The Washington herald., 1911-05-07
HOW UNCLE SANS PRESS AGENTS SPREAD
. NEWS OF THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS
Taking Cue from Great Corporations
Government Employs Real Publicity
Men to Keep Public Informed
of Its Various Activities.


"press agent" automatically suggests
vividIy worded chronicles of the stage,
in which leading ladies and lost dia-
monds and poodle dogs ana matinee
idols and chorus girls in aeroplanes are
exploited. BY long association with
such undignifed and ofttimes un-
veracious efforts to secure publicity
the press agents job has come TO DE
regarded with tolerant scorn. 1t PROP
ably never occurs to the average news
paper reader that not only has the
press agent become an important per-
sonage in every great commercial en-
terprise, but that even Uncle Sam mas
found it both pleasant and profitable
to enlist his services.
Legitimate publicity, which consists
in getting before the public through
the news columns of the daily papers
and other means, interesting informa-
ton that will rebound to the credit OF
the person or operation to be ex-
plotted, has become necessity to the
United States Steel Corporation and
Standard Oil as we'll as the theatrical
managers. and for such work trained
press agent must be engaged. The
various executive departments under
which work of great public value anu
interest is conducted have only wltnHl
recent years recognized the deslrapli1ty
of securing the services or men
trained to newspaper work, or at least
possessing the necessary qualincatlons
for such work. to get before the pub
lie the results of their various ac-
tivities.
Uncle Sam doesn't call his publicity
men press agents" In fact. the meh
themselves don't like the use OF the
term in connection with their Work.
Their titles are as varied as their lines
of operation. but call them what you
may, they are, in every true sense OF
the word, press agents. To be sure,
q number of them have other work
to do in their departments, ana are
only press agents on the slce, out
there are a number whose officiai
duties are solely to prepare Tor the
newspapers and periodicals stories con-
cernfng the activities OF their depart
ments which they think the pubic
should know.
In Self Protection.
One of the things that brought about
the employment of government press
agents was the haphazard, superficial.
and. in the case OF scientific bureaus.
often entirely incorrect stories about
the work of the departments. secured
construed interviews with busy depart
ment heads and sold for publication as
authoritative accounts OF departmental
doings.
Perhaps the first of the departmental
bureaus of the government to turn TO
legitimate press agent methods In or
der to protect themselves from the
errors of their reportorial interviewers
was the Bureau of Chemistry, under
Of
W. Wiley When the work of this
bureau first began to arouse public in
terest, DR.. Wiley at once saw the
necessity for putting his scientific re-
searches in language that the general
reader would understand. Had he
trusted to a layman reporter to digest
the technical reports of his work and
make newspaper articles out of them.
It would have been impossible to avoid
errors and misstatements that would
have made him and his work appear
ridiculous So DIR. Wiley became his
own press agent. When he had some
thing of interest for the public he pre-
pared a full and detailed statement in
language that could not be mis-
construed and then sent for the re-
porters. In this way he popularized
the work of his bureau and aroused
public sentiment. To his campaign of
publicity we owe the passage of the
pure food law. BY applying the art
of the press agent he created such
clamor for this bill that many of its
legislative opponents were forced by
the sentiment of their constituents to
vote for It.
The Smithsonian Institution is an
other partially governmental organiza-
tion of scientific character that turned
TO the employment of a press agent
mainly for protection against the zeal
of superficial story seekers and writers.
Some energetic and mistaken reporter
or correspondent would drop into the
Office of one of the institution S
scientists just as that absent minded
gentleman was engaged in compiling
table of statistics concerning the an
tiquity of the AZtecs or some other
equally absorbing duty. Perhaps the
interviewer would badger the scientist
into making some mild statement about
the antiquity OF the primitive Ameri-
can peoples. Much TO that scientists
surprise and disgust, he would find
himself, a few days later, spread over
the pages of some Sunday newspaper
as the authority for the statement that
the Garden OF Eden was located in the
Mojave Desert.
1t was such extraordinary concoc-
tions of the fertile fancies of free lance
newspaper writer's that led the institu-
torial assistant" as he is called with
all proper dignity. The latest incum- |
bent of this post is Paul c. Patterson. |
well-known newspaper man OF
Washington and Chicago. To Mr.. Pat |
terson all seekers after Smithsonian |
news are now referred. From the thick |
and technically phrased reports of ths |
various field scientists sent out by the |
institution 1t is AIR. Patterson's duty |
to prepare interesting and readable ac- |
counts for the public press.
Post-office Mouthpiece.
In the Post-office Department, Jesse |
L. Suter holds the Office of mouthpiece |
for the biggest of Uncle Sans depart |
ments- On the same floor with the |
Postmaster General. he is sent for at !
all hours of the day, and sometimes |
Of the night, as well, to prepare in |
newspaper form the announcements |
which the Post-office Department has |
to present. |
Just now is Jesse's busiest time. He |
IL kept explaining to more than 90,Oo0,-
900 people just why the postal savings |
bank has not yet had time to extend |
its branches beyond the first line of |
experiment inaugurated January 1. All |
through the summer OF 1910 Mr.. Suter |
was kept busy with the requests of the |
newspaper men for information along |
the lines Of the great new system.