Charles J. Rosebault, the author of an article in the _New York Times_ recently, headed “Men Who Wield the Spotlight,” remarks that the competent public relations counsel has generally had some newspaper training and that the value of this training “is a keen sense of the likes and dislikes of what we call the public--that is, the average of men and women. The needle of the compass is no more sensitive to direction, nor the mercury in the thermometer to variations of heat and cold than is this expert to the influence of publicity upon the mind and emotions of the man in the street.” It is not surprising that the growing interest of the public in men and movements should have led to the spontaneous creation of the new profession. We have presented here, in very broad outline, a picture of the fundamental work of the public relations counsel and of the fundamental conditions which have produced him. On the one hand, a complex environment of which only small, disconnected portions are available to different persons; on the other hand, the great and increasing importance either of making one’s case accessible to the public mind or of determining whether that case will impinge favorably or unfavorably upon the public mind--these two conditions, taken together, have resulted inevitably in the public relations counsel. Mr. Lippmann finds in these facts the underlying reason for the existence of what he calls the “press agent.” “The enormous discretion,” he says, “as to what facts and what impressions shall be reported is steadily convincing every organized group of people that, whether it wishes to secure publicity or to avoid it, the exercise of discretion cannot be left to the reporter. It is safer to hire a press agent who stands between the group and the newspapers.”[3] It is clear that the popular impression of the scope and functions of the counsel on public relations must be radically revised if any accurate picture of the profession is to be looked for. The public relations counsel is the lineal descendant, to be sure, of the circus advance-man and of the semi-journalist promoter of small-part actresses. The economic conditions which have produced him, however, and made his profession the important one it is to-day, have in themselves materially changed the character of his work.