How we advertised America; the first telling of the amazing story of the Committee on public information that carried the gospel of Americanism to every corner of the globe ([1920])

HOW WE ADVERTISED AMERICA rated a campaign of terrorism that had its ugly reflex among the farmers and labor unions in every state. In summer the proscribed farmers were compelled to hold Liberty Loan rallies or Red Cross meetings out in the fields under the blazing sun, and in winter they huddled in cowsheds and car-barns. Parades were stopped by Home Guards or broken up by townsmen. Old men and women were dragged from automobiles, and on one wretched occasion a baby of six months was torn from its mother's arms by the powerful stream from a fire-hose. Tar-and-feather "parties" were common, and even deportations took place, men being driven from their homes and from the very state because they had sons belonging to the League. There is no doubt as to the political nature of the persecution. The Nonpartisan League had carried the state of North Dakota, and was showing such strength in Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, and Idaho as to arouse the alarm of Democratic and Republican politicians. These leaders made no bones about confessing that the disloyalty issue was the means by which they hoped to crush and destroy the Nonpartisan League as a political organization. Such is the seeming invincibility of the democratic ideal, however, that even campaigns of terrorism could not drive its membership, largely German and Scandinavian, into disloyalty. North Dakota, where the League elected every state officer, had a war record of which any state might be proud. The State Councils of Defense did splendid work, as a rule, and the country owes much to them, but there were exceptions that aroused far more anger than loyalty, conducting themselves in a manner that would have been lawless in any other than a "patriotic" body. During Liberty Loan drives, for instance, it became a habit, in 180