They
will remind you, however, of the distance which often separates your
public opinion from the event with which it deals. And the reminder is
itself a protection.
CHAPTER III
CONTACT AND OPPORTUNITY
1
While censorship and privacy intercept much information at its source,
a very much larger body of fact never reaches the whole public at all,
or only very slowly. For there are very distinct limits upon the
circulation of ideas.
A rough estimate of the effort it takes to reach "everybody" can be
had by considering the Government's propaganda during the war.
Remembering that the war had run over two years and a half before
America entered it, that millions upon millions of printed pages had
been circulated and untold speeches had been delivered, let us turn to
Mr. Creel's account of his fight "for the minds of men, for the
conquest of their convictions" in order that "the gospel of
Americanism might be carried to every corner of the globe."
[Footnote: George Creel, _How We Advertised America._]
Mr. Creel had to assemble machinery which included a Division of News
that issued, he tells us, more than six thousand releases, had to
enlist seventy-five thousand Four Minute Men who delivered at least
seven hundred and fifty-five thousand, one hundred and ninety speeches
to an aggregate of over three hundred million people. Boy scouts
delivered annotated copies of President Wilson's addresses to the
householders of America.
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