---
title: Confusion and Neglect
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/39-confusion-and-neglect/
description: Confusion and Neglect, from How We Advertised America by George Creel.
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: an interwar radio-and-newsreel intelligence collage with a 1930s map of Europe and propaganda poster proofs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-interwar.jpg)

[Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/) · Book · [How We Advertised America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/)

# Confusion and Neglect

This text

- **Work:** [How We Advertised America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/)
- **Author:** George Creel
- **Published:** 1920

Full details

- **Rights:** Published in the United States in 1920, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Creel died in 1953, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years.

Chapters

1. [Dedicatory](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/01-dedicatory/)
2. [Foreword](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/02-foreword/)
3. Part I: The Domestic Section
4. [The “Second Lines”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/03-the-second-lines/)
5. [The “Censorship” Bugbear](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/04-the-censorship-bugbear/)
6. [The “Fourth of July Fake”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/05-the-fourth-of-july-fake/)
7. [The Committee’s “Aircraft Lies”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/06-the-committee-s-aircraft-lies/)
8. [Relations with Congress](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/07-relations-with-congress/)
9. [The Division of News](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/08-the-division-of-news/)
10. [The Four Minute Men](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/09-the-four-minute-men/)
11. [The Fight for the Mind of Mankind](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/10-the-fight-for-the-mind-of-mankind/)
12. [The Battle of the Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/11-the-battle-of-the-films/)
13. [The “Battle of the Fences”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/12-the-battle-of-the-fences/)
14. [The War Expositions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/13-the-war-expositions/)
15. [The Speaking Division](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/14-the-speaking-division/)
16. [The Advertising Division](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/15-the-advertising-division/)
17. [The “Americanizers”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/16-the-americanizers/)
18. [Work among the Foreign-Born](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/17-work-among-the-foreign-born/)
19. [A Wonderful Fourth of July](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/18-a-wonderful-fourth-of-july/)
20. [The “Official Bulletin”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/19-the-official-bulletin/)
21. [Division of Women’s War-Work](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/20-division-of-women-s-war-work/)
22. [Other Divisions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/21-other-divisions/)
23. [Showing America to the Foreign Press](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/22-showing-america-to-the-foreign-press/)
24. Part II: The Foreign Section
25. [The Fight in Foreign Countries](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/23-the-fight-in-foreign-countries/)
26. [America’s World News Service](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/24-america-s-world-news-service/)
27. [The Foreign Mail Service](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/25-the-foreign-mail-service/)
28. [Fighting with Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/26-fighting-with-films/)
29. [Breaking through the Enemy Censorship](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/27-breaking-through-the-enemy-censorship/)
30. [France, England, and Italy](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/28-france-england-and-italy/)
31. [The Work in Mexico](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/29-the-work-in-mexico/)
32. [The Work in Switzerland](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/30-the-work-in-switzerland/)
33. [The Work in Holland](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/31-the-work-in-holland/)
34. [The Work in Spain](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/32-the-work-in-spain/)
35. [The Work in Scandinavia](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/33-the-work-in-scandinavia/)
36. [The Work in the Orient](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/34-the-work-in-the-orient/)
37. [The Work in South America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/35-the-work-in-south-america/)
38. [The Russian Campaign](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/36-the-russian-campaign/)
39. Part III: Demobilization
40. [After the Armistice](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/37-after-the-armistice/)
41. [“Americanizing” Mittel Europa](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/38-americanizing-mittel-europa/)
42. [Confusion and Neglect](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/39-confusion-and-neglect/)
43. Appendix
44. [The American Newspaper Publishers’ Association](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/40-the-american-newspaper-publishers-association/)
45. [“Savagery” vs. Sanity](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/41-savagery-vs-sanity/)
46. [Publications of the Committee on Public Information in the United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/42-publications-of-the-committee-on-public-informat/)

[← “Americanizing” Mittel Europa](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/38-americanizing-mittel-europa/) [The American Newspaper Publishers’ Association →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/40-the-american-newspaper-publishers-association/)

**Content note:** Quotes wartime anti-German language, including "Hun", and period terms for racial and national groups. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

IT is doubtful if in all the annals of business, public and private, there is record of anything more utterly uncomprehensible than the action of Congress in destroying the Committee on Public Information in the very midst of its orderly liquidation. On June 30, 1919, every dollar of our appropriation, every dollar of our earnings, was swept back into the Treasury, and the Committee itself wiped out of existence, leaving no one with authority to sign a check, transfer a bank balance, employ a clerk, rent a building, or with any power whatsoever to proceed with the business of settlement. The action was so utterly mad that it could not have been anticipated, and yet had we been able to see into the future there was nothing that we could have done about it.

When I returned to the United States in March, accompanied by Mr. Sisson and Mr. Byoir, it was to find that Mr. O'Higgins, the associate chairman left in charge, had carried out the demobilization orders successfully, and that each of the domestic divisions had either ended its audit or else was completing it. The work of settlement in the Washington office was proceeding slowly, owing to the resignations of purely clerical employees, but as this was a matter that concerned the business management only, I gave release to all executives upon the turning in of their accounts. I discharged myself on April 1st, but as a private citizen continued to assume full responsibility for the settlement, journeying to Washington week after week at my own expense, directing the liquidation personally. It seemed at the time, as indeed it was, a very simple proposition of checking up, paying bills, collecting moneys due, and handing balances over to the Treasury. Mr. Sisson, Mr. Byoir, and Mr. Lee lived in New York and were at all times available for reference, and all other division heads stood ready to answer any call.

The question of adequate clerical help became more and more a problem, however. The report spread that Congress was planning to "put the Committee out of business" entirely on June 30th, and while I protested that an auditing force would be retained, I could not give any definite pledge. As a consequence, the business office personnel dwindled daily as men and women accepted permanent positions elsewhere. All through May and June we pleaded with Congress for a small appropriation that would permit the Committee to wind up its affairs. The Paris and New York offices were not to be closed until June 15th; there were many foreign commissioners yet to report; and in various banks reposed large balances waiting for audit and acceptance. Nor was it the case that the Committee begged with empty hands. We had already turned more than two million dollars into the Treasury, and yet we still had sufficient funds on hand to settle every bill and meet every liquidation expense. What we asked, in effect, was the right to use a small portion of our own earnings for proper purposes of settlement. At the last moment Congress refused flatly, and on June 30th the Committee on Public Information ceased to be.

Acting entirely without authority, I persuaded E. H. Hobbs, an accountant, and Miss Gertrude Gocheler to stay on in charge of the books, and hired a night-watchman at my own risk. Then began a dreary round of the various departments in search of some one willing and able to take over the Committee's liquidation. Under the Overman Act the President had the power to assign this duty, but the trouble was that no department in Washington had money enough even for its own purposes and all strenuously resisted the effort to foist a new expense upon them. Once the President went so far as to sign an executive order turning the Committee's affairs over to the Treasury Department, but Secretary Glass entered such vigorous protest that the order had to be withdrawn.

Of the Committee's three buildings, only one was being retained, and on June 30th notice of dispossession was given by the owners. Army trucks were borrowed, and the accumulated records of two years were packed and sent down to the old Fuel Administration building, where several small rooms were assigned to us. The whole proceeding was a nightmare. I had full responsibility without the slightest shadow of authority. Only Mr. Hobbs and Miss Gocheler were on hand to superintend the moving, and the forced nature of our departure, together with the absence of clerks familiar with the records, made confusion unavoidable. Files and books and papers were piled miscellaneously by the truck men and the one effort for weeks was to straighten out the tangle. Additional auditors could not be employed, and as Hobbs himself was under a heavy bond, the situation commenced to get on his nerves.

There was no secret as to my plight, but the correspondents, in the story sent out, seemed to regard it as a joke more than anything else and were of the opinion that "Congress had the laugh on Creel." Not until August 21st did the mangled remains of the Committee find a resting-place. On this day the President signed an order that constituted the Council of National Defense our liquidating agency. As a consequence, the books and papers of the Committee were dumped into trucks for the second time and moved to the Council's own building. Whatever resemblance of orderly arrangement remained was entirely smashed by this last transfer.

I went immediately to Secretary Baker, head of the Council, and to Mr. Clarkson, its director, and put myself, every executive, and every division head at their disposal. Particularly did I urge the employment of a competent accounting force in order that there might be speedy untanglement of the surface confusion caused by two months of inaction and the cartage of the Committee's records from place to place. As carefully as might be, I explained to the new force the nature of all unfinished business, and asked to be kept in constant touch with the liquidation. I heard nothing for weeks and on various occasions thereafter I went to Washington in an attempt to find out the causes of delay. I was so absolutely at the mercy of the Council, however, that I could not run the risk of arousing irritation by complaint or what might be conceived to be undue insistence. The records were mine and the responsibility was mine, but I was utterly without power or authority in the settlement.

On October 30th, out of a clear sky, The New York World printed a long despatch from its Washington correspondent purporting to recite the contents of a report filed with Congress by the Council of National Defense. The positive statement was made that this report charged me with "gross neglect," and there were equally positive statements that the Committee had cost $6,600,000, that all of the executives of the Committee had deserted on the very day of the armistice, that checks and important papers littered the floors, and that it was virtually an impossibility to find out where the money had gone because of the utter confusion of my accounts. This story was copied almost word for word by the other New York dailies on the following morning, and the Associated Press made haste to distribute it from coast to coast. Not one single paper or press association made the slightest effort to see me before printing the story in order to ascertain its truth or to permit me defense or explanation. Before the whole country I and my associates were held up to public shame as incompetents who had spent "a few delightful months wallowing in public money and then went away and left the whole mess to be cleaned up by others." Many papers were not content with printing these glaring charges, but followed the story up with editorial comment containing speculation as to how much money had "stuck to my fingers."

I made instant answer, portions of which were printed by the more decent dailies, and then proceeded to Washington at once. Upon arrival I learned that the Council of National Defense had filed no report with Congress and that it had made no charges of "gross neglect" against me, or charges of any kind whatsoever. What had happened was this: The Council had been compelled to ask an auditing appropriation, and Senator Warren, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, had requested the Council to file a memorandum setting forth the uses to which the money would be put. This memorandum, in the form of a letter to Senator Warren, merely detailed the confusion of the Committee's records as the Council found them. Some member of the Committee, more concerned with newspaper favor than with his sense of honor, sneaked this letter out secretly to the correspondent of The New York World.

I read the letter to Warren over very carefully, and while it was true that no charges of any kind were made against me, it was equally true that the letter was an invitation to misconstruction in many important particulars. For instance, the statement that checks and important papers were "on the floor" might well have been accompanied by the explanation that they were because Congress itself had dumped them there. It would have been more generous and much more true had the Council pointed out the dispossession of the Committee on July 20th, the forced dismissal of the working force, our forced removal to the old Fuel Administration building, and the second removal to the building of the Council of National Defense, the last under the supervision of the Council's own employees.

There was also a statement that the Committee had issued expense allowances "far in excess of the $1,000 maximum limit fixed by Congress." I pointed out that these expenditures were from the President's fund, to which the Congressional limitation did not apply. As a matter of course, when men were sent to Russia, to China, and to other far places, it was absolutely necessary that they be given a lump sum for disbursement, although vouchers were required showing the expenditure of every dollar. The auditor confessed that he had not been aware of this ruling with respect to the President's fund and admitted the mistake.

The statement to which I took most bitter exception, Jiowever, was this:

It appears that immediately after the signing of the armistice practically all of the officials of the Committee on Public Information threw up their jobs and returned to private life, leaving but a few of the minor officials in charge of the affairs of the Committee.

The auditor's answer was that he thought that he was quoting me. What I had told him, however, was that the purely clerical employees of the Committee began accepting other positions as soon as the armistice was signed and when they saw that the Committee offered no hope of permanent employment. As I pointed out to him, he had the books before him that proved conclusively that no executive left until April 1st and that he knew by my own assurance, and by their own offers, that every man of them had been and was at his disposal.

There was no disagreement on the statement of facts, but when I asked that these corrections should be embodied in an open letter there was instant demur. "They" knew and "they" understood and "they" regretted, and the "best thing to do" was to consider the incident closed. Any attempt at correction would only result in new publicity, and owing to the malicious attitude of many of the papers the situation might be made worse instead of better. Also was it not the case that I "exaggerated" the importance of the happening? While it was true that I and my associates, after two years of thankless drudgery, were being shamed as incompetents, deserters, and thieves, this was merely "part of the political game," and I should not "permit it to worry me."

What was there to do but wait for the vindication of results! The Council agreed to push the work at top speed and also acquiesced in my demand that no bill of any kind whatsoever should be paid without reference to me and to the proper division head. It was admitted that the domestic accounts were in very good shape and that the chief trouble was with respect to the foreign work, particularly the wireless and cable service that continued until June 15th, just two weeks before Congress wiped the Committee out of existence. Mr. Rogers and Mr. Bullard were in Washington and came down to give further aid in the foreign accounts. Mr. C. D. Lee, the Committee's business manager throughout its existence, also left his affairs in New York for a Washington stay, and Mr. Sisson and Mr. Byoir were constantly in conference with me in the matter of accounts. The records were straightened out eventually, and as I had known from the first, the seeming confusion was found to be nothing more than the displacements of moving. Every dollar was found to have its proper voucher, and in addition, care and competence stood proved in the expenditure of every single cent.

[← “Americanizing” Mittel Europa](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/38-americanizing-mittel-europa/) [The American Newspaper Publishers’ Association →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/40-the-american-newspaper-publishers-association/)

How We Advertised America, George Creel. Published in the United States in 1920, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Creel died in 1953, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/).