CPI
Sirs:
The review of Words that Won the War in TIME, Oct. 16, marks a new high in misstatement.
1) The photograph of the lady in tights, carrying my wife's name, is a fake, without even a remote resemblance to justify the blunder.
2) Never at any time did the Committee issue a "Halt the Hun" poster.
3) The Committee had nothing whatsoever to do with The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. It was produced by a private company, and I disapproved of it absolutely as a vicious appeal to hate.
4) The Committee had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the Liberty Loan drives except a protest against many of the "atrocity" posters gotten out by the people in charge.
5) My "hand" could not have been seen in the speedy passage of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act for the reason that I was then, and am now, opposed to such legislation.
6) You say that "as a member of the Censorship Board, Mr. Hyde-Creel had plenty of authority to crack down on the press." The Board of which I was a member had nothing whatsoever to do with the press, but was concerned entirely with censorship of the mails. I fought organization of this Board, considering it both stupid and unnecessary, but after its organization, persuaded the President to make me a member that I might minimize its activities. The right to exclude newspapers from the mails for seditious utterances was absolutely and entirely in the hands of the Postmaster General, and the manner in which he used it caused me to protest so vigorously that it broke off all personal relations between Mr. Burleson and myself.
If you will have your staff take the trouble to go back over the newspaper files, you will find that I was attacked almost daily by Senators, Congressmen and so-called patriotic societies because I would not issue "atrocity" stories and refused at all times to preach hate.
GEORGE CREEL
San Francisco, Calif.
> To the picture agency which supplied a miscaptioned actress, a sharp rebuke. Herewith the real Blanche Bates (who never wore tights) as she appeared in 1901 in Under Two Flags. A private company produced The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, though the CPI (which effectively suppressed other movies) let it pass without comment. TIME stated that Creel "deplored the national hysteria which his Committee had so successfully fostered." In general, as Authors Mock & Larson amply showed, George Creel's CPI occupied the position of bellwether of the propaganda herd.—ED.
Pants Protest
Sirs:
Don't you know it's unkind to strip the illusions from a million or more worshippers of a radio star? . . .
I'm referring to your brief but brutal description of Ted Malone (TIME, Oct. 30). I admit his hair is thinning in front, but you scarcely notice it because of his gray-blue eyes that twinkle one minute, go dreamy the next. I admit, too, that if he could shorten his belt a couple of inches he'd look as young as he is instead of older. But personality plus and a million-dollar-smile make the belt line unimportant.