Government Propaganda

A WORD of which I’ve grown very weary is the word ‘propaganda.’ I am weary of being charged with engaging in propaganda, on the one hand, and weary of being urged to engage in propaganda, on the other. So I’d like to discuss the subject for a moment and then drop it — if permitted.

It may be that we propagate the doctrine of democracy by the simple process of making available to the people all possible information concerning the workings of their government. If that is what is meant by propaganda, let’s hope we are guilty. Of course, that is not what is meant by those who toss the charge loudly about; they mean something much more slick and sinister. And those who complain that we are not doing the propaganda job we should be doing don’t mean that either; they mean something much more slick, but noble.

The accusers can be dismissed more easily than the complainers. They have had years in which to offer some evidence to support their accusation and have thus far failed to do so, so it is not necessary to give them credit even for good intentions.

But this cannot be said concerning those who in the past year have become more and more insistent that we take up the tactics of Hitler and turn them to our own purpose. We’ve got to rouse the American people, they say, to make them fight for their own country. We’ve got to educate the people of foreign lands to our way of thinking.

Let’s take the case of the American people first. Do they have to be aroused? Are they unprepared for whatever they may have to do?

You are riding on a streetcar. Having read the newspapers or listened to the radio during the day, your mind is filled with forebodings concerning the threat from abroad. You look around you and you don’t see a single face that registers any of your forebodings. Your alarm over our unpreparedness grows greater. But, to all outward appearance, you keep cool. Nobody can tell from your expression what is going on in your mind. Isn’t it just possible that this is true also of your fellow passengers? And if you are going to a dance tonight or a movie, isn’t it possible that you will appear to be as careless of the world crisis as others will appear to you?

You can’t tell by looking, or, for that matter, by listening. Few people wear their hearts on their sleeves. Few voice their deepest feelings in public.

But you can tell by behavior — behavior that has direct relation to the subject. A long year ago the American people accepted selective army service — conscription — without batting an eye. That was a tremendous thing in American history — conscription in peacetime. The American people took it in their stride, for the American people did understand what was happening in the world and the American people were prepared in mind and heart to do their part.

No propaganda had been required to bring the people to this state of preparedness, and so far as the government is concerned no propaganda was attempted. The government refrained from propaganda despite very great pressure. There were those in Washington who believed that the time had come for a ‘great educational campaign.’ There were those who journeyed, individually and in committees, to Washington to express the same honest conviction and to offer their services. The answer given both groups was that the government had no propaganda agency, but that even if it had such a thing it could not be used to whip up sentiment for the selective service system in advance of action by Congress. Congress, it was explained, is the national policy-making branch of the government, and Congress was even then engaged in determining this question of vital American policy. It was doing this in the normal constitutional way, debating the question and preparing to vote.

There was nothing to prevent any citizen or any group of citizens from undertaking an educational campaign designed to influence the people, who in turn would be expected to influence Congress. Citizens and groups of citizens, indeed, were doing just that, some on one side and some on the other. Not, however, until Congress had declared its decision and ordered a selective service system to be set up could any government educational campaign begin. And then it was begun and carried out by the organization which Congress itself had authorized to do the job. And then it was that many who wished to give their voluntary assistance were furnished the opportunity to do so.

This is the American way, the right way, the wise way. It would be wrong for the President to use funds voted by Congress to set up an agency designed to whip Congress into line with his thinking. And the President has not done so. It would be wrong and it would be unwise, since national policy is always in the process of making and the collaboration of President and Congress is always essential.

What I have said concerning the manner in which peacetime conscription was enacted and put in effect is true of the other long steps that have been taken these past crowded months to keep abreast of the people’s understanding and determination. The people do understand and they are determined. How else the lease-lend bill? How else a tax bill, which the people are measuring on the basis of whether it will provide the needed funds and not on the basis of what it will cost them individually?

Turn loose a flood of patriotic propaganda on people whose understanding already is equal to that of those who would make the propaganda medicine? Not a very bright thing to do, surely. Not a right thing to do, certainly.

What would such propaganda be? Suggestions include use of pictures, radio, and press. A study of those three media of public expression reveals a curious fact: first to appreciate the deep determination of the American people and to respond to it has been the motionpicture industry, notwithstanding that it takes months to make a picture as against minutes to write an editorial; second has been the radio, an industry wise beyond its years in its understanding of popular feeling; third, but rapidly catching up with the other two, the press, and we can leave it to the press itself to explain why it elected to be the laggard.

In any case, those who propose government propaganda always have in mind these three avenues to the public eye and ear. Not believing that the people are aware of the world crisis, they would use these media to make them aware. Yet the fact is that the motion-picture industry, on its own initiative, has been giving its time and its talent for much more than a year to furthering the national defense effort; owners, producers, directors, actors, writers, distributors, exhibitors, all have been putting their hearts into it. Nobody had to ask them to do it and they don’t claim any particular credit for doing it. They say they are merely making the pictures the people want to see. And so with radio. While providing as much time for the dissenters as they can use, radio is doing its part in the defense program every day in every other way. Merely producing the programs the people want to hear, says radio.

What would or could the government do better in the matter of pictures if it were the kind of government that wanted to try it? What would or could it do in the matter of radio? And what would or could it do better than the press will be doing when it finally dawns on all the publishers — as it has on very many of them — that if Hitler wins his war on democracy there’ll be no freedom of the press, constitutional or otherwise. Then the press, while meeting its duty to criticize conduct and expose shortcomings, will at the same time begin to see the whole picture and present it to newspaper readers. That this is not impossible is made clear by the fact that many newspapers are doing just that already.

So much for the home front. What about the urgent demands that the government develop a great propaganda offensive abroad? Some would have its out-Hitler Hitler or out-gabble Goebbels. See what Nazi propaganda has done in one foreign country after another, they say. A better test, for our purpose, is what Nazi propaganda has done in our own country. The American people have been exposed freely to practically every trick in the Berlin bag for several years, and the net result of it all is nothing to make Berlin happy. The net result of it all is that America is lining up solidly and effectively against all that German propaganda represents. The softening-up process apparently has only served to make America hard.

During this same period there has been developing an American propaganda weapon that is certain to obtain results, notwithstanding it was not designed for that purpose and does not actually deal in propaganda. I refer to the free American press associations, the finest and fairest news-gathering and news-disseminating agencies in the world, and to the free American radio. In practically every country these two agencies have set a standard of truthful reporting that has caused their reports to be believed. This is the fact beyond question in all countries where the newspapers may still receive American news reports, notably the nations of South and Central America. In the course of the past quarter century the American press associations have so won the respect of the many excellent newspapers and the newspaper readers in those countries that nothing save a sudden switch to dishonesty on our part can take this advantage from us. The same story can be told concerning American radio news, with the fact added that American radio news continues to reach listeners in European countries from which American press association news is now barred.

The American press associations and American radio have done America a great service already. They can continue to render such service if, in our efforts to supplement what they have done, we do nothing to destroy the confidence they have created.