Editing Committee on Public Information (section)

==Organizational history==
[[File:U.S. Official War Pictures, by Louis Fancher.jpg|thumb|right|"U.S. Official War Pictures", CPI poster by [[Louis D. Fancher]]]]

===Establishment===
President [[Woodrow Wilson]] (the 28th president) established the Committee on Public Information (CPI) through [[s:Executive Order 2594|Executive Order 2594]] on April 13, 1917.<ref>{{cite web | url =http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=75409 | title =Executive Order 2594 - Creating Committee on Public Information | author =Gerhard Peters | author2 =University of California, Santa Barbara | publisher =ucsb.edu | author2-link =University of California, Santa Barbara | access-date =2013-08-10 | archive-date =2016-07-29 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20160729160735/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=75409 | url-status =dead }}</ref> The committee consisted of [[George Creel]] (chairman) and as ''ex officio'' members the Secretaries of: [[United States Secretary of State|State]] ([[Robert Lansing]]), [[United States Secretary of War|War]] ([[Newton D. Baker]]), and the [[United States Secretary of the Navy|Navy]] ([[Josephus Daniels]]).<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UfmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA28 | title =Official U. S. Bulletin, Volume 1 | author =United States Committee on Public Information | author2 =University of Michigan | pages =4 | year =1917 | access-date=October 23, 2009| author2-link =University of Michigan }}</ref> The CPI was the first state bureau covering propaganda in the history of the United States.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Populist Persuasion|last=Kazin|first=Michael|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=1995|location=New York|pages=69}}</ref>

Creel urged Wilson to create a government agency to coordinate "not [[propaganda]] as the Germans defined it, but propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the 'propagation of faith.'"<ref name = "Image">{{cite book| last =Creel| first =George| year =1947| title =Rebel at Large: Recollections of Fifty Crowded Years| publisher = G.P. Putnam's Son's| location =NY| page = 158| quote= The quoted words refer to the [[Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples|Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith]].
}}</ref> He was a journalist with years of experience on the ''[[The Denver Post|Denver Post]]'' and the ''Rocky Mountain News'' before accepting Wilson's appointment to the CPI. He had a contentious relationship with Secretary Lansing.<ref>Creel, 158-60</ref>

===Activities===
Wilson established the first modern propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information (CPI), headed by [[George Creel]].<ref>George Creel,  [https://archive.org/details/howweadvertameri00creerich ''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.'' (1920)]</ref><ref>Stephen Vaughn, ''Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and the Committee on Public Information'' (1980). [https://www.questia.com/library/1664084/holding-fast-the-inner-lines-democracy-nationalism online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329234132/https://www.questia.com/library/1664084/holding-fast-the-inner-lines-democracy-nationalism |date=2019-03-29 }}</ref>  Creel set out to systematically reach every person in the United States multiple times with patriotic information about how the individual could contribute to the war effort. It also worked with the post office to censor seditious [[Propaganda in World War I|counter-propaganda]].   Creel set up divisions in his new agency to produce and distribute innumerable copies of pamphlets, newspaper releases, magazine advertisements, films, school campaigns, and the speeches of the Four Minute Men.  CPI created colorful posters that appeared in every store window, catching the attention of the passersby for a few seconds.<ref>Katherine H. Adams, ''Progressive Politics and the Training of America's Persuaders'' (1999)</ref> Movie theaters were widely attended, and the CPI trained thousands of volunteer speakers to make patriotic appeals during the four-minute breaks needed to change reels.  They also spoke at churches, lodges, fraternal organizations, labor unions, and even logging camps. Speeches were mostly in English, but ethnic groups were reached in their own languages.   Creel boasted that in 18 months his 75,000 volunteers delivered over 7.5 million four minute orations to over 300 million listeners, in a nation of 103 million people.  The speakers attended training sessions through local universities, and were given pamphlets and speaking tips on a wide variety of topics, such as buying Liberty Bonds, registering for the draft, rationing food, recruiting unskilled workers for munitions jobs, and supporting Red Cross programs.<ref>Lisa Mastrangelo,  "World War I, public intellectuals, and the Four Minute Men: Convergent ideals of public speaking and civic participation." ''Rhetoric & Public Affairs'' 12#4 (2009): 607-633.</ref>  Historians were assigned to write pamphlets and in-depth histories of the causes of the European war.<ref>George T. Blakey, ''Historians on the Homefront: American Propagandists for the Great War'' (1970)</ref><ref>Committee on public information, ''Complete Report of the Committee on Public Information: 1917, 1918, 1919'' (1920) [https://archive.org/details/CompleteReportCommitteeOnPublicInformation191719181919 online free]</ref>

[[File:4-Minute-Men 1917 CPI.jpg|thumb|left]]

The CPI used material that was based on fact, but spun it to present an upbeat picture of the American war effort. In his memoirs, Creel claimed that the CPI routinely denied false or undocumented atrocity reports, fighting the crude propaganda efforts of "patriotic organizations" like the [[National Security League]] and the [[American Defense Society]] that preferred "general thundering" and wanted the CPI to "preach a gospel of hate."<ref>Creel, 195-6</ref>

The committee used newsprint, posters, radio, telegraph, and movies to broadcast its message. It recruited about 75,000 "[[Four Minute Men]]," volunteers who spoke about the war at social events for an ideal length of four minutes. They covered the draft, rationing, war bond drives, victory gardens and why America was fighting. They were advised to keep their message positive, always use their own words and avoid "hymns of hate."<ref>Thomas Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I.'' New York: Basic Books, 2003; pg. 117.</ref> For ten days in May 1917, the Four Minute Men were expected to promote "Universal Service by Selective Draft" in advance of national draft registration on June 5, 1917.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pp. 92-94.</ref>

The CPI staged events designed for many different ethnic groups, in their language. For instance, Irish-American tenor [[John McCormack (tenor)|John McCormack]] sang at Mount Vernon before an audience representing Irish-American organizations.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pp. 117-118.</ref> The committee also targeted the American worker and, endorsed by [[Samuel Gompers]], filled factories and offices with posters designed to promote the critical role of American labor in the success of the war effort.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pg. 118.</ref>

As the war progressed, the depiction of the enemy evolved in CPI publications. Initially in 1917, CPI pamphlets emphasized the importance of defending democracy and liberty from the German state. Over time the distinction between the German state and the German people was blurred. By 1918, following German military advances, pamphlets depicted individuals of German descent living in the United States as a threat.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heuer |first=Vera |date=2018-04-03 |title=Pamphlets of the Committee on Public Information and the Construction of an American National Identity during World War One: An Event-Frame Analysis |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537113.2018.1457821 |journal=Nationalism and Ethnic Politics |language=en |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=222–243 |doi=10.1080/13537113.2018.1457821 |s2cid=149512029 |issn=1353-7113|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

The CPI's activities were so thorough that historians later stated, using the example of a typical midwestern American farm family, that<ref name="sweeney2001">{{cite book | title=Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II | publisher=University of North Carolina Press | pages=[https://archive.org/details/secretsofvictory00swee/page/15 15–16] | author=Sweeney, Michael S. | year=2001 | location=Chapel Hill | isbn=978-0-8078-2598-3 | url=https://archive.org/details/secretsofvictory00swee/page/15 }}</ref>

{{blockquote|Every item of war news they saw—in the country weekly, in magazines, or in the city daily picked up occasionally in the general store—was not merely officially approved information but precisely the same kind that millions of their fellow citizens were getting at the same moment. Every war story had been censored somewhere along the line— at the source, in transit, or in the newspaper offices in accordance with 'voluntary' rules established by the CPI.}}

Creel wrote about the committee's rejection of the word propaganda, saying: "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 argument was needed than the simple, straightforward presentation of facts."<ref name = "War2" />

A report published in 1940 by the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] credits the committee with creating "the most efficient engine of war propaganda which the world had ever seen", producing a "revolutionary change" in public attitude toward US participation in WWI:<ref>pp. 75-76, Harold J. Tobin and Percy W. Bidwell, ''Mobilizing Civilian America'', New York: Council on Foreign Relations.</ref>

{{blockquote|In November 1916, the slogan of Wilson's supporters, 'He Kept Us Out Of War,' played an important part in winning the election. At that time a large part of the country was apathetic.... Yet, within a very short period after America had joined the belligerents, the nation appeared to be enthusiastically and overwhelmingly convinced of the justice of the cause of the Allies, and unanimously determined to help them win. The revolutionary change is only partly explainable by a sudden explosion of latent anti-German sentiment detonated by the declaration of war. Far more significance is to be attributed to the work of the group of zealous amateur propagandists, organized under Mr. George Creel in the Committee on Public Information. With his associates he planned and carried out what was perhaps the most effective job of large-scale war propaganda which the world had ever witnessed.}}

===Organizational structure===
During its lifetime, the organization had over twenty bureaus and divisions, with commissioner's offices in nine foreign countries.<ref name = "Image2">{{cite book| last =Jackall| first =Robert|author2=Janice M Hirota| year =2003| title =Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations, and the Ethos of Advocacy| publisher =[[University of Chicago Press]]| isbn =978-0226389172| page = 14}}</ref>

Both a News Division and a Films Division were established to help get out the war message. The CPI's daily newspaper, called the ''Official Bulletin'', began at eight pages and grew to 32. It was distributed to every newspaper, post office, government office, and military base.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pp. 118-119.</ref> Stories were designed to report positive news. For example, the CPI promoted an image of well-equipped US troops preparing to face the Germans that were belied by the conditions visiting Congressmen reported.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pg. 173.</ref> The CPI released three feature-length films: ''Pershing's Crusaders'' (May 1918), ''America's Answer (to the Hun)'' (August 1918), ''Under Four Flags'' (November 1918). They were unsophisticated attempts to impress the viewer with snippets of footage from the front, far less sensational than the "crudely fantastical" output of Hollywood in the same period.<ref>Thomas Doherty, ''Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II'' (NY: Columbia University Press, 1999), 89-91. Hollywood's films "served to discredit not only the portrayal of war on screen but the whole enterprise of cinematic propaganda." Hollywood titles included ''Escaping the Hun'', ''To Hell with the Kaiser!'', and ''The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin''.</ref>

To reach those Americans who might not read newspapers, attend meetings or watch movies, Creel created the Division of Pictorial Publicity.<ref name="gov">{{Cite web|title=The Most Famous Poster|author=[[Library of Congress]]|website=[[Library of Congress]] |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm015.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090130143112/https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm015.html |access-date=2007-01-02|archive-date=2009-01-30 }}</ref> 
The Division produced 1438 designs for propaganda posters, cards buttons and cartoons in addition to 20000 ''lantern pictures'' (slides) to be used with the speeches.<ref>[[George Creel|Creel, George]] (1920). ''How We Advertised America''. New York & London: [[Harper & Brothers Publishers]]. p. 7. {{OCLC|1540684}}.</ref> [[Charles Dana Gibson]] was America's most popular illustrator {{spaced ndash}} and an ardent supporter of the war. When Creel asked him to assemble a group of artists to help design posters for the government, Gibson was more than eager to help. Famous illustrators such as [[James Montgomery Flagg]], [[Joseph Pennell]], [[Louis D. Fancher]], and [[N. C. Wyeth]] were brought together to produce some of World War I's most lasting images.

===Media incidents===
One early incident demonstrated the dangers of embroidering the truth. The CPI fed newspapers the story that ships escorting the First Division to Europe sank several German submarines, a story discredited when newsmen interviewed the ships' officers in England. Republican Senator [[Boies Penrose]] of Pennsylvania called for an investigation and the ''[[New York Times]]'' called the CPI "the Committee on Public Misinformation."<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pp. 119-120.</ref> The incident turned the once compliant news publishing industry into skeptics.<ref>Mary S. Mander, ''Pen and Sword: American War Correspondents, 1898-1975'' (University of Illinois, 2010), 46. Creel believed his story was correct, but that opponents in the military who were jealous of his control of military information minimized what happened en route.</ref> There is some confusion as to whether or not the claims are correct based upon subsequent information published by the CPI.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Creel|first=George|url=https://archive.org/details/howweadvertiseda01cree|title=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|date=1920|publisher=Harper & Brothers|language=en}}</ref>

Early in 1918, the CPI made a premature announcement that "the first American built battle planes are today en route to the front in France," but newspapers learned that the accompanying pictures were fake, there was only one plane, and it was still being tested.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pg. 173. Creel blamed the Secretary of War for the false story.</ref> At other times, though the CPI could control in large measure what newspapers printed, its exaggerations were challenged and mocked in Congressional hearings.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pg. 240.</ref> The committee's overall tone also changed with time, shifting from its original belief in the power of facts to mobilization based on hate, like the slogan "Stop the Hun!" on posters showing a US soldier taking hold of a German soldier in the act of terrorizing a mother and child, all in support of war bond sales.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory,'' pg. 247.</ref>

===International efforts===
The CPI extended its efforts overseas as well and found it had to tailor its work to its audience. In Latin America, its efforts were led where possible by American journalists with experience in the region, because, said one organizer, "it is essentially a newspaperman's job" with the principal aim of keeping the public "informed about war aims and activities." The Committee found the public bored with the battle pictures and stories of heroism supplied for years by the competing European powers. In Peru it found there was an audience for photos of shipyards and steel mills. In Chile it fielded requests for information about America's approach to public health, forest protection, and urban policing. In some countries it provided reading rooms and language education. Twenty Mexican journalists were taken on a tour of the United States.<ref>James R. Mock, "The Creel Committee in Latin America," in ''Hispanic American Historical Review'' vol. 22 (1942), 262-79, esp. 266-7, 269-70, 272-4</ref>

===Political conflict===
Creel used his overseas operations as a way to gain favor with congressmen who controlled the CPI's funding, sending friends of congressmen on brief assignments to Europe.<ref>Stone, Melville Elijah. ''Fifty Years a Journalist''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921. p. 342-5.</ref> Some of his business arrangements drew congressional criticism as well, particularly his sale by competitive bidding of the sole right to distribute battlefield pictures.<ref>''Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, on the Proposed Revenue Act of 1918, Part II: Miscellaneous Taxes'' (Washington, DC: 1918), 967ff., [https://books.google.com/books?id=_UpOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA967& available online], accessed January 19, 2011.</ref> Despite hearings to air grievances against the CPI, the investigating committee passed its appropriation unanimously.<ref>Stephens, Oren. ''Facts to a Candid World: America's Overseas Information Program''. Stanford University Press, 1955. p. 33.</ref>

Creel also used the CPI's ties to the newspaper publishing industry to trace the source of negative stories about Secretary of the Navy [[Josephus Daniels]], a former newsman and a political ally. He tracked them to [[Louis Howe]], assistant to Assistant Secretary of the Navy [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and threatened to expose him to the President.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory''. p. 148-149.</ref> As a Wilson partisan, Creel showed little respect for his congressional critics, and Wilson enjoyed how Creel expressed sentiments the President could not express himself.<ref>Fleming, ''The Illusion of Victory''. p. 315.</ref><ref>For Wilson's support of Creel to a group of senators, see Thomas C. Sorenson, "We Become Propagandists," in Garth S. Jowett and [[Victoria O'Donnell]] (eds.), ''Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion: New and Classic Essays'' (Sage Publications, 2006), p. 88. Asked if he thought all Congressmen were loyal, Creel answered: "I do not like slumming, so I won't explore into the hearts of Congress for you." Wilson later said: "Gentlemen, when I think of the manner in which Mr. Creel has been maligned and persecuted, I think it is a very human thing for him to have said."</ref>

===Termination and disestablishment===
Committee work was curtailed after July 1, 1918. Domestic activities stopped after the [[Armistice]] was signed on November 11, 1918. Foreign operations ended June 30, 1919. Wilson abolished the CPI by executive order 3154 on August 21, 1919.

The Committee on Public Information was formally disestablished by an act of Congress on June 30, 1919, although the organization's work had been formally completed months before.<ref name=CreelIX>Creel, ''How We Advertised America,'' pg. ix.</ref> On August 21, 1919, the disbanded organization's records were turned over to the [[Council of National Defense]].<ref name=CreelIX />