Dispirited, the campaign workers approached George Perkins, noted financier, partner of J. P. Morgan, California railroad builder, and Roosevelt’s campaign manager. Perkins lost no time summoning his stenographer to dispatch the following cable to Moffett Studios in Chicago: “We are planning to distribute millions of pamphlets with Roosevelt’s picture on the cover. It will be great publicity for the studio whose photograph we use. How much will you pay us to use yours? Respond immediately.” Virtually by return telegraph, he received the following reply from Moffett: “We’ve never done this before, but under the circumstances we’d be pleased to offer you $250.” Reportedly, Perkins accepted the offer without trying to get even more from Moffett.
One might well object to the misleading tactics at the core of Perkins’s negotiating strategy. They plainly don’t represent a model process for crafting sustainable agreements that enhance working relationships. (We’ll return to this question shortly.) Yet the episode memorably underscores several key elements of pulling together a 3-D approach to negotiation.