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September 1, 1928 THE INDEPENDENT
wide field of action; and what is socially unsound relationship, for instance, when such an acqu~csccnce
to one man may not be socially unsound for another. in point of view is bought and paid for. Let us say
But it is a clear road for a man of decency and that the public relations counsel of an antitubercu-
conscience, Unlike a lawyer, he ne.ed not undertake losis committee, as a constructive part of its public
the cause of a client who has committed an unsocial relations program, urges upon a school board that
action. Possibly one reason for this is that, even better attention be paid to this subject in schools.
though a special pleader, he is not dissociated from If the local school board of the community has
the client in the public's mind. Another reason is realized this defect and is anxious to see it remedied,
that while he is plead- its members may lend
ing before the court the weight of their
- the court of public "The public relations counsel supervises and directs the own organization to
opinion - he is at the contacts of business and other organizations with the public. securing information
same time trying to He ascertains the state of public opinion toward a given com- on the subject and to
affect that court's pany, product, or idea, and dir~ts his efforts to strengthen approving and broad-
judgments and ac- favorable impressions or dispel ungrounded prejudices. ms casting efforts for its
function is to crystalllze public opinion and to make articulate
tions. He must judge ideas and events that are already in existence and that are amelioration, regard-
the results which his favorable to company policy. It is also an esaential part of his less of the fact that
work would accom- services to create the circumsta.qces or the news which will the antitubcrculosis
plish from an ethical themselves eventuate in the desired expression from the committee has started
point of view. public.'' - Edward L. Bernays the campaign, be-
In law, the judge cause they feel that
and jury hold the a constructive work is
deciding balance of power. In public opinion, the being accomplished by these efforts. Under these
public relations counsel is judge and jury, because circumstances, such efforts to mobilize public opin-
through his plcadin~ of a case the public may accede ion would then probably come from the school board
to his opinion and Judgment. Therefore, the public or whatever it might be, because this organization
. relations counsel must maintain an intense scrutiny stands back of the idea. If the public relations
of his actions, avoiding the propagation of unsocial counsel as a special pleader can interest a prominent
or harmful movements or ideas. Every public rela- man in the cause he is furthering, and this man
tions counsel has been confronted with the necessity becomes the protagonist and propagandist for the
of refusing to accept clients whose cases in a law idea, a statement or any other action he may take
court would be valid, but whose cases in the higher is satisfactorily identified as to point of origin if it
court of public opinion are questionable. is sent out by that individual. As to the flow of
Second, he will not take the cases of conflicting propaganda into the newspaper offices of the
clients. If he is helping to win a fight for the niar- country, every editor can very simply reject any
gcrine manufacturers, he cannot work also with material that does not stand out in the news of
the butter makers. If he is working with Japan, that day. All he needs is a wastebasket. One thing,
he cannot also work with China, because their however, should be observed by the editor: that
interests arc usually opposed. . is, not to print material that has no mark of origin
Third, when he deals with any of the~mediums or one which is ethically doubtful, even though it
of dissemination to the public, whether it be the is plainly stated.
press or the radio, the lecture platform or the motion The social value of the public relations counsel
picture, he will do so as the representative of his Hes in the fact that he brings to the public facts
client, maintaining the same standards of truth and ideas of social value which would not so readily
with them as $ovcrn the morals and habits of the gain acceptance otherwise. While he, of course, may
world he lives in. represent men and individuals who have already
In a campaign to mold public opinion toward a gained great acceptance in the public mind, he may
given cause, the public relations counsel, known represent new ideas of value not yet accepted.
as such, may enlist the interest of an individual or
an organization in his client's point of view. That AS for the relations between the public relations
individual organization may then propagandize £l. counsel and his client, little can be said which
it through its own channels because it is interested would not be merely a repetition of the code of
in it. In such a case, the point of origin then becomes honest dealing between individuals. The public rela-
that individual or organization. The public relations tions counsel owes his client conscientious, effective
counsel, having made the link between the interest service, of course. Much more important than
of his client and the interest of the third party, no any positive duty, however, is the negative duty -
longer need figure in the resulting expression to the that he must never accept a retainer or assume a
public. This is always predicated on the relationship position which puts his duty to the groups he repre-
being on an entirely ethical basis. It is not an ethical sents above his duty to society.
11:LLllVG C,4/VDID,4TE TO VOTERS.
The Independent has quite an idea in its article on the politica
"Supersalesman" by Emily Newell. The author would make th(
campaign manager rather an ingenious cuss who could think out
all sorts of stunts to advertise his candidate. The story is wortl
reading and at first blush makes a brand-new idea in political-
izing, but summed up it amounts simply to more and possibly bet-
ter ways of advertising; in other words, salesmanship. But it',
interesting, and we quote:
First of all, I would discard the old-type political manage1·
and engage a high-salaried, successful sales manager to " sell"
my candidate. The first thing such a sales manager would
.do would be to survey his territory and decide where he had
the best chance of selling his product. He would find out the
habits of his desired customers so as to discover how he
might most easily and quickly bring his candidate and cause
to their notice. He would study their tastes so that he might
choose how best to present his product to their favo1·. I-le
would treat his problem just as a problem in the mal'keting
of tooth paste would be handled.
Nor would he do this by office theorizing. He would send
--iuxDY"lpc..,,...rt..; or go himself over this teITitory to learn the.se things.
He would then plan his cnmpaign: no guessing about it, no
sending speakers hither and yon with no idea of how much
he would get for a dollar. He would carefully weigh one
method of presenting a candidate against anothe1·, deciding
for the method which would reach the most voters per dolla1·
of expense. He would, f or instance, r ealize that the expense
of reaching large numbers in congested cities was less per
vote than reaching them in small towns, so he would plan to
focus the campaign in that city which normally returned a
majority for his party. He would then concentrnte on how
to put his candidate before them in the best guise. He would,
of course, arrange for newspaper advertising. By this, l do
not mean a small announcement on the last Sunday before
the election. Early in the campaign he would buy space and
fill it daily or weekly. Under his candidate's picture would
appear a few ·s hort, terse, telling statements, either clever,
· witty, or epigrammatic. If the candidate could not write
them, he would buy them from some not-yet-anived Will
Rogers or some expert on tooth paste advertising writing.
· If Alice Roosevelt and Mrs. Borah and Queen Marie can sell
a face cream, an actor, a baseball player, a bank president
ough; to sell a senator, and even an opera singer or a movie
-----.tar. i11;ht help.· He -might rai&e an electric sign- not of a
namt, but of an overflowing beer mug or a hand across the
sea or a full dinner pail or an empty sugar bowl. He might
hang his posters, not showing names and carrying long state-
ments, but those drawn by a Gibson or a Flagg showing
mountains of taxes being excavated by "our candidate" in the
guise of Economy or a manufacturer heaping taxes upon the
mountain called Tariff. ·
He might produce a movie film built around a real plot
and at least one star, setting his candidate in the midst of
aome drawing-room or wild west scene, inserting a fight and
a dance (not by the candidate) , offering it with a vaudeville
to the local committee with a request that they buy out the
house and make it pay for itself. It would cost no more
money than they now spend for the opera house and the band
when the speaker comes to town and assuredly they would
,et more for their money.
Of course, he would not neglect free advertising. In ad-
dition to the paid advertising he would "make" news, do
stunts that the newspapers would have to report. Nor need
the stunts necessarily be undignified. What is a White House
breakfast for the actors but a stunt, a pilgrimage of women
t.o a front porch to hear a statement on bills of interest to
----women, a demonstration of presidential dexterity with a rake
· or a back-platform tour? Some of them would border on the
ridiculous. It might tax the campaign manager's ingenuity
to make the front page with dignity, but an expert could do it.
. . . And such accounts are not read by the cit;' voter
only. Every stunt reported in the city newspapers adver-
tises cause and candidate to its country readers, also. But
the good sales manager will not stop with city stunts. He
will stimulate local stunts to be reported in local papers. Nor
will he need to insist on them : the same spirit of imitation
that carries the newest shade in hosiery to the remotest vil-
lage, that makes the same book a best seller in every city and
town, that makes the D. A. R. and the notary club national
in scope and gives a fall festival to every hamlet will lead
the towns to initiate a lltunt of their own and report it in
tbeir own papen.