coal,” and the tendency to hold down over-expansion in the industry by publication of the ratio of production to capacity. Mr. Hoover concludes that really informative publicity “would protect the great majority of operators from the criticism that can only be properly leveled at the minority.” Not so many years ago neither the majority nor the minority in the coal industry would have concerned itself about public criticism of the industry.
From coal to jewelry seems rather a long step, and yet in The Jeweler’s Circular, a trade magazine, 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 particular, 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 occurred 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-essential character of the jewelry industry. To-day, on the other hand, jewelers find it a profitable investment 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 the other competing interests in the world to-day, the question as to whether the public considers the business of manufacturing and selling jewelry 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.