “had come, not begging, but demanding. they sat at every doorway,” says mr. baker. “they looked over every shoulder. they wanted every resolution and report and wanted it immediately. i shall never forget the delegation of american newspaper men, led by john nevin, i saw come striding through that holy of holies, the french foreign office, demanding that they be admitted to the first general session of the peace conference. they horrified the upholders of the old methods, they desperately offended the ancient conventions, they were as rough and direct as democracy itself.”
and i shall never forget the same feeling brought home to me, when herbert bayard swope of the new york world, in the press room at the crillon hotel in paris, led the discussion of the newspaper representatives who forced the conference to regard public opinion and admit newspaper men, and give out communiques daily.
that the pressure of the public for admittance to the mysteries of foreign affairs is being felt
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by the nations of the world may be seen from the following dispatch published in the new york herald under the date line of the new york herald bureau, paris, january 17, 1922: “the success of lord riddell in getting publicity for british opinion during the washington conference, while the french viewpoint was not stressed, may result in the appointment by the poincaré government of a real propaganda agent to meet the foreign newspaper men. the eclair to-day calls on the new premier to ‘find his own lord riddell in the french diplomatic and parliamentary world, who can give the world the french interpretation.’” walter lippmann of the new york world in his volume “public opinion” declares that “the significant revolution of modern times is not industrial or economic or political, but the revolution which is taking place in the art of creating consent among the governed.” he goes on: “within the life of the new generation now in control of affairs, persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. none of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political premise. under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the only constants of our thinking have become variables.
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it is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the cardinal dogma of democracy, that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. it has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”2
in domestic affairs the importance of public opinion not only in political decisions but in the daily industrial life of the nation may be seen from numerous incidents. in the new york times of friday, may 20, 1922, i find almost a column article with the heading “hoover prescribes publicity for coal.” among the improvements in the coal industry generally, which mr. hoover, according to the dispatch, anticipates from widespread, accurate and informative publicity about the industry itself, are the stimulation of industrial consumers to more regular demands, the ability to forecast more reliably the volume of demand, the ability of the consumer to “form some judgment as to the prices he should pay for coal,” and the tendency to hold down over-expansion in the industry by publication of the ratio of production to capacity. mr. hoover
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concludes that really informative publicity “would protect the great majority of operators from the criticism that can only be properly leveled at the minority.” not so many years ago neither the majority nor the minority in the coal industry would have concerned itself about public criticism of the industry.
from coal to jewelry seems rather a long step, and yet in the jeweler’s circular, a trade magazine, i find much comment upon the national jewelers’ publicity association. this association began with the simple commercial ambition of acquainting the public with “the value of jewelry merchandise for gift purposes”; now it finds itself engaged in eliminating from the public mind in general, and from the minds of legislators in particular, the impression that “the jewelry business is absolutely useless and that any money spent in a jewelry store is thrown away.”
not so long ago it would scarcely have occurred to any one in the jewelry industry that there was any importance to be attached to the opinion of the public on the essential or non-essential character of the jewelry industry. to-day, on the other hand, jewelers find it a profitable investment to bring before the people the fact that table silver is an essential in modern life, and that without watches “the business and industries of the nations would be a sad chaos.” with all
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the other competing interests in the world to-day, the question as to whether the public considers the business of manufacturing and selling jewelry essential or non-essential is a matter of the first importance to the industry.
the best examples, of course, of the increasing importance of public opinion to industries which until recently scarcely concerned themselves with the existence or non-existence of a public opinion about them, are those industries which are charged with a public interest.
in a long article about the attitude of the public towards the railroads, the railway age reaches the conclusion that the most important problem which american railroads must solve is “the problem of selling themselves to the public.” some public utilities maintain public relations departments, whose function it is to interpret the organizations to the public, as much as to interpret the public to them. the significant thing, however, is not the accepted importance of public opinion in this or the other individual industry, but the fact that public opinion is becoming cumulatively more and more articulate and therefore more important to industrial life as a whole.
the new york central railroad, for example, maintains a public relations department under pitt hand, whose function it is to make it clear to the public that the railroad is functioning
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efficiently to serve the public in every possible way. this department studies the public and tries to discover where the railroad’s service can be mended or improved, or when wrong or harmful impressions upon the public mind may be corrected.
this public relations department finds it profitable not only to bring to the attention of the public the salient facts about its trains, its time tables, and its actual traveling facilities, but also to build up a broadly coöperative spirit that is indirectly of great value to itself and benefit to the public. it coöperates, for example, with such movements as the welcome stranger committee of new york city in distributing literature to travelers to assist them when they reach the city. it coöperates with conventions, to the extent of arranging special travel facilities. such aids as it affords to the directors of children’s camps at the grand central station are especially conspicuous for their dramatic effect on the general public.
even a service which is in a large measure non-competitive must continually “sell” itself to the public, as evidenced by the strenuous efforts of the new york subways and elevated lines to keep themselves constantly before the people in the most favorable possible aspect. the subways strive in this regard to create a feeling of submissiveness
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toward inconveniences which are more or less unavoidable, and they strive likewise to fulfill such constructive programs as that of extending traffic on less frequented lines.
let us analyze, for example, the activities of the health departments of such large cities as new york. of recent years, health commissioner royal s. copeland and his statements have formed a fairly regular part of the day’s news. publicity is, in fact, one of the major functions of the health department, inasmuch as its constructive work depends to a considerable extent upon the public education it provides in combating evils and in building up a spirit of individual and group coöperation in all health matters. when the health department recognizes that such diseases as cancer, tuberculosis and those following malnutrition are due generally to ignorance or neglect and that amelioration or prevention will be the result of knowledge, it is the next logical step for this department to devote strenuous efforts to its public relations campaign. the department accordingly does exactly this.
even governments to-day act upon the principle that it is not sufficient to govern their own citizens well and to assure the people that they are acting whole-heartedly in their behalf. they understand that the public opinion of the entire
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world is important to their welfare. thus lithuania, already noted, while it had the unbounded love and support of its own people, was nevertheless in danger of extinction because it was unknown outside of the immediate boundaries of those nations which had a personal interest in it. lithuania was wanted by poland; it was wanted by russia. it was ignored by other nations. therefore, through the aid of a public relations expert, lithuania issued pamphlets, it paraded, it figured in pictures and motion pictures and developed a favorable sentiment throughout the world that in the end gave lithuania its freedom.
in industry and business, of course, there is another consideration of first-rate importance, besides the danger of interference by the public in the conduct of the industry—the increasing intensity of competition. business and sales are no longer to be had, if ever they were to be had for the asking. it must be clear to any one who has looked through the mass of advertising in street cars, subways, newspapers and magazines, and the other avenues of approach to the public, that products and services press hard upon one another in the effort to focus public attention on their offerings and to induce favorable action.
the keen competition in the selling of products for public favor makes it imperative that the
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seller consider other things than merely his product in trying to build up a favorable public reaction. he must either himself appraise the public mind and his relation to it or he must engage the services of an expert who can aid him to do this. he may to-day consider, for instance, in his sales campaign, not only the quality of his soap but the working conditions, the hours of labor, even the living conditions of the men who make it.
the public relations counsel must advise him on these factors as well as on their presentation to the public most interested in them.
in this state of affairs it is not at all surprising that industrial leaders should give the closest attention to public relations in both the broadest and the most practical concept of the term.
large industrial groups, in their associations, have assigned a definite place to public relations bureaus.
the trade association executives in new york, an association of individual executives of state, territorial or national trade associations, such as the allied wall paper industry, the american hardware manufacturers’ association, the american protective tariff league, the atlantic coast shipbuilders’ association, the national association of credit men, the silk association of america and some seventy-four
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others, includes among its associations’ functions such activities as the following: coöperative advertising; adjustments and collections; cost accounting; a credit bureau; distribution and new markets; educational, standardization and research work; exhibits; a foreign trade bureau; house organs; general publicity; an industrial bureau; legislative work; legal aid; market reports; statistics; a traffic department; washington representation; arbitration. it is noteworthy that forty of these associations have incorporated public relations with general publicity as a definite part of their program in furthering the interests of their organizations.
the american telephone and telegraph company devotes effort to studying its public relations problems, not only to increase its volume of business, but also to create a coöperative spirit between itself and the public. the work of the telephone company’s operators, statistics, calls, lineage, installations are given to the public in various forms. during the war and for a period afterwards its main problem was that of satisfying the public that its service was necessarily below standard because of the peculiar national conditions. the public, in response to the efforts of the company, which were analogous to a gracious personal apology, accepted more or less irksome conditions as a matter of course. had the
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company not cared about the public, the public would undoubtedly have been unpleasantly insistent upon a maintenance of the pre-war standards of service.
americans were once wont to jest about the dependence of france and switzerland upon the tourist trade. to-day we see american cities competing, as part of their public relations programs, for conventions, fairs and conferences. the new york times printed some time ago an address by the governor of nebraska, in which he told a group of advertising men that publicity had made nebraska prosper.
the new york herald carried an editorial recently, entitled, “it pays a state to advertise,” centering about the campaign of the state of vermont to present itself favorably to public attention. according to the editorial, the state publishes a magazine, the vermonter, an attractive publication filled with interesting illustrations and well-written text. it is devoted exclusively to revealing in detail the industrial and agricultural resources of the state and to presenting vermont’s strikingly beautiful scenic attractions for the summer visitor. similar instances of elaborate efforts, taking the form of action or the printed word, either to obtain public attention or to obtain a favorable attitude from the public for individual industries and groups
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of industries, will come readily to the reader’s mind.
without attempting to take too seriously an amusing story printed in a recent issue of a new york newspaper, leaders in movements and industries of modern life will be inclined to agree with the protagonist of publicity spoken of. according to the story, a man set out to prove to another that it was not so much what a man did as the way it was heralded which insures his place in history. he cited barbara frietchie, evangeline, john smith and a half dozen others as instances to prove that they are remembered not for what they did, but because they had excellent counsel on their public relations.
“‘very good,’ agreed the friend. ‘but show me a case where a person who has really done a big thing has been overlooked.’
“‘you know paul revere, of course,’ he said. ‘but tell me the names of the two other fellows who rode that night to rouse the countryside with the news that the british were coming.’
“‘never heard of them,’ was the answer.
“‘there were three waiting to see the signal hung in the tower of the old north church,’ he said. ‘every one of them was mounted and spurred, just as mr. longfellow described paul revere. they all got the signal. they all rode
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and waked the farmers, spreading the warning. afterward one of them was an officer in washington’s army, another became governor of one of the states. not one in twenty thousand americans ever heard the names of the other two, and there is hardly a person in america who does not know all about revere.’
“‘did revere make history or did longfellow?’”
