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Getting an entire nation in the mood to go to war isn't all that easy,

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especially a nation that had just reelected a president whose campaign slogan...

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was "he kept us out of war." So when it came time...

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for America to enter WWI, President Woodrow Wilson knew...

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something dramatic had to be done to get people pumped about going to war.

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One pep rally just wasn't gonna cut it.

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And thus the Committee on Public Information was born, with a guy named...

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George Creel at the helm. What did Creel and the CPI do?

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They created the WWI Propaganda Machine,

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which in a lot of ways was more deadly to the Germans than any machine gun.

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Why? Because it was incredibly effective in getting a massive amount of Americans...

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behind the war. Mostly this meant posters, radio programs, speeches,

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and most importantly, media control. See, the CPI was the gatekeeper...

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of war news. This was a mega-important role that doesn't really...

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exist today, now that we get our news almost instantaneously via the Internet...

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But back in the olden days, getting news was more of a process, especially...

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if it was coming for thousands of miles away, for example, in the trenches of...

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Western Europe. This made it so that the CPI had almost exclusive control...

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over what Americans heard of the war. If anybody out there just...

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said, hmm, that sounds like an awful lot like it restricted freedom of the press...

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well, kudos, that's exactly what was going on. But Creel and CPI were...

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really slick, politically. On paper, they didn't demand that certain things be censored.

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Instead, they kinda suggested that the press censor itself. If it's voluntary...

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the government can't be accused to breaking the First Amendment of the Constitution, right?

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Yeah, that's more than iffy, but the CPI totally got away with it. Since the...

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CPI was pretty much the only place to get news, the press kinda had to agree that there were...

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rules. The deal was that if news outlets followed the CPI's rules, and only reported on what they provided,

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all of their news resources would be available. This system ensured that Americans were only...

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hearing government-approved war news. The CPI's other major role was...

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advertising. Not normal advertising, like for specific products,

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but advertising a mindset. Sounds kinda strange, but they...

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were actually really successful. George Creel called it

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the world's greatest adventure in advertising. So Creel was kinda like...

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Don Draper, except he was selling war, instead of 60s consumer items.

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Another key output from the CPI were films, movies like...

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Pershing's Crusaders. They were meant to show everyday Americans how brave and awesome the...

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troops in Europe were, and how evil the Central Powers were. Hollywood...

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and the CPI worked together a lot during the war to make pro-American films. All of this worked like a charm.

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Though it might not be a shock to anyone these days that the Americans did...

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what the movies told them was cool.

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