Mobilizing
Public Support for War:
An
Analysis of American Propaganda During World War I
Department
of Political Science
Thiel
College
Greenville,
PA 16125
This
paper was prepared for delivery at the Annual Meeting of the
International
Studies Association, New Orleans, LA, March 24-27, 2002
Mobilizing
Public Support for War:
An
Analysis of American Propaganda During World War I
Introduction
Twice
in the twentieth century the United States government formally established
agencies whose purpose was to generate and mobilize public support for
war. The Committee on Public
Information (CPI) during World War I and the Office of War Information (OWI) during
World War II directed extensive wartime propaganda efforts at the American
public as well as foreign audiences.
While governmental activities to generate public support for foreign
policies are common in American history, the scope of activities of these
official propaganda agencies during times of war represented governmentally
directed propaganda campaigns of an unprecedented scale in the history of
American foreign policy.
In
many respects, the overall historical significance of the CPI may in fact be
substantially greater than that of the OWI.
The First World War turned out to be a watershed event in the
development of modern propaganda. The
world’s first experience with total war became wedded with the nation’s first
systematic and institutionalized national program of propaganda. As stated by Harold Lasswell in this
frequently quoted passage:
the [First] World War
led to the discovery of propaganda by both the
man in the street and
the man in the study. The discovery was
far
more startling to the
former than the latter, because the man in
the study had
predecessors who had laid firm foundations for his efforts
to understand
propaganda. The layman had previously
lived in a world
where there was no
common name for the deliberate forming of attitudes
by the manipulation of
words (1938, v).
Unfortunately,
a comparative study of the two agencies is beyond the scope of this study. Consequently, the focus of this paper is
limited to an analysis of the organizational structure and activities of the
CPI as well as investigating the role of private agencies in formulating
propaganda messages for the home front during the First World War. While a substantial amount of material has
been written about propaganda during this period, much of the research has been
directed toward an examination of a single aspect or dimension of the use of
propaganda rather than locate the governmentally directed propaganda campaign
in a wider societal context linked with a variety of powerful private sources
of propaganda. As a matter of record,
many of these private institutions and organizations enthusiastically
cooperated with and supported the efforts of the CPI.
The need for a fuller exploration of the public-private cooperative enterprise to mobilize the American public during World War I is one motivation for the present paper. A second objective of this paper centers on the historically under analyzed phenomenon regarding the use of censorship and coercion to silence particular groups opposing U.S. entry into the war. Some of the groups of greatest concern to the CPI were women, African-Americans, German-Americans, Irish-Americans, pacifists, and socialists. Since a substantial amount of the research on governmental activities designed to generate support from, or alternately silence dissent among, women and African-Americans is of relatively recent origin, this dimension of governmental activity has mostly been neglected in earlier analyses. A third objective of this research is to demonstrate that while the CPI provided important direction for propaganda from the national level, local authorities and citizen groups often were the more zealous contributors in the campaign to propagandize the public. Thus because of the tendency of historians to focus on American participation in the war from the standpoint of the national centers of power in Washington (Wiegand 1989, 5), the extent of state and local activity has not been well integrated into the overall analysis of propaganda during World War I. Thus the purpose of this paper is to provide a brief, but multi-faceted account of the CPI’s linkages with private propaganda sources and local authorities, and examine the significance of the CPI’s campaign to stifle dissent of specifically targeted groups. Analyzed in this wider context, the CPI’s propaganda activities do not just represent a successful effort to mobilize and organize public support for the war, but suggest a variety of seized opportunities by the defenders of the political and social status quo to discredit and weaken advocates of progressive and radical reform. The analysis that follows utilizes insights from a Gramscian theoretical approach which results in a more critical analysis of the political legacy of America’s wartime propaganda campaign than is typical of the literature.
The last twenty years
have witnessed the dramatic growth of interest in the work of the Italian
theorist Antonio Gramsci. Marxist and
non-Marxist scholars alike have found his concept of cultural hegemony to be an
important and useful contribution to the analysis of class domination in modern
capitalist societies (Lears 1985, 567; Boggs 1984, 23; Simon 1991, 11). Notwithstanding the conceptual ambiguities
contained in the Prison Notebooks,
Gramsci presents a complex framework or schema suggestive of a process of
manufactured consensus in capitalist society (Gramsci 1971). While complete consensus is never possible,
cultural hegemony in Western democratic-capitalist societies is the result of
the voluntary consent of citizens as well as the coercive powers of the
state. Gramsci argued that in Eastern
societies the balance between force and coercion emphasized the latter while in
the Western states there was greater reliance on a strategy of creating voluntary
consent.
Gramsci’s frequently quoted definition
of cultural hegemony is “the
‘spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the population to the
general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group;
this consent is ‘historically’ caused by the prestige (and consequent
confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and
function in the world of production” (Gramsci 1971, 12). Thus, the hegemonic strategy consists of an
effort to craft an ideology that reflects ruling class interests while simultaneously
securing popular support. However,
elites are not able to fully impose their cultural vision on subordinate
groups. But as Lears notes, the
maintenance of elite rule does not require the complete penetration of cultural
hegemony to subordinate groups. In
fact, strikes, mass movements or even the development of a counterhegemonic
movement can take place without posing a substantial threat to elite rule
(1985, 569). Subordinate classes are
usually divided and confused in their ability to identify the sources of their
discontent. Furthermore, the
development of the dominant ideology is not “merely a belief system that
reflects specific class interests” (Lears 1985, 570). Instead, in order that the dominant ideology is capable of
securing consent it must also appropriate symbols and values that resonate with
the masses. Patriotic, ethnic, or
religious values often serve this purpose in the construction of the dominant
ideology. For Gramsci then, a
“contradictory consciousness” typifies the mental state of the subordinate
groups. In other words, substantial
numbers of the subordinate groups may be skeptical of the legitimacy of elite
rule, but alienation, apathy, and the lack of a clarified alternative vision
inhibits a meaningful challenge to the political and economic power structure.
For the purposes of this study, it is
the mechanisms used by the state to engineer popular consent that are
particularly relevant to the analysis of propaganda. Gramsci identified a cultural hegemonic strategy in the modern
capitalist state of the West that was highly dependent on the private
institutions of civil society. By this
he had in mind the pivotal role of institutions and organizations such as the
schools, churches, media, labor unions, and intellectuals in reproducing the
dominant social relations in society.
It will be argued here that the American propaganda campaign of World
War I orchestrated by the CPI followed such a hegemonic strategy.
There is an additional reason the First
World War is an appropriate case study to apply the insights of Gramscian
theory. The war created a crisis or
near-crisis challenge to the dominant cultural and political foundations of
American society. The war created a
climate of dissent that not only challenged the dominant cultural hegemony, but
it served as a potential unifying focus for a counterhegemonic response. Political or economic crises are
particularly dangerous for the ruling class.
As Boggs explains, it can potentially lead to a situation where:
only “dominant,”
exercising coercive force alone, this means precisely
that the great masses
have become detached from their traditional ideologies
and no longer believe what they used to believe previously…… (1985, 165).
The war generated the social conditions that
necessitated an intense effort by the political and economic elite to reassert
or reestablish a cultural hegemony. Thus the political and
civil processes or mechanisms identified by Gramsci as operating to promote
popular consent should be most visible during times of crisis.
Research efforts to test theories relating to power relationships in society are notoriously difficult. But in his thoughtful analysis of the concept of hegemony, Lears explicitly identifies the First World War as an appealing historical case to test hegemonic theory. According to Lears:
occurred at crucial
moments, such as the final debate over American entry into
World War I, when a
vast majority of congressmen chose to disregard their
constituents’opposition
to the war and voted with the president. In this and
other policy matters,
one way to falsify the hypothesis of hegemony is to
demonstrate the
existence of genuinely pluralistic debate; one way to substantiate
it is to discover what
was left out of public debate and to account historically for
those silences (1985, 586).
As noted earlier, this study will analyze the linkage between the governmental and non-governmental sources of propaganda in the United States during World War I. Informed by a Gramscian approach, this study will seek to specify the range of public debate and account for the historical silences regarding public opposition to the war.
When
war erupted in August 1914 few in the United States could have imagined an
American declaration of war against Germany two and one half years later. There were many factors present in 1914 that
should have mitigated against the eventual military involvement by the United
States in the European war. Indeed,
what is fascinating about the period of neutrality is the degree to which
American opinion was transformed from a non-interventionist perspective to a
pro-war position. This section of the
paper will attempt to summarize the domestic and international factors most
responsible for this transformation.
On August 18, 1914 President Wilson
admonished his fellow citizens that “the United States must be neutral in fact
as well as in name during these days that try men’s souls” (quoted in Ross
1996, 145). Seemingly, Wilson’s
statement reflected an accurate assessment of the American public mood. The results of a questionnaire distributed
to 367 American newspaper editors by the weekly magazine Literary Digest confirm a pervasive sentiment of neutrality in
1914. Asked which side in the European
conflict had their sympathies, 105 editors indicated they favored the Allies,
20 favored the Central Powers, and 242 designated no preference. As Roetter argues, “in August 1914 America
was overwhelmingly neutral and determined to stay so” and moreover there was
“no sign of an inevitable progression from neutrality to intervention” (1974,
53). Little elaboration is needed to note that participation in World
War I would represent a fundamental break with over one hundred years of
foreign policy tradition by the United States of avoiding direct military involvement
in European conflicts. While it is
certainly true American foreign policy had become more interventionist by the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century, U.S. participation in World War I
still represented an historic departure from an isolationist past (Kennedy
1980, v).
In addition to an isolationist foreign
policy tradition, another factor mitigating against an American intervention
was the growth in the United States of a relatively vibrant peace movement in
the years from 1900 to 1914. Nurnberger
(1987, 96) notes the emergence of over fifty new peace organizations between
1900 and the outbreak of the war, among them were the influential World Peace
Society and Andrew Carnegie’s Endowment for International Peace. The peace movement, while not a cohesive or
unified group, contained many prominent and respected members of the business
community and government (although not an active member, Woodrow Wilson had
joined the American Peace Society). As
an indication of the public interest in the topic of peace, a 1911 four day
conference in New York City sponsored by Andrew Carnegie drew over 40,000
observers and 1,253 delegates (Nurnberger 1987, 103). In short, the peace movement on the eve of the First World War
was a political force of some momentum to be reckoned with, even if the
mainstream elements of the movement were later co-opted into abandoning their
earlier opposition to the war.
Perhaps one of the most important
potential deterrents to war lay in the mosaic nature of America’s many ethnic
identities in the early twentieth century.
Large-scale immigration, especially from the eastern and southern parts
Europe, had created a society where approximately seventeen million Americans
(out of a total population of 100 million) were foreign born. Many of these recent arrivals did not speak
English nor were they well assimilated into the dominant Anglo-American
culture. Significant numbers of
immigrants actually intended to return home and thus had little desire to ever
become Americanized. For example,
between 1900 and 1910 2.1 million Italian immigrants came to the United States
while 1.2 million returned home during the same period (Wiegand 1989,
114). Furthermore, large numbers of
Irish-Americans and German-Americans in the United States could be expected to
demonstrate a natural antipathy toward the Allied cause. Thus the initial American policy of
neutrality toward the war in Europe was a realistic strategy to avoid deepening
political conflict between diverse communities of hyphenated Americans
possessing conflicting foreign policy loyalties.
According to Kennedy (1980, 26-29),
probably the largest organized opposition to American intervention during the
period of 1914 to 1917 was the American Socialist Party. Despite some internal party conflict, most American
Socialists were steadfastly opposed to the war and any efforts to promote U.S.
participation. It is worth recalling
that in the first two decades of the twentieth century, socialism had
substantial appeal among sectors of the American society beyond the typical constituency
of industrialized urban centers densely populated with organized labor. For example, while Socialist presidential
candidate Eugene Debs received six percent of the national vote in 1912, in the
state of Oklahoma he received sixteen percent of the total vote for
president. In 1914 the Oklahoma
Socialist candidate for governor polled over twenty-one percent of the total
vote (Burbank 1976, 7-8). Radical
agrarian socialists were experiencing similar levels of support in the
neighboring states of Texas and Louisiana.
While socialist opposition to the war would remain strong despite some
defections, organized labor as a whole was more divided on the question of
war. American Federation of Labor
leader Samuel Gompers, for example, had adopted a pro-war position by
1916. Nonetheless, anti-war sentiment
was widespread among large numbers of rank and file members of labor
organizations. Thus socialist
opposition and organized labor’s ambivalence toward the war constituted serious
political obstacles to overcome in the event of an American intervention in the
European conflict.
Even the business and corporate elites
in the United States were not evidencing a strong predisposition to become
involved in the war in 1914. Already
noted above were the peace activities underwritten by Andrew Carnegie. Auto pioneer Henry Ford, while not
necessarily typical of American captains of industry, worked diligently to
bring an end to the war in Europe. The
most famous of Ford’s exploits on behalf of peace was his sponsorship and
participation in the launching of his “peace ship” in late 1915. Ford, along with other notables from the
fields of government, business, and education, set sail for Europe in an effort
to broker a negotiated settlement to the war.
While Ford himself returned to the United States soon after the ship
arrived in Europe, he nonetheless continued to underwrite the expenses of the
peace mission totaling more than one half million dollars until March 1917
(Nurnberger 1987, 102-103). However,
most business leaders in 1914 were content to see the United States remain on
the sidelines of the war as long as the war did not adversely affect American
commercial interests. Many foresaw that
American business could actually turn a profit from the war without the
necessity of intervening.
Despite the existence of these domestic
constraints, the period of 1914 to 1917 witnessed a significant evolution of
American sentiment toward a pro-Ally and pro- war position. Thus the American policy of neutrality
existed in name only by early 1917. A
number of factors account for this dramatic transformation. Among the factors to be discussed below
include the sophisticated British campaign of propaganda directed at generating
American sympathy for the Allied cause.
And conversely, the successful British propaganda effort must be
contrasted with the more clumsy and ill-fated German propaganda campaign. Second, the development of a highly
nationalistic domestic preparedness movement helped pave the way for an American
entry into the war. And last, the
rapidly expanded economic and financial links to the British and French during
the period of neutrality intensified the American stake in an Allied victory.
It is no exaggeration to observe than
once war began in Europe, the British seized the propaganda initiative to
influence the Americans and the Germans never recovered from this setback (see
Roetter 1974, chapters 2-4; Ross 1996, chapters 2-3; Kunczik 1998, 25-55). One of the most important advantages for the
British was their ability to control the flow of news and information about the
war. Within days of the outbreak of
hostilities, the British navy cut Germany’s transatlantic cable link with the
United States. Consequently, American newspapers became almost completely
dependent on British sources for news about the war (Sproule 1997, 6). Furthermore, the British quickly established
a largely covert propaganda operation located at Wellington House and under the
direction of Charles Masterman.
Masterman wisely chose Canadian born Sir Gilbert Parker to direct
British propaganda toward the neutral United States. Since Parker had traveled extensively in the United States and
was thus well acquainted with American political culture, he was aptly situated
to exploit his many personal contacts and be sensitive to the complexity of
attempting to influence American domestic opinion. Parker also shaped what Americans read back home by courting
favor with American war correspondents operating out of London. The correspondents were wined and dined as
well as given chaperoned tours of the front.
According to Knightly, “the almost complete capture of American
correspondents in this way ensured that in American newspapers the war would be
seen as if through British eyes” (1975, 121).
Parker also sought to influence
American public opinion directly.
Utilizing names drawn from Who’s
Who in America, Parker constructed a mailing list containing over 200,000
names of American opinion leaders.
These individuals were then provided articles, pamphlets, and speeches
on the subject of the War written from the British perspective. Recipients of the materials, however, were
usually not aware that they were being sent these materials as part of an
officially directed propaganda effort.
Parker and his staff also provided substantial war related materials to
American newspapers and libraries.
Given the nearly insatiable appetite for war news and information, these
institutions were more than delighted to receive the newspaper articles, books,
and films sent by Parker and his colleagues at Wellington House. American sympathy for the Allied cause was
also fostered by the effective use of atrocity stories in British propaganda. Allegations of German misdeeds regarding the
treatment of civilians in Belgium were particularly successful in generating
anti-German sentiment. The charges of
German brutality were given substantial credibility through the publication of
an official British governmental report by a committee whose chairman was the
respected scholar Lord James Bryce.
Admittedly, it is difficult to assess the precise impact of these
efforts by the British to influence American public opinion. But the clear judgment of most historians is
that the impact of the British effort was substantial (for example, see Ross
1996; Haste 1977; Roetter 1974; Kunczik 1998).
In contrast, the German effort to
influence American public opinion is viewed by nearly all analysts as
inept. In one respect, the German
propaganda failure is surprising. While
the British may have had the advantage of a common language and culture with
Americans, Germany’s propaganda goals were much more modest than the
British. The British needed to alter
American opinion while the Germans needed only to maintain the status quo of
American neutrality. Part of Germany’s
problem rested with the pursuit of policies, which many Americans found
difficult to accept as a neutral country.
For example, Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare (in
response to the British naval blockade) against vessels in route to Great
Britain proved to be highly unpopular in the United States. This policy undoubtedly inflicted
irreparable damage to the German cause in the United States when it resulted in
the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania
in 1915. Most Americans blamed Germany
exclusively for the loss of lives while at the same time few protested the
violation of neutrality rights posed by the British naval blockade. One notable exception to the prevailing view
on the sinking of the Lusitania was
Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan.
In an act of principle, Bryan resigned as Secretary of State rather than
sign what he considered to be an overly stern and one-sided diplomatic note to
Germany. The importance of Bryan’s
resignation resided in the fact that Wilson’s key foreign policy advisers were
now all decidedly pro-Ally with Bryan’s departure. Robert Tucker also suggests Bryan’s resignation represents a
critical juncture in the evolution of American policy because of the general
historical overestimation of Colonel House’s role as foreign policy adviser and
the underestimation of the role of Bryan’s successor, Secretary of State Robert
Lansing who was a determined interventionist (1998, 10-12). Also in 1915 Germany experienced a backlash
of hostile opinion as a consequence of the execution of nurse Edith
Cavell. Nurse Cavell had worked as a
Red Cross volunteer in German occupied Brussels and was found guilty by a
German military court of assisting French and British soldiers to escape to
neutral Holland. As a result of her
conviction, Nurse Cavell was shot by a German firing squad. Thanks in part to the efforts of British
propagandists, the story of Nurse Cavell received prominent news coverage in
the United States as well as other neutral countries. Few events from the First World War seem to have had as much of
an emotional impact on the American public as the execution of Nurse Cavell. However, as reported by Roetter, several
weeks after the Cavell execution two German nurses working in a Red Cross
hospital in France were found guilty of a similar offense and were also
executed. The execution of the German
nurses apparently was not reported at all in the American press (1974,
13). In short, because of the
successful British seizure of the propaganda initiative, German propagandists
inevitably found themselves on the defensive.
Germany did mount a U.S. based effort
to influence American public opinion.
The headquarters of the German propaganda operation were located in New
York City and was set up by the German ambassador to the United States, Count
Johann von Bernstorff. The German
propaganda strategy consisted of a number of activities. First, German propagandists sought to
generate favorable publicity in the New York papers since these were the most
prestigious newspapers in the country and the Germans believed other papers
would take their cue from the New York press.
Second, the Germans sought to forge links with and provide support for
both German-American and Irish-American groups in the United States. Unfortunately, this second activity probably
yielded minimal propaganda benefits as it represented preaching to the already
converted. Another factor which limited
the effectiveness of the German propaganda program was that compared to their
British counterparts, the German effort was on a much smaller scale and tended
to emphasize a technical approach rather than a psychological one (Sproule
1997, 8). Perhaps the most serious
problem for the Germans, however, was the inability to keep their activities
covert. Leaks to the American press
concerning German activities to sway public opinion alarmed officials in
Washington and eroded public credibility in the source of the German
message. These press leaks also helped
to fuel rumors of German espionage and sabotage directed at the United States.
While the British may have organized
the more effective of the competing propaganda campaigns to influence American
views on the war, the Allied cause was increasingly assisted at home in the
United States by a domestic “preparedness” movement. Although a number of organizations actually comprised the
preparedness lobby, the most powerful and well financed of these groups was the
National Security League (NSL). Kennedy
describes the NSL as “based principally in the cities of the Eastern seaboard,
comprised largely of men associated with the nation’s leading banking and
commercial houses, bankrolled by big capitalists like Cornelius Vanderbilt,
Henry C. Frick, and Simon Guggenheim, the NSL was as intimately tied to
conservative interests as the peace groups were to progressive elements” (1980,
31). In a later passage, Kennedy
approvingly quotes one student of the NSL who characterizes the policies of the
NSL as a conservative business counterattack against political and economic
liberalism (1980, 31). Thus the preparedness lobby represented a reaction by
politically conservative forces in American society to counter the domestic
peace movement and progressive reform.
The preparedness organizations initially lobbied for increasing
expenditures on the army and navy as well as a system of universal military
training. As time wore on, the rhetoric
of the preparedness lobby became more strident and shifted toward a pro-war and
interventionist position. One of the
most influential spokespersons for the preparedness movement was former
president Theodore Roosevelt. In
retrospect, the tone of Roosevelt’s rhetoric is shocking and does not reflect
well on the quality of his political judgment.
Stewart Ross has compiled excerpts from Roosevelt’s newspaper editorials
published from 1917 to 1919. The
following list provides a partial sample of these Roosevelt newspaper excerpts:
The
women who do not raise their boys to be soldiers when the
country
needs them are unfit to live in this republic.
Teaching
German in the public schools should be prohibited.
German
language newspapers should have a time limit act,
after
which it should not be lawful to publish them save in
English.
The
Stones and LaFollettes, the Hearsts and Hillquits are out
of
place in America. It is sincerely to be
regretted that they cannot
be
put where they belong---under the Hohenzollerns (1996, 176).
Roosevelt’s inflammatory tone perhaps
symbolizes the degree to which the critics of preparedness were held to be
dangerous and unpatriotic by the time of American entry into the war. As early as the fall of 1915 even the
progressive Wilson had shifted his support to the preparedness movement.
Arguably the pro-Ally shift in American
opinion from 1914 to 1917 (particularly among business and corporate elite) was
most significantly the result of America’s deepening financial and commercial
stake in a British and French victory.
The war had turned out to be a boon for American business. With the British surface naval blockade of
Germany, American trade with Europe during this period was almost exclusively
with the Allies. And after Bryan’s
departure as Secretary of State, the State Department’s ban on loans to
belligerents was lifted thereby creating the opportunity for American banks to
finance the American exports to the Allies.
By April 1917 American bankers had lent the Allies over $2.1 billion
dollars (Ross 1996, 162). In addition
to the influential banking industry, other important sectors of the economy
such as steel, munitions, chemicals, and agriculture had become dependent on
the war for generating increased demand for their products. Thus by the time of an American declaration
of war, the United States had developed a substantial economic stake in the
outcome of the conflict
In reviewing the years of neutrality,
several conclusions are evident. First,
when the war began American elite opinion was leaning pro-Ally, but still
non-interventionist. It became more
pro-Ally and pro-interventionist as time passed. A highly effective British propaganda campaign, a well financed
and powerful domestic preparedness movement, and a growing economic
interdependence with the Allies all contributed to weakening the official
policy of neutrality. Furthermore, the
majority of America’s corporate and governmental elite were much more likely to
identify with British culture and society than Germany and German culture. Thus there was a definite pro-British bias
among America’s elite in 1914. The
American policy of neutrality was mostly in name as U.S. foreign policy actions
between 1914 and 1917 had the effect, if not intent, of favoring the Allies. Thus in early 1917 when Germany resumed
unrestricted submarine warfare and the contents of the infamous Zimmerman
telegram are made known, the majority of American opinion leaders had long been
prepared for war with Germany.
However, what is less clear is whether
the majority of the American public could be rallied to support the war. Although the congressional declaration of
war was overwhelming (only six senators and fifty representatives voted against
it), Kennedy argues this vote substantially underrepresented public opposition
to the war (1980, 23). Many senators
and representatives were reluctant to vote against the war resolution for fear
of alienating powerful political interests.
Numerous sources of domestic opposition to the war were still evident in
April 1917. President Wilson faced the
real danger of attempting to lead a divided nation to war. Consequently, the United States moved
quickly and aggressively to establish a propaganda agency of its own which, in
the words of its chairman, could turn the American people into “one white-hot
mass……with fraternity, devotion, courage, and deathless determination” (Creel
1920a, 5).
The
Committee on Public Information:
The
National Apparatus
At the center of the U.S. national
propaganda program during World War I was the Committee on Public Information
(CPI). The CPI was created via
executive order one week following the American declaration of war. George Creel, a progressive journalist and
long-time Wilson supporter, was selected to be the civilian chair of the
CPI. Secretaries Robert Lansing (State),
Newton Baker (War), and Josephus Daniels (Navy) rounded out the executive
committee membership. However, it is
also worth noting that other federal agencies and departments played
substantial roles in the campaign to mobilize public opinion. For example, the propaganda activities of
the United States Food Administration under the direction of Herbert Hoover
were quite substantial (Ponder 1995).
Furthermore, the national effort was dependent upon considerable
voluntary cooperation from state and local authorities. But it was the CPI under the leadership of
its energetic chair, George Creel, which was the national agency of greatest
significance in generating and organizing support for the war (see Vaughn 1980). Thus in the discussion which follows, the
principal analytic focus is the CPI.
But as noted earlier, while the direct propaganda activities of the CPI
are of great interest, the success of the CPI in forging links with and
facilitating non-governmental sources of propaganda is equally important. While the primary objective of the domestic
propaganda program was to mobilize and sustain support for the war, there was
also little hesitation to silence critics of government policy. Thus the flip side of the propaganda
campaign was at times not only heavy-handed censorship, but also the harassment
and persecution of war opponents. As
Lasswell noted years ago, “propaganda is likely to be abused to promote
personal and partisan ends, and the line of distinction between a private
advantage which is incidental to a legitimate public advantage, and a private
advantage which brings no overwhelming public advantage, is difficult to draw”
(1927, 37). It is to some of these
abused uses of American propaganda during the First World War that the present study
intends draw the reader’s attention.
In his post-war report to Congress,
George Creel describes the approach adopted by the CPI as follows:
At the very outset the Committee on Public
Information made the
decision that the
three great agencies of appeal in the fight for public
opinion
were: The Written Word, the Spoken Word, and the Motion
Picture. Even as the speaking forces and writers of
the nation were
mobilized,
so were steps taken in the very first days to utilize every
resource
of the camera (Creel 1920b, 47).
Organizationally, the CPI consisted of
two sections: one domestic and one foreign.
The foreign section was concerned with directing American propaganda
activities overseas and had established offices in over thirty countries
(political scientist Charles Merriam was CPI commissioner for Italy). The domestic section was composed of a
variety of specialized divisions to mobilize the home front. The exact number of domestic divisions
changed over time as new ones were added and others were consolidated as the
need arose. Nonetheless, we can
identify the principal domestic divisions and summarize their functions.
As already noted by Creel in the quote
above, one of the ways the CPI attempted to influence public opinion was
through the spoken word. The Speaking
Division and the Division of Four Minute Men (these two divisions were later
consolidated in September 1918) both played prominent roles in achieving this
task The importance of these divisions
is underscored when we remember that the United States in the early twentieth
century was a place where a considerable segment of the population did not read
well or at all. Furthermore, the era of
the First World War pre-dates the arrival of the mass media outlets of radio
and television. Typically, the Speakers
Division recruited prominent national personalities to tour and speak at
locations across the country.
The Division of Four Minute Men is one
of the more fascinating innovations in mass propaganda from World War I. The idea for the Four Minute Men originated
in Chicago in March 1917. A group of
Chicago businessmen hit upon the idea of speaking at intermission in movie
theaters as a way to communicate with large audiences concerning the serious
issue of the war. There was a double
meaning to the term Four Minute Men. Four minutes was the time made available
to a speaker at intermission by theater managers as that was the amount of time
it took to change a movie reel.
Additionally, the term Minute man evoked patriotic symbolism from the
American Revolutionary War. Once the
United States entered the war, the Chicago organizers suggested the concept of
the Four Minute Men to George Creel who immediately created a national program
under the auspices of the CPI. It is
estimated that by war’s end 75,000 Four Minute Men speakers had been recruited
who gave over 755,190 speeches to audiences totaling more than 314,454,514
persons (Cornebise 1984, 154).
Part of the success of the Four Minute
Men must also be attributed to the care with which the speakers were recruited
and supervised. Each speaker was
screened and only upstanding members of community who were thought to possess
good public speaking skills were selected.
The four-minute time limit was strictly enforced, so as not to alienate
theater patrons or theater managers.
Finally, even though each speaker was allowed to compose their
four-minute talk in their own words, the CPI provided periodic bulletins to
suggest specific topics for the Four Minute Men as particular needs arose. For example, one bulletin might stress the
need for food conservation as a topic while the next bulletin would suggest the
sale of war bonds. Alfred Cornebise
notes that these bulletins (forty-six were published in all) were at the “heart”
of the Four Minute Men activities (1984, 15).
Most significantly, the Four Minute Men speakers were local residents
speaking to local audiences in the own words, but participating in a nationally
coordinated propaganda message campaign.
Cornebise summarizes the role of the Four Minute Men as the “shock
troops” of American propaganda (1984, 25).
Later in the war the Four Minute Men branched out to locations other
than movie theaters such as churches, lodges, labor halls, and etc. A women’s division within the Four Minute
Men was created to speak primarily to women’s groups and at movie
matinees. Young children were organized
to be Four Minute Men speakers through competitions at school. Over 200,000 schools alone participated in a
competition held in the spring of 1918 to promote the Third Liberty Loan drive
(Cornebise 1984, 14). The Four Minute
Men were also a means by which non-English speaking ethnic audiences could be
reached through the recruitment of Four Minute Men capable of speaking in the
native language. African-Americans were
also singled out for special attention by the Four Minute Men and organized
with a separate division. Although
discussed in more detail later, African-Americans were suspected by the CPI of
being particularly vulnerable to German propaganda.
Some of the country’s leading
illustrators were recruited to the Division of Pictorial Publicity to produce
war posters. This division had been
created in part through the efforts of a group of pro-war artists known as the
Vigilantes (Kennedy 1980, 41; Vaughn 1980, 149). A News Division was established to coordinate the government’s
release of war-related information. The
CPI’s Division of News pioneered the use of the “handout” or news release. This division also published a daily
newspaper, the Official Bulletin, and
the War News Digest. For those members of the public who did not
regularly read headline news accounts of the war, a Division of Syndicated
Features was created to generate inclusion of war information in the feature
sections of Sunday newspapers. A
Foreign Language Newspaper Division to oversee the foreign language press was
established by the CPI. Even the
cartoons were not beyond the reach of the CPI through its Bureau of
Cartoons. As the preceding discussion
demonstrates, the CPI was quite aggressive in influencing the content of
newspaper coverage of the war.
The CPI had a stable of talented
writers who made a significant contribution to the propaganda program through
the Division of Civic and Educational Cooperation. This division was responsible for the famous Red, White and Blue and War
Information Series pamphlets.
Millions of these pamphlets were distributed in the United States and
around the world. Some two to three
hundred scholars worked in this division writing books and pamphlets justifying
the American government’s view of the war.
The Division of Civic and Educational Cooperation also published a
bi-monthly bulletin designed to promote patriotism among school children. According to the bulletin’s managing editor,
J.W. Searson, the National School Service
was sent to public schools throughout the country in an effort to assist
teachers in making “every school pupil a messenger for Uncle Sam” (quoted in
Vaughn 1980, 103). A Division of
Advertising was created to take advantage of the skills of the advertising
industry to assist the government in developing advertisement copy and in
utilizing space donated from newspapers and magazines.
The CPI had specific concerns with
generating support for the war among women, immigrants, and labor. Consequently, a Division of Women’s War Work
was established to deal with the concerns of women. The Division of Work with the Foreign Born sought to promote the
loyalty of immigrants by working with the foreign language press and ethnic
organizations. Initially, a Division of
Industrial Relations was set up by the CPI to encourage support for the war
among industrial workers. This division
was later transferred to the Department of Labor which flooded American
factories with pro-war messages.
However, the CPI did bankroll the pro-war labor organization the
American Alliance for Labor and Democracy (Kennedy 1980, 72).
In
addition to the spoken and written word, the CPI sought to utilize film and
photography to promote the war. To this
end, the Division of Films and the Division of Pictures were created by the
CPI. The CPI promoted exhibitions of
war photos and captured German war equipment through its Bureau of War
Exhibition and Bureau of State Fair Exhibits.
The latter exhibits drew up to seven million visitors (Vaughn 1980,
32). Although at first the CPI got off
to a slow start in using films, Creel was eventually able to secure an
agreement from Secretary of War Baker that the CPI would be the sole
distribution agency for Signal Corps photographs and motion pictures of the
war. This agreement provided the
foundation for the CPI’s film and photography activities. Although initially the CPI granted sole
rights of distribution of Signal Corps films to the Red Cross, the CPI later
recognized the value of these films and reacquired control (Veeder 1990). The Division of Films produced a weekly
newsreel entitled Official War Review
and even produced some feature length films later in the war. By the end of the war, Larry Ward contends
the Division of Films was one of the largest and most successful divisions
within the CPI (1985, 94). Before
concluding our discussion of the structure and activities of the CPI, a comment
concerning President Wilson’s personal contribution to the propaganda campaign
is appropriate. The CPI was staffed
with many progressive and reform-minded individuals who saw Wilson and his
idealistic rhetoric as a source of much inspiration. Since President Wilson was a very talented communicator in his
own right, the CPI published and widely distributed many of his speeches. In
his classic analysis of World War I propaganda, Harold Lasswell describes
Wilson’s contribution to the propaganda effort in these terms:
Such
matchless skill as Wilson showed in propaganda has never been
equalled
in the world’s history. He spoke to the
heart of the people
as
no statesman has ever done……..Just how much of this Wilsonism
was
rhetorical exhibitionism and how much was the sound fruit of
sober
reflection will be in debate until the World War is a feeble
memory. From a propaganda point of view it was a
matchless
performance,
for Wilson brewed the subtle poison, which industrious
men
injected into the veins of a staggering people, until the smashing
powers
of the Allied armies knocked them into submission. While he
fomented discord
abroad, Wilson fostered unity at home (1927, 217).
This
brief summary and overview of the organizational structure and activities of
the CPI suggests an extensive and comprehensive effort to propagandize the
American public during the First World War.
Few, if any, communications media of the day were ignored by George
Creel and his staff, nor were any major social groups neglected in the focused
appeals by the CPI. Women, children,
workers, ethnic groups, immigrants were all specifically targeted in a
nationally coordinated propaganda campaign.
Despite the establishment of this impressive governmental apparatus, the
success of the CPI ultimately depended in the end on the voluntary cooperation
from local public officials and non-governmental organizations. The scope of this topic is too broad to
provide a comprehensive account here; however, three representative examples of
the CPI’s relationship with local authorities and institutions in the private
sector will be examined in the following section.
The
Committee on Public Information:
Local
and Private Linkages
Recent scholarship has provided insight
into a neglected aspect of World War I propaganda. Namely, the cooperative, if not sometimes zealous, role that
local authorities and institutions in the private sector played in the overall
propaganda program of World War I.
Often patriotism combined with institutional self-interest produced a
powerful motivation to assist the national authorities in any way
possible. Three examples drawn from
recent scholarship will be used to illustrate this dimension of the propaganda
effort. Specifically, an analysis of
the role of public libraries, the movie industry, and magazine publishing
during World War I suggests that the linkages these types of organizations
forged with the CPI were vitally important to the achievement of the goal of
mobilizing public support for the war.
Wayne Wiegand’s (1989) fine analysis of
the American public library during World War I illustrates the significance of
this institution as an enthusiastic participant in the propaganda campaign of
World War I. Much of the discussion
that follows is indebted to Wiegand’s analysis. The American public library in the early twentieth century was an
institution “only recently established and, on the whole, representing the
dominant culture, the vast majority of which were managed by white, Protestant,
middle class searching for a clear identity and a clear set of professional
goals, and eager for public recognition” (Wiegand 1989, 5). Thus for the majority of public librarians,
the war provided an opportunity for local libraries to demonstrate their worth
to their community. The list of ways
in which libraries contributed to supporting the war is extensive. Providing reading material about the war to
their patrons was obviously one way.
However, even during the period of neutrality, most of the new reading
materials acquired by libraries concerning the war were sympathetic to the
British. Because of the British
blockade of Germany, libraries had difficulty procuring books published in
German. Thus by default most of the new
foreign sources of reading materials came from Britain. After the war began, most public libraries
were willing, and often eager, to remove any questionable materials from their
shelves. As the director of an Iowa
library bluntly put it “during the past summer and fall we had a number of
pro-German books donated, but I burned them as they came”(quoted in Wiegand
1989, 87). As Wiegand painfully points
out, librarians generally did not protest requests for the removal of reading
materials suspected of being pro-German, pacifist, or radical. In fact, most librarians considered it their
duty to protect their patrons from any potentially disloyal material.
Public
libraries were involved in the war effort in a myriad of additional ways. For example, as community centers libraries
could display posters, serve as collection centers for war bond drives, provide
space for war exhibits, post government decrees and information. Many libraries were active in the efforts to
Americanize immigrants, especially campaigns to teach English. The CPI distributed thousands of Americanization
Registration Cards to immigrants through public libraries. These cards were then returned with
signatures to the CPI’s Division of Work with the Foreign Born. Libraries, sometimes in cooperation with
schools, sought to indoctrinate children regarding the war. The Free Library of Philadelphia reported
that for the last half of 1917 it had provided 918 story hours to 56, 912
children on the topic of “stories of our allies” (Wiegand 1989, 47). In addition to taking direction from the
CPI, a substantial amount of the public library’s war related activities were
in cooperation with the United States Food Administration (USFA). Edith Guerrier of USFA was particularly
interested in using libraries to publicize information about food conservation,
gardening, and food preparation. Women
were for the obvious reasons specifically targeted in these library
activities. These efforts were part of
a larger campaign to mobilize “the kitchen soldiers” (Gordon 1999). That is, a number of propaganda efforts were
specifically directed at women as domestic workers. Not only did public libraries participate in the process of
mobilizing women for the war, but the movie industry and magazine publishing
industry were recruited for this purpose as well.
Women
were of particularly concern to the CPI for several reasons. One reason, noted above, reflected the
important economic contribution to the war women could make by easing food
shortages through domestic activities such as practicing food conservation and
planting gardens. However, George Creel
and the CPI had other reasons to be concerned about the level of support for
the war among women. Women were an
important component of the pre-war peace movement. For example, Carrie Chapman Catt and Jane Addams helped found the
Women’s Peace Party (WWP) in January 1915.
One year later the WWP had grown to over 40,000 members (Zeiger
1996,10). Since many female activists
and reformers were prominent in anti-war movement of the neutrality period,
there was concern that women, especially women activists, “might constitute a
subversive element in the nation, detrimental to wartime unity and the smooth
functioning of selective service” (Zeiger 1996, 8). Women were viewed as unpatriotic, selfish, more pacifist than
men, and excessively attached to their sons.
Consequently, the CPI took these concerns seriously and attempted to
discredit the views of women activists by influencing the content of magazines
and movies.
The
CPI had a strong ally in this endeavor with the editor of The Ladies’ Home Journal, Edward Bok. Joanne Karetzky (1997) provides an account of the close
relationship between the CPI and Edward Bok’s editorial direction of The Journal. In one editorial, Bok forthrightly asserts, “The Ladies’ Home Journal is not a ‘slacker’ magazine” (quoted in
Karetzky 1997, 3). The term slacker
requires a brief note of explanation.
During the period of neutrality the song “ I didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a
Soldier” was a top ten hit (as measured by sales of sheet music). Critics of anti-war activists and pacifists
often substituted the word “slacker” or “coward” for the word soldier in
parodies of the song. Bok met several
times personally with Wilson and even credits Wilson with suggesting specific
themes for the magazine (Karetzky 1997, 19-20). Whatever Wilson’s actual influence over the content of The Journal, Bok did readily acquiesce
to promoting the CPI’s thematic messages within the pages of the magazine.
Karetzky
(1997) convincingly demonstrates that The
Journal underwent a substantial wartime transformation under Bok’s
leadership. Bok attempted to influence
his middle class female audience in a number of ways. Most directly and throughout the wartime issues, Bok wrote
editorials in support of Wilson, the war, and how women could and should
support the war effort. Bok held a
rather traditional view of the role of women in society, and his editorials
emphasized the contribution women could make to the war as wives, mothers, and
through volunteer work.
In
addition to editorials, The Journal
promoted the war through other techniques.
For example, the covers of the magazine during the war years reflected
highly patriotic and sentimental themes.
Some covers depicted historical icons such as Washington and Lincoln
along with others which extolled the virtues motherhood and service. Articles and advertisements contained
abundant themes regarding the necessity of thrift and conservation. Articles would suggest the need for mothers
to be willing to let their sons enlist in the military and the difficulty of
this sacrifice. Another prominent theme
in many articles was the need to do volunteer work outside the home. In short, The Journal stressed the importance of women finding acceptable
ways to help the war effort and avoiding the vice of being idle. Advertisements and posters created by the
CPI were frequently reproduced in the pages of the magazine. In fact, The
Journal even published at least one article specifically written by the
staff of the CPI.
Thus
The Ladies’ Home Journal played an
active part in World War propaganda through voluntary cooperation and
collaboration with the CPI and the USFA.
The ability to mobilize magazines such as The Journal provided a significant channel for the national
agencies to reach vast members of the public with their propaganda
messages. In the case of The Journal, the motivation for joining
the propaganda campaign seems to be Edward Bok’s personal loyalty to Wilson and
his support for the war. Bok’s
traditional views of women happened to coincide with the CPI’s goal of
discrediting the views of women reformers.
Similar
to magazines, the movie industry was an active and voluntary participant in the
propaganda campaigns of the First World War.
Also like magazines, many of the propaganda messages were specifically
directed at women. Recent research by
Larry Ward (1985) and Susan Zieger (1996) concludes the film industry during
World War I possessed a powerful ability to shape opinion. The movie industry had actually begun to
help the pro-war cause during the period of neutrality. According to Ward, few pacifist or anti-war
films were made during this period, however, a number of preparedness films
were. An important example of this film
genre was “Battle Cry of Peace” a film based on the book by munitions maker
Hudson Maxim. Producer Stuart Blackton
secured endorsements from the NSL and other preparedness groups. The movie was released amid much fanfare and
was a huge box office success. Henry
Ford was so upset with the military themes of the movie that he took out
full-page ads in over 250 newspapers to denounce the movie (1985, 34-39).
Once
the war started the movie industry had a number of reasons to cooperate with
the government’s propaganda efforts.
First, the film industry was an infant industry in 1917 just one step
removed from its origins in vaudeville and theater. Close cooperation with the war effort would be one way for the
industry to achieve greater social respectability. Also, as Ward notes, cooperation with the government was a
strategy to ward off the possible censorship of films and avoid the imposition
of a special war tax on films (1985, 10).
Perhaps, most importantly, the blatantly anti-German war films proved to
be popular at the box office and thus profitable. Indeed, the crude anti-German war film turned out to be standard
fare during the war years.
Consequently,
the War Cooperation Committee of the Motion Picture Industry was established to
cooperate with the U.S. government and this group ended up working closely with
the CPI. Theater managers cooperated
with local Four Minute Men speakers.
The CPI developed and distributed a number of promotional shorts for the
army, navy, USFA, and agriculture department, which were shown in the nation’s
movie houses. Movie stars such as
Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin put in substantial time
and energy selling bonds in war loan drives.
The CPI’s weekly newsreel the “Official War Review” was widely
distributed and shown in theaters.
However,
the movie industry marketed two types of films during the war which had great
propaganda value. One type, mentioned
earlier, was the anti-German film, which often attempted to depict German
soldiers as uncivilized brutes committing the most horrendous kinds of
atrocities. One such movie had the
memorable scene of a menacing-looking German officer throwing a baby out the
window just before the officer then turns his attention to violating the nurse
who had been caring for the infant. The
major effect of all of these types of movies is to fuel the audience’s contempt
and hatred for the enemy.
The
second type of movie deals with themes more directed at female audiences. As Zieger (1996) has found, many movies of
the war years were concerned with promoting governmentally desirable images of
women. These kinds of movies tended to
emphasize themes such as the “good mother.”
A good mother was a mother who was willing to let her son enlist in the
military. In contrast, there were bad
mothers who were selfish, unpatriotic and encouraged their sons to shirk their
duty to serve their country in its hour of need. The bad mothers sometimes were depicted as well meaning, but
misguided pacifists. These pacifist
women were portrayed as dupes of German propaganda. Zieger identifies this thematic type of film as the “mother-son”
or “enlistment” drama (1996, 22). Good
mothers were idealized in these films while bad mothers were portrayed as
smothering and unnatural in their attachment to their sons. Thus the film industry specifically targeted
women during World War I in an effort to convince America’s women that any
pre-war pacifist notions they held were nonsense and that patriotism and duty
to country required that they willingly send their sons off to war.
In
summary, the discussion contained in this section has attempted to demonstrate
the importance of public libraries, magazines and the movie industry in
augmenting the propaganda appeals of the CPI.
Through informal and voluntary arrangements, the CPI successfully
mobilized these institutions to promote its war aims. The CPI directly itself, and indirectly through these
institutions, sought to shape public attitudes toward the war. However, the U.S. government also sought to
suppress the voices of dissent and opposition to the war that it was unable to
mobilize. That is the topic to which we
now turn.
The
Committee on Public Information:
Censorship
and Suppression
One of the most disturbing legacies of
the First World War is a substantial record of censorship and suppression
directed at opponents of the war. The
CPI was not necessarily the worst offender in this regard. After all, its prime task was to generate
and sustain support for the war. At the
national level some of the worst abuses can be attributed to Postmaster General
Albert Burleson. Burleson exercised
wide discretionary powers in denying many socialist, pacifist, and anti-war
publications access to the U.S. mail. At
the national level, the government was armed with formidable powers of censorship
and suppression. These powers were most
importantly found in the Espionage Act, the Trading with the Enemy Act, and the
Sedition Act. Over 1500 individuals
were arrested and prosecuted under these laws.
The most famous case involved the arrest and conviction of Socialist
leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs. Debs would serve three years in prison for making an anti-war
speech in Ohio. Less well known are cases
such as the Secretary of State of Wisconsin who received a thirty-month sentence
in federal prison for referring to the YMCA and the Red Cross as “a bunch of
grafters” (Weigand 1989, 62). The
chilling effect of this repressive atmosphere deterred most anti-war activists
from publicly criticizing the war.
Occasionally, leaders of pacifist Christian denominations such as
Pentecostals and Quakers were harassed and arrested under these statutes. While the Pentecostal Sergeant Alvin York
might have been a war hero, most Pentecostals were pacifists and a few of the
church’s leaders stood trial for sedition (Goff 1998, 23).
As with propaganda, some of the most
zealous examples of censorship and suppression occur at the state and local
level with the acquiescence of government authorities. Ultra-nationalistic state councils of defense
were often instruments for the enforcement of social conformity. Sometimes these state councils of defense
took it upon themselves to enforce contribution quotas for the various war loan
drives. Wiegand recounts the
brutalization and humiliation of one Indiana woman who was abducted from her
home and dragged around the town square inside a lion cage because she did not
contribute enough to the Liberty Loan drive (1989, 59).
It is well documented that
German-Americans were frequent targets of the state councils of defense. Typical examples of the harsh treatment
melted out to German-Americans can be found in the following passage:
vigilantism
characterized the anti-German campaign throughout the
nation. Children in St. Louis regularly stoned the delivery
wagons
of
a German-American grocery company.
German-American homes
were
smeared with yellow paint. A Wisconsin
German American was
ridden
around on a rail after he claimed to be a pacifist. A German
American
in Florida received a flogging and was ordered to leave the
state. German Americans who failed to demonstrate
their loyalty often
met
threats of being tarred and feathered or hanged. Many fevent
“patriots”
had no compunction about harassing, intimidating, or
physically
assaulting German Americans, since local and state officials
rarely
interceded to protect the rights of German Americans against
these
unjustified attacks. Since the Wilson
administration intervened
only
when confronted with blatant violence, and then only reluctantly,
it
is not surprising that state and local governments acquiesced,
encouraged,
and participated in the war against everything remotely
German
(Sonntag 1994, 668-669).
State councils of defense were active
in opposing the use of the German language in the nation’s schools. At the urging of their state councils,
several states passed legislation banning the use of German in public
schools. Book burning, especially German
language books, was widespread and often sponsored by local councils of defense.
Another private organization imposing
social conformity on American society during the war years was the American
Protective League (APL). This
organization of volunteer vigilantes had loose ties with the Department of
Justice and its members saw its mission as one of investigating alleged
suspicious activity by citizens and non-citizens alike that in the view of the
APL posed a danger to the war effort.
At its peak, the APL claimed over 250,000 members. In the words of David Kennedy the APL:
bugged,
burglarized, slandered, and illegally arrested other Americans.
They
opened mail, intercepted telegrams, served as agents provocateurs,
and
were the chief commandos in a series of extralegal and often violent
“slacker”
raids against supposed draft evaders …… (1980, 82).
Importantly, the actions of the APL
seemed more motivated by a conservative domestic agenda interested in
discrediting liberal, progressive, and radical elements in American society
than in exposing German spies. Not a
single German spy was ever found by the APL.
Domestic groups such as the NSL and the APL helped to foster a climate
of fear during the war years. Books
were removed from libraries and teachers were fired at their urging. These extra-governmental organizations imposed
a rigid code of what constituted acceptable behavior on their fellow
citizens. National leaders either
participated in or turned a blind eye to these massive abuses of power.
Finally, the exploration of censorship
and suppression during the war years is not complete without an examination of
the treatment of African-Americans. In
1986 the National Archives released previously classified information detailing
the surveillance of African-Americans during World War I by the U.S. Army’s
Military Intelligence Division.
According to Johnson (1999), two events seemed to be most important in
promoting concerns about “Negro subversion.”
A riot in St. Louis during the summer of 1917 was the first event. Four days of rioting left 100 blacks dead or
severely beaten while eight whites had been killed. Typically, the nation’s press characterized the event in terms
casting blame on the African-American community rather than the underlying
injustice and discriminatory practices in American society. Even President Wilson weighed in with public
comments which aggravated racial tensions over St. Louis (Kennedy 1980,
281). The second event which prompts
the military intelligence operation is a mutiny of black soldiers in Houston. Members of the 24th infantry
stationed in Houston attempted to challenge some of the city’s Jim Crow
laws. A confrontation between some of
the black soldiers and white civilians inevitably follows. Several black soldiers and a number of
whites are killed. The government
responded harshly by putting over sixty soldiers on trial in late 1917. Most of the soldiers were quickly convicted
with thirteen receiving the death penalty and forty-one the sentence of life
imprisonment. The thirteen were hanged
a month later. Subsequent trials brought
more convictions and more death sentences.
Some in the military attributed racial
unrest in St. Louis and Houston to the influence of German propaganda, while
others held stereotypical beliefs that blacks were inherently unreliable and
violent. Whatever the reasons, concern
about black radicalism was sufficiently strong to prompt the creation of a
military intelligence unit under the direction of Major Walter Loving. The evidence suggests some degree of
knowledge and cooperation existed between the CPI and the U.S. Army’s Military
Intelligence operation. According to Wray Johnson, Loving (an African-American
himself) proceeded with a two-track strategy of dealing with black
radicalism. First, he attempted to recruit
prominent blacks to support the war. In
fact, many black leaders were willing to cooperate. Second, Loving threatened and intimidated those expressing what
he believed to be dangerous radical or anti-war views (1999, 37).
Further evidence of government
suppression of African-Americans during World War I is found in the work of
Mark Ellis. Ellis (1991) describes the
manner in which the black press was specifically targeted by several agencies
of the United States government (including the CPI). Although the black press expressed a diversity of opinion
concerning the war, there was a concerted effort to ensure its patriotism. According to Ellis, this was achieved in
three ways. First, propaganda was
disseminated to the black press directly through the CPI. Second, there was the effort to co-opt
prominent members of the black press.
One example of this approach was a three-day conference organized by
George Creel in which black newspaper editors were brought to Washington and
commended for the important service they were providing the nation. The third method, and most effective at
achieving the desired results, was through threatening legal action against
editors and their papers (1991, 25-27).
African-Americans and German-Americans
were not the only groups who were targeted for harassment and persecution
during World War I because of their alleged lack of patriotism. As this section suggests, anyone who
expressed disagreement with the war or was critical of the government ran the
risk of running afoul of organized fellow citizens infected with war
hysteria. Thus the social and legal
pressures to not dissent from supporting the war were great. The risks of doing so were unacceptably
high.
Conclusion
This study sought to highlight and
integrate several ideas concerning propaganda during World War I. Admittedly, it is not a new revelation to
note the creation and existence of an impressive national propaganda apparatus
in the United States that was highly successful in organizing and mobilizing
American public opinion. However, this study
did attempt to integrate the significant auxiliary function that was performed
in concert with national agencies by institutions such as public libraries,
magazines, and the movie industry. It
is argued here that the success of the CPI was highly dependent on the
voluntary efforts of these and other institutions like them. Furthermore, these institutions were not
motivated by patriotism alone. For
many, the war presented an opportunity to promote institutional
self-interest. For example, prestige for
public libraries and social respectability and profits for the movie industry
were surely important considerations that prompted their eager support for the
war. In this context then, the
propaganda effort of World War I was not just about a governmental campaign to
organize the public to support the war.
It provided a setting or environment in which there would be domestic
winners and losers. The war provides
many illustrations of this phenomenon: an opportunity for business to weaken
labor, an opportunity for social conservatives to discredit social reform, and
so on. Many progressives abandoned
their reservations about the war calculating that if they supported the war,
they would be rewarded afterward for their support. They were wrong. The point,
however, is that one sees in the complex machinations of World War I propaganda
powerful domestic forces operating to promote a cultural hegemony over American
society. In blunt language, the social
forces opposing the war in American society during the First World War were
crushed by the weight of the pro-war effort.
Many of the groups that lost the fight over American intervention into
the war never recovered from the setback.
In particular, socialists and others on the political left later fell victim
to the Red Scare that followed the Russian Revolution in 1917.
In short, this study finds Gramsci’s
concept of cultural hegemony a useful tool for analyzing the context of
American propaganda during the First World War. First, a Gramscian framework suggests the importance of
non-governmental institutions and organizations in the propaganda effort. Specifically, the crucial linkage between
political and civil institutions is borne out in the present analysis of World
War I propaganda. Second, a Gramscian
approach specifies that the formulation of a hegemonic strategy by the ruling
elite will incorporate the tactics of both coercion and persuasion of the mass
public. Furthermore, according to
Gramsci, persuasive appeals (or propaganda) directed at the mass public would
seek to disassociate a pro-war position from specific class or group interests,
but instead, attempts to link support for the war with broad patriotic or
nationalistic themes. The manufactured
nature of this wartime consensus is further suggested by the strong post-war
backlash against propaganda and the disillusionment with the war that is
evident in the American media during the 1920s (see King 1989).
Secondly, this study attempted to show
that recent research has provided new information into the manner in which
selected groups (notably women and African-Americans) were targeted by the
propagandists of World War I. This
neglected area of research will continue to yield important new insights that
will facilitate a better understanding of this period of American history. The World War I propaganda strategy of the
U.S. government was perhaps more sophisticated than previously realized in
terms of the manner in which certain social constituencies were identified as
problematic in their support for the war and coordinated responses were put in
place to neutralize the perceived problem.
Finally, this examination of World War
I propaganda confirms the widespread abuses relating to the censorship and
suppression of voices of dissent, particularly at the local and state
level. More research needs to be
undertaken to investigate these abuses at the local and state level where the
most egregious violations of civil liberties took place. One finds particularly appalling the actions
of groups such as the National Security League and the American Protective
League. Sadly, national authorities
tended to acquiesce to the local violations as well engage in their own
practices of censorship and suppression of dissent.
As a final comment I am indebted to
Garin Burbank for reminding me of E. P. Thompson’s introduction in his classic
book, The Making of the English Working
Class, where Thompson writes of the need to:
rescue
the poor stockinger, the Ludditte cropper, the ‘obsolete’
handloom
weaver, the ‘utopian’ artisan…….from the enormous
condescension
of posterity. Their hostility to the
new industrialism
may
have been backward looking. Their
communitarian ideals may
have been
foolhardy. But they lived through
these times of acute
disturbance, and we
did not (1976, xii).
The
foes of American intervention into World War I may have lost their battle with
history, but remembering their struggle is a worthwhile endeavor.
Boggs, Carl.
1984. The Two Revolutions:
Antonio Gramsci and the Dilemmas of
Western Marxism. Boston: South End Press.
Burbank, Garin.
1976. When Farmers Voted
Red: The Gospel of Socialism in the
Oklahoma
Countryside, 1910-1924. Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press.
Cornebise, Alfred. 1984. War as Advertised: The Four Minute Men
and America’s
Crusade,
1917-1918. Philadelphia: The
American Philosophical Society.
Creel, George.
1920a. How We Advertised
America: The First Telling of the Amazing
Story
of the Committee on Public Information That Carried the Gospel of
Americanism
to Every Corner of the Globe. New
York: Harper and Brothers.
Creel, George.
1920b. Complete Report of the
Chairman of the Committee on
Public
Information, 1917, 1918, 1919.
Washington: Government Printing
Office.
Ellis, Mark.
1991. “America’s Black Press,
1914-1918,” History Today 41:
20-27.
Goff Jr., James R. 1998. “Peaceniks.” Christian
History 17: 22-23.
Gordon, Marsha.
1999. “Onward Kitchen Soldiers:
Mobilizing the Domestic During
World
War I.” Canadian Review of American
Studies 29: 61-87.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. [1929-1935]. Selections From the Prison Notebooks. New
York: International
Publishers.
Haste, Cate.
1977. Keep the Home Fires
Burning: Propaganda in the First World War.
London:
Allen Lane.
Johnson, Wray.
1999. “Black American Radicalism
and the First World War: The
Secret Files of the
Military Intelligence Division.” Armed
Forces & Society 26: 27-53.
Karetsky, Karen. 1997. The Mustering of Support for World War I by the Ladies’ Home
Journal.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Kennedy, David M. 1980. Over Here: The First World War and American Society.
New
York: Oxford University Press.
King, Erika. G. 1989. “Exposing the ‘Age of Lies’: The Propaganda Menace as
Portrayed
in American Magazines in the Aftermath of World War I.”
Journal
of American Culture 12:35-40.
Knightly, Phillip. 1975. The First
Casualty, From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War
Correspondent
as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker.
New York: Harcourt
Brace
Jovanovich.
Kunczik, Michael. 1998. “British and German
Propaganda in the United States from
1914-1917,”
pp. 25-55 in Jurgen Wilke, ed. Propaganda in the 20th Century:
Contributions
to History. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton
Press, Inc.
Lasswell, Harold D. 1927. Propaganda
Technique in the World War. New
York: Knopf.
Lasswell, Harold D. 1938. “Foreword” in
George Bruntz. Allied Propaganda and
the
Collapse
of the German Empire in 1918.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lears, T. J. Jackson. 1985. “The Concept of
Cultural Hegemony: Problems and
Possibilities.” American
Historical Review 90: 567-593.
Nurnberger, Ralph D. 1987. “Bridling the
Passions.” Wilson Quarterly 11:
96-107.
Ponder, Stephen. 1995. “Popular Propaganda: The Food Administration in World War
I.” Journalism
& Mass Communication Quarterly 72: 539-550.
Roetter, Charles. 1974. The Art of Psychological Warfare
1914-1945. New York: Stein
Day.
Ross, Stewart Halsey. 1996. Propaganda for
War: How the United States Was
Conditioned
to Fight the Great War of 1914-1918.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland
and
Company, Inc.
Simon, Roger.
1991. Gramsci’s Political
Thought: An Introduction. London:
Lawrence
and
Wishart.
Sonntag, Mark.
1994. “Fighting Everything
German in Texas. 1917-1919.” Historian
56:
655-670.
Sproule, J. Michael. 1997. Propaganda and
Democracy: The American Experience
of
Media and Mass Persuasion. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Tucker, Robert.
1998. “An Inner Circle of One:
Woodrow Wilson and His Advisers.”
National
Interest 51: 3-26.
Vaughn, Stephen. 1980. Holding Fast the
Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and
the Committee on
Public Information.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Veeder, Gerry K. 1990. “The Red Cross
Bureau of Pictures, 1917-1921: World War I,
The Russian Revolution
and the Sultan of Turkey’s Harem.” Historical
Journal of
Film, Radio &
Television 10: 47-70.
Ward, Larry Wayne. 1985. The Motion
Picture Goes to War: The U.S. Government
Film Effort during
World War I. Ann
Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.
Wiegand, Wayne A. 1989. “An Active
Instrument for Propaganda:” The American
Public
Library During World War I. New
York: Greenwood Press.
Zeiger, Susan.
1996. “She Didn’t Raise Her Boy
to Be a Slacker: Motherhood,
Conscription,
and the Culture of the First World War.”
Feminist Studies 22: 7-39.