Committee on Public Information
The Committee on Public Information (1917–1919), also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States under the Wilson administration created to influence public opinion to support the US in World War I, in particular, the US home front.
Agency overview
April 13, 1917
August 21, 1919
- liquidated to: Council of National Defense
- similar later agencies: Office of War Information (WWII)
significant staff plus over 75,000 volunteers
- George Creel, chairman
- Robert Lansing, ex officio for State
- Newton D. Baker, ex officio for War
- Josephus Daniels, ex officio for Navy
- over twenty bureaus and divisions including:
- News Bureau
- Film Bureau
In just over 26 months (from April 14, 1917, to June 30, 1919) it used every medium available to create enthusiasm for the war effort and to enlist public support against the foreign and perceived domestic attempts to stop America's participation in the war. It is a notable example of propaganda in the United States.
Criticism[edit]
Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, provides a detailed critique of the Creel Commission in his 2010 book Death of the Liberal Class. He describes the CPI's work as “a relentless campaign of manipulation of public opinion thinly disguised as journalism,” including manufactured German atrocities and war crimes.[41]
Walter Lippmann, a Wilson adviser, journalist, and co-founder of The New Republic, who was influential with Wilson in his advocacy for the establishment of a pro-war propaganda committee in 1917, may have later been a critic of Creel.[41] He had once written an editorial criticizing Creel for violating civil liberties, as Police Commissioner of Denver. Without naming Creel, he wrote in a memo to Wilson that censorship should "never be entrusted to anyone who is not himself tolerant, nor to anyone who is unacquainted with the long record of folly which is the history of suppression." After the war, Lippmann criticized the CPI's work in Europe: "The general tone of it was one of unmitigated brag accompanied by unmitigated gullibility, giving shell-shocked Europe to understand that a rich bumpkin had come to town with his pockets bulging and no desire except to please."[42]
The Office of Censorship in World War II did not follow the CPI precedent. It used a system of voluntary co-operation with a code of conduct, and it did not disseminate government propaganda.[18]
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Among those who participated in the CPI's work were: