The “NO HYMN of hate” of the CPI and the Four Minute Men during the First World War

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2015-02-19
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Winner of the 2015 Franklin D. Schurz Library Prize for Undergraduate Research at Indiana University South Bend. To help direct the support for the Great War into areas that would benefit the nation, the U.S. government created a war promotion department, the Committee on Public Information (CPI). The major obstacle to the proper promotion of U.S. entry into World War One involved the ability to communicate values and principles essential for democracy, such as reasoned discourse. Without civil and reasoned discourse, a democracy’s ability to secure consensus views is imperiled. The CPI created the Four Minute Men to distribute information to the general public about the war and various wartime promotions such as food conservation, Liberty Bonds, and Red Cross drives. As the war progressed, the speeches of the Four Minute Men evolved and reflected the impassioned and sometimes prejudicial views of the speakers and their audiences, requiring regulation by the CPI. Consequently, the CPI issued numerous written materials that included samples of both good and bad speeches so that the Four Minute Men would produce “no hymns of hate.” However, many examples of good speeches employed cultural references similar to the examples of bad speeches and the published guidelines for acceptable rhetoric often contradicted earlier statements, leading to difficulty establishing proper expectations for the Four Minute Men. Although historians have studied the CPI and Four Minute Men, they have overlooked the contradictions and inconsistencies in instructions provided to speakers. The Four Minute Men are a cultural relic of U.S. involvement in World War One, and their speeches serve as examples of reasonable and unreasonable, but always passionate, discourse in times of war. The Four Minute Men, the CPI, and U.S. propaganda in general are social and cultural history that need to be explored further and from social and cultural perspectives.
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United States--Committee on Public Information., World War, 1914-1918--Propaganda., World War, 1914-1918--United States., World War, 1914-1918--Public opinion., Propaganda, American--History--20th century., Public opinion--United States--History--20th century.
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