Duquesne University
The Committee on Public Information: Success and Suppression
Kaiti Beauchamp
Professor Anwer
COMM 330
28 February 2014
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The Committee on Public Information: Success and Suppression
Propaganda is an extension of Public Relations that operates solely with the intention of
swaying the minds of the masses. The most apparent incidents of propaganda come from times of
war when nations, political parties, and leaders try to rally a people behind their cause. One of the
most revolutionary propaganda movements came out of the United States during World War I,
when the Committee on Public Information (CPI) was established to gain popular approval for
U.S. involvement in the war. The formation of the CPI made sense; having popular approval and
nationwide support for a country’s war efforts is important in furthering the cause. However, the
Committee on Public Information’s broad scope of control and their publicity strategies quickly
morphed them from “publicity bureau” into an unprecedented propaganda ministry.
The CPI’s monopoly over all channels of media and their division of Four-Minute Men
enabled the Committee to infiltrate all aspects of everyday life. Rather than merely shaping
public opinion, as public relations is designed to do, the CPI was “manufacturing consent” and
controlling the American people’s views to the point of suppression. Despite this, the roughly
eighteen months that the CPI was in existence made a vast impact on public relations as a whole,
and provided powerful insight for all public relations practices thereafter.
The CPI was created for the purpose of winning over public opinion and rallying the
entire country behind the cause of war. There were several reasons why this was such a necessity
for the Wilson Administration, the most compelling reasons being centered around the various
minorities who fostered opposition, or potential opposition to the war. First were the pockets of
isolationist and anti-war sentiments found around the country. Concern over these populations
was heightened because in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election under the slogan,
“He kept us out of war.” Less than a year later, on April 6, 1917, the United States formally
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declared war and had entered World War I on the side of the Allies. The second population that
the government worried about was the working class. Working class discontent had been
building internationally prior to WWI, and it only increased when the war commenced. There
was popular belief that WWI was a “rich man’s war” and as PR! author, Stuart Ewen, explains it,
“many workers found it easy to interpret U.S. entry into the war as little more than a thinly veiled
attempt to recover Wall Street Loans” (Ewen 106). Lastly, there were 14.5 million foreign-born
immigrants and 17.5 million first-generation natives (Axelrod 178) whose loyalty was
speculated, not only by the government, but by the general public as well. All of these factors
compounded were an ominous mix and anyone with some knowledge and experience of the
public recognized this:
Sensing that middle-class public opinion was volatile and that a revolt of the
masses was possible, a number of noteworthy social analysts began to lobby
President Wilson, calling for the establishment of an ideological apparatus that
would systematically promote the cause of war (Ewen 106-107).
Thus, the idea of the Committee on Public Information was planted.
The concept of getting the American public to be thinking together and unified behind a
single cause was central to every person of significance who lobbied President Wilson. The idea
behind a publicity bureau was a good one – feed the public a constant flow of knowledge and
information on what was going on with U.S. involvement in war. Arthur Bullard, a leading
Progressive, was one of the analysts who appealed President Wilson. Bullard warned against
government censorship of the press, citing that “any overt policy of censorship would simply
encourage deep-seated suspicion,” instead he encouraged “that a flood of publicity would be key
in rallying America to war” (Ewen 107). Walter Lippmann backed Bullard’s suggestion and
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furthered it, advising Wilson to create a government news bureau that would advertise the war as
“one to make a world that is safe for democracy,” and Lippmann also emphasized the importance
of “nurturing a healthy public opinion” (108). Just before President Wilson’s Executive Order
that established the Committee on Public Information, Lippmann provided the president, per
Wilson’s request, with the groundwork for the said publicity bureau. Lippmann’s plan outlined
an unprecedented network of communications specialists that extended far beyond the previously
established standard of journalism-grounded publicity.
Though Bullard and Lippmann advised against official government censorship, some
government officials had always intended to impose some kind of media censorship from their
first suggestion of a publicity bureau being formed. Among them were the Secretaries of State,
War, and Navy who, in a letter to President Wilson, explained the need for a committee to
supervise war publicity. According to Larson and Mock’s article, “The Lost Files of the Creel
Committee,” the Secretaries called for the following out of the committee:
Its twofold functions were to be “censorship and publicity.” They recommended a
civilian chairman "preferably some writer of proved courage, ability, and vision,
able to gain the understanding co- operation of the press and at the same time
rally the authors of the country to a work of service.
Just one day later, on April 14th, 1917, President Wilson issued Executive Order 2594, which
officially established the Committee on Public Information. Wilson followed the Secretaries’
suggestion and appointed George Creel as the Civilian Chairman of the CPI (which would soon
come to be known also as the “Creel Committee”). Creel fit the Secretaries’ recommended
qualifications to a T; as a member of the founding generation of Progressive publicists and a
well-known muckraking journalist, Creel had established connections with a huge network of
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people in most fields relevant to CPI’s cause. Creel, like Bullard and Lippmann, protested the
suggestion of censorship and explained, “the need was for expression, not suppression” (“Lost
Files” 8). Creel was steadfast in voicing his repudiation of censorship and “suppression” for his
entire life, but the actions and operations of the Creel Committee would prove entirely otherwise.
Going off of Creel’s “expression not suppression” idea, in Selling the Great War, author
Alan Axelrod explains that Creel believed, “The problem was not to stop potentially dangerous
communication but to flood every possible media outlet with positive communications useful to
the Allied war effort” (66). This is precisely what Creel did. The first media outlet that the CPI
“flooded” was the news. The Division of News was the most important division of the CPI. As
Mock and Larson put it in Words that Won the War:
News was the life-blood of the CPI—news from the front, from training camps,
from the White House, from farms and factories, from worker’s homes, from every
place that had a story to tell regarding the American people in the war (77).
The first strategy the CPI used to shape and control public opinion was to have a monopoly on
the news, both domestic and foreign.
The CPI Division of News issued thousands of “Official War News” press releases
through mail and over the telegraph lines 24 hours a day. Additionally, “an estimated 20,000
columns of news per week was gained” (“Lost Files” 14) by material copied from what the
Division of News supplied to newspapers. Taking account of the people who tended to skip over
the news columns, the CPI also published syndicated features, which “drew upon the talents of
novelists, writers, and professors for feature stories and articles on the war” (“Lost Files” 16). A
subdivision of the Domestic Section of the News Division was in charge specifically of
influencing the media geared toward the immigrant populations in America. “Developing
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contacts with six hundred foreign language papers—published in nineteen languages—the CPI
made special appeals to a heterogeneous population whose loyalty was of special concern”
(Ewen 111). The Foreign Section of the Division of News sent out a constant stream of
information about America’s cause over the naval radio into international communication
channels, where the CPI had offices in more than thirty countries.
To distribute their information more directly, the CPI also published its own daily
newspaper, called the Official Bulletin. The Official Bulletin was a paper that was “designed to
inform the public on the progress of war and of official acts incident to its prosecution.” This
paper was distributed to all newspapers, public officials, post offices, and public agencies for
free, with the thought that they would then disseminate the information to their own audiences.
At its peak, the Official Bulletin had a circulation of about 115,000 (“Lost Files” 15).
The next media outlet and publicity strategy that the CPI used was advertising. A large
part of the Advertising Division’s duties involved putting pressure on newspapers to donate free
advertising space to the CPI. Obviously succeeding, “More than 800 publishers of monthly and
weekly organs donated about $160,000 worth of space each month for government use” (“Lost
Files” 15). By 1917, “advertising was more than a simple description—truthful or not—of
goods” (Ewen 112). Advertising had begun to integrate words and images and take a turn toward
an emotional appeal, rather than a rational one. The CPI took this turn toward emotional appeals
and virtually eliminated the need for words entirely. Mock and Larson state, “The phase of CPI
advertising which is remembered most clearly today is the brilliant work of illustration which
frequently told the entire story and only required two or three words of copy” (Words That Won
101).
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Within the Advertising Division were the Division of Pictorial Publicity and the Bureau
of Cartoons. George Creel appointed Charles Dana Gibson, America’s most famous illustrator at
the time and outstanding contributor to Life, as the division’s head. Gibson helped to advance the
CPI’s use of emotional appeals and push the idea of creating a “language of images” (Ewen 115).
The Bureau of Cartoons provided a weekly bulletin to 750 newspaper cartoonists that contained
ideas and captions that the cartoonists were expected to provide images for. The Advertising
Division’s illustrations are textbook examples of propaganda. The wildly emotive advertisements
and posters instilled fear of the enemy into the American public and evoked pride of the
homeland.
The last media outlet that the CPI used for publicity was the film industry. This was
perhaps the most appealing means of publicity to the CPI. Ewen explains the allure:
To this point, the practices of publicity had been founded on the ability to
communicate a semblance of news, of facticity. Now, from the intoxicating realm
of entertainment, the medium of film had revealed a new, uncanny ability to
transcend facticity for the purposes of persuasion, to reach a public on another,
more emotional level (115).
The film industry was an easy means of pushing propaganda, but the CPI did not want this to be
obvious to the public. Instead, the CPI had a Scenarios Department, which was in charge of
creating story lines to give to well-known Hollywood producers who would then, “introduce the
magic of Hollywood to ensure audience appeal” (115). In a way, the CPI had a monopoly over
the film industry as well. The CPI secured the worldwide distribution of their films by forcing the
producers to agree that they would not sell any of their entertainment films to foreign countries
that refused to also show the CPI’s films. They also prohibited Hollywood producers from selling
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any films to any exhibitors who showed German films. The huge demand for Hollywood films
internationally left foreign exhibitors with no other choice but to accept the CPI’s films.
Besides flooding media outlets with propaganda, the CPI also successfully flooded
everyday life with their propaganda, and found an unparalleled means of influencing public
opinion right down to conversation in communities all across the country: The Division of FourMinute Men. According to George Creel, “The Four Minute Men will live in history as the most
unique and one of the most effective agencies developed during the war for the stimulation of
public opinion and the promotion of unity.” (21) However, rather than influencing every day
conversation, the Four-Minute Men were the CPI’s way of controlling every day conversation to
be about pro-war topics. The idea of the Four-Minute Men was formed around the concepts of
community conversation networks and influential hierarchy. The CPI targeted local community
leaders of influence and appointed them to be Four-Minute Men speakers. The Four-Minute Men
were given a weekly bulletin that contained an instructional newsletter with a topic, outline,
specific ideas to be conveyed in a speech, and a sample speech that incorporated all the
information. The Men delivered their speeches to movie audiences, with the intention that they
would go back home and carry on the pro-war conversation started by the Four-Minute Men.
What was most threatening about the Four-Minute Men was the fact that they encouraged their
communities to be vigilant of people speaking with differing opinions from what the FourMinute Men were propagating. They even told their audience that they should report these
people, thus giving the Four-Minute Men and the public a type of policing function.
The CPI’s media monopoly and Division of Four-Minute Men both led to the suppression
of the American people by imposing total control of not only speech, but also thought. This is
best summarized by an excerpt in Stuart Ewen’s PR!:
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The dual role of the Four-Minute Men—as a localized propaganda agency and a
nationwide organization for extinguishing opposition to the war—offers a
microcosm of what was, in fact, a much larger truth encompassing the CPI: the
wholesale smothering of ideas and outlooks that ran against the grain of the
official story. Part and parcel of the committee’s success in mobilizing America’s
intellectual and creative resources for war was the simultaneous establishment of
an ambiance of censorship, calculated to discourage or punish impure thought
(119).
Rather than the outright censorship that George Creel claimed to have opposed, he offered the
alternative of “voluntary censorship” whereby “the newspapers of the United States were put
upon their honor, and made the partners of the Government in guarding ‘military information of
tangible benefit to the enemy’” (Creel 10). While the voluntary censorship initially only called
for editors omitting any information that could threaten the military, with the passage of the
Espionage Act in 1917, the CPI’s control was backed by law that ended up being everything but
government-sanctioned censorship by name. There was media opposition to this, but as
Everybody's Magazine stated, “The war went on— and so did George Creel” (“Lost Files” 9).
Further, the Sedition Act of 1918 essentially made it illegal for anyone to speak out against the
Wilson Administration.
The CPI succeeded in suppressing the American people for two reasons. One reason is
that the wording of the duties of the CPI and the laws—both written and unwritten— was so
vague that it was easily open to interpretation and thus, application. On top of the vaguely
worded Espionage Act, George Creel’s network of connections with all government officials
wielded such great power that in reality, the CPI might as well have had law granting them
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outright enforcement of all censorship activities. Secondly, the American public was too caught
up in the sheer terror of the enemy to realize just how restrictive and intrusive the CPI had really
become. Mock and Larson explain:
[T]here was little expressed difference of opinion. It was illegal to express dissent
of certain kinds, but for most people no law was necessary. The Committee on
Public Information had done its work so well that there was a burning eagerness
to believe, to conform, to feel the exaltation of joining in a great and selfless
enterprise (Words that Won 6).
Even with the “little difference of opinion” there were still about 2,000 cases of prosecution
under the Espionage Act (Words that Won 42).
The end of the CPI came within 24 hours of the Armistice ending WWI. But the
disbandment did not come without leaving a lasting impact. The works of George Creel and the
Committee on Public Information helped advance public relations significantly. First, the CPI
revealed the power of the image in swaying the public mind and opinion. Second, the CPI
provided insight into the psychology of the individual and the public mind, and illustrated how to
use that psychology to shape public opinion. Further, the CPI proved that public relations
practices could stretch far beyond the sole medium of print journalism. Lastly, the CPI showed
that the public mind and public opinion were malleable, and should thus be manufactured rather
than reasoned with. Overall, despite their almost immediate dissolution, and even with the
suppression that was undoubtedly created, the CPI left a legacy in the field of public relations
that set a precedent and has gone unmatched by any other publicity or propaganda campaign to
date.
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Works Cited
Axelrod, Alan. Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.
Creel, George. The Creel Report. 1920. New York: Di Capo Press, 1972. Print.
Ewan, Stewart. PR! A Social History of Spin. New York: Basic Books, 1996. Print.
Larson, Cedric, and James R. Mock. “The Lost Files of the Creel Committee of 1917-19.” The
Public Opinion Quarterly , Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1939) , pp. 5-29. JSTOR. Web. 21 Feb.
2014.
Mock, James R., and Cedric Larson. Words that Won the War. 1939. New York: Russell &
Russell, 1968. Print.
United States. Committee on Public Information. National Service Handbook. Washington:
GPO, 1917. Print.