Parker, George

George Frederick Parker is important in the history of public relations primarily because he and Ivy Lee formed one of the early public relations firms, Parker & Lee, in late 1904 and he was publicity manager to President Grover Cleveland during three presidential campaigns.

Parker was a man with connections. He had a way with people in high places, particularly in politics and business. If he didn't know a person, he knew someone who did. There were only two degrees of separation between Parker and any person of significance. It was not that he did not have journalistic skills; he had quite a background in the newspaper business. It was just that his ability to never meet a stranger, to know and influence people, was his greatest gift and his real value.

Today, such people are negatively called “schmoozers” because they attend key cocktail parties and effectively work the room. Still, such people are often a valuable commodity to executing both simple and complex campaigns. Parker would have to be called a superschmoozer because of the powerful people in his circle of acquaintances and his ability to persuade and convince them to take the actions he suggested.

Parker was born in Indiana on December 30, 1847. He lived much of his young life in Iowa, where his father had a farm. His interest in politics and journalism was apparent when he, at 26, founded the Indianola Tribune, a Democratic Party weekly in Iowa. When he was 29, he sold the newspaper and, for some years, wrote for other newspapers and studied in Germany. He returned to the United States and worked for the Democratic National Committee on the 1880 campaign in Indiana. During those years, he met Grover Cleveland and worked for him in the Pennsylvania campaign for the successful presidential election of 1884. Cleveland and Parker, during the election, developed mutual respect and a friendship. Cleveland asked Parker to prepare the campaign book for the party for the 1888 election. This was a secret task that meant Parker had to move to Washington, D.C., and work in the White House. The book was actually a brag book about the accomplishments of the Democratic administration. After he completed the book, Parker was transferred to New York to the party's national headquarters to work in the publicity department. Cleveland lost to Benjamin Harrison, and Parker was unhappy at the loss and how the campaign was run; he vowed that Cleveland would win in 1892.

Parker accepted a position as editor of the New York Saturday Globe, and for the 4 years between the elections he began to build Cleveland's reputation. [Page 608]Cleveland did not like publicity or the press and was not effective at building relationships with politicians. Some historians say he lost the election to Harrison because he “suffered more from the newspapers than any other president” (Pollard, 1947, p. 499).

Relationship building being Parker's forte, he wrote a speech for Cleveland to deliver in Boston. In those days, speeches were mailed to newspapers to print, since there were no television or radio broadcasts. Parker and Cleveland disagreed over the distribution of the speech. Cleveland, since he disliked and feared the press, wanted it to go out only 5 days in advance and only to a few carefully selected newspapers, whereas Parker wanted it to go out 7 days in advance and sent to newspapers all over the country. Parker won the argument, and the speech was positively received. In 1892, Cleveland won the most decisive presidential victory in the 20 preceding years, winning swing states as well as traditionally Republican states. It made the bond between Parker and Cleveland, now built on trust, even stronger. That same year, Parker selected, edited, and wrote the introduction for Cleveland's The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland.

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