HOW TO 'SELL' A WAR

...They moved faster than ever, but not fast enough to suit some of the irrepressible gentry who were impatient to get into war immediately...

...During October it came out for a complete boycott of Japanese goods...

...Discovering that White was honestly opposed to war, some of the more fiery members,, particularly in the New York and Washington chapters, began to sidetrack him...

...The shipment to England of rifles and ammunition after the fall of France was but a straw against the wind...

...For example, Robert Sherwood, the tallest if not the best playwright in America, prepared a hysterical advertisement entitled "STOP HITLER NOW...

...White, of course, could not endorse their actions and early in December wrote a pathetic letter to Eichel^ berger in which he confessed that "They are probably more nearly right than I am...

...In this hectic period, William Allen White, a licked man, stood on the sidelines...

...It put many prominent interventionists on the air and the rostrum, parried blows with the isolationists, and made life hell for unsympathetic Congressmen and Senators, until the stupid Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor accomplished at one fell stroke all that it had ever dreamed of...

...Hitler's assertion that a lie is certain to be believed if repeated often enough was exactly the philosophy of the Committee to Defend America, etc...

...1940, as the Nazis were overrunning the low countries, two prominent gentlemen met for lunch in one of those plushy clubs that stud New York City...

...It tangled with isolationist candidates for Congress like Bruce Barton and Ham Fish, and gained unhappy-notoriety by picketing a party given by the swank Mrs...

...Few copies were sold, as virtually the entire edition was distributed gratis to Senators, Congressmen, teachers, governors, lawyers, clergymen, and prominent businessmen...

...26 White wired Eichelberger that he must resign, "amazed that I am so far behind the procession but here I stand, can go no faster nor no further...

...Much farther than this White would not go...

...White was thoroughly exasperated by these shenanigans, but Thomas Lamont, an old friend, mollified him by promising to squelch the "misdirected gyrations" of the boisterous members of the local fraternity...

...Every nerve must be strained therefore to maneuver William Allen White into a position where he would endorse active war against Germany...

...Up to a point it fooled even the chairman of the committee, but when he caught on to it, he resigned...

...President Roosevelt acclaimed it as a grand piece of work...

...John F. O'Ryan resigned in a huff...

...In this campaign they were aided, abetted, and subsidized by numerous respectable bankers and industrialists, journalists and newspaper owners, social workers, churchmen, college presidents, etc...

...Not all of it was flattering, however...

...Memberships multiplied as a result of the Presidential accolade, widespread newspaper ads, leaflets distributed in great numbers, and above all, rallies held in major cities at which famous generals and admirals came out of retirement to broadcast flaming addresses warning us of our dire peril, written by the Committee's brilliant corps of ghost writers...

...I cannot readjust my years to a new technique...

...After White stepped out, the hotspurs took over, under the direction of former Sen...

...On Apr...

...Some of the masters of advertising turned aside for a time from the art of selling motor cars, soap, perfumes, and the like, or from writing love sonnets and dramas on sex, to the more exciting job of selling a war against Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito...

...23, 1940, of course, received hearty endorsement from the anti-war group, but there was woe and consternation in the national headquarters of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies...

...One was the Sage of Emporia, a kindly liberal of the Victorian era...

...If I was making a motto for the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, it would be 'The Yanks Are Not Coming.' " The publication of this letter in the Scripps-Howard papers on Dec...

...Mayor LaGuardia of New York wrote White that he was "doing a typical Laval," for which brilliant insult he was rewarded with the chairmanship of the loeal chapter...

...The only reason," he said, "I am in this organization is to keep this country out of war...

...The committee yelled not only for all aid to Britain and France short of war, but began to panic the country with bogeys conjured up by the fertile imagination of its copywriters...

...In all such matters, we must as citizens be continually on the alert to the new propaganda technique's by which powerful interests attempt to sway public opinion...

...They are young men and of course impatient with my leadership...

...How To Sell' A War By ANTHONY NETBOY NOW that America is snapping out of the hypnosis of war, we are beginning to see more clearly how the great crusade was sold to us by the most powerful lobby in our history...

...I realize that probably my leadership is crippled by my slow judgment, by my desire to keep fairly abreast of public sentiment and not to get out too far in front...

...As Great Britain's peril increased, it became obvious to some of the leading spirits of the Committee that all aid short of war would not save Mother England ; that America must be dragged into the fight...

...Behind many of the cute slogans lies diabolical intent...

...19, 1941 these formed the Fight For Freedom Committee headed by the octogenarian Carter Glass, the Rev...

...vociferously advocating repeal of the Neutrality Act and the Johnson Act...

...Its name, dreamed up by Eichelberger, would be the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies—a name that fitted perfectly the propaganda line then issuing from Washington...

...The fall of France on June 17, 1940, enormously boosted the Committee's stock because it was henceforth used by the White House to break up isolationist opposition and warm up the country to the staggering defense program...

...Among this motley crowd were, of course, some honest idealists, whose ingenuousness was cruelly exploited...

...After the destroyer-for-bases deal was consummated on Sept...

...He refused to permit the'National Committee in its public statements to get ahead of what he regarded as general public opinion, even though, at the bottom of his heart, he felt that all aid short of war could perhaps not save Mother England...

...The Comnflttee now split wide open...

...Here the United States was pictured as a poor, defenseless country, a military pigmy, dependent solely on His Majesty's Navy to stave off enslavement by Hitler...

...in which he warned the American people that the beast of Berlin would be on our shores if Britain and France fell...

...By November, the Committee to" Defend America etc...

...A classic example of this kind involves the late William Allen White, editor of the famed Emporia Gazette, and his unhappy role as head of the leading interventionist organization of 1940-41...

...Behind so-called public opinion polls often lie statistics manipulated by the poll-takers...

...By now the New York and Washington chapters were running so far away with the ball that White could hardly see them...

...THIS outfit eventually cast the parent committee in the shade...

...And the showdown was not long in coming...

...But White's association with such a fantastic screed irritated many of his friends and followers, and the old man, looking ruefully at a pile of complaining letters, wrote to his tall friend that his excitable copy was casting odium on the committee and bringing much distress to the chairman...

...Some insinuated that hanging was too good for men of his ilk...

...In his editorials in the Gazette he reiterated his stand—it was the duty of the United States to aid Britain as fully as possible on the assembly line, but not to go to war...

...and even urging the President and Congress to declare war on Germany...

...There is much to be learned from the story of William Allen White and the Committee toDefend America by Aiding the Allies...

...cut them to the very quick...

...Sometime in April...

...Perhaps the chief lesson is that a.relative handful of people, such as the Committee represented, can, by a mighty effort of propaganda, using all the tricks in the book, succeed in deluding millions of people...

...Some of their members were' running up and down the country fighting isolationist dragons...

...Many citizens were not fooled by the Committee's phoney line—"all aid to Britain short of war"—and told White so...

...Among the luminaries who quickly jumped on the bandwagon were the presidents of Yale, Harvard, and Dartmouth College, a former secretary of war, the Episcopal Bishop of Boston, a former ambassador to France, the Catholic Bishop of Texas, Thomas Lamont, a famous ex-pacifist professor of theology, and the secretary-treasurer of the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters...

...It demanded that the State Department force the German Government to recall surplus personnel in its consulate...

...3, it was a continuous struggle between White and the moderates to prevent the hotheads, led by Eichelberger, Sherwood, Herbert Agar, George Fort Milton, Bishop H. W. Hobson, and other "trigger happy" gentlemen, from turning the Committee into an organization frankly devoted to getting America into war...

...Some of the hotspurs said that White was a wolf in sheep's clothing, an appeaser fit to head up the America Firs,t Committee, not theirs...

...Gibson of Vermont...

...It was not long before the Committee to Defend America, etc., with White as chairman and Eichelberger as executive director, had enough money to start local chapters in many cities, issue bulletins, get time on the air, buy newspaper space, hold rallies, and in short, perfect an organization that was lobbying Congress, the President, and above all, the American people...

...The slogan, "The Yanks Are Not Coming...

...At a cost of $25,000, this full page ad was placed on June 10 and 11 in newspapers with a total circulation of 8.300,000...

...On Dec...

...2, 1941, just as the Committee was about to launch a terrific campaign to sell America the Lend-Lease program...

...White was deeply grieved...

...But this was a far from easy task...

...He wondered how people could mistake his motives, and reiterated that he did not want to go to war, or to send troops to Europe, and even that he would not be in favor of it under any circumstances that he could imagine...

...WHITE and Eichelberger decided that the foremost need of the day was a national organization to wake up America to the peril facing Britain and France...

...Jackson—and sanctioned the famous ad which appeared in our leading metropolitan papers on July 30, 1940, telling Americans that "Between Us and Hitler Stands the British Fleet...

...the other was one Clark Eichelberger, ex-Chautauqua lecturer, ex-member of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, a gentleman of smooth demeanor who was always heading up some vague but idealistic organization like the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace which he founded in 1939...

...Harrison Williams (America's best-dressed woman) for the French Ambassador, Henry-Haye...

...had 750 local chapters with 10,000 volunteer workers, and was kicking up such a fuss that the postmaster at Emporia could hardly handle all the mail addressed to White...

...It is a noble testimonial to White's courage and honesty...

...On Dec...

...TO Eichelberger, the old man confessed, "The New York Committee is my hair shirt...

...By using the slogan, "Defend America by helping the Allies," it succeeded in selling the dubious idea that the Allies- were fighting not so much in defense of their homeland as in defense of America...

...They accused him of war-mongering and implied that he was a coward, too old to fight, but willing to let our boys die on foreign battlefields...

...It was always at least 50 yards nearer the goal line than most of the other chapters...

...To head it off, White wrote Roy Howard, an old friend, a letter that, when published, brought the crisis within the committee to a head...

...In a democracy only the vigilance of the people can prevent a small, tightly organized, lavishly financed minority from dominating government from behind the scenes...

...To impress the academic world and give a stamp of objectivity to its aims, a book, Defense For America, was prepared by some of the committee's more learned members, including Quincy Wright, James B. Conant and Monsignor John A. Ryan, for the august imprint of Macmillan...

...His resignation was announced on Jan...

...To get the Committee launched, a professional fund-raising expert was hired—one of those who specializes in "save the opera," and similar campaigns, his fee being part of the take...

...THE genuine dilemma in which the old man found himself took a great toll of his health...

...An examination of the process should serve a useful purpose in helping us to understand the signs if they appear again...

...BUT these were minor setbacks...

...White went along with the plan to give Britain 50 overage destroyers—a move, incidentally, covered by some devious legal logic devised by lawyers actively working for the Committee—and not by Atty.-Gen...

...H. W. Hob-son, and Francis P. Miller...

...He died in the middle of the war...

...18 he received a letter from Frederic Coudert, one of the more Anglo-philic members of the New York chapter, warning him the Scripps-Howard papers were about to unleash an attack on the Committee...

...It is not even remotely true that we favor repealing [the Neutrality Act] to carry contraband of war into the war zone...