PROPAGANDA IN SOCIAL SERVICE
The public relations counsel is necessary to social work. And since
social service, by its very nature, can continue only by means of the
voluntary support of the wealthy, it is obliged to use propaganda
continually. The leaders in social service were among the first
consciously to utilize propaganda in its modern sense.
The great enemy of any attempt to change men’s habits is inertia.
Civilization is limited by inertia.
Our attitude toward social relations, toward economics, toward
national and international politics, continues past attitudes and
strengthens them under the force of tradition. Comstock drops his
mantle of proselytizing morality on the willing shoulders of a Sumner;
Penrose drops his mantle on Butler; Carnegie his on Schwab, and so _ad
infinitum_. Opposing this traditional acceptance of existing ideas
is an active public opinion that has been directed consciously into
movements against inertia. Public opinion was made or changed formerly
by tribal chiefs, by kings, by religious leaders. To-day the privilege
of attempting to sway public opinion is every one’s. It is one of the
manifestations of democracy that any one may try to convince others
and to assume leadership on behalf of his own thesis.
New ideas, new precedents, are continually striving for a place in the
scheme of things.
The social settlement, the organized campaigns against tuberculosis
and cancer, the various research activities aiming directly at
the elimination of social diseases and maladjustments—a multitude
of altruistic activities which could be catalogued only in a book
of many pages—have need of knowledge of the public mind and mass
psychology if they are to achieve their aims. The literature on social
service publicity is so extensive, and the underlying principles so
fundamental, that only one example is necessary here to illustrate the
technique of social service propaganda.
A social service organization undertook to fight lynching, Jim Crowism
and the civil discriminations against the Negro below the Mason and
Dixon line.
The National Association for the Advancement of the Colored People had
the fight in hand. As a matter of technique they decided to dramatize
the year’s campaign in an annual convention which would concentrate
attention on the problem.
Should it be held in the North, South, West or East? Since the purpose
was to affect the entire country, the association was advised to
hold it in the South. For, said the propagandist, a point of view on
a southern question, emanating from a southern center, would have
greater authority than the same point of view issuing from any other
locality, particularly when that point of View was at odds with the
traditional southern point of view. Atlanta was chosen.
The third step was to surround the conference with people who were
stereotypes for ideas that carried weight all over the country. The
support of leaders of diversified groups was sought. Telegrams and
letters were dispatched to leaders of religious, political, social
and educational groups, asking for their point of view on the purpose
of the conference. But in addition to these group leaders of national
standing it was particularly important from the technical standpoint to
secure the opinions of group leaders of the South, even from Atlanta
itself, to emphasize the purposes of the conference to the entire
public. There was one group in Atlanta which could be approached. A
group of ministers had been bold enough to come out for a greater
interracial amity. This group was approached and agreed to coöperate in
the conference.
The event ran off as scheduled. The program itself followed the general
scheme. Negroes and white men from the South, on the same platform,
expressed the same point of view.
A dramatic element was spot-lighted here and there. A national leader
from Massachusetts agreed in principle and in practice with a Baptist
preacher from the South.
If the radio had been in effect, the whole country might have heard and
been moved by the speeches and the principles expressed.
But the public read the words and the ideas in the press of the
country. For the event had been created of such important component
parts as to awaken interest throughout the country and to gain support
for its ideas even in the South.
The editorials in the southern press, reflecting the public opinion of
their communities, showed that the subject had become one of interest
to the editors because of the participation by southern leaders.
The event naturally gave the Association itself substantial weapons
with which to appeal to an increasingly wider circle. Further publicity
was attained by mailing reports, letters, and other propaganda to
selected groups of the public.
As for the practical results, the immediate one was a change in the
minds of many southern editors who realized that the question at issue
was not only an emotional one, but also a discussable one; and this
point of view was immediately reflected to their readers. Further
results are hard to measure with a slide-rule. The conference had its
definite effect in building up the racial consciousness and solidarity
of the Negroes. The decline in lynching is very probably a result of
this and other efforts of the Association.
Many churches have made paid advertising and organized propaganda part
of their regular activities. They have developed church advertising
committees, which make use of the newspaper and the billboard, as well
as of the pamphlet. Many denominations maintain their own periodicals.
The Methodist Board of Publication and Information systematically gives
announcements and releases to the press and the magazines.
But in a broader sense the very activities of social service are
propaganda activities. A campaign for the preservation of the teeth
seeks to alter people’s habits in the direction of more frequent
brushing of teeth. A campaign for better parks seeks to alter people’s
opinion in regard to the desirability of taxing themselves for the
purchase of park facilities. A campaign against tuberculosis is an
attempt to convince everybody that tuberculosis can be cured, that
persons with certain symptoms should immediately go to the doctor, and
the like. A campaign to lower the infant mortality rate is an effort to
alter the habits of mothers in regard to feeding, bathing and caring
for their babies. Social service, in fact, is identical with propaganda
in many cases.
Even those aspects of social service which are governmental and
administrative, rather than charitable and spontaneous, depend on wise
propaganda for their effectiveness. Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, in
his book, “The Evolution of Modern Penology in Pennsylvania,” states
that improvements in penological administration in that state are
hampered by political influences. The legislature must be persuaded to
permit the utilization of the best methods of scientific penology, and
for this there is necessary the development of an enlightened public
opinion. “Until such a situation has been brought about,” Mr. Barnes
states, “progress in penology is doomed to be sporadic, local, and
generally ineffective. The solution of prison problems, then, seems to
be fundamentally a problem of conscientious and scientific publicity.”
Social progress is simply the progressive education and enlightenment
of the public mind in regard to its immediate and distant social
problems.