If we analyze a specific example of the public relations counsel’s work, we see the workings of the crowd-mind, which have made it so difficult for his profession to gain popular 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 manufacturer unreasonable; he imputes selfish motives to him. For his own part he identifies the establishment of the conditions upon which he insists with such things as social welfare, national safety, Americanism, lower prices to the consumer, and whatever other fundamentals he can seize upon. Every newspaper report carrying 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 manufacturer, 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 employment, fair play, justice. To each the contentions of the other are untenable.
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. Observe 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