Page 129 - Dragon Flood

Syndicated Features and recruited the help of leading novelists, short story writers, and
essayists. These popular American writers presented the official line in an easily digestible
form, and their work was said to have reached twelve million people every month...

The CPI did not limit its promotional efforts to the written word. The Division of Pictorial
Publicity "had at its disposal many of the most talented advertising illustrators and
cartoonists of the time," and these artists worked closely with publicity experts in the
Advertising Division. Newspapers and magazines eagerly donated advertising space, and
it was almost impossible to pick up a periodical without encountering CPI material.
Powerful posters, painted in patriotic colors, were plastered on billboards across the
country...

Moving images were even more popular than still ones, and the Division of Films ensured
that the war was promoted in the cinema.
[Source: http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/ww1.cpi.html]

CPI propaganda typically appealed to the heart, not to the mind. Emotional agitation is
a favorite technique of the propagandist, because "any emotion may be 'drained off' into
any activity by skillful manipulation." An article which appeared in Scientific Monthly
shortly after the war argued that "the detailed suffering of a little girl and her kitten can
motivate our hatred against the Germans, arouse our sympathy for Armenians, make us
enthusiastic for the Red Cross, or lead us to give money for a home for cats." Wartime
slogans such as "Bleeding Belgium," "The Criminal Kaiser," and "Make the World Safe For
Democracy," suggest that the CPI was no stranger to this idea. Evidence of this technique
can be seen in a typical propaganda poster that portrayed an aggressive,
bayonet-wielding German soldier above the caption "Beat Back The Hun With Liberty
Bonds." In this example, the emotions of hate and fear were redirected toward giving
money to the war effort...

A second propaganda technique used by the CPI was demonization of the enemy. "So
great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations," wrote Lasswell "that
every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor.
There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate..."

A particularly effective strategy for demonizing Germans was the use of atrocity stories.
"A handy rule for arousing hate," said Lasswell "is, if at first they do not enrage, use an
atrocity. It has been employed with unvarying success in every conflict known to man."
Unlike the pacifist, who argues that all wars are brutal, the atrocity story implies that
war is only brutal when practiced by the enemy. Certain members of the CPI were
relatively cautious about repeating unsubstantiated allegations, but the committee's
publications often relied on dubious material. After the war, Edward Bernays, who
directed CPI propaganda efforts in Latin America, openly admitted that his colleagues
used alleged atrocities to provoke a public outcry against Germany. Some of the atrocity
stories which were circulated during the war, such as the one about a tub full of eyeballs,
or the story of the seven-year old boy who confronted German soldiers with a wooden
gun, were actually recycled from previous conflicts. In his seminal work on wartime
propaganda, Lasswell speculated that atrocity stories will always be popular because the