Business screen magazine (1938)

• Sometimes too much emphasis is placed on the education of the '"masses" and the very impcirtant task of industrial relations left in the -hadow. Paul Garrett* says, "A company's public relations program, to get anywhere, must begin in the outer office and inside the plant. If the immediate family is not happy and informed, those whom it meets on the outside will not be. To outsiders those who work for a company are the company — outsiders judge the company by the folks in the company they know. But good relations with employees depend upon something more than high wages. The pay of course should be right always, but to most every employee a sense that he is being treated fairly is just as important as that he is being paid well. "We have made no appreciable effort to explain the A B C"s — the simple premises and processes — of the American plan; to explain that the standard of living for all goes up, and can only be made to go up, as the true price of goods for all is brought down. . . . "Because so many have not had this understanding, have been viewing themselves as employers, or workers or farmers — rather than as consumers of goods — they have allowed their narrower outlook almost to blind them, and have put under scourge the source of their broader opportunities. Without realizing it, they have put business on the spot. "Thrust by this turn of events into an awkward and unaccustomed place, conscious of past omissions and critical future needs, industry has been fervently taking stock of itself and submitting to frank, and frequently brutal self-examination. It has conducted a searching iiyjuiry into the validity of its established principles and accepted doctrines. Out of that inquiry has come a great new interest in what we refer to as human, or public, relations as applied to business. For industry, like democracy, depends for its present success and its future existence upon people, upon those who partake of its responsibilities and its benefits — upon men and women — upon customers. "Good community relations grow largely from the attitude of employees. As citizens of the community in which the company has its being, they are the best spokesmen for its policies. But beyond this, industry as a partaker of community benefits must consciously assume its share of responsibilities. Local management nuist make sure that it understands the community's wants and needs, and that in turn the community is made to understand what industry proposes to do and how. "For the interests of industry and of the community are mutual and supplementary: industry contributes the economic atmosphere — the community determines the moral, cuttural and civic atmosphere in which employees live. Unless industry has confidence in the {Please turn to Page 12) 'Director, Public Relations, General Motors Corporation PUBLIC AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS /I *;« 1939 • • • IN THE NEXT ISSUE: Films .\xd Other Media . . . how magazines, newspapers and the radio use movies and slide films in effective promotional programs. Roll Down The Red C.\rpet. by Zenn Kaufman. Together with a Business Screen feature section on promotional projects used by leading film users. We M.ake a Mo\te. a pictorial feature which takes you step by step through the research, filming and showing of your next commercial film. • These years of social and economic change have brought new appreciation of the art of shaping public opinion. We who have been satisfied to let the credit go for the building of our systems of industrial enterprise and for the land of opportunity to which these have so lavishly contributed are now finding these systems challenged by misunderstanding and misconception. Certain it is that each challenge makes clearer the need for public explanation. The search now is for media which will bring understanding with the greatest possible effectiveness. In this regard, it would be well to appreciate the place which films now occupy in the public relations program of the government. If you find a contradiction in the fact that the comfortable majorities enjoyed by the Roosevelt government has not decreased the size of this program than you do not understand the true purpose of public relations. Today a million feet of informational film material is being circulated by various government agencies most of them now organized under the United States Film Service. In addition, much of the success of the new LatinAmerican goodwill program will depend on the films to be exchanged. The social-documentary pictures jiroduced by Para Lorentz(r/ie Plough That Broke the Plains and The River) are further evidence of the whole-hearted appreciation which the New Deal has of the film's effectiveness. Equally effective and directly in behalf of industrj are the Technicolor reels now being circulated by Ignited States Steel and such outstanding films as Hurricane's Challenge (for American Telephone and Telegraph), Materials ( Chevrolet) , The Birth of a Baby (MeadJohnson) and the four screen editorials issued l)y the National Association of Manufacturers. These films and others which can and should be made have the power to reach the hearts of men with truths which the screen can make self-evident. Motion pictures are easy to understand: pleasant to watch. The universal language of sight overcomes the hazards of dependence on print and discussion. In relative value, the sound slide film has many qualities to recommend it for the same use. Simple, inexpensive, dramatic and convincing they can be shown with equal facility before a group of three or four, or an audience of a thousand. The road lies ahead — if business will take it — and follow the example of many great leaders. Then the true definition of public relations — better relations with the public — will attain a new and wider meaning. * * * ♦ "A view of life is forming that will include the industrial world among the finer arts of human service. But youth has not waited for philosophers to proclaim this; here as elsetvhere life runs ahead of our philosophies, and youth tvilh its unerring eye already has discovered this new heroic region. To youth the netv race of Heroes belongs, because from youth it comes." — W. f. Cameron, ford Motor Co 11