Translate from English into Russian.

Kendall was decidedly not cut from the same cloth as today's neat, trim, buttoned-down press secretaries. On the contrary, Jackson's man was described as "a puny, sickly looking man with a weak voice, a wheezing cough, narrow and stooping shoulders, a sallow complexion, silvery hair in his prime, slovenly dress, and a seedy appearance" (Fred F. Endres, "Public Relations in the Jackson White House," Public Relations Review 2, no. 3 [Fall 1976]: 5-12).

Give a short characteristic to Kendall.

4. Answer the questions to the texts.

1. Which first PR-practitioners are mentioned in the article?

2. What was the slogan of the American colonists when they started fighting against King George III?

3. What is the prehistory of “The Federal Papers”?

4. What was one of the Kendall’s most successful ventures in Jackson’s behalf?

5. What might be a motto of P.T. Barnum?

6. What periodicals are mentioned in the text?

3. Find in the text the international words and translate them without using a dictionary.

 

3. 1. Read the text paying attention to your time of reading.

Emergence of the Robber Barons

The American Industrial Revolution ushered in many things at the turn of the century, not the least of which was the growth of public relations. The twentieth century began with small mills and shops, which served as the hub of the frontier economy, giving way to massive factories. Country hamlets, which had been the centers of commerce and trade, were replaced by sprawling cities. Limited transportation and communications fa­cilities became nationwide railroad lines and communications wires. Big business took over, and the businessman was king.

The men who ran America's industries seemed more concerned with making a profit than with improving the lot of their fellow citizens. Railroad owners such as William Vanderbilt, bankers such as J. P. Morgan, oil magnates such as John D. Rockefeller, and steel impresarios such as Henry Clay Frick ruled the fortunes of thousands of others. Typical of the reputation acquired by this group of industrialists was the famous—and perhaps apocryphal—response of Vanderbilt when questioned about the public's reac­tion to his closing of the New York Central Railroad: "The public be damned!"

Little wonder that Americans cursed Vanderbilt and his ilk as robber barons who cared little for the rest of society. Although most who depended on these industrialists for their livelihood felt powerless to rebel, the seeds of discontent were being sown liber­ally throughout the culture. It was just a matter of time before the robber barons got their comeuppance.

 

Answer the questions to the text.

1. Who are the robber barons?

2. What were their names?

3. Ask your partner your own five questions on the text.

Translate the text from English into Russian.

 

4. 1. Read the text paying attention to your time of reading.

Enter the Muckrakers

When the ax fell on the robber barons, it came in the form of criticism from a feisty group of journalists dubbed muckrakers. The muck that these reporters and editors raked was dredged from the scandalous operations of America's business enterprises. Upton Sin­clair's novel The Jungle attacked the deplorable conditions of the meatpacking industry. Ida Tarbell's History of the Standard Oil Company stripped away the public facade of the nation's leading petroleum firm. Her accusations against Standard Oil Chairman Rocke­feller, many of which were grossly untrue, nonetheless stirred up public attention.

Magazines such as McClure's struck out systematically at one industry after another. The captains of industry, used to getting their own way and having to answer to no one, were wrenched from their peaceful passivity and rolled out on the public carpet to answer for their sins. Journalistic shock stories soon led to a wave of sentiment for legislative reform. As journalists and the public became more anxious, the government got more in­volved. Congress began passing laws telling business leaders what they could and couldn't do. Trust busting then became the order of the day. Conflicts between employers and em­ployees began to break out, and newly organized labor unions came to the fore. The So­cialist and Communist movements began to take off. Ironically, it was said to be a period when free enterprise reached a peak in American history, and yet at that very climax, the tide of public opinion was swelling up against business freedom, primarily because of the break­down in communications between the businessman and the public.

For a time, these men of inordinate wealth and power found themselves limited in their ability to defend themselves and their activities against the tidal wave of public con­demnation. They simply did not know how to get through to the public effectively. To tell their side of the story, the business barons first tried using the lure of advertising to silence journalistic critics; they tried to buy off critics by paying for ads in their papers. It didn't work. Next, they paid publicity people, or press agents, to present their compa­nies' positions. Often, these hired guns painted over the real problems and presented their client's view in the best possible light. The public saw through this approach.

Clearly, another method had to be discovered to get the public to at least consider the business point of view. Business leaders were discovering that a corporation might have capital, labor, and natural resources, yet be doomed to fail if it lacked intelligent management, particularly in the area of influencing public opinion. The best way to in­fluence public opinion, as it turned out, was through honesty and candor. This simple truth was the key to the accomplishments of American history's first successful public re­lations counselor, Ivy Lee.