Lee used his and his colleagues' ingenuity and creativity to serve American business. That function remains the primary raison d'etre of public relations firms and public relations departments today throughout the United States and the entire world.
Ivy Lee realized that he could not carry out programs on behalf of his client's business without having the direct support and cooperation of the client's top executive. Public relations, Lee discovered, did not operate in a vacuum. It was part of business, and each needed the other to be successful.
Ivy Lee also recognized that big business, as it was perceived early in the twentieth century, faced a sizable task in convincing the "man on the street" that it was out to improve his and his family's lives. Profit for profit's sake was often the only motto by which the early industrial leaders conducted their business affairs.
To Lee, the practice of business had to be changed, at least in terms of its image to the average American citizen. Big business had to become more human than it had been. Expansion, high finance and ruthless competition were not easily comprehended by most Americans. The business of business, at the highest and most powerful levels, left a collective bad taste in the mouths of Americans.
Early public relations people like Lee set out to make the technical activities of business more understandable to everybody. He set out to make business more human. All businesses dealt in marketing something that somebody wanted. The product could be a tangible one like a candy bar or an automobile, or it could be the selling of a service. In either case, Ivy Lee emphasized the down-to-earth, common relationship between all Americans and the vast corporations expanding in the United States.
On behalf of the anthracite coal operators during a strike in the early 1900s, Lee set down his "Declaration of Principles," and insisted that newspapers publish them in order to inform the public fully. In his declaration, he spelled out clearly what his function as a public relations specialist was and how his role was carried out:
This is not a secret press bureau. All our work is done in the open. We aim to supply news. This is not an advertising agency; if you think any of our matter ought properly to go to your business office, do not use it. Our matter is accurate. Further details on any subject treated will be supplied promptly, and any editor will be assisted most cheerfully in verifying any statement of fact.. .In brief, our plan is, frankly and openly, on behalf of business concerns and public institutions, to supply to the press and public of the United States prompt and accurate information concerning subjects which it is of value and interest to the public to know about.
EDWARD L. BERNAYS: PSYCHOLOGY AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
Edward L. Bernays, whose book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, was published in 1923, had a profound influence on the fledgling public relations field. In fact, Bernays' was the first full-length book devoted to the workings of what was to become contemporary public relations.
A man of stature in New York and Europe's literary world, Edward Bernays firmly believed in the art of psychology and in its application to public relations. He was a close relative of Sigmund Freud, the Viennese founder of psychoanalysis and one of the greatest thinkers of this century. Bernays adapted the ideas of psychoanalysis and applied them to public relations.
Bernays' belief in the interaction and feed-back of individuals and their ideas was largely drawn from psychoanalysis. Nowhere are Bernays' ideas better described, especially as they relate to this "two-way" process of psychology, than in his Biography of an Idea: Memories of Public Relations Counsel, which was published in 1965.
My work with Liveright (a New York publisher) represented a divide between what I had done-my press-agentry, publicity, publicity direction-and what I now attempted to do: counsel on public relations. This was no mere difference in nomenclature, no euphemistic changeover. It was a different activity, in approach and execution. From a one-way street of information and persuasion from client to public, it became a two-way street, with the element of adjustment added to the other two elements. Counsel on public relations was based on dealing with interaction between client and public.
Later, Edward Bernays taught the first public relations course at New York University; that, too, was a landmark in a profession which now is taught on many university campuses.
Not only did Edward Bernays play one of the key roles in the development of modern public relations, he also correctly predicted that during the last forty years of the twentieth century it would become a major field in American business and communications. Before Edward Bernays, there was no term public relations in our vocabulary. Today, it is hard to imagine the language without it.
Other pioneers in the field who left their names on the great counseling firms include William Harshe, who brought me into the agency business; Kalman B. Druck, a leader in public relations education; John Hill, founder of the largest worldwide firm; Carl Byoir, another big firm founder, Harold Burson, whose company was the first large one to grow up as an equal partner to an advertising agency; and my partners, William Ruder and David Finn, who not only built one of the biggest firms but were also the first to combine promotion of the arts and primary research with the mainstream public relations business.
