George Creel,
HOW WE ADVERTISED AMERICA
1920
THE "SECOND
LINES"
1. As Secretary Baker points
out, the war was not fought in France alone. Back of the firing-line, back of
armies and navies, back of the great supply-depots, another struggle waged with
the same intensity and with almost equal significance attaching to its
victories and defeats. It was the fight for the minds of men, for the
"conquest of their convictions," and the battle-line ran through
every home in every country.
2.
It was in this recognition of
Public Opinion as a major force that the Great War differed most essentially
from all previous conflicts. The trial of strength was not only between massed
bodies of armed men, but between opposed ideals, and moral verdicts took on all
the value of military decisions. Other wars went no deeper than the physical
aspects, but German Kultur raised issues that
had to be fought out in the hearts and minds of people as well as on the actual
firing-line. The approval of the world meant the steady flow of inspiration
into the trenches; it meant the strengthened resolve and the renewed determination
of the civilian population that is a nation's second line. The condemnation of
the world meant the [4] destruction of morale and the surrender of that
conviction of justice which is the very heart of courage.
3.
The Committee on Public
Information was called into existence to make this fight for the "verdict
of mankind," the voice created to plead the justice of America's cause
before the jury of Public Opinion. The fantastic legend that associated gags and muzzles with
its work may be likened only to those trees which are evolved out of the air by
Hindu magicians and which rise, grow, and flourish in gay disregard of such
usual necessities as roots, sap, and sustenance. In no degree was the Committee an agency of censorship, a machinery
of concealment or repression. Its emphasis throughout was on the open and the
positive. At no point did it seek or exercise authorities under those war laws
that limited the freedom of speech and press. In all things, from first to
last, without halt or change, it was a plain publicity proposition, a vast
enterprise in salesmanship, the world's greatest adventure in advertising.
4. Under
the pressure of tremendous necessities an organization grew that not only
reached deep into every American community, but that carried to every corner of
the civilized globe the full message of America's idealism, unselfishness, and
indomitable purpose. We fought prejudice, indifference, and disaffection at
home and we fought ignorance and falsehood abroad. We strove for the maintenance
of our own morale and the Allied morale by every process of stimulation; every
possible expedient was employed to break through the barrage of lies that kept
the people of the Central Powers in darkness and delusion; we sought the
friendship and support of the neutral nations by continuous presentation of
facts. We did not call it propaganda, for that word, in German hands, had come
to be associated with deceit and corruption. Our effort was educational and
informative throughout, for we had such confidence in
our case as to feel that no other [5] argument was needed than the simple,
straightforward presentation of facts.
5. There was no part of the great war machinery that we did not touch, no medium of
appeal that we did not employ. The printed word, the spoken word, the motion
picture, the telegraph, the cable, the wireless, the poster, the
sign-board--all these were used in our campaign to make our own people and all
other peoples understand the causes that compelled America to take arms. All that
was fine and ardent in the civilian population came at our call until more than
one hundred and fifty thousand men and women were devoting highly specialized
abilities to the work of the Committee, as faithful and devoted in their
service as though they wore the khaki.
6.
While America's summons was
answered without question by the citizenship as a whole, it is to be remembered
that during the three and a half years of our neutrality the land had been torn
by a thousand divisive prejudices, stunned by the voices of anger and
confusion, and muddled by the pull and haul of opposed interests. These were
conditions that could not be permitted to endure. What we had to have was no mere surface unity, but a passionate belief
in the justice of America's cause that should weld the people of the United
States into one white-hot mass instinct with fraternity, devotion, courage, and
deathless determination. The war-will, the will-to-win, of a democracy
depends upon the degree to which each one of all the people of that democracy
can concentrate and consecrate body and soul and spirit in the supreme effort
of service and sacrifice. What had to be driven home was that all business was
the nation's business and every task a common task for a single purpose.
7. Starting with the initial
conviction that the war was not the war of an administration, but the war of
one hundred million people, and believing that public support [6] was a matter
of public understanding, we opened up the activities of government to the
inspection of the citizenship. A voluntary censorship agreement safeguarded
military information of obvious value to the enemy, but in all else the rights
of the press were recognized and furthered. Trained men, at the center of
effort in every one of the war-making branches of government, reported on
progress and achievement, and in no other belligerent nation was there such
absolute frankness with respect to every detail of the national war endeavor.
8. As swiftly as might be, there
were put into pamphlet form America's reasons for entering the war, the meaning
of America, the nature of our free institutions, our war aims, likewise
analyses of the Prussian system, the purposes of the imperial German
government, and full exposure of the enemy's misrepresentations, aggressions,
and barbarities. Written by the country's foremost publicists, scholars, and
historians, and distinguished for their conciseness, accuracy, and simplicity,
these pamphlets blew as a great wind against the clouds of confusion and misrepresentation.
Money could not have purchased the volunteer aid that was given freely, the
various universities lending their best men and the National Board of
Historical Service placing its three thousand members at the complete disposal
of the Committee. Some thirty-odd booklets, covering every phase of America's
ideals, purposes, and aims, were printed in many languages other than English.
Seventy-five millions reached the people of America, and other millions went to
every corner of the world, carrying our defense and our attack.
9. The importance of the spoken
word was not underestimated. A speaking division toured great groups like the
Blue Devils, Pershing's Veterans, and the Belgians, arranged mass-meetings in
the communities, conducted forty-five war conferences from coast to coast, coordinated
[7] the entire speaking activities of the nation, and assured consideration to
the crossroads hamlet as well as to the city.
10. The Four Minute Men, an
organization that will live in history by reason of its originality and
effectiveness, commanded the volunteer services of 75,000 speakers, operating
in 5,200 communities, and making a total of 755,190 speeches, every one having
the carry of shrapnel.
11. With
the aid of a volunteer staff of several hundred translators, the Committee kept
in direct touch with the foreign-language press, supplying selected articles
designed to combat ignorance and disaffection. It organized and directed
twenty-three societies and leagues designed to appeal to certain classes and
particular foreign-language groups, each body carrying a specific message of
unity and enthusiasm to its section of America's adopted peoples.
12. It planned war exhibits for
the state fairs of the United States, also a great series of inter-allied war
expositions that brought home to our millions the exact nature of the struggle
that was being waged in France. In Chicago alone two million people attended in
two weeks, and in nineteen cities the receipts aggregated $1,432,261.36.
13. The
Committee mobilized the advertising forces of the country--press, periodical,
car, and outdoor--for the patriotic campaign that gave millions of dollars'
worth of free space to the national service.
14. It assembled the artists of
America on a volunteer basis for the production of posters, window-cards, and
similar material of pictorial publicity for the use of various government
departments and patriotic societies. A total of 1,438 drawings was used.
15. It issued an official daily
newspaper, serving every department of government, with a circulation of one
hundred thousand copies a day. For official use only, its value was such that
private citizens ignored the supposedly prohibitive [8] subscription price,
subscribing to the amount of $77,622.58.
16. It organized a bureau of
information for all persons who sought direction in volunteer war-work, in
acquiring knowledge of any administrative activities, or in approaching
business dealings with the government. In the ten months of its existence it
gave answers to eighty-six thousand requests for specific information.
17. It gathered together the
leading novelists, essayists, and publicists of the land, and these men and
women, without payment, worked faithfully in the production of brilliant,
comprehensive articles that went to the press as syndicate features.
18. One division paid particular
attention to the rural press and the plate-matter service. Others looked after
the specialized needs of the labor press, the religious press, and the
periodical press. The Division of Women's War Work prepared and issued the
information of peculiar interest to the women of the United States, also aiding
in the task of organizing and directing.
19. Through
the medium of the motion picture, America's war progress, as well as the meanings
and purposes of democracy, were carried to every community in the United States
and to every corner of the world. "Pershing's Crusaders,"
"America's Answer," and "Under Four Flags" were types of
feature films by which we drove home America's resources and determinations,
while other pictures, showing our social and industrial life, made our free
institutions vivid to foreign peoples, From the domestic showings alone, under a fair plan of
distribution, the sum of $878,215 was gained, which went to support the cost of
the campaigns in foreign countries where the exhibitions were necessarily free.
20. Another
division prepared and distributed still photographs and stereopticon slides to
the press and public. [9] Over two hundred thousand of the latter were issued
at cost. This division also conceived the idea of the "permit
system," that opened up our military and naval activities to civilian
camera men, and operated it successfully. It handled, also, the voluntary
censorship of still and motion pictures in order that there might be no
disclosure of information valuable to the enemy. The number of pictures
reviewed averaged seven hundred a day.
21. Turning
away from the United States to the world beyond our borders, a triple task
confronted us. First, there were the peoples of the Allied nations that had to
be fired by the magnitude of the American effort and the certainty of speedy
and effective aid, in order to relieve the war-weariness of the civilian
population and also to fan the enthusiasm of the firing-line to new flame.
Second, we had to carry the truth to the neutral nations, poisoned by German
lies; and third, we had to get the ideals of America, the determination of
America, and the invincibility of America into the Central Powers.
22. Unlike other countries, the
United States had no subsidized press service with which to meet the emergency.
As a matter of bitter fact, we had few direct news contacts of our own with the
outside world, owing to a scheme of contracts that turned the foreign distribution
of American news over to European agencies. The volume of information that went
out from our shores was small, and, what was worse, it was concerned only with
the violent and unusual in our national life. It was news of strikes and lynchings, riots, murder cases, graft prosecutions,
sensational divorces, the bizarre extravagance of "sudden
millionaires." Naturally enough, we were looked upon as a race of
dollar-mad materialists, a land of cruel monopolists, our real rulers the
corporations and our democracy a "fake."
Source:George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1920), 3-9. Paragraph numbers have been added, and the original
pagination appears in brackets.
