Editing Committee on Public Information (section)

===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>