Political propaganda

“ Since War and Navy Department usage never put the Corps of Chaplains, the PX system, the safety campaigns, or the anti-VD announcements under the rubric of propaganda, it might be desirable to narrow down the definition to exclude those forms of propaganda designed to effect private or nonpolitical purposes, and make the definition read:
Propaganda consists of the planned use of any form of public or mass-produced communication designed to affect the minds and emotions of a given group for a specific public purpose, whether military, economic, or political. ”

“ Propaganda—The people have been burdened by the propaganda not only of major political parties, but also of those participating in any political campaign sometimes to the exclusion of proper dissemination of other more valuable in­formation. ”

“ A good argument can be presented to the effect that the skills brought from the social-science into the propaganda field are more valuable once they are employed full time in that field than an attempt to apply political science, or sociology, or economics, each as an individual compartment, to the field of propaganda. ”

“ There has never been an Advertising Council project which insinuated anything to remind anyone of the basic American political idea written into our organic documents of government–the idea that men are endowed by God with inalienable rights; that the greatest threat to those rights is the government under which men live; and that government, while necessary to secure the God-given blessings of liberty, must be carefully limited in power by an inviolable Constitution. But there have been many Advertising Council projects which were vehicles for the propaganda of international socialism. ”

“ Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters. ”

“ Destroy radically belief in chiefs and leaders, parliaments and public unions, newspapers and workers’ federations, exploiters and exploited;
See to it, in a word, without relaxation, that those to whom our propaganda is addressed are turned into irreconcilable enemies, theoretical and practical, of all domination and exploitation of man by man or by his environment. ”

“ Most assuredly not, for they know that powerful though they are they would be swept away by a wave of popular opposition. Therefore, through their newspapers and innumerable other propaganda agencies, they proceed to cover up their nefarious schemes of exploitation and oppression with hypocritical cloaks of patriotism, religion, benevolence, and the like. ”

“ Is it possible that a few pious phrases offered on occasion can deceive the American people as to the nature of a propaganda organization that is shouting from the housetops in every corner of the country and every day of the year? ”

“ I have often thought during these past years what an ironical eye Providence must have been turning on National Propaganda—on all the disingenuous breath which has been issued to order, and all those miles of patriotic writings dutifully produced in each country, to prove to other countries that they are its inferiors! ”

“ In my view Congress can require full disclosure of all the paraphernalia through which a foreign dominated and controlled organization spreads propaganda, engages in agitation, or promotes politics in this country. ”

“ And now we sadly suspect that in fighting fire with fire, that is in fighting propaganda with propaganda, we descended by degrees to use the same despicable methods of distorting truth for the sake of influencing people to a certain desired end. ”

“ In spite of the most severe governmental persecution new converts swell the ranks. The propaganda is almost exclusively of a secret character. The repressive measures of the government drive the disciples of the new philosophy to conspirative methods. ”

“ This is no spontaneous and vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people -- a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic necessity and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable people have not yet revolted. ”

“ The same is true, as far as I know, of all my fellow workers, but I do not by any means want to deny that I and my fellow workers selected news and quotations following a certain tendency. It is the curse of propaganda during war that one works only with black and white. Only a few great minds remain independent. ”

“ In our propaganda we should state our principles clearly, speak the truth fearlessly, seeking neither to flatter nor to offend, but only to convince those who should be with us and win them to our cause through an intelligent understanding of its mission. ”

“ In place of a culture of conspiracy and misinformation, democracy offers freedom of speech, independent media, and the marketplace of ideas, which can expose and discredit falsehoods, prejudices, and dishonest propaganda. ”

“ But what is propaganda, if not the effort to alter the picture to which men respond, to substitute one social pattern for another? What is class consciousness but a way of realizing the world? National consciousness but another way? ”

“ What forms is the propaganda to take? Every form that is prescribed by the situation, by opportunity, and propensity. It may be now serious, now jocular; but it must always be bold. It must never leave [179] a means unused, never leave a fact of public life unobserved, to keep minds alert, to give aliment and expression to discontent, to stir hate against exploiters, to make the government ridiculous, and to demonstrate its impotence. But above all, to arouse boldness and the spirit of insurrection, it must continually preach by example. ”

“ The world is full now of confused propaganda, propaganda of national ideas, of traditions of hate, of sentimental and degrading loyalties, of every sort of error that divides and tortures and slays mankind. All human institutions are made of propaganda, are sustained by propaganda and perish when it ceases; they must be continually explained and re-explained to the young and the negligent. And for this new world of democracy and the League of Free Nations to which all reasonable men are looking, there must needs be the greatest of all propagandas. ”

“ In addition to the direct military need for knowing what kind of people we are, there is the propaganda need, so that we can create a national unity and put aside the constant irritation of partisanship, the fear of "incidents", the wastage of emotional energy in quarrels among ourselves. ”

“ More subtle, and more dangerous, is the insidious propaganda everywhere disseminated to poison the public mind and produce a general spirit of suspicion and depression. The country is permeated with whispers. ”

“ That is perhaps one of the reasons why, on an average, propaganda in democratic countries is much more educational and informative than the propaganda in one-party countries, where the government is in a position to suppress unwelcome knowledge altogether. ”

“ But they have forever disturbed our peace of mind. The war is long since over, all but saying so; but our consciousness of the immanence of propaganda bids fair to be permanent. It has been discovered by individuals, by associations, and by governments that a certain kind of advertising can be used to mold public opinion and control democratic majorities. As long as public opinion rules the destinies of human affairs, there will be no end to an instrument that controls it. ”

“ It is impossible to recognize a State which bases all its relations on violence, and which in its relations with foreign States seeks, or has almost always sought, to carry out revolutionary propaganda. ”

“ Gloomy news about our side can harm the enemy listener if his government is running a propaganda campaign to raise production, promote thrift, etc., by claiming things are worse on their side. In such a case, good news about us would be good for him. News must be fitted to the propaganda plan and to the propaganda situation. ”

“ With my prejudice it is natural that I should suggest the Liberty Bell as a positive symbol of the thing we fight for. It is possible to draw its form on a wall—not to ward off evil, but to inspire fortitude.
Propaganda must be independent. It is a fighting arm ”

“ We mention these facts of every day life to illustrate the permeating and driving force of an idea, when constantly kept before the mind. And what advertisement and fashion are in the commercial and social life, Propaganda and Publicity are in the world of thought. The policy of propaganda is to enlist the active co-operation of every vehicle of thought for the furtherance of an idea and to keep that idea ever before the public. One readily sees the tremendous responsibilities, and understands the flagrant abuses of those called to create and direct Public Opinion. ”

“ But the danger and harm to the country will be unmeasurable if a person has prejudiced views respecting a certain form of government and in order to prove the correctness of his prejudiced views, creates artificially a situation all by himself. For this reason my view has always been not to oppose any form of government. But I am always opposed to any one who engages in a propaganda in favour of a form of government other than the one under which we actually live. ”

“ The temper of the whole people is colored by [159] what they read. Whenever the editorials of reputable papers work toward a specific goal, they usually achieve it. Have we not had a striking example of that during the present war? The insidious power of propaganda is incalculable. Fortunately our national papers are high-minded and patriotic and have directed their influence on the side of the good, quieting fear, promoting loyalty, encouraging honesty, and strengthening the nobler impulses that govern the popular mind. ”

“ I quote these words not because I agree with them in practical policy, but because of the profound psychological truth that they express. Behind the statesmen who had pledged their words, however unwillingly, remained masses of ignorant, violent, and war-maddened people, many of them with terrible wrongs to avenge and no guide or leader to help them against themselves. We need not recall, though few sensitive people will ever forget, the horrors of the propaganda of hate. ”

“ Propaganda, indeed, makes strange bed-fellows. In this new praetorian guard of the temple of American patriotism are found the Hearst newspapers, an element of the Knights of Columbus and of the Irish-Americans, the German-Americans, and finally patriotic societies of this country. ”

“ But to keep in existence a vast association embracing very numerous groups of different nationalities, and influenced sometimes by divergent currents of ideas, to make use of publicity as the sole means of propaganda, and yet to escape the repressive laws of different States, was evidently no easy task. ”

“ We shall do well to separate and recognize each, because each has had it's effect upon the Free Press as a whole, and that Free Press bears the marks of all three most strongly to-day.
The first motive apparent, coming much earlier than either of the other two, was the motive of (A) Propaganda. The second motive was (B) Indignation against the concealment of Truth, and the third motive was (C) Indignation against irresponsible power: the sense of oppression which an immoral irresponsibility in power breeds among those who are unhappily subject to it. ”

“ In order to find understanding among the masses, we consciously practiced a popular [volksgebundene] propaganda. We have taken complexes of facts which were formerly accessible only to a few specialists and experts, carried them to the streets, and hammered them into the brain of the little man. ”

“ But we will not be able to keep alive a vigorous spirit of revolt in this small minority, if we give our propaganda a purely negative tendency, a tendency frankly destructive. Too often we do not stop to inquire where their preconceived ideas have disappeared when we give them a social morality of “a future society,” a mature economic system — all of which is more than remote. ”

“ Excessive claims have been made for the efficacy of propaganda. Sometimes psychological warfare has even been offered as a substitute for war or for diplomacy. On other occasions Americans have asked that their government do "as well as" this or that foreign government in the propaganda field, forgetting that the United States is a republic and a democracy, and therefore subject to the sharp limitations which republican, democratic governments possess.53
A republic cannot impose a purpose upon mankind. ”

“ Put a case before them of supposed wrong, however preposterous and palpably false, and they will revel in it, print it with capital head-lines, and so capture the imagination of their sentimental, unthinking readers that these will no longer listen to the voice of reason or of truth. We are too proud—or perhaps not clever enough—to combat such barefaced propaganda; a strict censorship may be a crude weapon, but it is the only one at our command. ”

“ Pretending to be purveyors of unbiased accounts of current happenings, they are in reality merely propaganda organs, twisting, garbling and suppressing facts and information in the manner best calculated to further the interests of the employing class. ”

“ But let a modern nation be at war, and the most honorable of men will stoop unhesitatingly to the most flagrant falsehoods in the pursuit of what is called "propaganda." Under the effect of Nationalism a chivalric and sensitive man will tell any lie or assume any disguise. ”