liquor should be sold for beverage purposes except for export, until
the conclusion of the war and of demobilization, the date to be
determined by the President. This Act also prohibited the importation,
from the date of its approval until the period of its termination,
of distilled malt, vinous or other intoxicating liquors. The President
was further authorized by the Act to establish zones about coal
mines, munition factories, shipbuilding plants or wherever necessary
to facilitate war work, in which strict prohibition should be made
effective under heavy penalties. This Act continued in force until
national prohibition came into force by reason of the refusal of the
President to declare demobilization to have been completed before
that date, and the section of the Act authorizing the President
to establish special zones as above described was incorporated from
a joint resolution of Congress, having the force of law from the earlier
date of Sept. 12 1918.
The Prohibition Enforcement Law or Volstead Act, enacted Oct. 28 1919, three months before national prohibition came into effect, provided for the enforcement of both the War Prohibition Act and the Eighteenth Amendment. The President exercised the powers conferred on him under the Food Control Act of Aug. 10 1917, and under it the manufacture of distilled spirits in the United States was prohibited on and after Sept. 8 1917. Through the Food Administration the President also stopped the use of food materials in the manufacture of beer on Dec. 1 1918. All these measures were strictly enforced and achieved their major purposes by securing conservation and the maintenance of discipline and sobriety in all places where men in uniform were stationed. They did not affect the civilian population because of the short period of prohibition of manufacture, and because of the existing stocks in territory where local or state legislation permitted its sale. No state legislation was necessary to carry out the purposes of the special war period restrictions.
PROPAGANDA, the term applied to a concerted scheme for the promotion of a doctrine or practice; more generally, the effort to influence opinion; by a false analogy from such plural words as “memoranda,” frequently applied to the means by which a propaganda is conducted. The objective of a propaganda is to promote the interests of those who contrive it, rather than to benefit those to whom it is addressed; in advertisement to sell an article; in publicity to state a case; in politics to forward a policy; in war to bring victory. This differentiates it from the diffusion of useful knowledge; the evangel of a mission; publication of the cure for a disease. In such objectives there may be a secondary advantage to the contriver, but to benefit the subjects of the effort is the leading motive. Similarly those engaged in a propaganda may genuinely believe that success will be an advantage to those whom they address, but the stimulus to their action is their own cause. The differentia of a propaganda is that it is self-seeking, whether the object be worthy or unworthy, intrinsically, or in the minds of its promoters.
Statements or arguments known to be self-interested tend to raise suspicion. A wide examination of propagandas supplies an empirical argument in justification of such an attitude. Indeed, casuistically considered, indifference to truth is a characteristic of propaganda. Truth is valuable only so far as it is effective. The whole truth would generally be superfluous and almost always misleading; the selections made range from a high percentage to a minus quantity. The time factor is vital. If a quick sale or a decisive victory is possible, opportunism may be more useful than exactitude. If a permanent market is to be opened or a protracted campaign is expected, caution is required in suppression or in misstatement. Although truth may thus be irrelevant to the success of a propaganda, it does not follow that those engaged in it are consciously unethical. Doubtless, in every effort to control opinion, there are persons either indifferent to justification, or who justify the means by the end. But the more the emotions are excited, whether by patriotism or by cupidity, by pride or by pity, the more the critical faculties are inhibited. It is a quality of propaganda, as of counter-propaganda, that high-minded persons on both sides commend their cause by identical arguments, and that high-strung persons soon come to believe what they wish to be true. Their character and their enthusiasm lend weight to many partial statements, or even make false coin ring true.
The suspicions aroused by an admitted propaganda lessen, its effectiveness, from which it follows that much of the work has to be furtive. Part of the task, and that the more easy, is to whip up existing inclinations, but the more arduous and the more frequent duty is to reverse or to create opinion. Efforts are therefore made to present “tendencious” matter as impartial. The simplest case is seen in the familiar methods of newspaper advertisement. The crudest form is a direct printed recommendation of an object, obviously paid for. More subtle, but still plainly a paid advertisement, is a general paragraph in the “News” columns, with the letters Adv. at the foot. Best of all is commendation in the editorial columns or description disguised as news, these methods being seldom adopted in the responsible Press of the better kind, but familiar in organs subsidized to support an interest, possibly with a free hand on everything except that interest.
The methods of a propaganda are limited only by the resources and the ingenuity of its promoters. They may be studied in their most intensive form in the propagandist efforts during a war; the magnitude of the object secures the necessary funds, and at the same time attracts the services of persons of more intellect and character than would usually devote themselves to such a pursuit; in the atmosphere of war, moreover, truth, like many other fine qualities of humanity, is judged by expediency, with varying answers.
The use of propaganda in war dates from remote antiquity. It is plain that Herodotus, with his alert and modern mind, suspected the possibility of “working” the oracles whose pronouncements had so great an influence. But in Urania VIII., 22, he describes a propagandist effort made in the Persian War by Themistocles, son of Neocles, which in intention and method might have occurred in the recent World War:—
“Themistocles, having selected the best sailing ships of the Athenians, went to the places where there was water fit for drinking, and engraved upon the stones inscriptions, which the Ionians, upon arriving next day at Artemisium, read. The inscriptions were to this effect: ‘Men of Ionia, you do wrong in fighting against your fathers, and helping to enslave Greece: rather, therefore, come over to us; or, if you cannot do that, withdraw your forces from the contest, and entreat the Carians to do the same. But if neither of these things is possible, and you are bound by too strong a necessity to revolt, yet in action, when we are engaged, behave ill on purpose, remembering that you are descended from us, and that the enmity of the barbarian against us originally sprung from you.’ Themistocles, in my opinion, wrote this with two objects in view; that either, if the inscriptions escaped the notice of the king, he might induce the Ionians to change sides and come over to them; or, if they were reported to him, and made a subject of accusation before Xerxes, they might make the Ionians suspected, and cause them to be excluded from the sea-fights.” (Herodotus VIII., Urania 22.)
Propaganda on similar lines has been conducted in almost every war in history, but until the World War (1914-18) chiefly as a subsidiary part of the actual military or naval operations. Clausewitz, the Polish-Prussian officer (1780-1831) whose works on the conduct of war were translated into most modern languages and formed the basis of most military theory, laid it down partly as a prediction and partly as a precept that war must be waged with the whole force of a nation. Military propaganda may therefore be defined as the attempt to add the psychological factor to the other resources of warfare. It may be considered formally under four heads: (1) Control of Home Opinion; (2) Control of Neutral Opinion; (3) Control of Allied Opinion; (4) Control of Enemy Opinion. Counter-propaganda is the effort to counter the operations of the Enemy.
(1). Control of Home Opinion. —In modern times even the most autocratic ruler or state cannot hope to conduct a protracted war, or a war that brings a great burden on a nation, or a war that sways with doubtful success, unless public opinion is favourable. A large part of propaganda must therefore be for home consumption. It will proclaim the certainty of victory, describe actual and prospective military and naval triumphs, obliterate or explain reverses. It will vaunt economic strength, financial resources, power of organization; it will explain difficulties in the supply of food and raw materials, give the reasons for vexatious regulations and interferences with the ordinary routine of trade. When the war appears to be going unfavourably, it will urge the need of endurance. But it will not neglect the moral appeal. It will insist that the war is one of defence, or at least for an unselfish purpose; that victory will be for the good
