The American Telephone and Telegraph Company devotes effort to studying its public relations problems, not only to increase its volume of business, but also to create a coöperative spirit between itself and the public. The work of the telephone company’s operators, statistics, calls, lineage, installations are given to the public in various forms. During the war and for a period afterwards its main problem was that of satisfying the public that its service was necessarily below standard because of the peculiar national conditions. The public, in response to the efforts of the company, which were analogous to a gracious personal apology, accepted more or less irksome conditions as a matter of course. Had the company not cared about the public, the public would undoubtedly have been unpleasantly insistent upon a maintenance of the pre-war standards of service.
Americans were once wont to jest about the dependence of France and Switzerland upon the tourist trade. To-day we see American cities competing, as part of their public relations programs, for conventions, fairs and conferences. The New York Times printed some time ago an address by the governor of Nebraska, in which he told a group of advertising men that publicity had made Nebraska prosper.
The New York Herald carried an editorial recently, entitled, “It pays a state to advertise,” centering about the campaign of the state of Vermont to present itself favorably to public attention. According to the editorial, the state publishes a magazine, The Vermonter, an attractive publication filled with interesting illustrations and well-written text. It is devoted exclusively to revealing in detail the industrial and agricultural resources of the state and to presenting Vermont’s strikingly beautiful scenic attractions for the summer visitor. Similar instances of elaborate efforts, taking the form of action or the printed word, either to obtain public attention or to obtain a favorable attitude from the public for individual industries and groups of industries, will come readily to the reader’s mind.
Without attempting to take too seriously an amusing story printed in a recent issue of a New York newspaper, leaders in movements and industries of modern life will be inclined to agree with the protagonist of publicity spoken of. According to the story, a man set out to prove to another that it was not so much what a man did as the way it was heralded which insures his place in history. He cited Barbara Frietchie, Evangeline, John Smith and a half dozen others as instances to prove that they are remembered not for what they did, but because they had excellent counsel on their public relations.
“‘Very good,’ agreed the friend. ‘But show me a case where a person who has really done a big thing has been overlooked.’
“‘You know Paul Revere, of course,’ he said. ‘But tell me the names of the two other fellows who rode that night to rouse the countryside with the news that the British were coming.’
“‘Never heard of them,’ was the answer.
“‘There were three waiting to see the signal hung in the tower of the Old North Church,’ he said. ‘Every one of them was mounted and spurred, just as Mr. Longfellow described Paul Revere. They all got the signal. They all rode and waked the farmers, spreading the warning. Afterward one of them was an officer in Washington’s army, another became governor of one of the States. Not one in twenty thousand Americans ever heard the names of the other two, and there is hardly a person in America who does not know all about Revere.’
“‘Did Revere make history or did Longfellow?’”