A similar problem, not so well known, was posed when a tornado struck Worcester, Mass., and tore into the six million dollar grinding machine plant of the Norton Company. The effect was such that it was an object lesson in an A bomb attack. Norton did the following things:
- Gave emergency medical treatment to the injured.
- Opened the company hospital to neighborhood victims.
- Via radio recalled company pipe fitters, electricians, firemen, and guards.
- Pitched in to clean up debris.
- Began reconstruction of roof and streamlines.
- Opened the company athletic house as shelter for homeless.
- Checked on employee rehabilitation.
- Set up headquarters for employees.
- Allotted pay for employees, whether there was work or not, paid employees while they were repairing their homes.
- Furnished building materials to employees for emergency home repairs.
- Company officials called personally on all employees needing help, and made sure they got it.
- Donated $40,000 to Central Disaster Relief Fund for aid to badly damaged Assumption College, St. Michael's Church, and Greendale People's Church.
The business of converting a seeming sin against the public health, safety, or welfare into a virtue is one of the best aspects of dynamic public relations.
Atlas Powder Company accomplished this when a large quantity of blasting caps were accidentally swept into a river near the Tamaqua, Pa., plant during a flood. Instead of seeking to conceal the potential "sin" or to disclaim responsibility, the company shouted an alarm. Through advertisements in the local paper it warned residents not to touch any of the caps, but to notify the police.
Consequently, residents of the area were reassured that Atlas Powder in this instance indeed, in all instances was concerned more with their safety than with the embarrassment of being censured for creating a risk.
Standard Oil Company of California, and the petroleum industry generally, seemed to be guilty of the Los Angeles smog to a great many people with smarting eyes. Actually, oil refiners in the Los Angeles area had been doing anti smog research and taking preventive measures for 20 years. Had people known this, the chances are they would not have been overly impressed with the accomplishments of the past. Today's smog tasted bad to them, and it looked ominous through a car windshield.
Finally, the situation reached a point of dispute when the governor requested that all refineries in the area close their operations for a test period.
The oil people decided to talk back, and in a way which would win a public verdict of acquittal. They sent a telegram to the governor, subsequently released broadly, pointing out that the major sources of smog were not refineries. They were automobiles, trucks, buses, burning trash, and industrial chimneys. The truth of the matter, they said, lay in the fact that the refineries had been closed by a strike during one of the worst smog periods.
Standard Oil of California in another matter used the same direct tactic of marshaling opinion on the side of the facts. In this case, during the company's offshore seismic explorations the word got around that the underwater explosions killed the marine life.
The company promptly made a frontal assault on the situation. A boat was loaded with fishermen, state game officials, and others whose opinions were important. Typical explosions were set off underwater. The fish survived, but the rumors were dead.
The Gas Service Company of Topeka, Kansas, anticipated disaster with a plan for measures which would ameliorate any potential tragedy. The plan was outlined in a 23 page notebook distributed widely. Subjects covered included manpower groupings, chain of responsibility, duties in each category, procedures to be followed and persons authorized to release information, and the location of key equipment.
Hyatt Bearing Division of GM was faced with the ill conceived but common notion in its community that it extracted much and put back little where the plant city's self interests were concerned. The organization took pains to rebut this in a bank window display with the evidence that it did business regularly with 80 local firms and merchants.
DuPont, up against another community bugaboo that it brought its own people into the area set about to dramatize local employment with a survey showing that a preponderance of employees were born in the plant area.
Education and Training
Keystone Steel and Wire Co. took an educational kind of approach to the smoke problem in Peoria. On Keystone's staff, a power plant superintendent was an avid student of the problem. They assigned him to the task.
First thing he did was to show high school students how to build eliminators in their technical training course. In the process, these future opinion leaders got an appreciation of the immensity and complexity of the problem.
When investigations showed the local hospital to be the prime smoke offender, Keystone donated funds for control equipment and again loaned the services of its expert to supervise the installation.
Socony Vacuum in Trenton, Michigan, provided a training program for fire chiefs, and along the same lines, Standard Oil of New Jersey trained both firemen and police in the handling of toxic gases.
General Electric at its Holyoke plant undertook an indoctrination program in industrial nursing. Student nurses from the local hospital spent two days at the GE plant dispensary. They saw factory first aid in action. Equally important, they were exposed to working conditions and employee benefits.
The City Welfare and Health Council of New York City established an Elder Craftsman Shop, a nonprofit retail shop for the products of folks over sixty years of age.
Programs for Youth
The Package Machinery Company in East Longmeadow, Mass., in cooperation with the police, organized a Public Safety League. They registered some 600 bike riders, gave the kids membership in the league, and equipped each bicycle with Scotchlitc tape free. To top off the project they provided good will tickets to the police for minor offenders, as a friendly warning.
ACF Industries in some of its plant cities sponsored a High School Essay Contest. There were 26 subjects, as follows, in the school year's program:
- Founding Our City.
- Our Public School System.
- Our Taxes.
- Our Churches and Synagogues.
- Industries in Our City.
- Our City Government.
- Climate and Weather.
- Our City Police Force.
- Firefighters of Our City.
- Our Organized Charities.
- Public Utilities that Serve.
- Youth Group in Our Town.
- Our Transportation.
- Our Local Farming.
- Business Clubs and Associations.
- Our Hospital(s).
- Our Women's Clubs.
- Our Local Veteran Organizations.
- Banking and Financial Institutions.
- Cultural Facilities (Libraries, Art Galleries, Museums)
- Sports in Our City.
- Labor Organizations in Our City.
- Our Newspaper, Radio, and TV Stations.
- Our Judicial System.
- Our Legislative System.
- The Future of Our City.
New York Central Railroad devised a parches like game from which children learn safety rules by making an imaginary, penalty fraught trip from school to home.
This same organization, by the way, reacted admirably when one of their trains ran over a collie puppy belonging to a six year old girl of Tarrytown, N.Y. They got a new puppy for her, but in the process of presenting it the trainmaster took occasion to deliver a little lecture about dogs and children near train tracks.
Gifts and Gestures
Brown Forman Distillers Corp. in Louisville learned that commercial construction had supplanted a sandlot baseball diamond on vacant property. The management promptly donated some six acres of land for a playground to be called "Early Times" park. They paid for landscaping, which included two ball diamonds, a football field, and a fenced area for toddlers.
Motorola, Inc. acquired some Chicago property which it planned to develop as plant property some years later. Meantime it granted use of the land to the community Little League for a ball park.
Whiten Machine Works made a gift of $100,000 cash, no strings attached, to its hometown of Northbridge for improvement of the city and its services. Earlier the company had given a municipal garage, and the land for school buildings.
Seiberling Rubber Company, Barberton, Ohio, "loaned" its public relations staff for the Community Chest drive. The staff handled planning, promotion, and publicity. No credit was sought. Printed matter prepared and donated by the company carried only the line "Donated: not done at Chest's expense."
Seven Chicago and suburban hospitals offered residents free diabetes detection tests during Diabetes Week, to uncover some of the estimated 30,000 people in the area who have diabetes and don't know it.
The Manufacturer's Association in Kenosha, Wis., made friends of a great many people by supplying copies of the local newspaper, daily, to hospital patients. A small budget went a long way, and made a big impression for local industry. The G. C. Bright Company in Lansford, Pa., in the same vein provided free trips home from the hospital for convalescents.
The Service Pipe Line Company, to help the Tulsa Red Cross Blood Bank, promoted a "Blood Buddy Week." Posters plumped for the idea "I'll go if you'll go." The psychology was good. The goal was 336 pints of blood, the same amount as could be contained in a 42 gallon barrel for Tulsa crude oil. Donors gave 471 pints.
In Massachusetts, the Lions Club came up with a new wrinkle to raise funds in a drive to underwrite research to prevent blindness. They conducted a door to door sale of light bulbs. The appeal was to the effect that every homeowner can use a few more light bulbs, any time. Homeowners bought cheerfully.
The State Street Stores organization of Chicago, in conjunction with the Welfare Council, had an interesting, newsworthy project. They sponsored a Woman of the Year contest with each welfare agency selecting its candidate.
Personnel of Wrigley's Store, Detroit, dressed dolls as charity gifts, ran a blood bank campaign; held fashion shows with proceeds for welfare, and sponsored educational programs.
