CRYSTALLIZING

PUBLIC OPINION
BY
EDWARD L. BERNAYS
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Crystallizing
Public Opinion
 Edward L. Bernays

CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION

NEW YORK
BONI AND LIVERIGHT
1934
CRYSTALLIZING
PUBLIC OPINION

EDWARD L. BERNAYS

LIVERIGHT PUBLISHING CORPORATION

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
PRINTED IN THE
 To MY WIFE
DORIS E. FLEISCHMAN
 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION
In the ten years that have elapsed since this
book was written, events of profound impor­
tance have taken place. During this period,
many of the principles set forth in the book
have been put to the test and have been proven
true.
The book, for instance, emphasized ten years
ago that industrial organizations dealing with
the public must take public opinion into con­
sideration in the conduct of their affairs. We
have seen cases in the past decade where the
public has actually stepped in and publicly
supervised industries which refused to recog­
nize this truth.
The field of public relations counsel has de­
veloped tremendously in this period. But the
broad basic principles, as originally set forth,
are as valid today as they were then, when the
profession was a comparatively new one. It
seems appropriate that this new edition, for
which the publishers have asked me to write a
new foreword, should appear at a time when
the new partnership of government, labor and
industry has brought public relations and its
ill
iv PREFACE TO NEW EDITION
problems to the fore. The old group relation­
ships that make up our society have undergone
and are undergoing marked changes. The
peaceful harmonizing of all the new conflicting
points of view will be dependent, to a great ex­
tent, upon an understanding and application
by leaders of public relations and its technique.
In the future, each industry will have to act
with increasing understanding in its relation­
ship to government, to other industries, to
labor, to stockholders and to the public. Each
industry must be cognizant of new conditions
and modify its conduct to conform to them if
it is to maintain the good-will of those upon
whom it depends for its -very life.
This principle applies not only to industry;
it applies to every kind of organization and in­
stitution that uses special pleading, whether
it be for profit or for any other cause.
The new social and economic structure in
which we live today demands this new ap­
proach to the public. Public relations has
·come to play an important part in our life.
It is hoped that this book may lead to a.
greater recognition and application of sound
public relations principles.
E. L. B.
January, 1934
 FOREWORD

In writing this book I have tried to set down

the broad principles that govern the new profes­
sion of public relations counsel. These principles
I have on the one hand substantiated by the find­
ings of psychologists, sociologists, and newspaper­
men-Ray Stannard Baker, W. G. Bleyer, Rich­
ard Washburn Child, Elmer Davis, John L.
Given, Will Irwin, Francis E. Leupp, Walter
Lippmann, William MacDougall, Everett Dean
Martin, H. L. Mencken, Rollo Ogden, Charles J.
Rosebault, William Trotter, Oswald Garrison
Villard, and others to whom I owe a debt of
gratitude for their clear analyses of the public's
mind and habits; and on the other hand, I have
illustrated these principles by a number of spe­
cific examples which serve to bear them out. I
have quoted from the men listed here, because
the ground covered by them is Pilrt of the field
of activity of the public relations counsel. The
actual cases which I have cited were selected be­
cause they explain the application of the theories
to practice. Most of the illustrative material is
drawn from my personal experience; a few ex­
amples from my observation of events. I have
V
vi FOREWORD
preferred to cite facts known to the general pub­
lic, in order that I might explain graphically a
profession that has little precedent, and whose
few formulated rules have necessarily a limitless
number and variety of applications.
This profession in a few years has developed
from the status of circus agent stunts to what
is obviously an important position in the conduct
of the world's affairs.
If I shall, by this survey of the field, stimulate
a scientific attitude towards the study of public
relations, I shall feel that this book has fulfilled
my purpose in writing it.
E. L. B.
December, 1923.
 CONTENTS
PART I-SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS
CJIAHU •MIii
I THE SCOPE OF THE PUBLIC RELATIONS
COUNSEL II
II THE PUBLIC RELATIONS CouNSEL; THE IN­
CREASED AND INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF
THE PROFESSION • 34
III THE FUNCTION OF A SPECIAL PLEADER 50

PART II-THE GROUP AND HERD

I WHAT CONSTITUTES PUBLIC OPINION? 61

II Is PUBLIC OPINION STUBBORN oR MALLE-
ABLE? 6g
III THE INTERACTION OF PUBLIC OPINION WITH
THE FORCES THAT HELP TO MAKE IT . 77
IV THE POWER OF INTERACTING FORCES THAT
Go TO MAKE UP PUBLIC OPINION • 87
V AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE FUNDAMENTALS
OF PuBLIC MOTIVATION Is NECESSARY TO
THE WORK OF THE PuBLIC RELATIONS
COUNSEL g8
VI THE GROUP AND HERD ARE THE BASIC
MECHANISMS OF PUBLIC CHANGE • • III
VII THE APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES • I 18

PART III-TECHNIQUE AND METHOD

I THE PUBLIC CAN BE REACHED ONLY

THROUGH ESTABLISHED MEDIUMS OF CoM-
MUNICATION • , 125
vii
viii CONTENTS
CILU'IU �AGi
II THE INTERLAPPING GROUP FORMATIONS OF
SOCIETY, THE CONTINUOUS SHIFTING OF
GROUPS, CHANGING CONDITIONS AND THE
FLEXIBILITY OF HUMAN NATURE ARE ALL
Ams To THE CouNSEL ON PUBLIC RELA·
TIONS , IJ9
III AN OUTLINE OF METHODS PRACTICABLE IN
MODIFYING THE POINT OF VIEW OF A
GROUP • 166

PART IV-ETHICAL RELATIONS

I A CONSIDERATION OF THE PRESS AND OTHER

MEDIUMS OF COMMUNICATION IN THEIR
RELATION TO THE PUBLIC RELATIONS
COUNSEL • • 177
II Hrs OBLIGATIONS TO THE PUBLIC AS A SPE-
CIAL PLEADER • • 2o8
 PART I
SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS
CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC
OPINION
CHAPTER I
THE SCOPE OF THE PUBLIC RELATIONS COUNSEL

A
mean?
NEW phrase has come into the language­
counsel on public relations. What does it

As a matter of fact, the actual phrase is com­

pletely understood by only a few, and those only
the people intimately associated with the work
itself. But despite this, the activities of the pub­
lic relations counsel affect the daily life of the
entire population in one form or another.
Because of the recent extraordinary growth of
the profession of public relations counsel and the
lack of available information concerning it, an
air of mystery has surrounded its scope and func­
tions. To the average person, this profession is
still unexplained, both in its operation and actual
accomplishment. Perhaps the most definite pic­
ture is that of a man who somehow or other pro-
n
u CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
duces that vaguely defined evil, "propaganda,"
which spreads an impression that colors the mind
of the public concerning actresses, governments,
railroads. And yet, as will be pointed out
shortly, there is probably no single profession
which within the last ten years has extended
its field of usefulness more remarkably and
touched upon intimate and important aspects of
the everyday life of the world more signifi­
cantly than the profession of public relations
counsel.
There is not even any one name by which the
new profession is characterized by others. To
some the public relations counsel is known by
the term "propagandist." Others still call him
press agent or publicity man. Writing even
within the last few years, John L. Given, the
author of an excellent textbook on journalism,
does not mention the public relations counsel.
He limits his reference to the old-time press
agent. Many organizations simply do not bother
about an individual name and assign to an ex­
isting officer the duties of the public relations
counsel. One bank's vice-president is its rec­
ognized public relations counsel. Some dismiss
the subject or condemn the entire profession
generally and all its members individually.
Slight examination into the grounds for this
disapproval readily reveals that it is based on
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 13
nothing more substantial than vague impres­
sions.
Indeed, it is probably true that the very men
who are themselves engaged in the profession
are as little ready or able to define their work
as is the general public itself. Undoubtedly this
is due, in some measure, to the fact that the pro­
fession is a new one. Much more important than
that, however, is the fact that most human ac­
tivities are based on experience rather than
analysis.
Judge Cardozo of the Court of Appeals of the
State of New York finds the same absence of
functional definition in the judicial mind. "The
work of deciding cases," he says, "goes on every
day in hundreds of courts throughout the land.
Any judge, one might suppose, would find it easy
to describe the process which he had followed
a thousand times and more. Nothing could be
farther from the truth. Let some intelligent lay­
man ask him to explain. He will not go very
far before taking refuge in the excuse that the
language of craftsmen is unintelligible to those
untutored in the craft. Such an excuse may cover
with a semblance of respectability an otherwise
ignominious retreat. It will hardly serve to still
the prick of curiosity and conscience. In mo­
ments of introspection, when there is no longer
a necessity of putting off with a show of wisdom
14 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the uninitiated interlocutor, the troublesome prob­
lem will recur and press for a solution: What
is it that I do when I decide a case?" 1
From my own records and from current his­
tory still fresh in the public mind, I have selected
a few instances which only in a limited measure
give some idea of the variety of the public re­
lations counsel's work and of the type of problem
which he attempts to solve.
These examples show him in his position as
one who directs and supervises the activities of
his clients wherever they impinge upon the daily
life of the public. He interprets the client to the
public, which he is enabled to do in part because
he interprets the public to the client. His advice
is given on all occasions on which his client ap­
pears before the public, whether it be in con­
crete form or as an idea. His advice is given
not only on actions which take place, but also on
the use of mediums which bring these actions
to the public it is desired to reach, no matter
whether these mediums be the printed, the spoken
or the visualized word-that is, advertising, lec­
tures, the stage, the pulpit, the newspaper, the
photograph, the wireless, the mail or any other
form of thought communication.
A nationally famous New York hotel found
that its business was falling off at an alarming
1 Cardozo, "The Nature of the Judicial Process'' (pqe g).
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 15
rate because of a rumor that it was shortly going
to close and that the site upon which it was located
would be occupied by a department store. Few
things are more mysterious than the origins of
rumors, or the credence which they manage to
obtain. Reservations at this hotel for weeks and
months ahead were being canceled by persons
who had heard the rumor and accepted it im­
plicitly.
The problem of meeting this rumor ( which like
many rumors had no foundation in fact) was
not only a difficult but a serious one. Mere de­
nial, of course, no matter how vigorous or how
widely disseminated, would accomplish little.
The mere statement of the problem made it
clear to the public relations counsel who was re­
tained by the hotel that the only way to overcome
the rumor was to give the public some positive
evidence of the intention of the hotel to remain
in business. It happened that the maitre d'hotel
was about as well known as the hotel itself. His
contract was about to expire. The public re-­
lations counsel suggested a very simple device.
"Renew his engagement immediately for a
term of years," he said. "Then make public an­
nouncement of the fact. Nobody who hears of
the renewal or the amount of money involved
will believe for a moment that you intend to
go out of business." The maitre d'hotel was
16 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
called in and offered a five-year engagement.
His salary was one which many bank presidents
might envy. Public announcement of his en­
gagement was made. The maitre d' hotel was
himself something of a national figure. The
salary stipulated was not without popular interest
from both points of view. The story was one
which immediately interested the newspapers. A
national press service took up the story and sent
it out to all its subscribers. The cancellation of
reservations stopped and the rumor disappeared.
A nationally known magazine was ambitious
to increase its prestige among a more influential
group of advertisers. It had never made any
effort to reach this public except through its own
direct circulation. The consultant who was re­
tained by the magazine quickly discovered that
much valuable editorial material appearing in the
magazine was allowed to go to waste. Features
of interest to thousands of potential readers were
never called to their attention unless they hap­
pened accidentally to be readers of the maga.­
zine.
The public relations counsel showed how to ex­
tend the field of their appeal. He chose for his
first work an extremely interesting article by a
well-known physician, written about the interest­
ing thesis that "the pace that kills" is the slow,
deadly, dull routine pace and not the pace of life
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 17
under high pressure, based on work which in­
terests and excites. The consultant arranged to
have the thesis of the article made the basis of
an inquiry among business and professional men
throughout the country by another physician as­
sociated with a medical journal. Hundreds of
members of "the quality public," as they are
known to advertisers, had their attention focused
on the article, and the magazine which the con­
sultant was engaged in counseling on its public
relations.
The answers from these leading men of the
country were collated, analyzed, and the re­
sulting abstract furnished gratuitously to news­
papers, magazines and class journals, which pub­
lished them widely. Organizations of business
and professional men reprinted the symposium
by the thousands and distributed it free of charge,
doing so because the material contained in the
symposium was of great interest. A distin­
guished visitor from abroad, Lord Leverhulme,
became interested in the question while in this
country and made the magazine and the article
the basis of an address before a large and influ­
ential conference in England. Nationally and
internationally the magazine was called to the
attention of a public which had, up to that time,
a
considered it perhaps publication of no serious
social significance.
18 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
Still working with the same magazine, the pub­
licity consultant advised it how to widen its in­
fluence with another public on quite a different
issue. He took as his subject an article by
Sir Philip Gibbs, "The Madonna of the Hun­
gry Child," dealing with the famine situation in
Europe and the necessity for its prompt allevia­
tion. The article was brought to the attention
of Herbert Hoover. Mr. Hoover was so im­
pressed by the article that he sent the magazine
a letter of commendation for publishing it. He
also sent a copy of the article to members of
his relief committees throughout the country.
The latter, in turn, used the article to obtain sup­
port and contributions for relief work. Thus,
while an important humanitarian project was
being materially assisted, the magazine in ques­
tion was adding to its own influence and stand­
ing.
Now, the interesting thing about this work is
that whereas the public relations counsel added
nothing to the contents of the magazine, which
had for years been publishing material of this na­
ture, he did make its importance felt and appre­
ciated.
A large packing house was faced with the
problem of increasing the sale of its particqlar
brand of bacon. It already dominated the market
in its field; the problem was therefore one of
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 19
increasing the consumption of bacon generally,
for its dominance of the market would naturally
continue. The public relations counsel, realiz­
ing that hearty breakfasts were dietetically
sound, suggested that a physician undertake a
survey to make this medical truth articulate.
He realized that the demand for bacon as a break­
fast food would naturally be increased by the
wide dissemination of this truth. This is exactly
what happened.
A hair-net company had to solve the prob­
lem created by the increasing vogue of bobbed
hair. Bobbed hair was eliminating the use of
the hair-net. The public relations counsel, after
investigation, advised that the opinions of club
women as leaders of the women of the country
should be made articulate on the question. Their
expressed opinion, he believed, would definitely
modify the bobbed hair vogue. A leading artist
was interested in the subject and undertook a
survey among the club women leaders of the
country. The resultant responses confirmed the
public relations counsel's judgment. The opin­
ions of these women were given to the public
and helped to arouse what had evidently been
a latent opinion on the question. Long hair was
made socially more acceptable than bobbed hair
and the vogue for the latter was thereby par­
tially checked.
20 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
A real estate corporation on Long Island was
interested in selling cooperative apartments to a
high-class clientele. In order to do this, it re­
alized that it had to impress upon the public the
fact that this community, within easy reach of
Manhattan, was socially, economically, artisti­
cally and morally desirable. On the ad'vice of
its public relations counsel, instead of merely pro­
claiming itself as such a community, it proved
its contentions dramatically by making itself an
active center for all kinds of community mani­
festations.
When it opened its first post office, for in­
stance, it made this local event nationally inter­
esting. The opening was a formal one. Na­
tional figures became interested in what might
have been merely a local event.
The reverses which the Italians suffered on the
Piave in 1918 were dangerous to Italian and Al­
lied morale. One of the results was the awaken­
ing of a distrust among Italians as to the sin­
cerity of American promises of military, financial
and moral support for the Italian cause.
It became imperative vividly to dramatize for
Italy the reality of American cooperation. As
one of the means to this end the Committee on
Public Information decided that the naming of
a recently completed American ship should be
made the occasion for a demonstration of friend-
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS u
ship which could be reflected in every possible
way to the Italians.
Prominent Italians in America were invited
by the public relations counsel to participate in
the launching of the Piave. Motion and still
pictures were taken of the event. The news of
the launching and of its significance to Ameri­
cans was telegraphed to Italian newspapers. At
the same time a message from Italian-Americans
was transmitted to Italy expressing their con­
fidence in America's assistance of the Italian
cause. Enrico Caruso, Gatti-Casazza, director
of the Metropolitan Opera, and others highly
regarded by their countrymen in Italy, sent in­
spiriting telegrams which had a decided effect
in raising Italian morale, so far as it depended
upon assurance of American cooperation. Other
means employed to disseminate information of
this event had the same effect.
The next incident that I have selected is one
which conforms more closely than some of the
others to the popular conception of the work of
the public relations counsel. In the spring and
summer of 1919 the problem of fitting ex­
service men into the ordinary life of America
was serious and difficult. Thousands of men just
back from abroad were having a trying time
finding work. After their experience in the war
it was not surprisin__g_..tbat.. ther should be ex-
22 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
tremely ready to feel bitter against the Govern­
ment and against those Americans who for one
reason or another had not been in any branch of
the service during the war.
The War Department under Colonel Arthur
Woods, assistant to the Secretary of War, insti­
tuted a nation-wide campaign to assist those men
to obtain employment, and more than that, to
manifest to them as concretely as it could that
the Government continued its interest in their
welfare. The incident to which I refer occurred
during this campaign.
In July of 1919 there was such a shortage of
labor in Kansas that it was feared a large pro­
portion of the wheat crop could not possibly be
harvested. The activities of the War Depart­
ment in the reemployment of ex-service men had
already received wide publicity, and the Cham­
ber of Commerce of Kansas City appealed di­
rectly to the War Department at Washington,
after its own efforts in many other directions had
failed, for a supply of men who would assist
in the harvesting of the wheat crop. The public
relations counsel prepared a statement of this op­
portunity for employment in Kansas and dis­
tributed it to the public through the newspapers
throughout the country. The Associated Press
sent the statement over its wires as a news dis­
patch. Within four days the Kansas City Cham-
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 23
ber of Commerce wired to the War Department
that enough labor had been secured to harvest
the wheat crop, and asked the War Department
to announce that fact as publicly as it had first
announced the need for labor.
By contrast with this last instance, and as an
illustration of a type of work less well under­
stood by the public, I cite another incident from
the same campaign for the reestablishment of ex­
service men to normal economic and social rela­
tions. The problem of reemployment was, of
course, the crux of the difficulty. Various meas­
ures were adopted to obtain the cooperation of
business men in extending employment oppor­
tunities to ex-members of the Army, Navy and
Marines. One of these devices appealed to the
personal and local pride of American business
men, and stressed their obligation of honor to
reemploy their former employees upon release
from Government service.
A citation was prepared, signed by the Secre­
tary of War, the Secretary of the Navy and the
Assistant to the Secretary of War for display in
the stores and factories of employers who assured
the War and Navy Departments that they would
reemploy their ex-service men. Simultaneous
display of these citations was arranged for Bas­
tile Day, July 14, 1919, by members of the Fifth
Avenue Association.
24 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
The Fifth Avenue Association of New York
City, an influential group of business men, was
perhaps the first to cooperate as a body in this
important campaign for the reemployment of ex­
service men. Concerted action on a subject which
was as much in the public mind as the reemploy­
ment of ex-service men was particularly interest­
ing. The story of what these leaders in Ameri­
can business had undertaken to do went out to
the country by mail, by word of mouth, by
newspaper comment. Their example was potent
in obtaining the cooperation of business men
throughout the land. An appeal based on this
action and capitalizing it was sent to thousands of
individual business men and employers through­
out the country. It was effective.
An illustration which embodies most of the
technical and psychological points of interest in
the preceding incidents may be found in Lithu­
ania's campaign in this country in 1919, for pop­
ular sympathy and official recognition. Lithu­
ania was of considerable political importance in
the reorganization of Europe, but it was a coun­
try little known or understood by the American
public. An added difficulty was the fact that the
independence of Lithuania would interfere seri­
ously with the plans which France had for the
establishment of a strong Poland. There were
excellent historical, ethnic and economic reasons
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 25
why, if Lithuania broke off from Russia, it should
be allowed to stand on its own feet. On the
other hand there were powerful political influ­
ences which were against such a resuJt. The
American attitude on the question of Lithuanian
independence, it was felt, would play an impor­
tant part. The question was how to arouse pop­
ular and official interest in Lithuania's aspira­
tions.
A Lithuanian National Council was organized,
composed of prominent American-Lithuanians,
and a Lithuanian Information Bureau established
to act as a clearing house for news about Lithu­
ania and for special pleading on behalf of Lith­
uania's ambitions. The public relations counsel
who was retained to direct this work recognized
that the first problem to be solved was America's
indifference to and ignorance about Lithuania
and its desires.
He had an exhaustive study made of every
conceivable aspect of the problem of Lithuania
from its remote and recent history and ethnic
origins to its present-day marriage customs and
its popular recreations. He divided his material
into its various categories, based primarily on
the public to which it would probably make its
appeal. For the amateur ethnologist he pro­
vided interesting and accurate data of the racial
origins of Lithuania. To the student of Ian·
26 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
guages he appealed with authentic and well writ­
ten studies of the development of the Lithuanian
language from its origins in the Sanskrit. He
told the "sporting fan" about Lithuanian sports
and told American women about Lithuanian
clothes. He told the jeweler about amber and
provided the music lover with concerts of Lith­
uanian music.
To the senators, he gave facts about Lithuania
which would give them basis for favorable ac­
tion. To the members of the House of Repre­
sentatives he did likewise. He reflected to those
communities whose crystallized opinion would be
help£ul in guiding other opinions, facts which
gave them basis for conclusions favorable to
Lithuania.
A series of events which would carry with
them the desired implications were planned and
executed. Mass meetings were held in different
cities; petitions were drawn, signed and pre­
sented; pilgrims made calls upon Senate and
House of Representatives Committees. All the
avenues of approach to the public were utilized
to capitalize the public interest and bring public
action. The mails carried statements of Lithu­
ania's position to individuals who might be in­
terested. The lecture platform resounded to
Lithuania's appeal. Newspaper advertising w�
bought and paid for. The radio carried the mes-
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 27
sage of speakers to the public. Motion pictures
reached the patrons of moving picture houses.
Little by little and phase by phase, the public,
the press and Government officials acquired a
knowledge of the customs, the character and the
problems of Lithuania, the small Baltic nation
that was seeking freedom.
When the Lithuanian Information Bureau
went before the press associations to correct in­
accurate or misleading Polish news about the
Lithuanian situation, it came there as representa­
tive of a group which had figured largely in the
American news for a number of weeks, as a re­
sult of the advice and activities of its public re­
lations counsel. In the same way, when dele­
gations of Americans, interested in the Lithuanian
problem, appeared before members of Congress
or officials of the State Department, they came
there as spokesmen for a country which was no
longer unknown. They represented a group
which could no longer be entirely ignored. Some­
body described this campaign , once it had
achieved recognition for the Baltic republic, as
the campaign of "advertising a nation to free­
dom."
What happened with Roumania is another in­
stance. Roumania wanted· to plead its case be­
fore the American people. It wanted to tell
Americans that it was an ancient and established
28 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
country. The original technique was the issu­
ance of treatises, historically correct and eth­
nologically accurate. Their facts were for the
large part ignored. The public relations counsel,
called in on the case of Roumania, advised them
to make these studies into interesting stories
of news value.· The public read these stories
with avidity and Roumania became part of
America's popular knowledge with consequent
valuable results for Roumania.
The hotels of New York City discovered that
there was a falling off of business and profits.
Fewer visitors came to New York. Fewer trav­
elers passed through New York on their way to
Europe. The public relations counsel who was
consulted and asked to remedy the situation, made
an extensive analysis. He talked to visitors. He
queried men and women who represented groups,
sections and opinions of main cities and towns
throughout the country. He examined American
literature--books, magazines, newspapers, and
classified attacks made on New York and New
York citizens. He found that the chief cause
for lack of interest in New York was the belief
that New York was "cold and inhospitable."
He found animosity and bitterness against
New York's apparent indifference to strangers
was keeping away a growing number of travelers.
To counteract this damaging wave of resentment,
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 29
he called together the leading groups, industrial,
social and civic, of New York, and formed the
Welcome Stranger Committee. The friendly and
hospitable aims of this committee, broadcasted
to the nation, helped to reestablish New York's
good repute. Congratulatory editorials were
printed in the rural and city journals of the
country.
Again, in analyzing the restaurant service of
a prominent hotel, he discovers that its menu
is built on the desires of the average eater and
that a large group of people with children de­
sire special foods for them. He may then advise
his client to institute a children's diet service.
This was done specifically with the Waldorf­
Astoria Hotel, which instituted special menus
for children. This move, which excited wide
comment, was economically and dietetically sound.
In its campaign to educate the public on the
importance of early radium treatments for in­
cipient cancer, the United States Radium Cor­
poration founded the First National Radium
Bank, in order to create and crystallize the im­
pression that radium is and should be available
to all physicians who treat cancer sufferers.
An inter-city radio company planned to open
a wireless service between the three cities of New
York, Detroit and Cleveland. This company
might merely have opened its service and waited
30 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
for the public to send its messages, but the
president of the organization realized astutely
that to succeed in any measure at all he must
have immediate public support. He called in a
public relations counsel, who advised an elabo­
rate inauguration ceremony, in which the mayors
of the three cities thus for the first time con­
nected, would officiate. The mayor of each city
officially received and sent the first messages
issued on commercial inter-city radio waves.
These openings excited wide interest, not only
in the three cities directly concerned, but through­
out the entire country.
Shortly after the World War, the King and
Queen of the Belgians visited America. One of
the many desired results of this visit was that
it should be made apparent that America, with
all the foreign elements represented in its body,
was unified in its support of King Albert and
his country. To present a graphic picture of the
affection which the national elements here had
for the Belgian monarch, a performance was
staged at the Metropolitan Opera House in New
York City, at which the many nationalist groups
were represented and gave voice to their ap­
proval. The story of the Metropolitan Opera
House performance was spread in the news col­
umns and by photographs in the press throughout
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 31
the world. It was evident to all who saw the
pictures or read the story that this king had really
stirred thP. affectionate interest of the national
elements that make up America.
An interesting illustration of the broad field
of work of the public relations counsel to-day
is noted in the efforts which were exerted to
secure wide commendation and support among
Americans for the League of Nations. Obvi­
ously a small group of persons, banded together
for the sole purpose of furthering the appeal
of the League, would have no powerful effect.
In order to secure a certain homogeneity among
the members of groups who individually had
widely varied interests and affiliations, it was
decided to form a non-partisan committee for
the League of Nations.
The public relations consultant, having assisted
in the formation of this committee, called a meet­
ing of women representing Democratic, Repub­
lican, radical, reactionary, club, society, profes­
sional and industrial groups, and suggested that
they make a united appeal for national support of
the League of Nations. This meeting accurately
and dramatically reflected disinterested and uni­
fied support of the League. The public relations
counsel made articulate what would otherwise
have remained a strong passive sentiment. The
32 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
still insistent demand for the League of Nations
is undoubtedly due in part to efforts of this na­
ture.
Cases as diverse as the following are the daily
work of the public relations counsel. One client
is advised to give up a Rolls-Royce car and to
buy a Ford, because the public has definite con­
cepts of what ownership of each represents­
another man may be given the contrary advice.
One client is advised to withdraw the hat-check
privilege, because it causes unfavorable public
comment. Another is advised to change the
fa�de of his building to conform to a certain
public taste.
One client is advised to announce changes of
price policy to the public by telegraph, another
by circular, another by advertising. One client
is advised to publish a Bible, another a book of
French Renaissance tales.
One department store is advised to use prices
in its advertising, another store not to mention
them.
A client is advised to make his labor policy,
the hygienic aspect of his factory, his own per­
sonality, part of his sales campaign.
Another client is advised to exhibit his wares
in a museum and school.
Still another is urged to found a scholarship
in his subject at a leading university.
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 33
Further incidents could be given here, illus­
trating different aspects of the ordinary daily
functions of the public relations counsel-how,
for example, the production of "Damaged Goods"
in America became the basis of the first notably
successful move in this country for overcoming
th� prudish refusal to appreciate and face the
place of sex in human life; or how, more recently,
the desire of some great corporations to increase
their business was, through the advice of Ivy Lee,
their public relations counsel, made the basis of
popular education on the importance of brass
and copper to civilization. Enough has been
cited, however, to show how little the average
member of the public knows of the real work of
the public relations counsel, and how that work
impinges upon the daily life of the public in an
almost infinite number of ways.
Popular misunderstanding of the work of the
public relations counsel is easily comprehensible
because of the short period of his develop­
ment. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he
has become in recent years too important a fig­
ure in American life for this ignorance to be
safely or profitably continued.
 CHAPTER II
THE PUBLIC RELATIONS COUNSEL; THE INCREASED
AND INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF THE
PROFESSION

T HE rise of the modern public relations coun­

sel 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 pub­
lic 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 satisfactqry,
it turns to other sources for information or relief.
The willingness to spend thousands of dollars
34
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 35
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 polit­
ical, 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 sup­
port has a clear and direct interest in being favor­
ably 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 suc­
cessfully 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 aggre­
gations, political, capitalist or labor, or whatever
they'may be; third, the keen competition for pub­
lic favor due to modern methods of "selling."
36 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
An example of the first tendency-that is, the
tendency toward an increased public interest in
industrial activity, because of the increasing so­
cial 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, 1900.
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 con­
ditions, is whether the acts of men in commer­
cial activity may ever become so prominent and
so far reaching in their effect that they compel
a universal public interest and that public com­
ment is impliedly invited by reason of their con­
spicuous 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 in­
creased r.eadiness of the public to expect infor•
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 37
mation about and to be heard on matters of polit­
ical and social interest-Ray Stannard Baker's
description of the American journalist at the
Peace Conference of Versailles gives an excel­
lent picture. Mr. Baker tells what a shock Amer­
ican newspaper men gave Old World diplomats
because at the Paris con£erence 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 news­
paper men, led by John Nevin, I saw come strid­
ing throl.lgh that Holy of Holies, the French For­
eign Office, demanding that they be admitted to
the first general session of the Peace Con£ erence.
They horrified the upholders of the old methods,
they desperately offended the ancient conven­
tions, they were as rough and direct as democ­
racy 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
38 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
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 con£er­
ence, while the French viewpoint was not stressed,
may result in the appointment by the Poincare
Government of a real propaganda agent to meet
the foreign newspaper men. The Belair to-day
calls on the new premier to 'find his own Lord
Riddell in the French diplomatic and parlia­
mentary 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 gov­
erned." 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 or­
gan of popular government. None of us begins
to understand the consequences, but it is no dar­
ing 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 vari-
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 39
ables. 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." 1
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 nLi.merous incidents. In the New York
Times of Friday, May 20, 1922, I find almost a
column article with the heading "Hoover Pre­
scribes Publicity for Coal." Among the improve­
ments in the coal industry generally, which Mr.
Hoover, according to the dispatch, anticipates
from widespread, accurate and informative pub­
licity 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
1 Walter Lippmann, "Public Opinion" (page 248).
40 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
concludes that really informative publicity "would
protect the great majority of operators from the
criticism that can only be properly leveled at the
minority." Nett so many years ago neither ,the
majority nor the minority in the coal industry
would have concerned itself about public criti­
cism of the industry.
From coal to jewelry seems rather a long step,
and yet in The Jeweler's Circular, a trade maga­
zine, 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 par­
ticular, 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 oc­
curred 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-essen­
tial character of the jewelry industry. To-day,
on the other hand, jewelers find it a profitable in­
vestment 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
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 41
the other competing interests in the world to-day,
the question as to whether the public considers
the business of manufacturing and selling jew­
elry 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 pub­
lic 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 de­
partments, whose function it is to interpret the or­
ganizations to the public, as much as to interpret
the public to them. The significant thing, how­
ever, is not the accepted importance of public
opinion in this or the other individual industry,
but the fact that public opinion is becoming cumu­
latively 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 dear
to the public that the railroad is functioning
42 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
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 harm•
ful impressions upon the public mind may be cor•
rected.
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 cooperative spirit that is
indirectly of great value to itself and benefit to
the public. It cooperates, 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 cooperates 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 conspic­
uous 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 sub-
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 43
missiveness 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 Com­
missioner Royal S. Copeland and his state­
ments have formed a fairly regular part of the
day's news. Publicity is, in fact, one of the
major functions of the Health Department, in­
asmuch 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 cooperation in all
health matters. When the Health Department
recognizes that such diseases as cancer, tuber­
culosis and those following malnutrition are due
generally to ignorance or neglect and that ameli­
oration or prevention will be the result of knowl­
edge, it is the next logical step for this depart­
ment to devote strenuous e:fforts to its public
relations campaign. The department accordingly
does exactly this.
Even governments to-day act upon the princi­
ple 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
44 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
world is important to their welfare. Thus Lith­
uania, already noted, while it had the unbounded
love and support of its own people, was neverthe­
less in danger of extinction because it was un­
known 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 free­
dom.
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 in­
tensity 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
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 45
seller consider other things than merely his prod­
uct in trying to build up a favorable public re­
action. 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 surpris­
ing 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' Associa­
tion, 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
46 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
others, includes among its associations' functions
such activities as the following: cooperative ad­
vertising; adjustments and collections; cost ac­
counting; a credit bureau; distribution and new
markets; educational, standardization and re­
search work; exhibits; a foreign trade bureau;
house organs ; general publicity; an industrial
bureau; legislative work; legal aid; market re­
ports; statistics; a traffic department; Washing­
ton representation; arbitration. It is noteworthy
that forty of these associations have incorporated
public relations with general publicity as a defi­
nite part of their program in furthering the in­
terests of their organizations.
The American Telephone and Telegraph Com­
pany devotes effort to studying its public rela­
tions problems, not only to increase its volume of
business, but also to create a cooperative 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 satisfy­
ing 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 ·gra­
cious personal apology, accepted more or less irk­
some conditions as a matter of course. Had the
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 47
company not cared about the public, the public
would undoubtedly have been unpleasantly insist­
ent 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 pro­
grams, 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 pub­
licity 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 attrac­
tive publication filled with interesting illustra­
tions and well-written text. It is devoted exclu­
sively to revealing in detail the industrial and
agricultural resources of the state· and to pre­
senting Vermont's strikingly beautiful scenic
attractions for the summer visitor. Similar in­
stances 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
48 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
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 in­
dustries of modern life will be inclined to agree
with the protagonist of publicity spoken of. Ac­
cording 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 ex­
cellent 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 country­
side with the news that the British were com­
ing.'
" '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
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 49
and waked the farmers, spreading the warning.
Afterward one of them was an officer in Wash­
ington's army, another became governor of one
of the States. Not one in twenty thousand Amer­
icans 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 Longfel­
low?'"
 CHAPTER III
THE FUNCTION OF A SPECIAL PLEADER

P UBLIC opinion has entered life at many

points as a decisive factor. Men and move­
ments whose interests will be affected by the
attitude of the public are taking pains to have
themselves represented in the court of public
opinion by the most skill£ul counselors they can
obtain. The business of the public relations
counsel is somewhat like the business of the
attorney-to advise his client and to litigate his
causes for him.
While the special pleader in law, the lawyer
for the defense, has always been accorded a
formal hearing by judge and jury, this has not
been the case before the court of public opinion.
Here mob psychology, the intolerance of human
society for a dissenting point of view, have made
it difficult and often dangerous for a man to plead
for a new or unpopular cause.
The Fourth Estate, a newspaper for the
makers of newspapers, says : " 'Counsel on public
relations' and 'director of public relations' are
two terms that are being encountered more often
So
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 51
every day. There is a familiar tinge to them,
in a way, but in justice to the men who bear these
titles and to the concerns which employ them, it
should be said that they are-or can be-disso­
ciated from the old idea of 'publicity man.' The
very fact that niany of the largest corporations
in the country are recognizing the need of main­
taining right relationships with the public is alone
important enough to assure a fair and even favor­
able hearing for their public relations depart­
ments.
"Whether a man is really entitled to the appel­
lation 'counsel on public relations' or whether he
should merely be called 'publicity man' rests en­
tirely with the individual and the firm that em­
ploys him. As we see it, a man who is really
counsel or director of public relations has one
of the most important jobs on the roster of any
concern; but a man who merely represents the
old idea of getting something for nothing from
publishers is about passe. . . .
"So there is made plain the difference between
two terms, the old and the new, both of which
have occasioned much natural curiosity among
newspaper men. When Napoleon said, 'Circum­
stance? I make circumstance,' he expressed very
nearly the spirit of the public relations counsel's
work. So long as this new professional branch
live up to the possibilities that their title sug-
52 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
gests, they are bound to accomplish general con­
structive good. Maybe they, at last, will make
us forget that ingratiating though insidious in­
dividual, the publicity man."
As indicative perhaps of the growing impor­
tance of the profession, an article by Mary Swain
Routzahn, in charge of the Department of Sur­
veys and Exhibits of the Russell Sage Founda­
tion, on "Woman's Chance as Publicity Special­
ist" published in the New York Globe of August
2nd, 1921, discusses the profession as one of re­
cent development, but of such importance as to
deserve the serious consideration of women who
are interested in making a professional career for
themselves.
The public relations counsel is first of all a
student. His field of study is the public mind.
His text books for this study are the facts of
life; the articles printed in newspapers and mag­
azines, the advertisements that are inserted in
publications, the billboards that line the streets,
the railroads and the highways, the speeches that
are delivered in legislative chambers, the sermons
issuing from pulpits, anecdotes related in smok­
ing rooms, the gossip of Wall Street, the patter
of the theater and the conversation of other men
who, like him, are interpreters and must listen
for the clear or obscure enunciations of the
public.
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS SJ
He brings the talent of his intuitive under­
standing to the aid of his practical and psycho­
logical tests and surveys. But he is not only a
student. He is a practitioner with a wide range
of instruments and a definite technique for their
use.
First of all, there are the circumstances and
events he helps to create. After that there are
the instruments by which he broadcasts facts and
ideas to the public; advertising, motion pictures,
circular letters, booklets, handbills, speeches,
meetings, parades, news articles, magazine ar­
ticles and whatever other mediums there are
through which public attention is reached and
influenced.
Now sensitiveness to the state of mind of the
public is a difficult thing to achieve or maintain.
Any man can tell you with more or less accuracy
and clearness his own reactions on any particular
issue. But few men have the time or the interest
or the training to develop a sense of what other
persons think or feel about the same issue. In
his own profession the skilled practitioner is sen­
sitive and understanding. The lawyer can tell
what argument will appeal to court or jury. The
salesman can tell what points to stress to his
prospective buyers. The politician can tell what
to emphasize to his audience, but the ability to
estimate group reactions on a large scale over
54 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
a wide geographic and psychological area is a
specialized ability which must be developed with
the same painstaking self-criticism and with the
same dependence on experience that are required
for the development of the clinical sense in the
doctor or surgeon.
Of course, the public relations counsel employs
all those practical means of gauging the public
mind which modern advertising has developed
and uses. He employs the research campaign,
the symposium, the survey of a particular group
or of a particular state of mind as a further aid,
and confirmation or modification of his own ap­
praisals and judgments.
Charles J. Rosebault, the author of an article
in the New York Times recently, headed "Men
Who Wield the Spotlight," remarks that the
competent public relations counsel has generally
had some newspaper training and that the value
of this training "is a ke<:_n sense of the likes and
dislikes of what we call the public-that is, the
average of men and women. The needle of the
compass is no more sensitive to direction, nor
the mercury in the thermometer to variations of
heat and cold than is this expert to the influence
of publicity upon the mind and emotions of the
man in the street."
It is not surprising that the growing interest
of the public in men and movements should have
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 55
led to the spontaneous creation of the new pro­
fession.
We have presented here, in very broad outline,
a picture of the fundamental work of the public
relations counsel and of the fundamental con­
ditions which have produced him. On the one
hand, a complex environment of which only small,
disconnected portions are available to different
persons ; on the other hand, the great and increas­
ing importance either of making one's case acces­
sible to the public mind or of determining whether
that case will impinge favorably or unfavorably
upon the public mind-these two conditions, taken
together, have resulted inevitably in the public
relations counsel. Mr. Lippmann finds in these
facts the underlying reason for the existence of
what he calls the "press agent." "The enormous
discretion," he says, "as to what facts and what
impressions shall be reported is steadily convinc­
ing every organized group of people that, whether
it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid it, the
exercise of discretion cannot be left to the
reporter. It is safer to hire a press agent
who stands between the group and the news­
papers." 1
It is clear that the popular impression of the
1 "Public Opinion" (page 342). Mr. Lippmann goes on to say
that "having hired him, the temptation to exploit his strategic
position is very great." As to that aspect of the situation, see
later chapters.
56 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
scope and functions of the counsel on public re­
lations must be radically revised if any accurate
picture of the profession is to be looked for. The
public relations counsel is the lineal descendant,
to be sure, of the circus advance-man and of
the semi-journalist promoter of small-part ac­
tresses. The economic conditions which have
produced him, however, and made his profession
the important one it is to-day, have in themselves
materially changed the character of his work.
His primary function now is not to bring his
clients by chance to the public's attention, nor to
extricate them from difficulties into which they
have already drifted, but to advise his clients
how positive results can be accomplished in the
field of public relations and to keep them from
drifting inadvertently into unfortunate or harm­
ful situations. The public relations counsel will
find that the conditions under which his client
operates, be it a government, a manufacturer of
food products or a railroad system, are constantly
changing and that he must advise modifications
in policy in accordance with such changes in the
public point of view. As such, the public rela­
tions counsel must be alive to the events of the
day-not only the events that are printed but
the events which are forming hour by hour, as
reported in the words that are spoken on the
street, in the smoking cars, in the school room,
or express�d in any of the other forms of
 SCOPE AND FUNCTIONS 57
thought communication that make up public
opinion.
So long as the press remains the greatest single
medium for reaching the public mind, the work
of the public relations counsel will necessarily
have close contacts with the work of the journal­
ist. He transmits his ideas, however, through
all those mediums which help to build public
opinion-the radio, the lecture platform, adver­
tising, the stage, the motion picture, the mails.
On the other hand, he is becoming to-day as much
of an adviser on actions as he is the communi­
cator of these actions to the public.
The public relations consultant is ideally a con­
structive force in the community. The results
of his work are often accelerated interest in mat­
ters of value and importance to the social, eco­
nomic or political life of the community.
The public relations counsel is the pleader to
the public of a point of view. He acts in this
capacity as a consultant both in interpreting the
public to his client and in helping to interpret his
client to the public. He helps to mould the action
of his client as well as to mould public opinion.
His profession is in a state of evolution. His
future must depend as much upon the growing
realization by the public of the responsibility to
the public of individuals, institutions and organi­
zations as upon the public relations counsel's own
realization of the importance of his work.
 PART II
THE GROUP AND HERD
 CHAPTER I
WHAT CONSTITUTES PUBLIC OPINION?

T HE character and origins of public opinion,

the factors that make up the individual
mind and the group mind must be understood if
the profession of public relations counsel is to
be intelligently practiced and its functions and
possibilities accurately estimated. Society must
understand the fundamental character of the
work he is doing, if for no other reason than its
own welfare.
The public relations counsel works with that
vague, little-understood, indefinite material called
public opinion.
Public opinion is a term describing an ill-de­
fined, mercurial and changeable group of indi­
vidual judgments. Public opinion is the aggre­
gate result of individual opinions-now uniform,
now conflicting--of the men and women who
make up society or any group of society. In
order to understand public opinion, one must go
back to the individual who makes up the group.
The mental equipment of the average individ­
ual consists of a mass of judgments on most of
61
62 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the subjects which touch his daily physical or
mental life. These judgments are the tools of
his daily being and yet they are his judgments,
not on a basis of research and logical deduction,
but for the most part dogmatic expressions ac­
cepted on the authority of his parents, his teach­
ers, his church, and of his social, his economic
and other leaders.
The public relations counsel must understand
the social implications of an individual's thoughts
and actions. Is it, for example, purely an acci­
dent that a man belongs to one church rather than
another or to any church at all? Is it an acci­
dent that makes Boston women prefer brown
eggs and New York women white eggs? What
are the factors that work in favor of conver­
sion of a man from one political party to another
or from one type of food to another?
Why do certain communities resist the pro­
hibition law-why do others abide by it? Why
is it difficult to start a new party movement­
or to fight cancer? Why is it difficult to fight
for sex education? Why does the free trader
denounce protectionism, and vice versa?
If we had to form our own judgments on every
matter, we should all have to find out many things
for ourselves which we now take for granted.
We should not cook our food or live in houses
-in fact, we should revert to primitive living.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 63
The public relations counsel must deal with the
fact that persons who have little knowledge of
a subject almost invariably form definite and
positive judgments upon that subject.
"If we examine the mental furniture of the
average man," says William Trotter, the author
of a.comprehensive study of the social psychology
of the individual,1 "we shall find it made up of
a vast number of judgments of a very precise
kind upon subjects c,f very great variety, com­
plexity, and difficulty. He will have fairly settled
views upon the origin and nature of the universe,
and upon what he will probably call its meaning;
he wi11 have conclusions as to what is to happen
to him at death and after, as to what is and what
should be the basis of conduct. He will know
how the country should be governed, and why
it is going to the dogs, why this piece of legisla­
tion is good and that bad. He will have strong
views upon military and naval strategy, the prin­
ciples of taxation, the use of alcohol and vacci­
nation, the treatment of influenza, the prevention
of hydrophobia, upon municipal trading, the
teaching of Greek, upon what is permissible in
art, satisfactory in literature, and hopeful in sci­
ence.
"The bulk of such opinions must necessarily
1 William Trotter, "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and Waf'

(page 36).
64 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
be without rational basis, since many of them
are concerned with problems admitted by the ex­
pert to be still unsolved, while as to the rest it
is clear that the training and experience of no
average man can qualify him to have any opinion
upon them at all. The rational method ade­
quately used would have told him that on the
great majority of these questions there could be
for him but one attitude-that of suspended
judgment."
The reader will recall from his own experience
an almost infinite number of instances in which
the amateur has been fully prepared to deliver
expert advice and to give final judgment in mat­
ters upon which his ignorance is patent to every
one except himself.
In the Middle Ages, society was convinced that
there were witches. People were so positive that
they burned people whom they suspected of witch­
craft. To-day there is an equal number of peo­
ple who believe just as firmly, one way or the
other, about spiritualism and spirits. They do
not burn mediums. But people who have made
no research of the subject pass strong denuncia­
tory judgments. Others, no better informed, con­
sider mediums divinely inspired. Not so long
ago every intelligent man knew that the world
was flat. To-day the average man has a belief
just as firm and unknowing in the mysterious
 THE GROUP AND HERD 65
force which he has heard called atomic energy.
It is axiomatic that men who know little are
often intolerant of a point of view that is con­
trary to their own. The bitterness that has been
brought about by arguments on public questions
is proverbial. Lovers have been parted by bitter
quarrels on theories of pacificism or militarism;
and when an argument upon an abstract question
engages opponents they often desert the main line
of argument in order to abuse each other.
How often this is true can be seen from the
congressional records of controversies in which
the personal attack supersedes logic. In a re­
cent fight against the proposed tariff measures, a
protagonist of protection published long vindic­
tive statements, in which he tried to confound
the character and the disinterestedness of his
opponents. Logically his discussion should have
been based only upon the sound economic, social
and political value of the bill as presented.
A hundred leading American bankers, business
men, professional men and economists united in
public disapproval of this plan. They stated their
opinion that the "American" Valuation Plan, as
it was called, would endanger the prosperity of
the country, that it would be inimical to our
foreign relations and that it would injure the
welfare of every country with whom our com­
mercial and industrial ties were at all close.
66 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
This group was a broadly representative group
of men and women, yet the chairman of the
Ways and Means Committee accused all these
people of acting upon motives of personal gain
and lack of patriotism. Prejudice superseded
logic.
Intolerance is almost inevitably accompanied
by a natural and true inability to comprehend or
make allowance for opposite points of view. The
skilled scientist who may be receptive to any
promising suggestion in his own field may out­
side of his own field be found quite unwilling
to make any attempt at understanding a point
of view contrary to his own. In politics, for
example, his understanding of the problem may
be fragmentary, yet he will enter excitedly into
discussions on bonus and ship subsidy, of which
he has made no study. We find here with sig­
nificant uniformity what one psychologist has
called "logic-proof compartments."
The logic-proof compartment has always been
with us. Scientists have lost their lives through
refusing to see flaws in their theories. Intelli,.
gent mothers give food to their babies that they
would manifestly forbid other mothers to give
their children. Especially significant is the tend­
ency of races to maintain religious beliefs and
customs long after these have lost their meaning.
Dietary laws, hygienic laws, even laws based
 THE GROUP AND HERD 67
upon geographical conditions that have been
changed for more than a thousand years are still
maintained in the logic-proof compartment of
dogmatic adherence. There is a story that cer­
tain missionaries give money to heathen at the
time of conversion and that the heathen, having
got their money, bathe away their conversion in
sacred streams.
The characteristic of the human mind to ad­
here to its beliefs is excellently summarized in
the volume by Mr. Trotter to which reference has
been made before. "It is clear," says Mr. Trot­
ter,1 "at the outset that these beli'efs are invaria­
bly regarded as rational and defended as such,
while the position of one who holds contrary
views is held to be obviously unreasonable.
"The religious man accuses the atheist of be­
ing shallow and irrational, and is met by a sim­
ilar reply. To the Conservative the amazing
thing about the Liberal is his incapacity to see
reason and accept the only possible solution of
public problems. Examination reveals the fact
that the differences are not due to the commission
of the mere mechanical fallacies of logic, since
these are easily avoided, even by the politician,
and since there is no reason to believe that one
party in such controversies is less logical than
1 "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War," William Trotter
(pages 36-37).
68 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the other. The difference is due rather to the
fundamental assumptions of the antagonists be­
ing hostile, and these assumptions are derived
from herd-suggestions; to the Liberal certain
basal conceptions have acquired the quality of in­
stinctive truth, have become a priori syntheses,
because of the accumulated suggestions to which
he has been exposed; and a similar explanation
applies to the atheist, the Christian, and the Con­
servative. Each, it is important to remember,
finds in consequence the rationality of his posi­
tion flawless and is quite incapable of detecting
in it the fallacies which are obvious to his oppo­
nent, to whom that particular series of assump­
tions has not been rendered acceptable by herd
suggestion."
Thus the public relations counsel has to con­
sider the a priori judgment of any public he deals
with before counseling any step that would mod­
ify those things in which the public has an es­
tablished belief.
It is seldom effective to call names or to at­
tempt to discredit the beliefs themselves. The
counsel on public relations, after examination of
the sources of established beliefs, must either dis•
credit the old authorities or create new authori­
ties by making articulate a mass opinion against
the old belief or in favor of the new.
 CHAPTER II
IS PUBLIC OPINION STUBBORN OR MALLEABLE?

T HERE is a divergence of opinion as to

whether the public mind is malleable or
stubborn-whether it is a passive or an active
element. On the one hand is the profound be­
lief that "you can't change human nature." On
the other hand is the equally firm assurance that
certain well-defined institutions modify and alter
public opinion.
There is a uniformity of opinion in this coun­
try upon many issues. When this uni£ormity
accords with our own beliefs we call it an ex­
pression of the public conscience. When, how­
ever, it runs contrary to our beliefs we call it
the regimentation of the public mind and are in­
clined to ascribe it to insidious propaganda.
Uniformity is, in fact, largely natural and only
partly artificial. Public opinion may be as much
the producer of "insidious propaganda" as its
product. Naturally enough, where broad ideas
are involved, criticisms of the state of the public's
mind and of its origin come most frequently from
groups that are out of sympathy with the ac--
69
70 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
cepted point of view. They find the public un­
receptive to their point of view, and justly or
unjustly they attribute this to the influence of an­
tagonistic interests upon the public mind.
These groups see the press, the lecture plat­
form, the schools, the advertisements, the
churches, the radio, the motion picture screen,
the magazines daily reaching millions. They see
that the preponderant point of view in most, if
not all, these institutions conforms to the prepon­
derant state of mind of the public.
They argue from the one to the other and
reach their conclusions without much difficulty.
They do not stop to think that agreement in point
of view between the public and these institutions
may often be the result of the control exercised
by the public mind over these institutions.
Many outside forces, however, do go to influ­
ence public opinion. The most obvious of these
forces are parental influence, the school room,
the press, motion pictures, advertising, maga­
zines, lectures, the church, the radio.
To answer the question as to the stubbornness
or malleability of the public, let us analyze the
press in its relation to public opinion, since the
press stands preeminent among the various in­
stitutions which are commonly designated as
leaders or moulders of the public mind. By
the press, in this instance, I mean the daily
 THE GROUP AND HERD 71
press. Americans are a newspaper-reading pub­
lic. They have become accustomed to look to
their morning and evening papers for the news
of the world and for the opinions of their leaders.
And while the individual newspaper reader does
not give a very considerable portion of his day
to this occupation, many persons find time to read
more than one newspaper every day.
It is not surprising that the man who is out­
side the current of prevailing public opinion
should regard the daily press as a coercive force.
Discussions of the public's reaction to the press
are two-sided, just as are discussions of the in­
fluence of the pulpit or other forces. Some
authorities hold that the public mind is stubborn
in regard to the press and that the press has little
influence upon it. There are graphic instances of
the stubbornness of the public point of view. A
most interesting example is the reelection of
Mayor Hylan of New York by an overwhelming
majority in the face of the opposition of all but
two of the metropolitan dailies. It is also note­
worthy that in 1909, Gaynor was elected Mayor
of New York with every paper except one oppos­
ing his candidacy. Likewise, Mayor Mitchel of
New York was defeated for reelection in 1917,
although all the New York papers except two
Hearst papers and the New York Call supported
him. In Boston, in a recent election, a man was
72 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
elected as mayor who had been convicted of a
penal offense, an4 elected in the face of the prac­
tically united opposition of all the newspapers of
that city. How would such authors as Everett
Dean Martin, Walter Lippmann and Upton Sin­
clair explain these incidents? How, on the the­
ory of the regimentation of the public mind by
the daily press, can such thinkers explain the
sharpness with which the public sometimes rejects
the advocacies of a united press? These in­
stances are not frequent; but they show that
other influences beside the press enter into the
making of a public opinion and that these forces
must never be disregarded in the estimate of the
quality and stability of a prevalent public opin­
ion.
Francis E. Leupp, writing in the Atlantic
Monthly for February, 1910, on "The Waning
Power of the Press," remarks that Mayor Gay­
nor's comments shortly after his election in 1909
"led up to the conclusion that in our common sense
generation nobody cares what the newspapers
say." Mr. Leupp continues: "Unflattering as
such a verdict may be, probably the majority of
a community if polled as a jury would concur
in it. The airy dismissal of some proposition
as 'mere newspaper talk' is heard at every social
gathering until one who is brought up to regard
the press as a mighty factor in modern civiliza..
 THE GROUP AND HERD 73
tion is tempted to wonder whether it has actually
iost the power it used to wield among us."
And H. L. Mencken, writing in the same
magazine for March, 1914, declares that "one
of the principal marks of an educated man, in­
deed, is the fact that he does not take his opinions
from newspapers-not, at any rate, from the mil­
itant, crusading newspapers. On the contrary,
his attitude toward them is almost always one of
frank cynicism, with indifference as its mildest
form and contempt as its commonest. He knows
that they are constantly falling into false reason­
ing about the things within his personal knowl­
edge,-that is, within the narrow circle of his
special education,-and so he assumes that they
make the same, or even worse, errors about other
things, whether intellectual or moral. This as­
sumption, it may be said at once, is quite justified
by the facts."
The second point of view holds that the daily
press and the other leading forces merely accept,
reflect and intensify established public opinion
and are, therefore, responsible for the uniformity
of public reaction. A vivid statement of the point
of view of the man who typifies this group is
found in Everett Dean Martin's volume on
"The Behavior of Crowds." He says: 1 "The
modern man has in the printing press a wonder-
1 Page 45-
74 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
fully effective means for perpetuating crowd•
movements and keeping great masses of people
constantly under the sway of certain crowd­
ideas. Every crowd-group has its magazines,
press agents, and special 'literature' with which
it continually harangues its members and possi­
ble converts. Many books, and especially certain
works of fiction of the 'best seller' type, are
clearly reading mob phenomena."
There is a third group which perhaps comes
nearer the truth, which holds that the press, just
as other mediums of education or dissemination,
brings about a very definite change in public
op1mon. A most graphic illustration of what
such mediums can do to change opinions upon
fundamental and important matters is the woman
suffrage question and its victory over established
points of view. The press, the pulpit, the lecture
platform, the motion pictures and the other me­
diums for reaching the public brought about a
complete popular conversion. Other examples of
the change that may be brought about in public
opinion in this way, by such institutions of
authority, is the present attitude towards birth
control and towards health education.
Naturally the press, like other institutions
which present facts or opinions, is restricted, ·
often unconsciously, sometimes consciously, by
various controlling conditions. Certain people
 THE GROUP AND HERD 75
talk of the censorship enacted by the prejudices
and predispositions of the public itself. Some,
such as Upton Sinclair, ascribe to the advertisers
a conscious and powerful control of publications.
Others, like Walter Lippmann, find that an effec­
tive barrier between the public and the event ex­
ists in th_e powerful influence which, he says, is
exerted in certain cases on the press by the so­
called quality public which the newspapers' ad­
vertisers wish to reach and among whom the
newspapers must circulate if the advertising is
to be successful. Mr. Lippmann observes that
although such a restriction may exist, much of
what may be attributed to censorship in the news­
paper, often is actually inadequate presentation
of the events it seeks to describe.
On this point he says: 1 "It follows that in
the reporting of strikes, the easiest way is to let
the news be uncovered by the overt act, and to
describe the event as the story of inter£erence
with the reader's life. This is where his attention
is first aroused and his interest most easily en­
listed. A great deal, I think myself, of the crucial
part of what looks to the worker and the reformer
as deliberate misrepresentation on the part of
newspapers, is the direct outcome of a practical
difficulty in uncovering the news, and the emo­
tional difficulty of making distinct facts interest-
1 "Public Opinion" (page 350).
76 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
ing unless, as Emerson says, we can 'perceive'
(them) and can 'set about translating (them)
at once into parallel facts.'"
In view then of the possibility of a malleable
public opinion the counsel on public relations, de­
siring to obtain a hearing for any given cause,
simply utilizes existent channels to obtain expres­
sion for the point of view he represents. How
this is done will be considered later.
Because of the importance of channels of
thought communication, it is vital for the public
relations counsel to study carefully the relation­
ship between public opinion and the organs that
maintain it or that influence it to change. We
shall look into this interaction and its effect in
the next chapter.
 CHAPTER III
THE INTERACTION OF PUBLIC OPINION WITH THE
FORCES THAT HELP TO MAKE IT

T HE public and the press, or for that matter,

the public and any force that modifies pub­
lic opinion, interact. Action and interaction are
continually going on between the forces pro­
jected out to the public and the public itself.
The public relations counsel must understand this
fact in its broadest and most detailed implications.
He must understand not only what these various
forces are, but he must be able to evaluate their
relative powers with fair accuracy. Let us con­
sider again the case of a newspaper, as represent­
ative of other mediums of communication.
"We print," says the New York Times, "all the
news that's fit to print." Immediately the ques­
tion arises ( as Elmer Davis, the historian of the
Times tells us that it did when the motto was
first adopted) what news is fit to print? By what
standard is the editorial decision reached which
includes one kind of news and excludes another
kind? The Times itself has not been, in its long
17,
78 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
and conspicuously successful career, entirely free
from difficulties on this point.
Thus in "The History of The New York
Times," Mr. Davis feels the need for justifying
the extent to which that paper featured Theo­
dore Tilton's action against the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher for alienation of Mrs. Tilton's
affections and his conduct with her. Mr. Davis
says (pages 124-125): "No doubt a good many
readers of the Times thought that the paper
was giving an undue amount of space to this
chronicle of sin and suffering. Those complaints
come in often enough even in these days from
readers who appreciate the paper's general re­
luctance to display news of this sort, and wonder
why a good general rule should occasionally be
violated. But there was a reason in the Beecher
case, as there has usually been a reason in similar
affairs since. Dr. Beecher was one of the most
prominent clergymen in the country; there was a
natural curiosity as to whether he was practicing
what he preached. One of the counsel at the
trial declared that 'all Christendom was hanging
on its outcome.' Full reporting of its course was
not a mere pandering to vulgar curiosity, but a
recognition of the value of the case as news."
The simple fact that such a slogan can exist
and be accepted is for our purpose an important
point. Somewhere there must be a standard to
 THE GROUP AND HERD 79
which the editors of the Times can conform, as
well as a large clientele of constant readers to
whom that standard is satisfactory. "Fit" must
be defined by the editors of the Times in a way
which meets with the approval of enough persons
to enable the paper to maintain its reading pub­
lic. As soon, however, as the definition is at­
tempted, difficulties arise.
Professor W. G. Bleyer, in an article in his
book on journalism, first stresses the importance
of completeness in the news columns of a paper,
then goes on to say that "the only important
limitations to completeness are those imposed by
the commonly accepted ideas of decency embodied
in the words, 'All the news that's fit to print'
and by the rights of privacy. Carefully edited
newspapers discriminate between what the public
is entitled to know and what an individual has
a right to keep private."
On the other hand, when Professor Bleyer
attempts to define what news is fit to print and
what the public is entitled to know, he discusses
generalizations capable of wide and frequently
inconsistent interpretation. "News," says he, "is
anything timely which is significant to newspaper
readers in their relations to the community, the
state and the nation."
Who is to determine what is significant and
what is not? Who is to decide which of the in-
So CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
dividual's relations to the community are safe­
guarded by his right of privacy and which are
not? Such a definition tells us nothing more
definite than does the slogan which it attempts
to define. We must look further for a standard
by which these definitions are applied. There
must be a consensus of public opinion on which
the newspaper falls back for its standards.
The truth is that while it appears to be form­
ing the public opinion on fundamental matters,
the press is often conforming to it.
It is the office of the public relations counsel
to determine the interaction between the public,
and the press and the other mediums affecting
public opinion. It is as important to conform
to the standards of the organ which projects
ideas as it is to present to this organ such ideas
as will conform to the fundamental understand­
ing and appreciation of the public to which they
are ultimately to appeal. There is as much truth
in the proposition that the public leads institu­
tions as in the contrary proposition that the in­
stitutions lead the public.
As an illustration of the manner in which
newspapers are inclined to accept the judgments
of their readers in presenting material to the�.
we have this anecdote which Rollo Ogden tells
in the Atlantic Monthly for July, 1900, about a
 THE GROUP AND HERD 81
letter which Wendell Phillips wished to have pub­
lished in a Boston paper.
"The editor read it over, and said, 'Mr. Phil­
lips, that is a very good and interesting letter,
and I shall be glad to publish it; but I wish you
would consent to strike out the last paragraph.'
" 'Why,' said Phillips, 'that paragraph is the
precise thing for which I wrote the whole letter.
Without that it would be pointless.'
" 'Oh, I see that,' replied the editor; 'and what
you say is perfectly true! I fully agree with it
all myself. Yet it is one of those things which
it will not do to say publicly. However, if you
insist upon it, I will publish it as it stands.'
"It was published the next morning, and along
with it a short editorial reference to it, saying
that a letter from Mr. Phillips would be found
in another column, and that it was extraordinary
that so keen a mind as his should have fallen into
the palpable absurdity contained in the last para­
graph."
Recognition of this fact comes from a number
of different sources. H. L. Mencken recognizes
that the public runs the press as much as the press
runs the public.
"The primary aim of all of them," says
Mr. Mencken,1 "not less when they play the secu-
1A1lan1ic Monthl1, March, 1914-
82 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
tar lokanaan than when they play the mere news­
monger, was to please the crowd, and to give a
good show; and the way they set about giving
that good show was by first selecting a deserving
victim, and then putting him magnificently to the
torture.
"This was their method when they were per­
forming for their own profit only, when their
one motive was to make the public read their
paper; but it was still their motive when they
were battling bravely and unselfishly for the pub­
lic good, and so discharging the highest duty of
their profession."
There are interesting, if somewhat obscure,
examples of the complementary working of vari­
ous forces. In the field of the motion pictures,
for example, the producers, the actors and the
press, in their support, have continually waged
a battle against censorship. Undoubtedly censor­
ship of the motion pictures is in its practical work­
ings an economic and artistic handicap. Censor­
ship, however, will continue in spite of the pro­
ducers as long as there is a willingness on the
part of the public to accept this censorship. The
public, on the whole, has refused to join the fight
against censorship, because there is a more or le�s
articulate belief that children, if not women,
should be protected from seeing shocking sights,
such as murders visibly enacted, the taking of
 THE GROUP AND HERD 83
drugs, immoralities and other acts which might
offend or suggest harmful imitation.
"Damaged Goods," before its presentation to
America in 1913, was analyzed by the public re­
lations counsel, who helped to produce the play.
He recognized that unless that part of the public
sentiment which believed in education and truth
could be lifted from that part of public opinion
which condemned the mentioning of sex matters,
"Damaged Goods" would fail. The producers,
therefore, did not try to educate the public by
presenting this play as such, but allowed group
leaders and groups interested in education to
come to the support of Brieux's drama and, in a
sense, to sponsor the production.
Proof that the public and the institutions that
make public opinion interact is shown in instances
in which books were stifled because of popular
disapproval at one time and then brought forward
by popular demand at a later time when public
opinion had altered. Religious and very early
scientific works are among such books.
A more recent instance is the announcement
made by Judge, a weekly magazine, that it would
support the fight for light wine and beer. Judge
took this stand because it believed in the prin­
ciple of personal freedom and also because it
deemed that public sentiment was in favor of
light wine and beer as a substitute for absolute
84 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
prohibition. Judge belteved its stand would please
its readers.
Presumably writing of newspaper morality,
Mr. Mencken, in his article just quoted, finds at
the end of it that he has "written of popular
morality very copiously, and of newspaper moral­
ity very little.
"But," says Mr. Mencken, "as I have said be­
fore, the one is the other. The newspaper must
adapt its pleading to its clients' moral limitation
just as the trial lawyer also must adapt his plead­
ing to the jury's limitations. Neither may like
the job, but both must face it to gain the larger
end."
Writing on the other hand from the point
of view of the man who feels that the public taste
requires no justification, Ralph Pulitzer nev­
ertheless agrees with Mr. Mencken that the opin­
ion of the press is set by the public; and he jus­
tifies "muckraking" 1 by finding it neither "ex­
traordinary nor culpable that people and press
should be more interested in the polemical than
in the platitudinous ; in blame than in painting
the lily; in attack than in sending laudatory coals
to Newcastle."
Even Mr. Leupp I concludes that "whatever

1 Atlantic Monthly, June, 1914-

1 Francis E. Leupp, "The Waning Power of the Press," Atltm­
tie Monthly, Ju1y, 1910.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 85
we may say of the modern press on its less com­
mendable side, we are bound to admit that news­
papers, like governments, fairly reflect the people
they serve. Charles Dudley Warner once went
so far as to say that no matter how objection­
able the character of a paper may be, it is always
a trifle better than the patrons on whom it relies
for its support."
Similarly, from an unusually wide experience
on a paper as highly considered, perhaps, as any
in America, Rollo Ogden claims this give and
take between the public and the press is vital to a
just conception of American journalism.
"The editor does not nonchalantly project his
thoughts into the void. He listens for the echo
of his words. His relation to his supporters is
not unlike Gladstone's definition of the intimate
connection between the orator and his audience.
As the speaker gets from his hearers in mist what
he gives back in shower, so the newspaper re­
ceives from the public as well as gives to it. Too
often it gets as dust what it gives back as mud;
but that does not alter the relation. Action and
reaction are all the while going on between the
press and its patrons. Hence it follows that the
responsibility for the more crying evils of jour­
nalism must be divided." 1
1 Rollo Ogden, "Some Aspects of Journalism," .411anlu:
Monthly, July, 1900.
86 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
The same interaction goes on in connection
with all the other forces that mould public opin­
ion. The preacher upholds the ideals of society.
He leads his flock whither they indicate a willing­
ness to be led. Ibsen creates a revolution when
society is ripe for it. The public responds to
finer music and better motion pictures and de­
mands improvements. "Give the people what
they want" is only half sound. What they want
and what they get are fused by some mysterious
alchemy. The press, the lecturer, the screen and
the public lead and are led by each other.
 CHAPTER IV
THE POWER OF INTERACTING FORCES THAT GO TO
MAKE UP PUBLIC OPINION

T HE influence of any force which attempts

to modify public opinion depends upon the
success with which it is able to enlist established
points of view. A middle ground exists between
the hypothesis that the public is stubborn and
the hypothesis that it is malleable. To a large
degree the press, the schools, the churches, mo­
tion pictures, advertising, the lecture platform
and radio all con£orm to the demands of the pub­
lic. But to an equally large degree the public
responds to the influence of these very same
mediums of communication.
Some analysts believe that the public has no
opinions except those which various institutions
provide ready made for it. From Mr. Mencken
and others it would almost seem to follow that
newspapers and other mediums have no standards
except those which the public provides, and that
therefore they are substantially without influence
upon the public mind. The truth of the matter,
..,.
88 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
as I have pointed out, lies somewhere between
these two extreme positions.
In other words, the public relations counsel
who thinks clearly on the problem of public opin­
ion and public relations will credit the two fac­
tors of public opinion respectively with their in­
fluence and effectiveness in mutual interaction.
Ray Stannard Baker says 1 that "while there
was a gesture of unconcern, of don't care what
they say, on the part of the leaders ( of the Ver­
sailles con£erence), no aspect of the conference
in reality worried them more than the news,
opinions, guesses that went out by scores of thou­
sands of words every night, and the reactions
which came back so promptly from them. The
problem of publicity consumed an astonishing
amount of time, anxiety and discussion among
the leaders of the con£erence. It influenced the
entire procedure, it was partly instrumental in
driving the four heads of States finally into
small secret conferences. The full achievement
of publicity on one occasion-Wilson's Italian
note--nearly broke up the conference and over­
turned a government. The bare threat of it,
upon other occasions, changed the course of the
discussion. Nothing concerned the con£erence
more than what democracy was going to do with
diplomacy."
1 "Publicity at Paris," Nrw York Ti,r,;s, April 2, 1932-
 THE GROUP AND HERD 89
For like causes we find great industries­
motion pictures being one and organized baseball
another-appointing as directors of their activi­
ties men prominent in public life, doing this to
assure the public of the honest and social-minded
conduct of their members. The Franklin Roose­
velts are in this class, the Will Hayses and the
Landises.
A striking example of this interaction is illus­
trated in what occurred at the Hague Conference
a few years ago. The effect of the Hague Con­
ference's conduct upon the public was such that
officials were forced to open the Conference doors
to the representatives of newspapers. On June
16th, 1922, a note came from The Hague by
the Associated Press that Foreign Minister Van
Karnebeek of Holland capitulated to the world's
desire to be informed of what was going on
by admitting correspondents. Early announce­
ment that "the press cannot be admitted" was,
according to the report, followed by anxious
emissaries begging the journalists to have pa­
tience. Editorials printed in Holland pointed out
that the best way to insure public cooperation
was to take the public into its confidence. Min­
ister van Karnebeek, who had been at Washing­
ton, was thoroughly awake to the invaluable serv­
ice the press of the world rendered there. One
editorial here pointed out that public statements
90 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
"were used by the diplomats themselves as a
happy means of testing popular opinion upon the
various projects offered in council. How many
'trial balloons' were sent up in this fashion, no­
body can recall. Nevertheless each delegation
maintained clipping bureaus, which were brought
up to date every morning and which gave the
delegates accurate information as to the state of
mind at home. Thus it came about that world
opinion was ready and anxious to receive the
finished work of the conference and that it was
prompt to bring individual recalcitrant groups
into line."
Let me quote from the New York Evening
Post of July, 1922, as to the important interac­
tion of these forces : "The importance of the press
in guiding public opinion and the cooperation be­
tween the members of the press and the men who
express public opinion in action, which has grown
up since the Peace Conference at Paris, were
stressed by Lionel Curtis, who arrived on the
Adriatic yesterday to attend the Institute of Pol­
itics, which opens on July 27 at Williamstown.
'Perhaps for the first time in history,' he said,
'the men whose business it is to make public
opinion were collected for some months under
the same roof with the officials whose task in life
is the actual conduct of foreign affairs. In the
long run, foreign policy is determined by public
 THE GROUP AND HERD 91
opinion. It was impossible in Paris not to be
impressed by the immense advantage of bringing
into close contact the writers who, through the
press, are making public opinion and the men
who have to express their opinion in actual
policy.'"
Harvard University, likewise, appreciating the
power of public opinion over its own activities,
has recently appointed a counsel on public rela­
tions to make its aims clear to the public.
The institutions which make public opinion
conform to the demands of the public. The
public responds to an equally large degree to
these institutions. Such fights as that made by
Colli"er's Weekly for pure food control show this.
The Safety First movement, by its use of every
form of appeal, from poster to circular, from
lecture to law enforcement, from motion pic­
tures to "safety weeks," is bringing about a
gradual change in the attitude of a safety­
deserving public towards the taking of unnec­
essary risks.
The Rockefeller Foundation, confronted with
the serious problem of the hookworm in the South
and in other localities, has brought about a
change in the habits of large sections of rural
populations by analysis, investigation, applied
medical principles, and public education.
The moulder of public opinion must enlist the
92. CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
established point of view. This is true of the
press as well as of other forces. Mr. Mencken
mixes cynicism and truth when he declares that
the chief difficulty confronting a newspaper which
tries to carry out independent and thoughtful
policies "does not lie in the direction of the board
of directors, but in the direction of the public
which buys the paper." 1
The New York Tribune, as an example of edi­
torial bravery, points out in an advertisement pub­
lished May 23, 1922, that though "news knows
no order in the making" and though "a news­
paper must carry the news, both pleasant and
unpleasant," nevertheless, it is the duty of any
newspaper to realize that there is a possibility
of selective action, and that "in times of stress
and bleak despair a newspaper has a hard and
fast duty to perform in keeping up the morale
of the community."
Indeed, the instances are frequent and accessi­
ble to the recollection of any reader in which
newspapers have consciously maintained a point
of view toward which the public is either hostile
or cold.
Occasionally, of course, even the established
point of view is alterable. The two Baltimore
Suns do brave their public and have been braving
1 H. L Mencken on Journalism. The Nation, April :.a6, 1922.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 93
their public for some time, not entirely without
success. As severe a critic as Oswald Garrison
Villard points out that though modern Baltimore
is a difficult city to serve, yet the two Suns have
courageously and consistently stood for the poli­
cies of their editors and have refused to yield
to pressure from any source. To the public re­
lations counsel this is a striking illustration of
the give and take between the public and the
institutions which attempt to mould public opin­
ion. The two interact upon each other, so that
it is sometimes difficult to tell which is one and
which is the other.
The World and the Evening World of New
York, pride themselves upon the following cam­
paigns which are listed in The World Almanac
of 1922. They illustrate this interaction.

"Conference on Limitation of Armament

Grew from 'World's' Plea
"Bearing in mind in 1921 the injunction of
its founder, Joseph Pulitzer, 'to fight always for
progress and reform, and having led the cam­
paign for disarmament in advance of any other
demand therefor, the World covered the Wash­
ington Conference on Limitation of Armament
in a comprehensive way. • • •
94 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
"Measures Advocated by 'World' Made Law

"During the 1921 session of the New York

Legislature many measures advocated by the
World were enacted. One of this paper's chief
achievements was the passage of a resolution
broadening the power of the Lockwood Housing
Committee, enabling it to inquire into high finance
as related to the building trades situation.
"The World was instrumental in obtaining
the Anti-Theater Ticket Speculator Law. It also
brought about a change in bills to abolish the
Daylight-Saving Law so that municipalities might
enact their own daylight-saving ordinances. It
was successful in its campaign against the search­
and-seizure and other drastic features of the
State Prohibition Enforcement Law.

"The 'World' Told Facts About Ku Klux Klan

"The World on September 6 commenced the

publication of a series of articles telling the truth
about the Ku Klux Klan. Twenty-six news­
papers, in widely separated sections of the United
States, joined the World in the publication; some
had been invited to participate, others requested
the World to let them use the articles. All these
newspapers realized that the only motive back
of the World's publication was public service.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 95
It was their desire to share in this service, and
the World is proud that they asked only assur­
ance of its traditional accuracy and fairness be­
fore they saw their way clear to cooperation.
"The World is proud that the completed record
shows no evidence either that it was terrified by
threats or was goaded by abuse into departures
from its object of presenting the facts honestly
and without exaggeration.

"Changes in Motor Vehicle Laws

"As a result of a crusade to lessen automobile
fatalities in New York City and State, the World
won a victory when changes in the motor vehicle
laws were made. The paper printed exclusive
stories giving the motor and license numbers of
cars stolen daily in this city, and started a cam­
paign against outlaw taxicabs and 'financially
irresponsible drivers and owners.

"'Evening World's' Achievements

"The Evening World continued its campaign
against the coal monopoly and the high coal prices
charged in New York City-a state of affairs that
has been constantly and vigorously exposed in
Evening World columns. After consultation
with leading Senators at Washington, several
96 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
bills were introduced in Congress to alleviate the
conditions."
I am letting the World speak for itself merely
as an example of what many splendid newspapers
have accomplished as leaders in public move­
ments. The New York Evening Post is another
example, it having long led popular demand for
vocational guidance and control.
The public relations counsel cannot base his
work merely upon the acceptance of the principle
that the public and its authorities interact. He
must go deeper than that and discover why it is
that a public opinion exists independently of
church, school, press, lecture platform and mo­
tion picture screen-how far this public opinion
affects these institutions and how far these in­
stitutions affect public opinion. He must dis­
cover what the stimuli are to which public opin­
ion responds most readily.
Study of the mirrors of the public mind-the
press, the motion pictures, the lecture platform
and the others-reveal to him what their stand­
ards are and those of the groups they reach.
This is not enough, however. To his understand­
ing of what he actually can measure he must add
a thorough knowledge of the principles which
govern individual and group action. A funda­
mental study of group and individual psychology
is required be£ore the public relations counsel can
 THE GROUP AND HERD 97
determine how readily individuals or groups will
accept modifications of viewpoints or policies,
which they have already imposed upon their re-
spective mediums.
No idea or opinion is an isolated factor. It
is surrounded and influenced by precedent,
authority, habit and all the other human motiva­
tions.
For a lucid conception of the functions, power
and social utility of the public relations counsel
it is vitally important to have a clear grasp of
the fundamentals with which he must work.
 CHAPTER V
AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF
PUBLIC MOTIVATION IS NECESSARY TO THE
WORK OF THE PUBLIC RELATIONS
COUNSEL

B EFORE defining the fundamental motiva­

tions of society, let me mention those out­
ward signs on which psychologists base their
study of conditions.
Psychological habits, or as Mr. Lippmann calls
them, "stereotypes," are shorthand by which
human effort is minimized. They are so clearly
and commonly understood that every one will
immediately respond to the mention of a stereo­
type within his personal experience. The words
"capitalist" or "boy scout" bring out definite im­
ages to the hearer. These images are more com­
prehensible than detailed descriptions. Chorus
girl, woman lawyer, politician, detective, finan­
cier are clean-cut concepts and capable of defi­
nition. We all have stereotypes which minimize
not only our thinking habits but also the ordi�ty
routine of life.
Mr. Lippmann
. finds that the stereotypes at the
g8
 THE GROUP AND HERD 99
center of the code by which various sections of
the public live "largely determine what group of
facts we shall see and in what light we shall see
them." That is why, he says, "with the best will
in the world, the news policy of a journal tends
to support its editorial policy, why a capitalist
sees one set of facts and certain aspects of human
nature--literally sees them; his socialist opponent
another set and other aspects, and why each re­
gards the other as unreasonable or perverse, when
the real difference between them is a difference
of perception. That difference is imposed by the
difference between the capitalist and socialist pat­
tern of stereotypes. 'There are no classes in
America,' writes an American editor. 'The his­
tory of all hitherto existing society is the history
of class struggles,' says the Communist Mani­
festo. If you have the editor's pattern in your
mind, you will see vividly the facts that confirm
it, vaguely and ineffectively those that contradict.
If you have the communist pattern, you will not
only look for different things, but you will see
with a totally different emphasis what you and
the editor happen to see in common."
The stereotype is the basis of a large part of
the work of the public relations counsel. Let
us try to inquire where the stereotype originates
-why it is so influential and why from a prac­
tical standpoint it is so tremendously difficult to
100 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
affect or change stereotypes or to attempt to sub­
stitute one set of stereotypes for another.
Mr. Martin attempts to answer questions such
as these in his volume on "The Behavior of
Crowds." By "crowds" Mr. Martin does not
mean merely a physical aggregation of a number
of persons. To Mr. Martin the crowd is rather
a state of mind, "the peculiar mental condition
which sometimes occurs when people think and
act together, either immediately where the mem­
bers of the group are present and in close con­
tact, or remotely, as when they affect one another
in a certain way through the medium of an or­
ganization, a party or sect, the press, etc."
Motives of social behavior are based on indi­
vidual instincts. Individual instincts, on the
other hand, must yield to group needs. Mr.
Martin pictures society as an aggregation of
people who have sacrificed individual freedom in
order to remain within the group. This sacrifice
of freedom on the part of individuals in the
groups leads its members to resist all efforts at
fundamental changes in the group code. Because
all have made certain sacrifices, reasons are de­
veloped why such sacrifices must be insisted upon
at all times. The "logic-proof" compartment is
the result of this unwillingness to accept changes.
"What has been so painstakingly built up is
not to be lightly destroyed. Each group, there-
 THE GROUP AND HERD IOI

fore, within itself, considers its own standards

ultimate and indisputable, and tends to dismiss
all contrary or different standards as indefensi­
ble.
"Even an honest, critical understanding of the
demands of the opposing crowd is discouraged,
possibly because it is rightly felt that the critical
habit of mind is as destructive of one crowd­
complex as the other, and the old crowd prefers
to remain intact and die in the last ditch rather
than risk dissolution, even with the promise of
averting a revolution. Hence the Romans were
willing to believe that the Christians worshiped
the head of an ass. The medieval Catholics, even
at Leo's court, failed to grasp the meaning of
the outbreak in North Germany. Thousands
saw in the reformation only the alleged fact that
the monk Luther wanted to marry a wife .... " 1
The main satisfaction, Mr. Martin thinks,
which the individual derives from his group asso­
ciation is the satisfaction of his vanity through
the creation of an enlarged self-importance.
The Freudian theories upon which Mr. Mar­
tin relies very largely for his argument lead to
the conclusion that what Mr. Henry Watterson
has said of the suppression of news applies
equally to the suppression of individual desire.
Neither will suppress. With the normal person,
1 "Tbe Behavior of Crowds" (page 193).
102 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the result of this social suppression is to produce
an individual who conforms with sufficient close­
ness to the standards of his group to enable him
to remain comfortably within it.
The tendency, however, of the instincts and
desires which are thus ruled out of conduct is
somehow or other, when the conditions are favor­
able, to seek some avenue of release and satis­
faction. To the individual most of these avenues
of release are closed. He cannot, for example,
indulge his instinct of pugnacity without running
foul of the law. The only release which the in­
dividual can have is one which commands, how�
ever briefly, the approval of his fellows. That
is why Mr. Martin calls crowd psychology and
crowd activity "the result of forces hidden in a
personal and unconscious psyche of the members
of the crowd, forces which are merely released
by social gatherings of a certain sort." The
crowd enables the individual to express himself
according to his desire and without restraint.
He says further, "Every crowd 'boosts for'
itself, gives itself airs, speaks with oracular
finality, regards itself as morally superior, and
will, so far as it has the power, lord it over every
one. Notice how each group and section in so­
ciety, so far as it permits itself to think as crowd;
claims to be 'the people.' "
As an ill�stration of the boosting principle Mr.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 103

Martin points out the readiness of most groups

to enter upon conflict of one kind or another with
opposing groups. "Nothing so easily catches
general attention and grips a crowd as a contest
of any kind," he says. "The crowd unconsciously
identifies its members with one or the other com­
petitor. Success enables the winning crowd to
'crow over' the losers. Such an action becomes
symbolical, and is utilized by the ego to enhance
its feeling of importance. In society this egoism
tends to take the form of the desire for domi­
nance." According to Mr. Martin, that is why
" ... whenever any attempt is being made to
secure recruits for a movement or a point of view
the leaders intuitively assume and reiterate the
certainty of ultimate victory."
Two points which Mr. Martin makes seem to
me most important. In the first place, Mr. Mar­
tin points out with absolute justice that the
crowd-mind is by no means limited to the igno­
rant. "Any class," he says, "may behave and
think as a crowd-in fact, it usually does so in
so far as its class interests are concerned."
Neither is the crowd mind to be found only when
there is a physical agglomeration of people.
This fact is important to an understanding of
the problems of the public relations counsel, be­
cause he must bear in mind always that the read­
ers of advertisements, the recipients of letters,
104 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the solitary listener at a radio speech, the reader
of the morning newspapers are mysteriously part
of the crowd-mind.
When Bergson came to America about a dec­
ade ago, men and women flocked to his classes,
both the French and the English sessions. It
was obvious to the observer that numbers of dis­
ciples who conscientiously attended the full
course of lectures understood almost nothing of
what was being said. Their behavior was an
instance of the crowd-mind.
Everybody read "Main Street." Each reader
in his own study tried to react as a crowd-mind.
They felt as they thought they ought to.
Initiation scandals, where the crowd-mind has
created a brutality not possible to individuals,
take place not only in brotherhoods among
what Mr. Martin calls "the lower classes," but
also among well-bred college youths and the fra­
ternal orders of successful business and profes­
sional men. A more specific instance is the foot­
ball game, with its manifestations of the crowd­
mind among a selected group of individuals.
The Ku Klux Klan has numbered among its vio­
lent supporters some of the "best" famities of
the affected localities.
The crowd is a state of mind which permeates
society and its individuals at almost all times.
What becomes articulate in times of stress under
 THE GROUP AND HERD 105

great excitement is present in the mind of the in­

dividual at most times and explains in part why
popular opinion is so positive and so intolerant
of contrary points of view. The college profes­
sor in his study on a peaceful summer day is
just as likely to be reacting as a unit of a crowd­
mind, as any member of a lynching party in
Texas or Georgia.
Mr. Trotter in his book, "Instincts of the Herd
in Peace and War," 1 gives us further material
for study. He discusses the underlying causes
and results of "herd" tendencies, stressing the
herd's cohesiveness.
The tendency the group has to standardize the
habits of individuals and to assign logical reasons
for them is an important factor in the work of the
public relations counsel. The predominant point
of view, according to Mr. Trotter, which trans­
lates a rationalized point of view into an axio­
matic truth, arises and derives its strength from
the fact that it enlists herd support for the point
of view of the individual. This explains why it is
so easy to popularize many ideas.
"The cardinal quality of the herd is homo­
geneity." 2 The biological significance of homo-
1 W. Trotter, "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War."
ll It should be explained at the very outset that Mr. Trotter
does not use the term "herd" in any derogatory sense. He ap­
proaches the entire subject from the point of vi�w of the biolo­
Jist and compares the gregarious instinct in man to the same
instinct iD lower forms of life.
106 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
geneity lies in its survival value. The wolf pack
is many times as strong as the combined strength
of each of its individual members. These re­
sults of homogeneity have created the "herd"
point of view.
One of the psychological results of homogeneity
is the fact that physical loneliness is a real terror
to the gregarious animal, and that association
with the herd causes a feeling of security. In
man this fear of loneliness creates a desire for
identification with the herd in matters of opinion.
It is here, says Mr. Trotter,1 that we find "the
ineradicable impulse mankind has always dis­
played towards segregation into classes. Each
one of us in his opinions and his conduct, in mat­
ters of amusement, religion, and politics, is com­
pelled to obtain the support of a class, of a herd
within the herd."
Says Mr. Trotter: 11 "The effect of it will
clearly be to make acceptable those suggestions
which come from the herd, and those only. It is
of especial importance to note that this suggesti­
bility is not general, and it is only herd sugges­
tions which are rendered acceptable by the action
of instinct, and man is, for example, notoriously
insensitive to the suggestions of experience. The
history of what is rather grandiosely called hu-
1 "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War" (page 33).
t Ibid.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 107

man progress everywhere illustrates this. If we

look back upon the developments of some such
thing as the steam engine, we cannot fail to be
struck by the extreme obviousness of each ad­
vance, and how obstinately it was refused assim­
ilation until the machine almost invented itself."
The workings of the gregarious instinct in
man result frequently in conduct of the most
remarkable complexity, but it is characterized by
all of the qualities of instinctive action. Such
conduct is usually rationalized, but this does not
conceal its real character.
We may sincerely think that we vote the Re­
publican ticket because we have thought out the
issues of the political campaign and reached our
decision in the cold-blooded exercise of judgment.
The fact remains that it is just as likely that we
voted the Republican ticket because we did so
the year before or because the Republican plat­
form contains a declaration of principle, no mat­
ter how vague, which awakens profound emo­
tional response in us, or because our neighbor
whom we do not like happens to be a Democrat.
Mr. Lippmann remarks: 1 "For the most part
we do not first see and then define, we define first
and then see. In the great booming, buzzing con­
fusion of the outer world we pick out of the
clutter what is already defined for us, and we
1 "Public Opinion" (page 81).
108 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
tend to perceive that which we have picked out
in the form stereotyped for us by our culture."
Mr. Trotter cites as a few of the examples of
rationalization the mechanism which "enables the
European lady who wears rings in her ears to
smile at the barbarism of the colored lady who
wears her rings in her nose" 1 and the process
which enables the Englishman "who is amused
by the African chieftain's regard for the top hat
as an essential piece of the furniture of state to
ignore the identity of his own behavior when
he goes to church beneath the same tremendous
ensign."
The gregarious tendency in man, according to
Mr. Trotter, results in five characteristics which
he displays in common with all gregarious ani­
mals.
"He is intolerant and fearful of solitude,
I.
physical or mental." 2 The same urge which
drives the buffalo into the herd and man into the
city requires on the part of the latter a sense of
spiritual identification with the herd. Man is
never so much at home as when on the band
wagon.
2. "He is more sensitive to the voice of the
herd than to any other influence." Mr. Trotter
illustrates this characteristic in a paragraph which
1 "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War'' (page 38).
1 Ibid. (page n:z et seq.). Italics mine.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 109
is worth quoting in its entirety. He says: "It
(the voice of the herd) can inhibit or stimulate
his thought and conduct. It is the source of his
moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and
philosophy. It can endow him with energy, cour­
age, and endurance, and can as easily take these
away. It can make him acquiesce in his own pun­
ishment and embrace his executioner, submit to
poverty, bow to tyranny, and sink without com­
plaint under starvation. Not merely can it make
him accept hardship and suffering unresistingly,
but it can make him accept as truth the explana­
tion that his perfectly preventable afflictions are
sublimely just and gentle. It is this acme of the
power of herd suggestion that is perhaps the
most absolutely incontestable proof of the pro­
foundly gregarious nature of man."
3 .• "He is subject to the passions of the pack
in his mob violence and the passions of the herd
in his panics."
4. "He is remarkably susceptible to leader­
ship." Mr. Trotter points out that the need for
leadership is often satisfied by leadership of a
quality which cannot stand analysis, and which
must therefore satisfy some impulse rather than
the demands of reason.
5. "His relations with his fellows are de­
pendent upon the recognition of him as a member
of the herd."
110 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
The gregarious tendency, Mr. Trotter believes,
is biologically fundamental. , He finds therefore
that the herd reaction is not confined to outbreaks
such as panics and mob violence, but that it is a
constant factor in all human thinking and feeling.
Discussing the results of the sensitiveness of the
individual to the herd point of view, Mr. Trotter
says in part, "To believe must be an ineradicable
natural bias of man, or in other words, an affirma­
tion, positive or negative, is more readily accepted
than rejected, unless its source is definitely dis­
associated from the herd. Man is not, therefore,
suggestible by fits and starts, not merely in panics
and mobs, 1mder hypnosis, and so forth, but al­
ways, everywhere, and under any circumstances."
The suggestibility of people to ideas which are
part of the standards of their groups could not
be more succinctly expressed than in the old com­
mand, "When in Rome do as the Romans."
Psychologists have defined for the public re­
lations counsel the fundamental equipment of
the individual mind and its relation to group re­
actions. We have seen the motivations of the
individual mind-the motivations of the group
mind. We have seen the characteristics in
thought and action of the individual and the
group. All these things we have touched on,
though briefly, since they form the ground-work
of knowledge for the public relations counseL
Their application will be discussed later.
 CHAPTER VI
THE GROUP AND HERD ARE THE BASIC MECHA-
NISMS OF PUBLIC CHANGE

T HE institutions that make public opinion

carry on against a background which is in
itself a controlling factor. The real character of
this controlling background we shall take up
later. Let us first consider some examples that
prove its existence-then we can look into its
origin and its standards.
Powerful standards control the very institu­
tions which are supposed to help form public opin­
ion. It is necessary to understand the origin,
the working and the strength of these institutions
in order to understand the institutions themselves
and their effect upon the public.
In tracing the interaction of institution upon
public and public upon institution, one finds a
circle of obedience and leadership. The press, the
school and other leaders of thought are them­
selves working in a background which they can­
not entirely control.
Let us turn to the press again for a text.
That the press is so frequently unable to
Ill
112 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
achieve a result on which its combined members
are unanimously set makes it evident that the
press itself is working in a medium which it
cannot entirely control. The New York Times
motto, "All the news that's fit to print," drives
this point home. The standards of fitness created
in the minds of the publishers express the point
of view of a mass of readers, and this enables the
newspapers to achieve and maintain circulation
and financial success.
The very fact that newspapers must sell to
the public is an evidence that they must please
the public and in a measure obey it. In the press
there is a very human tendency to compromise
between giving the public what it wants and giv­
ing the public what it should want. This is
equally true in music, where artists like McCor­
mack or Rachmaninoff popularize their programs.
It is true in the drama, where managers, pro­
ducers and authors combine to adjust plots, situ­
ations and endings to what the public will be
willing to pay to see. It is true in art, in archi­
tecture, in motion pictures. It is true of the lec­
ture platform and of the pulpit.
So-called radical preachers, for example, usu­
ally succeed in broadcasting their radical ideas
only when their following is prepared to accept
their views. The Rev. Percy Stickney Grant was
a great problem to the upholders of the accepted
 THE GROUP AND HERD 113
order, only because there was so large a body of
parishioners eager to hear and accept his dicta.
The Rev. Billy Sunday, evangelist, derived his
following from among people who were awaiting
a faith-stirring appeal.
Another evidence of the £act that a powerful
outside influence helps make the forces that mould
public opinion is shown by the newspapers in
the actual selection of news. The public actually
demands that certain types of facts be omitted.
The standing problem of every newspaper office
-the winnowing of the day's news from the mass
of material that reaches the editorial desks-illus­
trates pointedly the need there is to examine the
reasons which prompt the editors in selection.
In an exceedingly interesting advertisement
published by the New York Tribune, on April
19, 1922, the Tribune's editors state the problem
most graphically. The advertisement is headed,
"What Else Happened That Day?" and it reads
�s follows:

"Madame Caillaux was on trial in Paris for

killing Gaston Calmette.
"In Long Island a woman was mysteriously
shot in a doctor's office while on a night visit.
"Forty-five stage coaches were held up in Yel­
lowstone Park by two masked bandits who took
all the cash of 165 tourists.
"Romantic crime, mystery crime, adventurous
114 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
crime, a public eagerly interested-and they sud­
denly dropped from the newspapers. The public
forgot them. As news, these events became as
if they had never happened. Something else had
happened.
"The day of Madame Caillaux's acquittal Aus­
tria declared war on Serbia. Russia mobilized
fourteen army corps on the German border and
the price of wheat in this country soared.
"All the news that a newspaper prints is af­
fected by what else happened that day. If an
earthquake occurs the day you announce your
daughter's engagement her picture may be left
out of the newspaper.
"The man who made a golf hole in one the
day of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight was out of
luck so far as an item on the sporting page was
concerned.
"When real news breaks, semi-news must go.
When real news is scarce, semi-news returns to
the front page. A very great man picked out
Sunday night to dine at a Bowery mission. Mon­
day is usually a dull day for news, although some
big events, notably the sinking of the Titanic,
came over the wires Sunday night.
"All papers feature big news. When there is
no big news, real editing is needed to select the
real news from the semi-news.
"What you read on dull news days is what fixes
your opinions of your country and of your com­
patriots. It is from the non-sensational news
that you see the world and assess, rightly or
wrongly, the true value of persons and events.
 THE GROUP AND HERD 115

"The relative importance your newspaper gives

to an occurrence affects your thought, your char­
acter, and your children's thought and character.
For few daily habits are as firmly established as
the habit of reading the newspaper."

Now each of the items mentioned in the

Tribune's advertisement was news. Comparison
of the newspapers of that day will undoubtedly
show a wide divergence in the manner in which
these items were treated and in the relative im­
portance assigned to each. The basis of the selec­
tion was clearly the general standard of the
clientele of each individual paper.
And this selection of ideas for presentation
goes on jn every medium of thought communica­
tion.
This basis of selection has long been recog­
nized. Thus in an article in the Atlantic
Monthly for February, 1911, Professor Hargar,
formerly head of the Department of Journalism
at the University of Kansas, draws attention to
it in regard to newspapers, and points out that
"the province of the city paper is one of news
selection. 1 Out of the vast skein of the day's hap­
penings what shall it select? More 'copy' is
thrown away than is used. The New York Sun
is written as definitely for a given constituency
1 Bleyer, "The Profession of Journalism" (page 269).
u6 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
as is a technical journal. Out of the day's news
it gives prominence to that which fits into its
scheme of treatment, and there is so much news
that it can fill its columns with interesting ma­
terials, yet leave untouched a myriad of events.
The New York Evening Post appeals to another
constituency, and is made accordingly. The
World and the Journal have a far different plan,
and 'play up' stories that are mentioned briefly,
or ignored, by some of their contemporaries. So
the writer on the metropolitan paper is trained
to sift news, to choose from his wealth of ma­
terial that which the paper's traditions demand
shall receive attention; and so abundant is the
supply that he can easily set a feast without ex­
hausting the market's offering. Unconsciously
he becomes an epicure, and knows no day will
dawn without bringing him his opportunity."
Mr. Lippmann makes the same observation.
He says: 1 "Every newspaper when it reaches
the reader is the result of a whole series of
selections as to what items shall be printed, in
what position they shall be printed, how much
space each shall occupy, what emphasis each shall
have. There are no objective standards here.
There are conventions. Take two newspapers
published in the same city on the same morning.
The headline of one reads : 'Britain pledges aid
1 "Public Opinion" (page 354).
 THE GROUP AND HERD n7
to Berlin against French Aggression. France
Openly Backs Poles.' The headline of the second
is: 'Mrs. Stillman's Other Love.' Which you
prefer is a matter of taste, but not entirely a
matter of the editor's taste. It is a matter of
his judgment as to what will absorb the half
hour's attention a certain set of readers will give
to his newspaper."
The American stage continually bows to public
demand and consciously ascribes to the public
the changes it undergoes. The character of ad­
vertising has definitely yielded to public demand
qnd fake advertising has been to a great extent
eliminated. Motion pictures have responded, too,
to public taste and public pressure, both as to the
kind of picture presented and, in isolated in­
stances, to the type of action permitted to
appear.
It is therefore apparent that these and the
other institutions which modi£y public opinion
carry on against a background which is also in
itself a controlling factor. What the real char­
acter of this controlling background is we shall
now consider.
 CHAPTER VII
THE APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES

B OTH Trotter, Martin and the other writers

we have quoted confirm what the actual
experience of the public relations counsel shows
-that the cause he represents must have some
group r�action and tradition in common with the
public he is trying to reach. This must exist
before they can react sympathetically upon one
another. Given these common fundamentals,
much can be done to capitalize or destroy them.
It is as untrue to contend that public opinion is
manufactured as it is to contend that public
opinion governs the agencies which mould it.
The public relations counsel must continually
realize that there are always these limitations to
his e:ffectiveness.
The very "leaders," men who have been
selected from the mass to "lead the nation," live
with their ears to the ground for every slight
rumbling of public sentiment. Preachers, ac­
knowledged to be the ethical leaders of their
flocks, express obedience to public opinion.
The critics who hold these extreme points of
118
 THE GROUP AND HERD 119

view about public opinion have too easily con­

fused cause and effect. The sympathy between
the orator and his audience is not one which the
orator can create. He can intensify it, or by
tactless speaking he can dissipate it, but he can­
not manufacture it from thin air.
Margaret Sanger, a leader in the fight for
education on birth control, will evoke enthusiasm
when she addresses an audience that approves
of her sentiments. When, however, she injects
her point of view into groups that have a precon­
ceived aversion to them, she is in danger of abuse,
if not of actual physical violence. Likewise, a
man who would talk of prison reform at a time
when the public is aroused by an unwonted crime
wave will find little response. On the other hand,
when Madam Curie, co-discoverer of radium,
came to America, she found a country that was
prepared to meet her because of intensive effort
on the part of a large radium corporation and
a committee of women formed by Marie B.
Meloney, to apprise the public of the importance
of her visit. Had she come two years sooner,
she might have been ignored save by a few
scientists.
A historic incident illustrative of the interac­
tion between a leader and a public is that of the
sudden turn in the affairs of Rear Admiral
Dewey. The idol of the Spanish American War,
120 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
he nevertheless alienated popular affection by
giving to his wife a house which had been pre­
sented to him by an admiring public. For some
reason the public failed to sympathize with
Admiral Dewey's own undoubtedly sound and
worthy reasons.
To say, therefore, as some persons have said
at great length and with considerable vehemence,
that the public relations counsel is responsible
for public opinion, is not true. The public re­
lations counsel is not needed to persuade people
to standardize their points of view or to persist
in their established beliefs. The established point
of view becomes established by satisfying some
real or assumed human need.
In common with the scenario writer, the
preacher, the statesman, the dramatist, the public
relations counsel, has his share in making up the
mind of the public. The public quite as truly
makes up the mind of the journalist, the pam­
phleteer, the scenario writer, the preacher and the
statesman. The main direction of the public
mind is often irrevocably set for its leaders.
Hendrik Van Loon, in his "Story of Man­
kind," paints a picture of the action and inter­
action between Napoleon the Great and his pub­
lic in a way that might well have been made
to illustrate our point. When Napoleon led the
public truly in the direction towards which it
 TH£ GROUP AND HERD 121
was headed, that is, towards democracy and
equality, he was its successful leader and its
idol, says Van Loon. When in the latter part of
his career he turned back to a goal which the
public had discarded and was eager to forget,
that is, Bourbonism, Napoleon met with irre­
sistible defeat.
"Damaged Goods" was able to make the Amer­
ican public accept the word "syphilis" because the
counsel on public relations projected the doctrine
of sex hygiene through those groups and sec­
tions of the public which were prepared to work
with him.
Public opinion is the resultant of the inter­
action between two forces.
This may help us to see with greater clarity
the position the public relations counsel holds in
relation to the world at large, and what the fac­
tors are with which he is concerned and by which
he accomplishes his work.
We have gone somewhat elaborately into the
fundamental equipment of the individual mind
and its relation to the group mind because the
public relations counsel in his work in these fields
must constantly call upon his knowledge of in­
dividual and group psychology. The public re­
lations counsel can come forward, first, as the
representative of established things when their
security is shaken, or when they desire greater
122 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
power; and second, as the representative of the
group which is struggling to establish itself.
Mr. Lippmann says propaganda is dependent
upon censorship. From my point of view the
precise reverse is more nearly true. Propaganda
is a purposeful, directed effort to overcome cen­
sorship-the censorship of the group mind and
the herd reaction.
The average citizen is the world's most effi­
cient censor. His own mind is the greatest bar­
rier between him and the facts. His own "logic­
proof compartments," his own absolutism are the
obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms
of experience and thought rather than in terms
of group reaction.
The training of the public relations counsel
permits him to step out of his own group to look
at a particular problem with the eyes of an im­
partial observer and to utilize his knowledge of
the individual and the group mind to project his
clients' point of view.
 PART III
TECHNIQUE AND METHOD
 CHAPTER I
THE PUBLIC CAN BE REACHED ONLY THROUGH
ESTABLISHED MEDIUMS OF COMMUNICATION

W HEN the United States was made up of

small social units with common traditions
and a small geographic and social area, it was
comparatively simple for the proponent of a point
of view to address his public directly. If he
represented a social or a political idea, he could,
at no very great expense and with no very great
difficulty in the early Eighteenth Century, cover
New England with his pamphlets. He could
arouse the thirteen colonies with his journals and
brochures. That was because the heritage of
these groups made them sensitive to the same
stimuli. One man, remarks Mr. Lippmann, then
was able single-handed to crystallize the common
will of his country in his day and generation.
To-day the greatest superman as yet developed
by humanity could not accomplish the same result
with the United States.
Populations have increased. In this country
geographical areas have increased. Heteroge-
125
126 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
neity has also increased. A group living in any
given area is now extremely likely to have no com­
mon ancestry, no common tradition, as such, and
no cohesive intelligence. All these elements make
it necessary to-day for the proponent of a point
of view to engage an expert to represent him
before society, an expert who must know how to
reach groups totally dissimilar as to ideals, cus­
toms and even language. It is this necessity
which has resulted in the development of the
counsel on public relations.
Now it must be understood that the proponent
of a point of view, whether acting alone or under
the guidance of a public relations counsel, must
utilize existing avenues of approach. Modern
conditions are such that it is not feasible to build
up independent organs. Innovators and innova­
tions cannot create their own channels of com­
munication. They must for a great part work
through the existing daily press, the existing
magazine, the existing lecture circuit, existing ad­
vertising mediums, the existing motion picture
channels and other means for the communica­
tion of ideas. The public relations counsel, on
behalf of the groups he represents, must reach
majorities and minorities through their respec-
tive approaches.
If the public relations counsel can succeed in
presenting ideas and facts to the public in spite
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 127
of the heterogeneity of society, in spite of the
vast psychological and geographic problems, in
spite of the difficulties, monetary and otherwise,
of reaching and influencing populations number­
ing millions-if he can succeed in overcoming
these difficulties by a skillful understanding of
the situation, his profession is socially valuable.
Absolute homogeneity, resulting in a dead level
of uniformity in public and individual reaction,
is undesirable. On the other hand, agreement on
broad social purposes is essential to progress.
Agreement on broad industrial purposes may be
equally desirable. Without such agreement, with­
out unified purposes, there can be no progress and
the unit must fall. The men who were most
effective in stimulating national morale during
the war never lost sight of these underlying
needs, whether they stimulated a whole nation
to ration itself voluntarily and give up the eating
of sugar, or whether they stimulated knitting and
Red Cross activities and voluntary contributions
to funds.
Three ways are cited by Mr. Lippmann to
obtain cohesive force among the special and local
interests which make up national and social units.
The public relations counsel avails himself only
of the third. The first method which is described
is tha;t of "patronage and pork." This is very:
largely the method relied upon by certain legis-
128 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
Iative bodies to-day to maintain cohesive force.
As an instance of this, the investigations of the
methods used in connection with the bills to
secure the building of local post offices or the
dredging of harbors or rivers seem to point
out that a representative from one community
will promise reciprocal support to the member
from another community, if he in turn will act
favorably on another item. This method in­
tensifies the feeling that all are working together,
even though they may not be working for the
highest interests of the country. Similarly the
chief executive of a city may institute certain
measures to placate school teachers. He will
expect the school teachers to support him on some
other project at some other period.
The second method named by Mr. Lippmann 1
is "government by terror and obedience."
The third method is "government based on such
a highly developed system of information, anal­
ysis and self-consciousness that 'the knowledge
of national circumstances and reasons of state'
is evident to all men. The autocratic system is
in decay. The voluntary system is in its very
earliest development and so, in calculating the
prospects of associations among large groups of
people, a league of nations, industrial govern­
ment, or a federal union of states, the degree to
I ''Public Opinion" (page �).
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 129
which the material for a common consciousness
exists determines how far cooperation will de­
pend upon force, or upon the milder alternative
to force, which is patronage and privilege. The
secret of great state builders, like Alexander
Hamilton, is that they know how to calculate
these principles."
The method of education by information,
which was to a great extent relied upon by the
United States, for example, was evidenced in
the formation during the war of such agencies
as the Committee on Public Information. The
public relations counsel, through the mediums
chosen by him, presented to the public the infor­
mation necessary to aid in understanding Amer­
ica's war aims and ideals. George Creel and his
organization reached vast groups, representing
every phase of our national elements, in every
modern method of thought communication. But
even in the United States the other two methods
were used to obtain cohesive force.
In fact the method least relied upon in any
of the belligerent countries was that of "gov­
ernment based on such a highly developed sys­
tem of information, analysis and self-conscious­
ness that 'the knowledge of national circum­
stances and reasons of state' is evident to all
men."
This breakdown did not occur among small,
130 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
inefficiently organised groups. It occurred among
the representatives of the highest development
in social organization.
If this was the fate of the most highly or­
ganized social groups, consider then the problem
which confronts the social, economic, educational
or political groups in peace time, when they at­
tempt to obtain a public hearing for new ideas.
Innumerable instances have shown the difficulty
that any group faces in gaining an acceptance for
its ideas.
The development of the United States to its
present size and diversification has intensified the
difficulty of creating a common will on any sub­
ject because it has heightened the natural tend­
ency of men to separate into crowds opposed to
one another in point of view. This difficulty is
further emphasized by the fact that often these
crowds live in different traditional, moral and
spiritual worlds. The physical difficulties of
communication make group separation greater.
Mr. Trotter's conclusions from a study of the
gregarious instinct are singularly apt on this
point. He says that 1 "the enormous power of
varied reaction possessed by man must render
necessary for his attainment of the full advan­
tages of the gregarious habit a power of inter­
communication of absolutely unprecedented fine-
• "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War" (page 62).
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 131

ness. It is clear that scarcely a hint of such

power has yet appeared, and it is equally obvious
that it is this defect which gives to society the
characteristics which are the contempt of the man
of science and the disgust of the humanitarian."
When the worker was of the same ancestry as
his employer, labor difficulties, for example, could
be discussed in terms which were comprehensible
to both parties. To-day the United States Steel
Corporation must exert tremendous effort to pre­
sent its view to its thousands of employees who
are South Europeans, North Europeans, Ameri­
cans.
Czechoslovakia, during the Peace Conference,
wanted to appeal to its countrymen in America,
but this group was vague and scattered in a
population that lived in many cities throughout
the country. The public relations counsel who
was engaged to reach this scattered population
had, therefore, to translate his appeals so that
they might be understood logically and emotion­
ally by the educated and the uneducated, the ur­
ban, the rural, the laboring and the professional
man.
The same problem in a quite different guise
presented itself to the public relations counsel
who wanted to insure a public response to the
appeal of the Diaghileff Russian Ballet, of which
the public knew nothing. He had, therefore, to
132 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
surmount the difficulties of dissimilar geographic
and artistic heritage and taste, of unwillingness
to accept novelty and of interests already firmly
attached to other forms of amusement.
Dominant groups to-day are more secure in
their position than was the most successful auto­
crat of several hundred years ago, because to­
day the inertia which must be overcome in order
to displace these groups is so much greater. So
many persons with so many different points of
view must be reached and unified before any­
thing effective can be done. Unity can be secured
only by finding the greatest common factor or
divisor of all the groups; and it is difficult to find
one common factor which will appeal to a large
and unhomogeneous group.
A very simple and broadly appealing campaign
for reaching the public was undertaken recently
by the railroads in combination. They utilized
the poster in graphic, fundamental appeal to
awaken an instinct of carefulness in regard to
crossing railroad tracks. When the government
sought to reestablish ex-service men, the public
relations counsel had to appeal vividly and
quickly to employers and returned soldiers out
of the vast complexity of their interests. He
selected the most fundamental appeals of loyalty,
fairness and patriotism in order to be understood
actively.
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 133
Domination to-day is not a product of armies
or navies or wealth or policies. It is a domina­
tion based on the one hand upon accomplished
unity, and on the other hand upon the fact that
opposition is generally characterized by a high
degree of disunity. The institution of electing
representatives to Congress is so firmly estab­
lished that no existent force to-day can overthrow
it. More specifically, why is it that the two par­
ties, Republican and Democrat, have maintained
themselves as the dominant force for so many
years? Only the leadership of Theodore Roose­
velt seemed for a time to supersede them ; and
events since then have shown that it was Roose­
velt and not his party who succeeded. The
Farmer-Labor Party, the Socialist Party despite
years of campaigning have failed to become even
strongly recognizable opponents to the established
groups. The disunity of forces which seek to
overthrow dominant groups is illustrated every
day in every phase of our lives-political, moral
and economic. A new point of view, although
faced by the difficulty of unifying a group to
concerted will or action, can seldom establish new
mediums by which to approach those people to
whom it wishes to appeal.
It is possible for advertising and pamphletizing
to blanket the country at a cost. To establish
a new lecture service in order to reach the pub-
134 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
lie would be expensive, and effective only to a
limited extent. To establish an independent
radio station to broadcast an idea would be diffi­
cult and probably disproportionately expensive.
To create a new motion picture and a distrib­
uting agency would be slow, and very difficult
and costly, if possible at all.
The difficulty of establishing and building new
channels of approach to the public is shown best
by an examination of the principal mediums
which are available to the public relations counsel
who desires to direct public thought to the prob­
lems of the group he represents.
It is only necessary to picture the newspaper
and magazine situation in the United States to­
day to realize the difficulty of establishing a new
medium for the representation of a point of view.
Americans are accustomed to first-rate service
from their press. They demand a high standard
not only in the physical appearance of their news.
papers but in the news service as well. Their
daily paper must provide them with items of local,
state and international interest and importance.
In the complex activities of modern life, the
newspaper must find and select the subjects
which interest its readers. It must also give to
its readers the news fresh from the making.
Whatever vagueness there may be about the defi-
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 135
nition of news itself, one admitted constant is that
it must be fresh.
The cost of establishing a paper with a wide
appeal, which will have the facilities of gathering
news, of printing and distributing it, is such
that groups can no longer depend upon their own
organs of expression. The Christian Science
church does not depend upon its admirable pub­
lication, the Christian Science Monitor in order
to reach its own and new publics. Even where
the issue demands a partisan or class origin of
a newspaper, as in the case of a political party,
the results achieved by so expensive and laborious
a step seldom justify it.
Mr. Given in his book "Making a Newspaper,"
points out the great expense that is attached to
the publication of a large metropolitan daily. In
proportion to their field of appeal and potential
income, the smaller dailies undoubtedly face the
same economic problems. Mr. Given says: 1
"Few persons not having intimate knowledge of
a newspaper have any idea of the great amount
of money required to start one, or to keep one
running which is already established. The me­
chanical equipment and delivery service alone
may demand an investment of several hundred
thousand dollars-there is one New York paper
1 Given, "Making a Newspaper" (pages 3()6-307).
136 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
whose mechanical equipment cost $1,000,000-
supplies are in constant demand, and the salary
list is a long and heavy one. For a new paper
the salary list of the editorial department is espe­
cially formidable, as editors and reporters who
have employment with well-established publica­
tions are always reluctant to change to a venture
that at best is in for a rough voyage, and can be
attracted only by high pay.
"A good many of the newspapers that are
started soon become memories, and fewer than
are generally supposed are paying their own way.
The sum of $3,000,000 would hardly suffice at
the present time to equip a first-class newspaper
establishment in New York City, issue a morning
and an evening edition paper, build up a circula­
tion of 75,000 for each, and place the establish­
ment on a money-making basis. Run on the lines
of those already established and possessing no
extraordinary features to recommend them to the
public, the two papers might continue to lose
money for twenty years. When one learns that
there are in New York business managers who
are compelled .to reckon with an average weekly
expense account of nearly $50,000, he can under­
stand the possibility of heavy losses. And it
might be added, in contrast, that there are· in
New York newspapers which could not be bought
for $10,000,000."
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 137
Discussing substantially the same point, Mr.
Oswald Garrison Villard observes the narrow­
ing down of the number of newspapers in our
large cities and points out the imminent danger
of a news monopoly in the United States. He
says: 1 "It is the danger that newspaper condi­
tions, because of the enormously increased costs
and this tendency to monopoly, may prevent peo­
ple who are actuated by passion and sentiment
from founding newspapers, which is causing
many students of the situation much concern.
What is to be the hope for the advocates of new­
born and unpopular reforms if they cannot have
a press of their own, as the Abolitionists and the
founders of the Republican party set up theirs
in a remarkably short time, usually with poverty­
stricken bank accounts?"
The public relations counsel must always sub­
divide the appeal of his subject and present it
through the widest possible variety of avenues
to the public. That these avenues must be ex­
isting avenues is both a limitation and an op­
portunity.
People accept the facts which come to them
through existing channels. They like to hear
new things in accustomed ways. They have
neither the time nor the inclination to search for
1 "Press Tendencies and Dansers," Atlantic Monthly, January,
1918.
138 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
facts that are not readily available to them. The
expert, therefore, must advise first upon the form
of action desirable for his client and secondly
must utilize the established mediums of communi­
cation, in order to present to the public a point
of view. This is true whether it is that of a
majority or minority, old or new personality, in­
stitution or group which desires to change by
modification or intensification the store of knowl­
edge and the opinion of the public.
 CHAPTER II
THE INTERLAPPING GROUP FORMATIONS OF SO•
CIETY, THE CONTINUOUS SHIFTING OF GROUPS,
CHANGING CONDITIONS AND THE FLEXI­
BILITY OF HUMAN NATURE ARE ALL
AIDS TO THE COUNSEL ON PUBLIC
RELATIONS

T HE public relations counsel works with pub­

lic opinion. Public opinion is the product
of individual minds. Individual minds make up
the group mind. And the established order of
things is maintained by the inertia of the group.
Three factors make it possible for the public
relations counsel to overcome even this inertia.
These are, first, the interlapping group forma­
tion of society; second, the continuous shifting
of groups : third, the changed physical conditions
to which groups respond. All of these are
brought about by the natural inherent flexibility
of individual human nature.
Society is not divided into two groups, although
it seems so to many. Some see modern society
divided into capital and labor. The feminist sees
the world divided into men and women. The
139
 140 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
hungry man sees the rich and the poor. The
missionary sees the heathen and the faithful. If
society were divided into two groups, and no
more, then change could come about only through
violent upheaval.
Let us assume, for example, a society divided
into capital and labor. It is apparent on slight
inspection that capital is not a homogeneous
group. There is a difference in point of view
and in interests between Elbert H. Gary or John
D. Rockefeller, Jr., on the one hand, and the
small shopkeeper on the other.
Occasions arise, too, upon which even in one
group sharp differences and competitive align­
ments take place.
In the capital group, on the tariff question, for
example, the retailer with a net income of ten
thousand dollars a year is apt to take a radically
different position from the manufacturer with a
similar income. In some respects the capitalist
is a consumer. In other respects he is a worker.
Many persons are at the same time workers and
capitalists. The highly paid worker who also
draws income from Liberty Bonds or from shares
of stock in industrial corporations is an example
of this.
On the other hand, the so-called workers do
not consist of a homogeneous group with com­
plete identity of interests. There may be no dif-
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 141

ference in economic situation between manual

labor and mental labor; yet there is a traditional
difference in point of view which keeps these two
groups far apart. Again, the narrower field of
manual labor, the group represented by the Amer­
ican Federation of Labor, is frequently opposed
in sympathies and interests to the group of In­
dustrial Workers of the V\7orld. Even in the
American Federation of Labor there are compo­
nent units. The locomotive engineer, who be­
longs to one of the great brotherhoods, has dif­
ferent interests from the miner, who belongs to
the United Mine Workers of America.
The farmer is in a class by himself. Yet he
in turn may be a tenant farmer or the owner
of an estate or of a small patch of tillable
soil.
That group so vaguely called "the public" con­
sists of all sorts and conditions of men, the par­
ticular kind or condition depending upon the point
of view of the individual who is making the ob­
servation or classification. This is true likewise
of great and small subdivisions of the public.
The public relations counsel must take into ac­
count that many groups exist, and that there is
a very definite interlapping of groups. Because
of this he is enabled to utilize many types of
appeal in reaching any one group, which he sub­
divides for his purposes.
142 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
The Federation for the Support of Jewish
Charities recently instituted a campaign to raise
millions of dollars for what it called its United
Building Fund. The directors of that campaign
might have subdivided society for their purpose
into two groups, the Jewish and the non-Jewish
group, or they might have decided that there were
rich people who could give and poor people who
could not give. But they realized the interlapping
nature of the groups they wanted to reach. They
analyzed these component groups closely and di­
vided them into groups which had common busi­
ness interests. For instance, they organized a
group of dentists, a group of bankers, a group
of real estate operators, a group of cloak-and­
suit-house operators, a group of motion picture
and theatrical owners and others.
Through an approach to each group on the
strongest appeal to which the members of the
group as a group would respond, the charity re­
ceived the support of the individuals who made
it up. The social aspirations of the group, the
ambitions for leadership of the group, the com­
petitive desires and philanthropic tendencies of
the individuals who made up these groups were
capitalized.
The interlapping nature of these groups made
it possible, too, for the public relations counsel to
reach all the individuals by appeals that were
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 143
directed not merely to the individual as a member
of the business group with which he was aligned,
but also as a member of a different group. For
instance, as a humanitarian, as a publi�-spirited
citizen, or as a devoted Jew. Because of this
interlapping characteristic of groups, the organi­
zation was able to accomplish its purpose more
successfully.
Society is made up of an almost infinite num­
ber of groups, whose various interests and desires
overlap and interweave inextricably. The same
man may be at the same time the member of a
minority religious sect, supporter of the dominant
political party, a worker in the sense that he
earns his livjng primarily by his labor, and a cap­
italist in the sense that he has rents from real
estate investments or interest from financial in­
vestments. In an issue which involves his re­
ligious sect he will align himself with one group.
In an issue which involves the choice of a Presi­
dent of the United States he aligns himself with
another group. In an industrial issue between
capital and labor it might be very nearly impos­
sible to estimate in advance how he would align
himself. It is from the constant interplay of
these groups and of their conflicting interests
upon each other that progress results, and it is
this fact that the public relations counsel takes
into account in pleading his cause. A movement
144 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
called "The Go-Getters," instituted by a maga­
zine, as much to keep itself before the public eye
as to stimulate commercial activity, found rapid
acceptance throughout the country because it ap­
pealed to trades of every description, because
each group had among its members men who be­
longed also to a large group, the group of sales­
men.
Let us examine for a moment the personnel
of the Horseshoe at the Metropolitan Opera
House. It is composed of people who are rich,
but this economic classification is only one, for
the men and women who assemble there are pre­
sumably music lovers. But we may again break
up this classification of music lovers and discover
that this group contains art lovers as well. It
contains sportsmen. It contains merchants and
bankers. There are philosophers in it. There
are motorists and amateur farmers. When the
Russian Ballet came to America the essential
parts of this group attended the performances,
but in going after his public, the public relations
counsel based his actions upon the interlapping of
groups, and appealed to his entire possible audi­
ence through their various interlapping group in­
terests. The art lover had been stimulated by
hearing of the Ballet through his art group or
the art publications and by seeing pictures of the
costumes and the settings. The music lover,
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 145
who might have had his interest stimulated
through seeing a photograph, also had his inter­
est stimulated by reading about the music.
Every individual heard of the Russian Ballet
in terms of one or more different appeals and re­
sponded to the Ballet because of these appeals.
It is naturally difficult to say which one of them
had its strongest effect upon the individual's mind.
There was no doubt, however, that the interlap­
ping group formation of society made it possible
for more to be reached and to be moved than
would have been the case if the Ballet had been
projected on the world at large only as a well­
balanced artistic performance.
The utilization of this characteristic of society
was shown recently in the activities of a silk firm
which desired to intensify the interest of the
public in silks. It realized that fundamentally
women were its pote11tial buying public, but it
understood, too, that the women who made up
this public were members of other groups as well.
Thus, to the members of women's clubs, silk was
projected as the embodiment of fashion. To
those women who visited museums, silk was dis­
played there as art. To the schools in the same
town, perhaps, silk became a lesson in the natural
history of the silkworm. To art clubs, silk be­
came color and design. . To newspapers, the
146 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
events that transpired in the silk mills became
news matters of importance.
Each group of women was appealed to on the
basis of its greatest interest. The school teacher
was appealed to in the schoolroom as an edu­
cator, and after school hours as a member of
a women's club. She read the advertisements
about silk as a woman reader of the newspapers,
and as a member of the women's group which
visited the museums, saw the silk there. The
woman who stayed at home was brought into
contact with the silk through her child. All these
groups made up the potential market for silk,
reached in this way in terms of many appeals
to each individual. These are the implications
present for the public relations counsel, who must
take into account the interchange and interplay
of groups in pleading his cause.
For society, the interesting outcome of this sit­
uation is that progress seldom occurs through the
abrupt expulsion by a group of its old ideas in
favor of new ideas, but rather through the re­
arrangement of the thought of the individuals
in these groups with respect to each other and
with respect to the entire membership of society.
It is precisely this interlapping of groups-the
variety, the inconsistency of the average man's
mental, social and psychological commitments
which makes possible the gradual change from
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 147
one state of affairs or from one state of mind to
another. Few people are life members of one
group and of one group only. The ordinary per­
son is a very temporary member of a great num­
ber of groups. This is one of the most powerful
forces making for progress in society because it
makes for receptivity and open-mindedness. The
modification which results from the inconstancy
of individual commitments may be accelerated
and directed by conscious effort. These changes
which come about so stealthily that they remain
unobserved in society until long after they have
taken place, can be made to yield results in chosen
directions.
Changed external conditions must be taken into
account by the public relations counsel in his
work.
Such changes carry with them modifications
in the interests and points of view of those they
affect. They make it possible to modify group
and individual reaction. The public relations
counsel, too, can modify the results of the
changed external condition by calling attention
to it or interpreting it in terms of the interest
of those affected.
The radio might be taken as an example. In
considering the radio from the standpoint of his
work, the public relations counsel has a new
medium which can readily reach huge sections of
148 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the public with his message. The public relations
counsel must be ready to estimate, too, what dif­
ference in viewpoint the radio will produce or has
produced in any given section of the public it
reaches. He will have to consider, for instance,
that due to it the average farmer is much more
closely in contact with the world's events than
formerly.
In the case of the radio, too, if his clients be.
for instance, large manufacturers of radio sup­
plies and demand acceleration of this changed
external condition in order to increase their busi­
ness, he may enlarge the radio's field, activity
and effectiveness. Or, he may stress to the public
the importance of this new instrument and
strengthen its prestige, so that it may better ful­
fill its mission as a modifier of conditions.
Changed conditions can make possible modifi­
cations in the public point of view, as can be
instanced by a campaign carried on by savings
banks to encourage thrift. This campaign was
successful at that time because inflation made it
easy for the public to see the wisdom of the doc­
trines preached and to act upon them.
Another example of this modification in the
public point of view due to a changed condition
was the demand made by the Executive Com­
mittee of the Central Trades and Labor Council
of New York for the government to take over
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 149
the railways of the country. Public ownership
had been a pet subject for school debate for more
than two decades, but it had seldom passed into
the field of serious consideration by the general'
public. Yet the conditions of hardship created
by the last strike of the railroad shopmen caused
a much greater receptivity in the public mind to
this idea.
The airplane slowly emerges as an important
factor in the daily life of the people. What it
will mean in the psychology of the nation when
commuters can settle within a radius of a hun­
dred or more miles of cities is only to be guessed
at. Cities may cease to exist except as industrial
centers. There will be greater groups and
broader interests. There will be fewer geo­
graphic divisions.
When the automobile was first used motoring
was a dangerous and thrilling sport. To-day it is
found that the automobile has altered the funda­
mental conception of daily life held by thousands
of people, both in the urban and the rural popu­
lation. The automobile has removed much of the
isolation of country districts. It has increased
the possibility of education in them. It has
caused millions of miles of excellent roads to
be laid.
Changed conditions can be national or local in
their import and significance. They can be as
150 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
national in scope as the revolutionary introduc­
tion over night of a national prohibition law or
as local as a police captain's edict in Coney Island
against stockingless feminine bathers. But they
must be taken into consideration by the public re­
lations counsel in his work if they concern in the
slightest degree his particular public.
The basic elements of human nature are fixed
as to desires and instincts and innate tendencies.
The directions, however, in which these basic ele­
ments may be turned by skill£ul handling are in­
finite. Human nature is readily subject to modi­
fication. Many psychologists have attempted to
define the component parts of human nature, and
while their terminology is not the same, they do
follow more or less the same general outlines.
Among the universal instincts are--self-pres­
ervation, which includes the desire for shelter,
sex hunger and food hunger. It is only neces­
sary to look through the pages of any magazine
to see the way in which modern business avails
itself of these three fundamentals to exert a co­
ercive force upon the public it is trying to reach.
The American Radiator advertisement with its
cozy home, the family gathered around the radia­
tor, the storm raging outside, definitely makes its
appeal to the universal desire for shelter.
The Gulden Mustard advertisements with their
graphic delineation of cold cuts and an inviting
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD IS 1
glass of what is presumably near-beer definitely
appeal to our gustatory sense.
As for the sex appeal, the soap advertisements
run a veritable race with these ends in view.
Woodbury's "the skin you love to touch" is a
graphic illustration.
The instinct of self-preservation, one of the
most basic of human instincts, is most flexible.
The dispensers of raisins, upon the advice of an
expert on public opinion, adopted a slogan to ap­
peal to this instinct: "Have you had your iron
to-day ?"-iron presumably strengthening a man
and increasing his powers of resistance. The
same man appealed to here will respond to the
sales talk which persuades him that insurance
may save him at a time of need.
An important hair-net manufacturer wanted
to increase the sales of his product. The public
relations counsel, therefore, appealed to the in­
stinct of self-preservation of large groups of the
public. He talked of self-preservation with re­
spect to hygiene for food dispensers. He talked
of self-preservation with respect to safety for
women who work near exposed machinery.
The same instinct of preservation which may
cause a worker to give up necessary food so that
he may save a little money will cause him to
contribute money to a common fund if he can
be shown that this too is a safety measure.
152 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
The public relations counsel extracts from his
clients' causes ideas which will capitalize certain
fundamental instincts in the people he is trying
to reach, and then sets about to project these
ideas to his public.
William MacDougall, the psychologist, classi­
fies seven primary instincts with their attendant
emotions. They are flight-fear, repulsion-dis­
gust, curiosity-wonder, pugnacity-anger, self­
display-elation, self-abasement-subjection, paren­
tal-love-tenderness. These instincts are utilized
by the public relations counsel in developing ideas
and emotions which will modify the opinions and
actions of his public.
The action of public health officials in stressing
the possibility of a plague or epidemic is effective
because it appeals to the emotion of fear, and
presents the possibility of preventing the spread
of the epidemic or plague. Of course, the ele­
ment of flight in this particular situation is not
one of movement, but of a desire to get away
from the danger.
The instinct of repulsion with its attendant
emotion of disgust is not often called upon by
the public relations counsel in his work.
On the other hand, curiosity and wonder are
continually employed. In Governmental work,
particularly, the statesman who has an announce­
ment to make is continually exhausting every
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 153
effort to arouse public interest in advance of the
actual announcement. Feelers are often sent out
to the public to help create curiosity.
It is interesting to note, too, that even book
publishers rely upon the element of wonder,
termed suspense in drama, to increase their public
and their sales. Our now famous "What is
wrong with this picture?" advertisements, and
those used for the 0. Henry books illustrate this
point.
Pugnacity with its attendant emotion of anger
is a human constant. The public relations counsel
uses this continually in constructing all kinds of
events that will call it into play. Because of it,
too, he is often forced to enact combats and cre­
ate issues. He stages battles against evils in
which the antagonist is personified for the public.
New York City, when it wants to reduce the death
rate from tuberculosis, aligns its citizens yearly
in a fight against the disease and continues the
idea of combat by announcing the number of
victims from year to year. It uses the terminol­
ogy of warfare in these bulletins. Such phrases
in this or other health campaigns as "kill the
germs," "swat the fly," illustrate this point.
The public responds to a battle in a way that
it might not respond to a plea to take care of
itself or to do its civic duty.
Under pugnacity would come that technique
154 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
of the public relations counsel which is con­
tinually devising tests and contests. Mr. Mar­
tin, in his experience as director of the Cooper
Union Forum, noticed that the sort of interest
which will most easily bring an assemblage of
people together is most commonly an issue of
some kind.
On the one hand, says Mr. Martin: 1 "I have
seen efforts made in New York to hold mass
meetings to discuss affairs of the very greatest
importance, and I have noted the fact that such
efforts usually fail to get out more than a hand­
£ul of specially interested persons, no matter how
well advertised, if the subject to be considered
happens not to be of a controversial nature. On
the other hand, if the matter to be considered
is one about which there is keen partisan feeling
and popular resentment-if it lends itself to the
spectacular personal achievement of one whose
name is known, especially in the face of opposi­
tion or difficulties--or if the occasion permits of
resolutions of protest, of the airing of wrongs,
of denouncing a business of some kind, or of cast­
ing statements of external principles in the teeth
of 'enemies of humanity,' then, however trivial
the occasion, we may count on it that our meet-
ing will be well attended.
"It is this element of conflict, directly or indi-
1 "The Behavior of Crowds" (pages 23-24).
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 155
rectly, which plays an overwhelming part in the
psychology of every crowd. It is the element of
contest which makes baseball so popular. A de­
bate will draw a larger crowd than a lecture.
One of the secrets of the large attendance of
the forum is the fact that discussion-'talking
back'-is permitted and encouraged. The Evan­
gelist Sunday undoubtedly owes the great attend­
ance at his meetings in no small degree to the
fact that he is regularly expected to abuse some
one.
"Nothing so easily catches general attention
and creates a crowd as a contest of any kind.
The crowd unconsciously identifies its members
with one or the other competitor. Success en­
ables the winning crowd to 'crow' over the losers.
Such an occasion becomes symbolic and is utilized
by the ego to enhance its feeling of importance."
The public relations counsel finds in the instinct
of pugnacity a powerful weapon for enlisting pub­
lic support for or public opposition to a point of
view in which he is interested. On this principle,
he will, whenever possible, state his case in the
form of an issue and enlist, in support of his
side, such forces as are available.
The dangers of the method must be recognized
and borne in mind. Pugnacity can be enlisted
on the side of decency and progress. He who
looks at it from that point of view will agree
156 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
with Mr. Pulitzer, the great publisher, that it
seems neither extraordinary nor culpable that
"people and press should be more interested in the
polemical than in the platitudinous; in blame than
in painting the lily ; in attack than in sending laud­
atory coals to Newcastle." On the other hand,
the instinct of pugnacity can be utilized to sup­
press and to oppress. From the point of view
of the public relations counsel, who is interested
from day to day in accomplishing definite results
on specific issues, the dangers of the method are
only the ordinary dangers of every weapon, physi­
cal or psychological, which has been devised.
It is interesting in this connection to note that
a newspaper uses the same methods to encourage
interest in itself as do others. The New York
Times promoted public interest in heavier-than­
air-machines by creating sporting issues of con­
tests between aviators on altitude records, con­
tinuous stays in the air, distance flying and so
forth.
Mr. Lippmann comments on this same charac­
teristic:
"But where pugnacity is not enlisted, those of
us who are not directly involved find it hard to
keep up our interest. For those who are involv:ed
the absorption may be real enough to hold them
even when no issue is involved. They may be
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 157
exercised by sheer joy in activity or by subtle
rivalry or invention. But for those to whom the
whole problem is external and distant, these other
faculties do not easily come into play. In order
that the faint image of the affair shall mean
something to them, they must be allowed to ex­
ercise the love of struggle, suspense, and vic­
tory." 1
We have to take sides. We have to be able to
take sides. In the recesses of our being we must
step out of the audience onto the stage and
wrestle as the hero for the victory of good over
evil. We must breathe into the allegory the
breath of our life.
Recently a philanthropic group was advised to
hold a prize fight for charity. This recogni­
tion of the importance of the principle of pug­
nacity was correct. It is a question whether the
application was not somewhat ill advised and
in bad taste. The Consumer's Committee of
Women opposed to American Valuation was
avowedly aligned to fight against a section of the
tariff presented by Chairman Fordney. The
Lucy Stone League, a group who wish to make
it easy for married women to maintain their
maiden names, dramatized the fight that they
are making against tradition by staging a debate
at their annual banquet.
1 Walter Lippmann, "Public Opinion."
158· CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
Very often the public relations counsel utilizes
the self-display-elation motive and draws public
attention to particular people in groups, in order
to give them a greater interest in the work they
are espousing. It is often found to be true that
when a man's adherence or allegiance to a move­
ment is lukewarm and he is publicly praised for
his adherence to it, he will become a force£ ul
factor in it. That is why the intelligent hos­
pital boards name rooms or beds after their
donors. It is one of the reasons for the elab­
orate letterheads so many of our philanthropic
organizations have.
Self-abasement and subjection, its attendant
emotion, are seldom called upon. On the other
hand, parental love and tenderness are continu­
ally employed, viz., the effort of the baby-kissing
candidate for public office or the attempt to pop­
ularize a brand of silk by having a child present
a silk flag to a war veteran at a public ceremony.
The whole flood of post-war charity-drives was
keyed to this pitch. The starving Belgian orphan
personified in every picture, the starving Ar­
menian, and then the hungry Austrian and Ger­
man orphans appeared, and the campaigns all
succeeded on this issue. Even issues where the
child was not the predominant factor used- this
appeal.
Four other instincts are listed in this classifi-
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 159
cation-gregariousness, individualism, acquisi­
tion and construction. We have already dealt
with the first at length.
The gregarious instinct in man gives the public
relations counsel the opportunity for his most
potent work. The group and herd show every­
where the leader, who because of certain quali­
fications, certain points that are judged by the
herd to be important to its life, stands out and
is followed more or less implicitly by it.
A group leader gains such power with his
group or herd that even on matters which have
had nothing to do with the establishment or gain­
ing of that leadership he is considered a leader
and is followed by his group.
It is this attribute of men and women that
again gives the public relations counsel free play.
A group leader of any given cause will bring
to a new cause all those who have looked to his
leadership. For instance, if the adherence of
a prominent Republican is secured for the League
of Nations, his adherence will probably bring
to the League of Nations many other prominent
Republicans.
The group leadership with which the public
relations counsel may work is limited only by the
character of the groups he desires to reach.
After an analysis of his problem the subdivisions
must be made. His action depends upon his selec-
160 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
tive capacity, and the possibility of approach to
the leaders. These leaders may represent there­
£ore a wide variety of interests-society leaders
or leaders of political groups, leaders of women
or leaders of sportsmen, leaders of divisions by
geography, or divisions by age, divisions by lan­
guage or by education. These subdivisions are
so numerous that there are large companies in
the United States whose business it is to supply
lists of groups and group leaders in different
fields.
This same mechanism is carried out in many
other cases. In looking for group leaders, the
public relations counsel must realize that some
leaders have more varied and more intensified
authority than others. One leader may repre­
sent the ideals and ideas of several or numerous
groups. His cooperation on one basis may bring
into alignment and may carry with it the other
groups who are interested in him primarily for
other reasons.
The public relations counsel, let us say, enlists
the support of a man, president of two associa­
tions; (a) an economic association, (b) a welfare
association. The issue is an economic one, purely.
But because of his leadership, the membership
of association (b), that is, the welfare group,
joins him in the movement as interestedly as
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 161

association (a) does, which has the more logical,

direct reason for entering the field.
I have given this in general terms rather than
as a specific instance. The principle which gov­
erns the interlapping and continually shifting
group formation of society also governs the gre­
gariousness.
Individualism, another instinct, is a concomi­
tant of gregariousness, and naturally follows it.
The desire for individual expression is always
a trait of the individuals who go to make up the
group. The appeal to individualism goes closely
in hand with other instincts, such as self-display.
The instincts of acquisition and construction
are minor instincts as far as the ordinary work
of the public relations counsel is concerned. Ex­
amples of this type of appeal come readily to
mind in the "Own your own home" and "Build
your own home" campaigns.
The innate tendencies are susceptibility to sug­
gestion, imitation, habit and play. Susceptibility
to suggestion and imitation might well be classi­
fied under gregariousness, which we have already
discussed.
Under habit would come one very important
human trait of which the public relations coun­
sel avails himself continually. The mechanism
which habit produces and which makes it possi-
162 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
hie for the public relations counsel to use habit
is the stereotype we have already touched upon.
Mental habits create stereotypes just as physi­
cal habits create certain definite reflex actions.
These stereotypes or reflex images are a great aid
to the public relations counsel in his work.
These short-cuts to reactions make it possible
for the average mind to possess a much larger
number of impressions than would be possible
without them. At the same time these stereo­
types or cliches are not necessarily truth£ ul pic­
tures of what they are supposed to portray.
They are determined by the outward stimuli to
which the individual has been subject as well as
by the content of his mind.
To most of us, for example, the stereotype
of the general is a stern, upright gentleman in
uniform and with gold braid, preferably on a
horse. The stereotype of a farmer is a slouch­
ing, overall-clad man with straw sticking out of
his mouth and a straw hat on his head. He is
supposed to be very shrewd when it comes to
matters of his own farm and very ignorant when
it comes to matters of culture. He despises "city
fellers." All this is the connotation brought up
by the one word "farmer."
The public relations counsel sometimes uses· the
current stereotypes, sometimes combats them and
sometimes creates new ones. In using them he
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 163
very often brings to the public he is reaching a
stereotype they already know, to which he adds
his new ideas, thus he fortifies his own and gives
a greater carrying power. For instance, the pub­
lic relations counsel might well advise Austria,
which in the public mind might still represent
a belligerent country, to bring forward other
Austrian stereotypes, namely the Danube waltz
stereotype and the Danube blue stereotype. An
appeal for help would then come from the coun­
try of the well-liked Danube waltz and Danube
blue-the country of gayety and charm. The
new idea would be carried to those who accepted
the stereotypes they were familiar with.
The combating of the stereotype is seen in the
battle waged against the American Valuation
Plan by the public relations counsel. The formu­
lators of the plan dubbed it "American Valua­
tion" in order to capitalize on the stereotype of
"American." In fighting the plan, its opponents
put the word "American" in quotation marks
whenever reference was made to the subject in
order to question the authenticity of the use of
this stereotype. Thus patriotism was definitely
removed from what was evidently an economical
and political issue.
The public relations counsel creates new stere­
otypes. Roosevelt, his own best adviser, was an
apt creator of such stereotypes-"square deal,
164 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
de-lighted, molly-coddle, big stick," created new
concepts for general acceptance.
Stereotypes sometimes b.ecome shop-worn and
lose their power with the public that has pre­
viously accepted them. "Hundred per cent
American" died from over use.
Visible objects as stereotypes are often used
by the public relations counsel with great effec­
tiveness to produce the desired impression. A
national flag on the orator's platform is a most
common device. A scientist must of necessity
be in juxtaposition with his instruments. A
chemist is not a chemist to the public unless test
tubes and retorts are near him. A doctor must
have his kit, or, formerly, a Van Dyke beard.
In photographs of food factory buildings white
is a good stereotype for cleanliness and purity.
In fact, all emblems and trade-marks are stereo­
types.
There is one danger in the use of stereotypes
by the public relations counsel. That is, by the
substitution of words for acts, demagogues in
every :field of social relationship can take advan­
tage of the public.
Play as an innate tendency is utilized by the
public relations counsel whenever conditions
merit such an appeal. When a charity committee
is advised to institute a street fair to gather
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 165
money, the committee is recognizing this tend­
ency. When a city government arranges fire­
works for its citizens, when a metropolitan news­
daily stages marble contests or horseshoe pitch­
ing events, the play tendency of human society
finds an outlet and the initiators of the event find
friends.
 CHAPTER III
AN OUTLINE OF METHODS PRACTICABLE IN MODI-

0
FYING THE POINT OF VIEW OF A GROUP

N the question of specific devices upon which

the public relations counsel relies to accom­
plish his ends, volumes could probably be written
without exhausting the subject. The detailed
presentation is potentially endless. Pages could
be filled with instances of the stimuli to which
men and women respond, the circumstances un­
der which they will respond favorably or un­
favorably, and the particular application of each
of these stimuli to concrete conditions. Such an
outline, however, would have less value than an
outline of fundamentals, since circumstances are
never the same.
These principles, by and large, consist of fun­
damentals already defined, to which the public re­
lations counsel has recourse in common with the
statesman, the journalist, the preacher, the lec­
turer and all others engaged in attempting to
modify public opinion or public conduct.
How does the public relations counsel approach
any particular problem? First he must analyze
166
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 167
his client's problem and his client's objective.
Then he must analyze the public he is trying to
reach. He must devise a plan of action for the
client to follow and determine the methods and
the organs of distribution available for reaching
his public. Finally he must try to estimate the
interaction between the public he seeks to reach
and his client. How will his client's case strike
the public mind? And by public mind here is
meant that section or those sections of the public
which must be reached.
Let us take the example of a public relations
counsel who is confronted with the specific prob­
lem of modifying or influencing the attitude of
the public toward a given tariff bill. A tariff bill,
of course, is primarily the application of theoret­
ical economics to a concrete industrial situation.
The public relations counsel in analyzing must see
himself simultaneously as a member of a large
number of publics. He must visualize himself
as a manufacturer, a retailer, an importer, an
employer, a worker, a financier, a politician.
Within these groups he must see himself again
as a member of the various subdivisions of each
of these groups. He must see himself, for ex­
ample, as a member of a group of manufacturers
who obtain the bulk of their raw material within
the United States, and at the same time as a
member of a group of manufacturers who obtain
168 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
large portions of their raw material from abroad
and whose importations of raw m�terial may be
adversely affected by the pending tariff bill. He
must see himself not only as a farm laborer but
also as a mechanic in a large industrial center.
He must see himself as the owner of the depart­
ment store and as a member of the buying pub­
lic. He must be able to generalize, as far as
possible, from these points of view in order to
strike upon the appeal or group of appeals which
will be influential with as many sections of society
as possible. 1

Let us assume that our problem is the intensi­

fication in the public mind of the prestige of a
hotel. The problem for the public relations coun­
sel is to create in the public mind the close rela­
tionship between the hotel and a number of ideas
that represent the things the hotel desires to
stand for in the public mind.
1 Mr. Given's definition of the qualifications of a good re­
porter applies very largely to the qualifications of a good public
relations counsel. "There is undoubtedly a good deal of truth,"
says Mr. Given, "in the saying that good reporters are born and
not made. A man may learn how to gather some kinds of news,
and he may learn how to write it correctly, but if he cannot see
the picturesque or vital point of an incident and express what
he sees so that others will see as through his eyes, his pro­
ductions, even if no particular fault can be found with them,
will not bear the mark of true excellence ; and there is, if one
stops to think, a great difference between something that is de­
void of faults and something that is full of good points. 'J'he
quality which makes a good newspaper man must, in the opinion
of many editors, exist in the beginning. But when it does exist,
it can usuatly be developed, no matter bow many obstacles are
in the way."
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 169
The counsel therefore advises the hotel to make
a celebration of its thirtieth anniversary which
happens to fall at this particular time and sug­
gests to the president the organization of an
anniversary committee of a body of business men
who represent the cream of the city's merchants.
This committee is to include men who represent
a number of stereotypes that will help to pro­
duce the inevitable result in the public mind.
There are to be also a leading banker, a soci­
ety woman, a prominent lawyer, an influential
preacher, and so forth until a cross section of
the city's most telling activities is mirrored in
the committee. The stereotype has its effect, and
what may have been an indefinite impression be­
forehand has been reenforced and concretized.
The hotel remains preeminent in the public mind.
The stereotypes have proved its preeminence.
The cause has been strongly presented to the
public by identification with different group stere­
otypes.
Here is another example. A packing company
desires to establish in the public mind the fact
that the name of its product is synonymous with
bacon. Its public relations counsel advises a con­
test on "Bring home the Beech-Nut," the contest
to be open to salesmen and to be based on the
best sale made by salesmen throughout the coun­
try during the month of August. But here again
170 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
it is necessary to use a stereotype to help the
possible contestant identify the cause. A com­
mittee of nationally known sales-managers is
chosen to act as judges for the contest and im­
mediately success is assured. Thousands of
salesmen compete for the prize. The stereotype
has bespoken the value of the contest.
The public relations counsel can try to bring
about this identification by utilizing the appeals
to desires and instincts discussed in the preceding
chapter, and by making use of the characteristics
of the group formation of society. His utiliza­
tion of these basic principles will be a continual
and efficient aid to him.
He must make it easy for the public to pick
his issue out of the great mass of material. He
must be able to overcome what has been called
"the tendency on the part of public attention to
'flicker' and 'relax.'" He must do for the pub­
lic mind what the newspaper, with its headlines,
accomplishes for its readers.
Abstract discussions and heavy facts are the
groundwork of his involved theory, or analysis,
but they cannot be given to the public until they
are simplified and dramatized. The refinements
of reason and the shadings of emotion cannot
reach a considerable public.
When an appeal to the instincts can be made
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 171

so powerful as to secure acceptance in the me­

dium of dissemination in spite of competitive in­
terests, it can be aptly termed news.
The public relations counsel, there£ore, is a
creator of news for whatever medium he chooses
to transmit his ideas. It is his duty to create
news no matter what the medium which broad­
casts this ·news. It is news interest which gives
him an opportunity to make his idea travel and
get the favorable reaction from the instincts
to which he happens to appeal. News in itself
we shall define later on when we discuss "rela­
tions with the press." But the word news is suf­
ficiently understood for me to talk of it here.
In order to appeal to the instincts and funda­
mental emotions of the public, discussed in pre­
vious chapters, the public relations counsel must
create news around his ideas. News will, by its
superior inherent interest, receive attention in the
competitive markets for news, which are them­
selves continual1y trying to claim the public at­
tention. The public relations counsel must lift
startling facts from his whole subject and present
them as news. He must isolate ideas and develop
them into events so that they can be more readily
understood and so that they may claim attention
as news.
The headline and the cartoon bear the same
172 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
relation to the newspaper that the public rela­
tions counsel's analysis of a problem bears to the
problem itself.
The headline is a compact, vivid simplification
of complicated issues. The cartoon provides a
visual image which takes the place of abstract
thought. So, too, the analyses the public rela­
tions counsel makes, lift out the important, the
interesting, and the easily understandable points
in order to create interest.
"Yet human qualities are themselves," says
Mr. Lippmann,1 "vague and fluctuating. They
are best remembered by a physical sign. And
therefore the human qualities we tend to ascribe
to the names of our impressions, themselves tend
to be visualized in physical metaphors. The peo­
ple of England, the history of England, condense
into England, and England becomes John Bull,
who is jovial and fat, not too clever, but well
able to take care of himself. The migration of
a people may appear to some as a meandering of
a river, and to others like a devastating flood.
The courage people display may be objectified as
a rock, their purpose as a road, their doubts as
forks of the road, their difficulties as ruts and
rocks, their progress as a fertile valley. If they
mobilize their dreadnaughts they unsheath a
sword. If their army surrenders they are thrown
1 "Public Opinion" (page 160).
 TECHNIQUE AND METHOD 173
to earth. If they are oppressed they are on the
rack or under the harrow."
Perhaps the chief contribution of the public
relations counsel to the public and to his client
is his ability to understand and analyze obscure
tendencies of the public mind. It is true that he
first analyzes his client's problem-he then ana­
lyzes the public mind; he utilizes the mediums of
communication between the two, but before he
does this he must use his personal experience and
knowledge to bring two factors into alignment.
It is his capacity for crystallizing the obscure
tendencies of the public mind before they have
reached definite expression, which makes him so
valuable.
His ability to create those symbols to which
the public is ready to respond; his ability to know
and to analyze those reactions which the public
is ready to give; his ability to find those stereo­
types, individual and community, which will bring
favorable responses; his ability to speak in the
language of his audience and to receive from it
a favorable reception are his contributions.
The appeal to the instincts and the universal
desires is the basic method through which he
produces his results.
 PART IV
ETHICAL RELATIONS
 CHAPTER I
A CONSIDERATION OF THE PRESS AND OTHER ME•
DIUMS OF COMMUNICATION IN THEIR
RELATION TO THE PUBLIC RE-
LATIONS COUNSEL

W HEN the question of preparing and pub­

lishing this volume was first considered,
the publishers wrote letters to several hundred
prominent men asking their opinions, individu­
ally, as to the probable public interest in a work
dealing with public relations. Newspaper edi­
tors and publishers, heads of large industries and
public service corporations, philanthropists, uni­
versity presidents and heads of schools of jour­
nalism, as well as other prominent men made up
the number. Their replies are exceedingly in­
teresting in as much as they show, almost uni-.
formly, the increasing emphasis placed upon pub­
lic relations by leaders in every important phase
of American life. These replies show also a
growing understanding of the need for spe­
cialized service in this field of specialized prob­
lems.
Particularly interesting were the comments of
177
178 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
newspaper publishers and editors in response to
Mr. Liveright's inquiry, for nothing could bet­
ter indicate the light in which the public relations
counsel is held by those very individuals who
are supposed popularly to disparage his value in
the social and economic scheme of things.
What are the relations of the public relations
counsel to the various mediums he can employ
to carry his message to the public? There is,
of course, first and perhaps most important, the
press. There is the moving picture; the lecture
plat£orm; there is advertising; there is the direct­
by-mail effort; there is the stage-drama and
music; there is word of mouth; there is the pul­
pit, the schoolroom, the legislative chamber-to
all of these the public relations counsel has dis­
tinct relationship.
The journalist of to-day, while still watching
the machinations of the so-called "press agent"
with one half-amused eye, appreciates the value
of the service the public relations counsel is able
to give him.
To the newspaper the public relations counsel
serves as a purveyor of news.
As disseminator of news the newspaper holds
an important position in American life. This has
not always been the case, for the emphasis uwn
the news side is a development of recent years.
Originally, the name newspaper was scarcely an
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 179
accurate or appropriate designation for the units
of the American press. So-called newspapers
were, in fact, vehicles for the expression of opin­
ion of their editors. They contained little or
no news, as that word is understood to-day­
largely because difficulties of communication made
it impossible to obtain any but the most local
items of interest. The public was accustomed to
look to its press for the opinion of its favorite
editor upon subjects of current interest rather
than for the recital of mere facts.
To-day, on the other hand, the expression of
editorial opinion is only secondarily the function
of a newspaper; and thousands of persons read
newspapers with whose editorial policy they do
not in the slightest agree. Such a situation would
have been nearly impossible in the days of Hor­
ace Greeley.
The need which the American press is to-day
engaged in satisfying is the need for news. "A
paper," says Mr. Given,1 "may succeed without
printing editorials worth reading and without
having any aim other than the making of money,
but it cannot possibly thrive unless it gets the
news and prints it in a pleasing and attractive
form."
Writing from a long experience with the pro­
fession of journalism, Will Irwin reaches the
1 Given, "Making a Newspaper."
180 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
conclusion that 1 "news is the main thing, the
vital consideration of the American newspaper;
it is both an intellectual craving and a commercial
need to the modern world. In popular psychology
it has come to be a crying primal want of the
mind, like hunger of the body. Tramp wind­
jammers, taking on the pilot after a long cruise,
ask for the papers before they ask, as formerly,
for fresh fruit and vegetables. Whenever, in our
later Western advance, we Americans set up a
new mining camp, an editor, his type slung on
burro-back, comes in with the missionaries, evan­
gel himself of civilization. Most dramatically the
San Francisco disaster illuminated this point.
On the morning of April 20, 1900, the city's pop­
ulation huddled in parks and squares, their houses
gone, death of famine or thirst a rumor and a
possibility. The editors of the three morning
newspapers, expressing the true soldier spirit
which inspires this most devoted profession, had
moved their staffs to the suburb of Oakland, and
there, on the presses of the Tribune, they had
issued a combined Call-Chronicle-Examiner.
When, at dawn, the paper was printed, an editor
and a reporter loaded the edition into an auto­
mobile and drove it through the parks of the dis­
ordered city, giving copies away. They w('lre
1 "What Is News?" by Will Irwin, Colliw'1, March 18, 1911
(page 16).
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 181

fairly mobbed, they had to drive at top speed,

casting out the sheets as they went, to make any
progress at all. No bread wagon, no supply of
blankets, caused half so much stir as did the
arrival of the news.
"We need it, we crave it; this nerve of the
modern world transJnits thought and impulse
from the brain of humanity to its muscles; the
complex organism of modern society could no
more move without it than a man could move
without filaments and ganglia. On the commer­
cial and practical side, the man of even small
affairs must read news in the newspapers every
day to keep informed on the thousand and one
activities in the social structure which affect his
business. On the intellectual and spiritual side,
it is-save for the Church alone-our principal
outlook on the higher intelligence. The thought
of legislature, university, study, and pulpit comes
to the common man first-and usually last-in
the form of news. The tedious business of teach­
ing reading in public schools has become chiefly
a training to consume newspapers. We must go
far up in the scale of culture before we find an
intellectual equipment more a debtor to the formal
education of school and college than to the hap­
hazard education of news."
The extent to which the editorial aspect of
the newspaper has given way to an increased im-
182 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
portance of the news columns is vividly illustrated
in the anecdote about the Philadelphia North
American, which Mr. Irwin relates. "The North
American," says Mr. Irwin, "had declared for
local option. A committee of brewers waited on
the editor; they represented one of the biggest
groups in their business. 'This is an ultimatum,'
they said. 'You must change your policy or lose
our advertising. We'll be easy on you. We don't
ask you to alter your editorial policy, but you must
stop printing news of local-option victories.' 1 So
the deepest and shrewdest enemies of the body
politic give practical testimony to the 'power of
the press' in its modern form."
In the case of the brewers of Philadelphia it
is my own opinion that if they had been well
advised, instead of attempting to interfere with
the poHcy of the North American, they would
have made it a point to bring to the attention
of the North American every instance of the de­
feat of local option. The newspaper would un­
doubtedly have published both sides of the story,
as far as both sides consisted of news.
It is because he acts as the purveyor of truth­
ful, accurate and verifiable news to the press
that the conscientious and successful counsel on
public relations is looked upon with favor by
the journalist. And in the Code of Ethics re-
1 Italics mine.
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 183
cently adopted in Washington by a national ed­
itors' conference, his function is given acknowl­
edgment. Just as in the case of the other me­
diums for the dissemination of information,
mediums which range from the lecture platform
to the radio, the press, too, looks to the public
relations counsel for information about the causes
he represents.
Since news is the newspaper's backbone, it is
obvious that an understanding of what news ac­
tually is must be an integral part of the equipment
of the public relations counsel. For the public
relations counsel must not only supply news-he
must create news. This function as the creator
of news is even more important than his others.
It has always been interesting to me that a con­
cise, comprehensive definition of news has never
been written. What news is, every newspaper
man instinctively knows, particularly as it con­
cerns the needs of his own paper. But it is almost
as difficult to define news as it is to describe a
circular staircase without making corkscrew ges­
tures with one's hand, or as to define some of the
abstruse concepts of the metaphysician, like space
or time or reality.
What is news for one newspaper may have no
interest whatever, or very little interest, for an­
other newspaper. There are almost as many defi­
nitions of news as there are journalists who take
184 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
the trouble to define it. Certain of the charac­
teristics of news, of course, can be readily seized
upon; and definitions of news generally consist
of particular emphasis upon one or another of
these characteristics. Mr. Given remarks that 1
"news was once defined as 'Fresh information of
something that has lately taken place.' . . ."
The author of this definition puts the chief em­
phasis upon the element of timeliness. Undoubt­
edly in most news that element must be present.
It would not be true, however, to say that it must
always be present, nor would it be true to say that
everything which is timely is news. Obviously,
the well-nigh infinite number of occurrences
which take place in daily life throughout the
world are timely enough, so far as each of them
in its respective environment is concerned; but
few of them ever become news.
Mr. Irwin defines news as "a departure from
the established order.'' Thus, according to Mr.
Irwin, a criminal act is news because it is a de­
parture from the established order, and at the
same time, an exceptional display of fidelity,
courage or honesty is also news for the same
reason.
"With our education in established order, we
get the knowledge," he says,• "that mankind_ in
t "Making a Newspaper" (paJe 168).
11 "What is News?" Will Irwin, CoUier's, March 18, 1911 (page
16).
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 185
bulk obeys its ideals of that order only imper­
fectly. When something brings to our attention
an exceptional adhesion to religion, virtue, and
truth, that becomes in itself a departure from
regularity, and therefore news. The knowledge
that most servants do their work conscientiously
and many stay long in the same employ is not
news. But when a committee of housewives pre­
sents a medal to a servant who has worked faith­
fully in one employ for fifty years, that becomes
news; because it calls our attention to a case -of
exceptional fidelity to the ideals of established
order. The fact that mankind will consume an
undue amount of news about crime and disorder
is only a proof that the average human being is
optimistic, that he believes the world to be true,
sound and working upward. Crimes and scandals
interest him most because they most disturb his
picture of the established order.
"That, then, is the basis of news. The mys­
terious news sense which is necessary to all good
reporters rests on no other foundation than ac­
quired or instinctive perception of this principle,
together with a feeling for what the greatest
number of people will regard as a departure from
the established order. In Jesse Lynch William's
newspaper play, 'The Stolen Story,' occurs this
passage:
186 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OP.INION
" ( Enter Very Young Reporter; comes down
to city desk with air of excitement.)
"VERY YouNG REPORTER ( considerably im­
pressed): 'Big story. Three dagoes killed by that
boiler explosion I'
"THE CITY EDITOR ( reading copy. Doesn't
look up): 'Ten lines.' (Continues reading copy.)
"VERY YouNG REPORTER (looks surprised and
hurt. Crosses over to reporter's table. Then
turns back to city desk. Casual conversational
tone) : 'By the way. Funny thing. There was
a baby carriage within fifty feet of the explosion,
but it wasn't upset.'
"THE CITY EDITOR ( looks up with professional
interest): 'That's worth a dozen dead dagoes.
Write a half column.'
· " (Very Young Reporter looks still more sur­
prised, perplexed. Suddenly the idea dawns upon
him. He crosses over to table, sits down, writes.)

"Both saw news; but the editor went further

than the reporter. For cases of Italians killed
by a boiler explosion are so common as to ap­
proach the commonplace; but a freak of explo­
sive chemistry which annihilates a strong man
and does not disturb a baby departs from it
widely."
Here again it is clear that Mr. Irwin has
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 187
merely emphasized one of the features generally
to be found in what we call news, without, how­
ever, offering us a complete or exclusive defini­
tion of news.
Analyzing further within his general rule that
news is a departure from the established order,
Mr. Irwin goes on to point out certain outstand­
ing factors which enhance or create news value.
I cite them here because all of them are unques­
tionably sound. On the other hand, analysis
shows that some of them are directly contradic­
tory to his main principle that only the departure
from the established order is news. In Mr. Ir­
win's opinion, the four oustanding factors mak­
ing for the creation or enhancement of news value
are the following: 1

1. "We prefer to read about the things we

like:" The result, he says, has been the rule:
"Power for the men, affections for the women."
2. "Our interest in news increases in direct
ratio to our familiarity with its subject11 its set­
ting, and its dramatis personm.n
3. uour interest in news is in direct ratio to
its effect on our personal concerns.''
4 "Our interest in news increases in direct
1 ''Wbat is News?'' by Will Irwin, Collin'1, March 18, 1911
(pages 17-18). Italics mine.
188 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
ratio to the general importance of the persons or
activities which it affects." This is so obvious
that it scarcely needs comment.
Some notion of the diversity of news arising
in a city may be obtained if one studies the points
which are watched as news sources, either con­
tinuously or closely by metropolitan dailies. Mr.
Given 1 lists the places in New York which are
watched constantly:
"Police Headquarters.
Police Courts.
Coroner's Office.
Supreme Courts, New York County.
New York Stock Exchange.
City Hall, including the Mayor's Office, Alder­
manic Chamber, City Clerk's Office, and Office of
the President of Manhattan Borough.
County Clerk's office."
Those places, says Mr. Given, which the news-
papers watch �refully, but not continually, are:
"City Courts (Minor civil cases).
Court of General Sessions ( Criminal cases).
Court of Special Sessions ( Minor criminal
cases.)
District Attorney's Office.
1 "Making a Newspaper," by Given (pages 59-6:z).
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 189
Doors of Grand Jury rooms when the Grand
Jury is in session (For indictments and present­
ments).
Federal Courts.
Post Office.
United States Commissioner's Offices, and
Offices of the United States Secret Service offi­
cers.
United States Marshal's Office.
United States District Attorney's Office.
Ship News, where incoming and outgoing ves­
sels are reported.
Barge Office, where immigrants land.
Surrogate's Office, where wills are filed and
testimony concerning wills in litigation is heard.
Political Headquarters during campaigns."

Finally, "the following are visited by the re-

porters several times, or only once a day:

"Police Stations.
Municipal Courts.
Board of Health Headquarters.
Fire Department Headquarters.
Park Department Headquarters.
Building Department Headquarters.
Tombs Prison.
County Jail.
United States Sub-treasury.
190 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
Office of Collector of the Port.
United States Appraiser's Office.
Public Hospitals.
Leading Hotels.
The Morgue.
County Sheriff's Office.
City Comptroller's Office.
City Treasurer's Office.
Offices of the Tax Collector and Tax Asses­
sors."

Mr. Given's example of the broker, John

Smith, illustrates aptly the point I am making.
"For ten years," said Mr. Given,1 "he pursues
the even tenor of his way and except for his cus­
tomers and his friends no one gives him a thought.
To the newspapers he is as if he were not. But
in the eleventh year he suffers heavy losses and,
at last, his resources all gone, summons his lawyer
and arranges for the making of an assignment.
The lawyer posts off to the County Clerk's office,
and a clerk there makes the necessary entries in
the office docket. Here in step the newspapers.
While the clerk is writing Smith's business obitu­
ary, a reporter glances over his shoulder, and a
few minutes later the newspapers know Smith's
troubles and are as well informed concerning his
business status as they would be had they kept
1 Given, "Making a Newspaper" (page 57).
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 191

a reporter at his door every day for over ten

years. Had Smith dropped dead instead of
merely making an assignment his name would
have reached the newspapers by way of the Cor­
oner's office instead of the County Clerk's office,
and in fact, while Smith did not know it, the
newspapers. were prepared and ready for him no
matter what he did. They even had representa­
tives waiting for him at the Morgue. He was
safe only when he walked the straight and narrow
path and kept quiet."
An overt act is often necessary before an event
can be regarded as news.
Commenting on this aspect of the situation,
Mr. Lippmann discusses this very example of the
broker, John Smith, and his hypothetical bank­
ruptcy. "That overt act," says Mr. Lippmann,1
" 'uncovers' the news about Smith. Whether the
news will be followed up or not is another mat­
ter. The point is that before a series of events
become news they have usually to make them­
selves noticeable in some more or less overt act.
Generally, too, in a crudely overt act. Smith's
friends may have known for years that he was
taking risks, rumors may even have reached the
financial editor if Smith's friends were talkative.
But apart from the fact that none of this could
be published because it would be libel, there is
1 "Public Opinion" (paaes 339--340).
192 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
in these rumors nothing definite on which to
peg a story. Something definite must occur
that has unmistakable form. It may be the act
of going into bankruptcy, it may be a fire, a
collision, an assault, a riot, an arrest, a denuncia­
tion, the introduction of a bill, a speech, a vote,
a meeting, the expressed opinion of a well-known
citizen, an editorial in a newspaper, a sale, a
wage-schedule, a price change, the proposal to
build a bridge. . . . There must be a manifesta­
tion. The course of events must assume a cer­
tain definable shape, and until it is in a phase
where some aspect is an accomplished fact, news
does not separate itself from the ocean of possible
truth."
From the point of view of the practical journal­
ist, Mr. Irwin has applied this observation to
the making of the news of the day. He says: 1
"I state a platitude when I say that government
by the people is the essence of democracy. In
theory, the people watch and know; when, in the
process of social and industrial evolution, they
see a new evil becoming important, they found
institutions to regulate it or laws to repress it.
They cannot watch without light, know without
teachers. The newspaper, or some force like it,
must daily inform them of things whic� are
1 "All the News That's Fit to Print," Colliers. May 6, 19n
(page 18).
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 193
shocking and unpleasant in order that democracy,
in its slow, wobbling motion upward, may per­
ceive and correct. It is good for us to know that
John Smith, made crazy by drink, came home and
killed his wife. Startled and shocked, but inter­
ested, we may follow the case of John Smith, see
that justice in his case is not delayed by his pull
with Tammany. Perhaps, when there are enough
cases of John Smith, we shall look into the first
causes and restrain the groggeries that made him
momentarily mad or the industrial oppression
that made him permanently an undernourished,
overnerved defective. It is good to know that
John Jones, a clerk, forged a check and went to
jail. For not only shall we watch justice in his
case, but some day we shall watch also the fraud­
ulent race-track gambling that tempted him to
theft. If every day we read of those crimes
which grow from the misery of New York's East
Side and Chicago's Levee, some day democracy
may get at the ultimate causes for overwork, un­
derfeeding, tenement crowding.
"No other method is so forcible with the pub­
lic as driving home the instance which points the
moral. General description of bad conditions
fails, somehow, to impress the average mind.
One might have shouted to Shreveport day after
day that low dives make dangerous negroes, and
created no sentiment against saloons. But when
 194 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
a negro, drunk on bad gin which he got at such
a dive, assaulted and killed Margaret Lear, a
schoolgirl, Shreveport voted out the saloon."
For the great mass of activities there is no
machinery of record whatever. How these are
to be recorded when they are important is the
real problem for the press.
In this field the public relations counsel plays
a considerable part. His is the business of call­
ing to the public attention, through the press and
through every other available medium, the point
of view, the movement or the issue which he rep­
resents. Mr. Lippmann has observed that it is
for this reason that what he calls the "press
agent" has become an important factor in modern
life.
Mr. Lippmann's observation on this point de­
serves comment. He says: 1 "This is the under­
lying reason for the existence of the press agent.
The enormous discretion as to what facts and
what impressions shall be reported is steadily
convincing every organized group of people that
whether it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid
it, the exercise of discretion cannot be left to the
reporter. It is safer to hire a press-agent who
stands between the group and the newspapers."
The really important function of the public- re­
lations counsel, in relation to the press as well
t "Public Opinion" (page 344).
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 195
as to his client, lies even beyond these consider­
ations. He is not merely the purveyor of news;
he is more logically the creator of news.
An amateur can bring a good story to the aver­
age newspaper office and receive consideration,
although the amateur is only too likely to miss
precisely those features of his story which give
it news value, and to overlook precisely that
element of the story which will make it interest­
ing to the particular newspaper he is ap­
proaching.
The New York hotel proprietors were enforc­
ing the prohibition law in relation to their own
establishments, but saw that certain restaurants
were violating the law with impunity. Realizing
the injustice to them of this situation, they built
a definite news event by going over the heads of
the local law enforcement offices and wired an
appeal direct to President Harding, asking for
enforcement. This naturally became news of the
first order.
The opening of a shop by prominent women in
which were shown graphic examples of the effect
of the tariff on women's wear was an event cre­
ated to intensify interest in this subject.
The launching of battleships with ceremony;
the laying of corner stones; the presentation of
memorials; demonstration meetings, parties and
banquets are all events created with a view to
196 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
their carrying capacity in the various mediums
that reach the public.
The departments of a modern newspaper will
show the great variety of possible approaches on
any subject from the standpoint of the press.
When this is correlated to the possible approaches
on any subject from the standpoint of human
psychology, we see the diversification of methods
to which the public relations counsel can have
recourse to construct events.
In the metropolitan press, for instance, there
are the news departments, the editorial depart­
ments, the letter-to-the-editor department, the
women's department, the society department, the
current events department, the sport department,
the real estate department, the business depart­
ment, the financial department, the shipping de­
partment, the investment department, the educa­
tional department, the photographic department
and the other special feature writers and sections,
different in different journals.
In a valuable study on the "Newspaper Read­
ing Habits of Business Executives and Profes­
sional Men in New York" compiled by Professor
George Burton Hotchkiss, Head of the Depart­
ment of Advertising and Marketing, and Rich­
ard B. Franken, Lecturer in Advertising · at
New York University, there are several tables
setting forth the features of morning and eve-
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 197
ning newspapers preferred as a whole by the
group to whom the questionnaires were sent, and
by various smaller groups within the main group.
The counsel on public relations not only knows
what news value is, but knowing it, he is in a
position to make news happen. He is a creator
of events.
An organization held a banquet for a building
fund to which the invitations were despatched
on large bricks. The news element in this story
was the fact that bricks were despatched.
In this capacity, as purveyor and creator of
news for the press as well as for all other me­
diums of idea dissemination, it must be clear
immediately that the public relations counsel
could not possibly succeed unless he complied with
the highest moral and technical requirements of
those with whom he is working.
Writing on the profession of the public rela­
tions counsel, the author of an article in the New
York Times 1 says "newspaper editors are the
most suspicious and cynical of mortals, but they
are as quick to discern the truth as to detect
the falsehood." He goes on to discuss the par­
ticular public relations counsel whom he has in
mind and whom he designates by the fictitious
name Swift, and remarks that: "Irrespective of
1 Times Book Review and Magasine, January 1, 1922. "Men
Who Wield the Spotlight," by Charles J. Rosebault.
198 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
their position on ethics, Swift & Co. won't deal
in spurious goods. They know that one such
error would be fatal. The public might forget,
but the editor never. Besides, they don't have
to."
Truthful and accurate must be the material
which the public relations counsel furnishes to the
press and other mediums. In addition, it must
have the elements of timeliness and interest which
are required of all news-and it must not only
have these elements in general, but it must suit
the particular needs of each particular newspaper
and, even more than that, it must suit the needs
of the particular editor in whose department it
is hoped that it will be published.
Finally, the literary quality of the material
must be up to the best standards of the profes­
sion of journalism. The writing must be good,
in the particular sense in which each newspaper
considers a story well written.
In brief, the material must come to the editorial
desk as carefully prepared and as accurately veri­
fied as if the editor himself had assigned a spe­
cial reporter to secure and write the facts. Only
by presenting his news in such form and in such
a manner can the counsel on public relations hope
to retain, in the case of the newspaper, the most
valuable thing he possesses-the editor's faith
and trust. But it must be clearly borne in mind
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 199
that only in certain cases is the public relations
counsel the intermediary between the news and
the press. The event he has counseled upon, the
action he has created finds its own level of ex­
pression in mediums which reach the public.
The radio stations offer an avenue of approach
to the public. They are controlled by private or­
ganizations, large electrical supply companies, de­
partment stores, newspapers, telegraph companies
and in some cases by the government. Their pro­
grams broadcast information and entertainment
to those within their radius. These programs
vary in different localities.
To the public relations counsel there is a wide
opportunity to utilize the means of distribution
the radio program affords. In partisan matters,
the controllers of the radio insist upon the pres­
entation of all points of view in order to have
the onus of propaganda removed from their
shoulders. The public relations counsel is there­
fore in a position to suggest to the broadcasting
managers a symposium treatment of the subject
in which he happens to be interested. Or in
the case of information, which has not this par­
tisan character, he is in a position to assure treat­
ment of his subject by embodying his thesis in
the form of a speech delivered by some indi­
vidual of standing and reputation.
In the case of events which the public rela-
100 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
tions counsel may be instrumental in creating,
such as large public meetings, the radio to-day
becomes a natural form of distribution, just as
news treatment in a newspaper does, and the
broadcasting to thousands and thousands of peo­
ple of the $peeches becomes a corollary of the
event itself. T9e �roadcasting of Lord Robert
Cecil's speech on the Lellgue of Nations, delivered
at a banquet in New York, is a case in point.
Many magazines, for instance, are availing
themselves of the radio stations to supply
speeches on the particular topics they are most
interested in. So the housekeeping magazines
supply the radio stations with information about
that phase of women's activities. The fashion
magazines do likewise in their fields. And they
thereby heighten their own prestige and author­
ity in the minds of their hearers.
The use of the wireless telegraph in war time
was an important factor in broadcasting informa­
tion of war aims and war accomplishments to
enemy countries. It was used successfully by
both Allied and Central powers. It was uti­
lized even by the Soviet Government in the an­
nouncement of its communications. This form
of propagation differs slightly from the radio,
referred to previously, since it depends for its
efficacy not upon reaching great numbers· of
hearers, but upon reaching newspapers and other
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 201

mediums that give currency to the material

broadcasted. The wireless telegraph of course
was and is a valuable asset to the public relations
counsel.
The lecture platform is another well-estab­
lished means of idea communication.
The spoken word has to a certain extent lost
its efficacy when the lecture platform alone is
considered.
The appeal of the lecture platform is limited
by the actual number of those who hear the mes­
sage. It is possible to reach vaster numbers
through the printed word or the motion picture
or even the radioed word. Both the weakness
of the human voice and the physical character­
istics of the place of assemblage bring about this
limitation.
The lecture platform, however, still retains its
importance for the public relations counsel be­
cause it affords him the opportunity to speak
before group audiences which in themselves have
a news value, or because it presents the oppor­
tunity to stage dramatic events that bring in­
tensification of interest and action on the part
of larger audiences than those actually addressed.
The lecture field open to the public relations
counsel for the propagation of information or
ideas may be divided into several classifications.
First there are the lecture managers and bu-
202 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
reaus, which act as agents in booking lecturers
to different kinds of group audiences throughout
the country. The public relations counsel can,
for instance, suggest to his client to secure a
prominent person, who because of interest in
a cause will be glad to undertake a lecture tour.
Then a bureau may manage the tour. The tours
of important proponents on such issues as the
League of Nations fall in this class as well as the
tours of prominent authors, arranged by publish­
ers in their behalf.
Then there is the lecture tour managed by the
client himself and arranged through the booking
of engagements with such local groups as might
be interested in assuming sponsorship for what
is said. A soap company might engage a lecturer
on cleanliness to speak in the schools of leading
communities. Or a woolen firm arrange for a
home economics authority to lecture to women's
clubs on dress. These speeches of course, locally,
gain a wider audience than the speaker would
who addressed a single meeting because they give
opportunity for treatment in newspapers, adver­
tising, circularizing, and other mediums.
The lecture field offers another means of com­
munication in as much as it gives the public rela­
tions counsel a range of group leaders to whom
he can furnish the facts and ideas he is trying to
propagate. The lecturers of Boards of Educa-
 . ETHICAL RELATIONS 203

tion in cities throughout the country, the lecturers

before schools and other institutions of learning,
the lecturers of one sort or another who address
varied audiences can be reached directly and can
become the carriers of the information the public
relations counsel desires to give forth.
The meeting or public demonstration, at which
prominent speakers voice their views upon the
particular problem or problems at issue, would
fall quite naturally under this same classifica­
tion. Its main purpose, of course, is not so much
to reach the audience being addressed as to make
a focal point of interest for those thousands and
millions who do not attend, but who get the
reverberations of the speaker's voice through
other mediums than their own auditory sensa­
tion.
Advertising is a medium open to the public re­
lations counsel. In the sense in which the word
is used here, the term applies to every form of
paid space available for the carrying of a mes­
sage. From the newspaper advertisement to the
billboard, its forms are so varied that it has
developed its own literature and its own principles
and practice. In considering his objectives and
the mediums through which his potential public
can be reached the public relations counsel always
considers advertising space as among his most im­
portant adjuncts. The wise public relations coun-
z04 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
se1 calls into con£erence on the particular kinds of
advertising to be used in a given problem the
advertising agent who has made this study his
lifework. The public relations counsel and the
advertising agent then work out the problem in
their respective fields.
Advertising up to the present time has laid
its greatest stress upon the creation of demands
and markets for specific goods. It is also applied
with effectiveness to the propagation of ideas as
well. It is peculiarly effective when used in com­
bination with other methods of appeal.
Advertising controls the amount of physical
space it occupies before the public eye. Adver­
tising's dimensional qualities give it a facile flex­
ibility that can be extended or limited at will.
In a sense, too, this quality gives the special
leader the opportunity to select his audience and
to give them his message directly.
The field of cooperative advertising by com­
binations of advertisers in the same business or
profession, by governments or their subdivisions,
for one reason or another, is open to future pos­
sibilities.
The stage offers an avenue of approach to the
public which must be regarded both from the
standpoint of the numbers of individuals it
reaches as well as from the circles of influence it
creates by word of mouth and otherwise. To
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 205

the public relations counsel therefore it offers a

wide field.
Through cooperation with playwrights or man­
agers, ideas can be given currency on the stage.
When they can be translated to the action that
takes place upon a stage, they are given empha­
sis by the visual and auditory presentation.
The motion picture falls into two fields for the
purposes of the public relations counsel. There
is the field of the feature film. Here any direct
utilization of the public relations counsel's ideas
must come indirectly and be taken by the producer
of the film from some of the other organs of
thought communication. The producer may
adopt for the subject of a film some idea which
the public relations counsel has agitated. The
film, for instance, dealing with the drug traffic
came very definitely as a result of the work car­
ried on to help relieve the drug evil.
The second field is one the public relations
counsel can employ more directly. Educational
films are made to order to-day to illustrate spe­
cific points for public consumption, from showing
how a product is made to showing the necessity
for subway relief in a big city. These films are
usually shown before a special group audience
arranged for by the public relations counsel or
before some other group interested in the idea
the particular film stands for. Thus a Chamber
206 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
of Commerce can further a film having to do
with the need for better port facilities.
One phase of this kind of film is the news reel
which, controlled by a private organization, films
events and occasions which may have been cre­
ated by the public relations counsel, but which
carries because of its value in the competitive
market of events.
Word of mouth is an important medium to be
considered. Ideas and facts can be given cur­
rency by word of mouth. Here group leaders
are strong factors in giving currency to ideas.
The public relations counsel often communicates
the ideas he wishes to promulgate to group lead­
ers whose espousal of the idea he wishes to obtain.
The direct-by-mail campaign and the printed
word afford the public relations counsel channels
of approach to such individuals as he may desire
to reach. Large companies have available for
such purposes lists of individuals arranged ac­
cording to innumerable criteria. There are geo­
graphical divisions, professional divisions, busi­
ness divisions, and divisions of religion. There
are classifications by economic position, classifi­
cations by all manner of preferences. This clas­
sification of his public into the right groups for
the proper appeals is one of the most important
functions of the public relations counsel, as we
have pointed out. The direct-by-mail method of
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 207

approach offers wide opportunities for capital­

izing his training and experience along these
lines. Telegraphic and wireless communications
would of course come under this heading.
 CHAPTER II
HIS OBLIGATIONS TO THE PUBLIC AS A SPECIAL
PLEADER

I T has been the history of new professions­

and every profession has been at some time a
new profession-that they are accepted by the
public and become firmly established only after
two significant handicaps are overcome. The
first of these, oddly enough, lies in public opinion
itself; it consists of the public's reluctance to
acknowledge a dependence, however slight, upon
the ministrations of any one group of persons.
Medicine, even to-day, is still fighting this reluc­
tance. The law is fighting it. Yet these are es­
tablished professions.
The second handicap is that any new profession
must become established, not through the efforts
and activities of others, who might be considered
impartial, but through its own energy.
These handicaps are particularly potent in a
profession of advocacy, because it is engaged in
the partisan representation of one point of view.
The legal profession is perhaps the most familiar
example of this fact, and in this light at least a
trenchant comparison may be drawn between the
d
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 209

bar and the new profession of the public relations

counsel.
Both these professions offer to the public sub­
stantially the same services--expert training, a
highly sensitized understanding of the back­
ground from which results must be obtained, a
keenly developed capacity for the analysis of
problems into their constituent elements. Both
professions are in constant danger of arousing
crowd antagonism, because they often stand in
frank and open opposition to the fixed point of
view of one or another of the many groups which
compose society. Indeed it is this aspect of the
work of the public relations counsel which is un­
doubtedly the foundation of a good deal of pop­
ular disapproval of his profession.
Even Mr. Martin, who on several occasions in
his volume talks with severe condemnation of
what he calls propaganda, sees and admits the
fundamental psychological factors which make
the adherents to one point of view impute de­
graded or immoral motives to believers in other
points of view. He says: 1
"The crowd-man can, when his fiction is
challenged, save himself from spiritual bank­
ruptcy, preserve his defenses, keep his crowd
from going to pieces, only by a demur. Any one
who challenges the crowd's fictions must be ruled
1 ''Tbe ,Behavior of Crowda" (pages 138-129).
210 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
out of court. He must not be permitted to speak.
As a witness to contrary values, his testimony
must be discounted. The worth of his evidence
must be discredited by belittling the disturbing
witness. 'He is a bad man; the crowd must not
listen to him.' His motives must be evil; he is
'bought up'; he is an immoral character; he tells
lies; he is insincere or he 'has not the courage
to take a stand' or 'there is nothing new in what
he says.'
"Ibsen's 'Enemy of the People,' illustrates this
point very well. The crowd votes that Doctor
Stockman may not speak about the baths, the
real point at issue. Indeed, the mayor takes
the floor and officially announces that the doctor's
statement that the water is bad is 'unreliable and
exaggerated.' Then the president of the House­
holders' Association makes an address accusing
the doctor of secretly 'aiming at revolution.'
When finally Doctor Stockman speaks and tells
his fellow citizens the real meaning of their con­
duct, and utters a few plain truths about 'the
compact majority,' the crowd saves its face, not
by proving the doctor false, but by howling him
down, voting him an 'enemy of the people,' and
throwing stones through the window."
If we analyze a specific example of the public
relations counsel's work, we see the workings of
the crowd mind, whidi have made it so difficult
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 211

for his profession to gain popµlar approval. Let

us take, for example, the tariff situation again.
It is manifestly impossible for either side in the
dispute to obtain a totally unbiased point of view
as to the other side. The importer calls the man­
ufacturer unreasonable; he imputes selfish mo­
tives to him. For his own part he identifies the
establishment of the conditions upon which he
insists with such things as social welfare, na­
tional safety, Americanism, lower prices to the
consumer, and whatever other fundamentals he
can seize upon. Every newspaper report carry­
ing the flavor of adverse suggestion, whether on
account of its facts or on account of the manner
of its writing, is immediately branded as untrue,
unfortunate, ill-advised. It must, the importer
concludes, it must have been inspired by insidious
machinations from the manufacturers' interests.
But is the manufacturer any more reasonable?
If the newspapers publish stories unfavorable to
his interests, then the newspapers have been
"bought up," "influenced"; they are "partisan"
and many other unreasonable things. The manu­
facturer, just like the importer, identifies his side
of the struggle with such fundamental standards
as he can seize upon-a living wage, reduced
prices to the consumer, the American standard
of emplQyment, fair play, justice. To each the
contentions of the other are untenable.
212 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
Now, carry this situation one step further to
the point at which the public relations counsel is
retained, on behalf of one side or the other. Ob­
serve how sincerely each side and its adherents
call even the verifiable facts and figures of the
other by that dread name "propaganda." Should
the importers submit figures showing that wages
could be raised and the price to the consumer re­
duced, their adherents would be gratified that
such important educational work should be done
among the public and that the newspapers should
be so fair-minded as to publish it. The manu­
facturers, on the other hand, will call such ma­
terial "propaganda" and blame either the news­
paper which publishes those figures or the econo­
mist who compiled them, or the public relations
counsel who advised collating the material.
The only difference between "propaganda" and
"education," really, is in the point of view.
The advocacy of what we believe in is education.
The advocacy of what we don't believe in is
propaganda. Each of these nouns carries with it
social and moral implications. Education is val­
uable, commendable, enlightening, instructive.
Propaganda is insidious, dishonest, underhand,
misleading. It is only to-day that the viewpoint
on this question is undergoing a slight change,
as the following editorial would indicate:
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 213

"The relativity of truth," 1 says Mr. Elmer

Davis, "is a commonplace to any newspaper man,
even to one who has never studied epistemology;
and, if the phrase is permissible, truth is rather
more relative in Washington than anywhere else.
Now and then it is possible to make a downright
statement; such and such a bill has passed in one
of the houses of Congress, or failed to pass; the
administration has issued this or that statement;
the President has approved, or vetoed, a certain
bill. But most of the news that comes out of
Washington is necessarily rather vague, for it
depends on the assertions of statesmen who are
reluctant to be quoted by name, or even by de­
scription. This more than anything else is re­
sponsible for the sort of fog, the haze of mias­
matic exhalations, which hangs over news with
a Washington date line. News coming out of
Washington is apt to represent not what is so
but what might be so under certain contingencies,
what may turn out to be so, what some eminent
personage says is so, or even what he wants the
public to believe is so when it is not."
Most subjects on which there is a so-called defi­
nite public opinion are much more vague and in­
definite, much more complex in their facts and
in their ramifications than the news from Wash-
1 "History of the NfflJ Yori Tinaet' (pages 379-380).
214 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
ington • which the historian of the New York
Times describes. Consider, for example, what
complicated issues are casually disposed of by the
average citizen. An uninformed lay public may
condemn a new medical theory on slight consid­
eration. Its judgment is hit or miss, as medical
history proves.
Political, economic and moral judgments, as we
have seen, are more often expressions of crowd
psychology and herd reaction than the result of
the calm exercise of judgment. It is difficult to
believe that this is not inevitable. Public opinion
in a society consisting of millions of persons, all
of whom must somehow or other reach a work­
ing basis with most of the others, is bound to
find a level of uniformity founded on the intelli­
gence of the average member of society as a whole
or of the particular group to which one may be­
long. There is a different set of facts on every
subject for each man. Society cannot wait to find
absolute truth. It cannot weigh every issue care­
fully before making a judgment. The result is
that the so-called truths by which society lives are
born of compromise among conflicting desires
and of interpretation by many minds. They are
accepted and intolerantly maintained once they
have been determined. In the struggle a�ong
ideas, the only test is the one which Justice
 ETIUCAL RELATIONS 215
Holmes of the Supreme Court pointed out-the
power of thought to get itself accepted in the
open competition of the market.
The only way for new ideas to gain currency
is through the acceptance of them by groups.
Merely individual advocacy will leave the truth
outside the general fund of knowledge and be­
liefs. The urge toward suppression of minority
or dissentient points of view is counteracted in
part by the work of the public relations counsel.
The standards of the public relations counsel
are his own standards and he will not accept a
client whose standards do not come up to them.
While he is not called upon to judge the merits
of his case any more than a lawyer is called upon
to judge his client's case, nevertheless he must
judge the results which his work would accom­
plish from an ethical point of view.
In law, the judge and jury hold the deciding
balance of power. In public opinion, the public
relations counsel is judge and jury because
through his pleading of a case the public is likely
to accede to his opinion and judgment. There­
fore, the public relations counsel must maintain
an intense scrutiny of his actions, avoiding the
propagation of unsocial or otherwise harmful
movements or ideas.
Every public relations counsel has been con-
216 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
fronted with the necessity of refusing to accept
clients whose cases in a law court would be valid,
but whose cases in the higher court of public
opinion are questionable.
The social value of the public relations counsel
lies in the fact that he brings to the public facts
and ideas of social utility which would not so
readily gain acceptance otherwise. While he, of
course, may represent men and individuals who
have already gained great acceptance in the pub­
lic mind, he may represent new ideas of value
which have not yet reached their point of largest
acceptance or greatest saturation. That in itself
renders him important.
As for the relations between the public rela­
tions counsel and his client, little can be said
which would not be merely a repetition of that
code of decency by which men and women make
moral judgments and live reputable lives. The
public relations counsel owes his client conscien­
tious, effective service, of course. He owes to his
client all the duties which the professions as­
sume in relation to those they serve. Much more
important than any positive duty, however, which
the public relations counsel owes to his client is
the negative duty-that he must never accept a
retainer or assume a position which puts his c\uty
to the groups he represents above his duty to his
 ETHICAL RELATIONS 217
own standards of integrity-to the larger society
within which he lives and works.
Europe has given us the most recent important
study of public opinion and its social and his­
torical effects. It is interesting because it indi­
cates the sweep of the development of an inter­
national realization of what a momentous factor
in the world's life public opinion is becoming.
I feel that this paragraph from a recent work
of Professor Von Ferdinand Tonnies is of par­
ticular significance to all who would feel that the
conscious moulding of public opinion is a task em­
bodying high ideals.
"The future of public opinion," says Professor
Tonnies, "is the future of civilization. It is cer­
tain that the power of public opinion is constantly
increasing and will keep on increasing. It is
equally certain that it is more and more being in­
fluenced, changed, stirred by impulses from be­
low. The danger which this development con­
tains for a progressive ennobling of human so­
ciety and a progressive heightening of human
culture is apparent. The duty of the higher
strata of society-the cultivated, the learned, the
expert, the intellectual-is therefore clear. They
must inject moral and spiritual motives into pub­
lic opinion. Public opinion must become public
conscience."
218 CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION
Jt is in the creation of a public conscience that
the counsel on public relations is destined, I be­
lieve, to fulfill his highest usefulness to the society
in which he lives.

THE END
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