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Show Pamphleteering Enlivens GO's Political Campaign Political Action Committee Making Wide Use of Literature in Drive to Get Voters to Polls November 7. By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WNC Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. One thing which stands out in the not-too-breath taking electioneering which is just drawing to a close, is the highly modernized revival of an ancient art of persuasion, called by its instigators, "streamlined" pamphleteering. pam-phleteering. You have undoubtedly -seen or heard of some of the little booklets which the CIO political action committee com-mittee and its foster brother, the national political action committee, have produced. Recently I received from the director di-rector of publications, CIO political action committee, eight of its eyecatching eye-catching pamphlets, which I was informed in-formed were being distributed at the rate f 1,500,000 daily in October. Most of them are illustrated in color. They look, as a commercial artist friend who examined them said, "professional." They not only look that way but they are. The CIO has recruited some of the best talent in the country for its research, copy and art staffs. Pamphleteering has been an important im-portant function since even before Samuel Johnson edited the Harleian Miscellany in the middle of the 18th century. But this day and age calls for more than a literary style. It takes punch. The CIO's have provided pro-vided it. No. 3 In the "every worker a voter" series, entitled "What Every Canvasser Should Know" was on top f the pile I received. It is rowdily illustrated with pictures that have Just enough of a suggestive perk to catch your attention. The sub-heads match. "Canvassing "Canvass-ing is like Love" is blurted at you above a picture of a chap on a sofa with a girl on his lap. He is saying: "How about some political action?" Then follows a couple of paragraphs f brass tacks, common sense on the value of person-to-person selling. And from there on a simple, straightforward "how to do it" talk on getting the vote out, and a lot of sales arguments on continued action as long as "labor has enemies . . . as long as there are those who crush unions ... as long as there are small farmers being pushed off the land ..." etc. Three of the other pamphlets are Illustrated by Bernard Bryson, a top-notch, top-notch, grotesque comic artist who is on the CIO staff. These three books, all filled with technical information in the simplest of language, are thus diversely titled: "Speakers Manual"; Manu-al"; "A Woman's Guide to Political Action" and "Radio Handbook." Attractive Pictures Underscore Points The pictures are so funny you can't help looking at them and yet they all manage to underscore a point. One sent a shiver down my back. It showed a strange misshapen mis-shapen radio listener, with a face that looked like a cross between a bartlett pear and a hedgehog, yawning yawn-ing menacingly into one hand while the other dialed off the loud speaker. Not only did that book tell how to broadcast most effectively but it also told what was the best time on the air and how t get the use of it, to whom to go, and seventeen other bits of information from "can labor get radio time?" to "what assistance can you expect from us (CIO) in preparing your program?" With ten years of radio experience say tha book is good. And no wonder. Norman Corwin (also on the CIO staff) wrote it. I might go on indefinitely. There Is the red-white-and-blue "People's Program for 1944" with striking photographs pho-tographs and more cartoons: there is another of the "every worker a voter" series on how to organize you? community. Two more in plain black and white, pretty much "straight" copy, Jut good, clear photographs, one entitled "The Negro in 1944" and a smaller one with a lovely rural scene framed by a picket-fos and tree-branches, tree-branches, "This is Your America." The pamphlet on Negroes shows photographs of Negroes in various capacities: workers, mtdical students, stu-dents, soldiers and sailors, one at some dinner sitting beside President Presi-dent Roosevelt, another in a group around a conference tabl with other oth-er Negroes and whites. The "American" booklet has a broader appeal. It shows types of all kinds, some distinctly "foreign," some familiar anglo-saxon, farm scenes and factories, railroad yards and skyscrapers. The message is simple, straightforward, clear. When it comes to how you can tell an American few could quarrel with the statements that: "He believes in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from fear and freedom from want for all the people. "He believes in freedom of opportunity oppor-tunity for all men and women. "He believes in the right of people who work to have a job at fair wages. He believes in the right of workers to organize, protect and improve im-prove their conditions. "He believes in education, and the opportunity to study, for all the people. "He believes in the right of every man and woman to vote in free elections. "He believes in majority rule. At the same time he believes in the protection of minorities. "He believes in a government of the people, by the people, and, most important of all, for the people." The rest of the text is chiefly devoted de-voted to getting out the vote. An Appeal for Religious Associates There is one other little booklet printed in very attractive but dignified digni-fied type. No illustrations. It is the only one sent me which bore the signature of the National Citizens Political Action Committee not the CIO. , On its cover is printed the nursery rhyme: This is the church, This is the steeple; Open the door And there are the people. It is an appeal, signed by Dr. Dwight Bradley of New York to become be-come a "Rebgious Associate." There has been at least one sharp attack by a minister against the effort ef-fort of the CIO or its foster-organization to attempt to solicit the support sup-port of the church. None that I have seen is based on any of the texts of the Action Committees' propaganda prop-aganda but rather on the assumption assump-tion of communist leanings on the part of the CIO and presumably the materalistic philosophy behind them, which the CIO heads deny. This pamphlet starts out with the statement that "we present our statement with profound humility but without hesitation. If we understand the mission of religion and of economic eco-nomic organizations labor, farmers, farm-ers, businessmen, they do not clash but supplement each other the one concerned with spiritual protection and development of its members, and the other with economic protection protec-tion and development of its members. mem-bers. These two objectives are interdependent. in-terdependent. And both are clearly dependent on the proper functioning of political democracy." From there on the mood of the childhood rhyme, "this is the church . . ." etc., is carried out to a conclusion con-clusion that the leader in the living church serves "all of the people and not just some of the people" and then states that a group of Religious Associates "has been formed to work with the National Citizens Political Action Committee, which itself was created to protect the interests of the common, man." I do not know how effective the CIO-PCA program has been in getting get-ting out the vote, or in getting the vote to support the organization's candidates. It will be difficult to find out since many other organizations organiza-tions are at work and Many other influences are brought to bear on the choice of a candidate. I note that I. F. Stone, writing in the Nation in the middle of October said that "it will take the greatest outpouring of working-class votes in the history of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and the smaller Ohio Industrial In-dustrial cities to counter-balance the anti-New Deal tide in the countryside country-side to carry Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio for Roosevelt." Stone goes on to say that if these states go for FDR despite the trend to Republicanism, it will mean that the workers in these areas "will have proved as potent in politics as in collective bargaining." |
