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Enlightenment of the First World War "Lead this people into war, and they " ll forget there was ever such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life, infecting the Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street. " Nowadays more and more scientists devote much of their works to the enlightenment of the First World War. They hold the opinion that it was Woodrow Wilson who led the American people into that war. America became the participant insidiously and forcefully. War outlook spread bit by bit among different groups of society. Randolph Bourne wrote: "With the aid of Roosevelt the murmurs became a monotonous chant, and finally a chorus so mighty that to be out of it was at first to be disreputable, and finally almost obscene. " It was impossible not to adhere to the war outlook.
If you believed our going into this war was a mistake, ", if you held, as President Wilson did early in 1917, that the ideal outcome would be 'peace without victory, ' you were a traitor. " wrote propagandists. People were forced to keep silence watching their friends adhering to the War. Now they would have coincided with Bertrand Russell's opinion that "the greatest difficulty was the purely psychological one of resisting mass suggestion, of which the force becomes terrific when the whole nation is in a state of violent collective excitement. " This frantic backing of the war was specifically outstanding taking into account that Wilson's re-election in 1916 was explained as a vote for peace. At the beginning that year he stated: "so far as I can remember, this is a government of the people, and these people are not going to choose war. " It is obvious that the vote for Wilson hid extreme splitting in the peoples opinion. At the time of his investiture, foreigners made up one third of the American population. That time in America many German people lived and they had positive attention to what their compatriots were doing in their motherland.
At the same time, anti-German sentiment was clearly felt in the upper classes on the Atlantic shore, and was strong among those people who were socially or politically connected with Britain or France. However, most Americans were not interested in what was happening overseas, particularly in the War. The lack of general unanimity was the most important problem when America started participating in the war on April 6, 1917. In Washington, stable backing was considered as critical to the whole war exertion. On April 13, 1917, Wilson opened the Committee on Public Information (CPI) to advertise the war inside of the state while advertising American war goals abroad. The Committee was supervised by journalist George Creel.
One journalist, George Creels friend once described him as a person who sees only two classes of people - skunks and greatest people who ever lived. "Greatest of all the existing ", - explained Creels friend, - are numerous and include everyone, who is on Creels side on any question which Creel had to deal with." Creel often called himself " the real Wilsons man" He tried to convince Woodrow Wilson propose himself as a president in early 1905 when Wilson still was the president of Princeton University. When in 1917 war with Germany became unavoidable, Wilson, just re-elected for the second term, worried about the reaction of the Americans to the entering the battle, happened in Europe during the last three years. He declined to the offers of the admirals and generals about the law on censorship which would have given him the iron control over unguided American press. Creel, however, convinced him, that the country didnt need supervision but the realization of coordinated of coordinated war politics. He warned Wilson, that the American opinion about the war "was blackened" by barrier of German and allied propagation. Creel convinced the president to create Committee on the Public information.
He was organized by three members of the cabinet and its chairman Creel. They met only once. Creel listened to the advices of members of the cabinet and never talked to them after that. He was the Committee himself.
He continued to remain George Creel after 150 thousand people were involved in the diversified actions. " In the memoirs which he wrote in 1920, Creel brightly described that he had decided to make out of Committee of the public information. His purpose was the creation of "passionate belief in validity of Americas actions which would rally weld American people in one bright flaring clot of brotherhood instinct of fidel ities, courage and immortal determination" Creel firmly trusted in "fight of will ." He stated that in democracy this will would depend from that degree from which each of all weight of people can rally and strengthen body, soul and spirit for the maximum efforts of service and sacrifice. " Creels first check was the day which many Americans remembered with trembling. July, 5, 1917 was the day when in USA all men of military age should have come for registration on military service. Soon, at countrys cinemas propaganda speeches were made.
Their first theme was "General service through a selective military appeal ." From May, 12 till May, 21 75 thousand orators inspired the visitors of cinemas the idea that day of registration should become a festival of honor for the future recruits. The country responded with understanding. On June, 5 10 million persons were registered without a hint for the protest. In hundreds of small towns veterans of Civil war came to see off the new soldiers up to the railway station. By the end of war the country had 516 thousand recruits in training camps and still without a shadow of the protest. The enormous propaganda machine created by Creel, what he incessantly specified, cost for tax bearers only 4, 912, 553 $.
He persistently neglected the opinion, that spending this money, he also had the non-limited access to 50 million dollars of presidential fund ", which Congress gave to Wilson before, during war, without any control over charges. When Wilson has suddenly left the bilateral pose and in 1918 called for a choice of the Democratic Congress, some legislators - republicans began to Creel Wilsons press attache." With the help of committee of significant historians Creel started writing books in which Wilsons speeches turned into highly artistic products about the American military help and a series of furious attacks of Germany. Creel also was engaged in film-business. His producers created such products as Pershing's Crusaders and Under Four Flags and distributed them. In addition to introduction of public in patriotic passion, Creels films earned for committee of 852, 744. 30 $, - quite good profit for those days when shootings of film cost very little money.
At the end of 1918 the CPI fell under growing examination from a war-hating American people and from the Republicans that had the control of Congress. They have cancelled the sanction for Committee of the public information, not having given it the money for closing i and creation of archive. On November 12, 1918, George Creel had to stop the activities of the CPI. The next several months Creel spent in Washington, denying a series of hearings that the Committee was guilty in scale financial defects if not in a frank deceit. During the next 18 months Creel suffered from torments of regret, looking as Wilsons peace-making efforts were destroyed by opposition of the Congress. If Creel has held back the language and the Committee of the public information would have continued its work, he might help Wilson with the propaganda war unwrapped between the White House and the Republican majority in the Congress concerning League of Nations.
But even without this lost lock stone of his career, Creels achievements were outstanding. This propagandizing genius from Missouri mobilized spirit of opposite adjusted nation for a victory changing a course of a history. Our state is known as democratic and full of freedom. But our history shows that, in times of political crisis and social disarrangement, this freedom had immediately disappeared. Now we have just entered the new century and should be ready for the new testing of our freedom. So nowadays this problem should be the first to solve by our government.
Bibliography 1. Herwig, Holger H. Operation Michael: The "Last Card." University of Calgary, 2001. Taylor, A. J.
P. The First World War: An Illustrated History. Hamish Hamilton, 1963. 3. Pope, Stephen and Wheal, Elizabeth-Anne, eds. The Macmillian Dictionary of the First World War. Macmillian Reference Books, 1995 4.
Hew Strachan: "The First World War: Volume I: to arms" puts emphasis on the extra-European war, but gives extensive coverage of the war on the Western and Eastern Fronts in 1914. 5. Dennis Sherman and Joyce Salisbury, The West in the World, Volume II: From 1600, second edition
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Research essay sample on Enlightenment Of The First World War
