THE APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES
Both 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 reaction 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 effectiveness.
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, acknowledged to be the ethical leaders of their flocks, express obedience to public opinion.
The critics who hold these extreme points of
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 view about public opinion have too easily confused 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 cannot 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 preconceived 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 interaction 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,
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 he nevertheless alienated popular affection by giving to his wife a house which had been presented 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 relations 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 establis............