Once we know these devices well enough to spot examples of their use, we have taken a great and long step towards freeing our minds from control by propagandists. It is not the only step necessary, but it is certainly the most important.

Once we know that a speaker or writer is using one of these propaganda devices in an attempt to convince us of an idea, we can separate the device from the idea and see what the idea amounts to on its own merits. The idea may be good or bad when judged in the light of available evidence and in terms of our own experience and interests. But a knowledge of these seven devices permits us to investigate the idea. It keeps us from having our thought processes blocked by a trick. It keeps us from being fooled.

In testing each statement of a propagandist, then, we merely have to ask ourselves: When stripped of tricks, what is he trying to sell us? Is it something we want?

NAME CALLING Name Calling-Giving an idea a bad label is used to make us reject and condemn the idea without examining the evidence.

Bad names have played a tremendously powerful role in the history of the world and in our own individual development. They have ruined reputations, stirred men and women to outstanding accomplishments, sent others to prison cells, and made men mad enough to enter battle and slaughter their fellowmen. They have been and are applied to other people, groups, gangs, tribes, colleges, political parties, neighborhoods, states, sections of the country, nations, and races.

The world has resounded with cries of "Heretic," "Hun," "Red," "Yankee," "Reb," "Democrat," "Republican," "Revolutionary," "Nazi," etc., and their equivalents in all languages. Our personal lives have echoed with such words as "sissy," "moron," "bully," "tramp," "wayward," "unscientific," "unprogressive," "inhuman," "grasping," "easy-going," and "backward."

Individuals and groups can be found who bear any one of these labels proudly. Other individuals and groups can just as easily be found who regard any one of these labels as the worst epithet to shout at an enemy.

Practically all primitive tribes call themselves by names that mean "the people" or "the real people." All outsiders they call "foreigners," "earth-eaters," "cannibals," "ill-speakers," or some other term they regard as disreputable. The Welsh, for example, called themselves the Cymry, but our present term for the Welsh derives from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "foreigners" or "jabberers."

One of the most treacherous things about Name Calling is that bad names, like Glittering Generalities, are omnibus words. They are words that mean different things and have different emotional overtones for different people. When we spot an example of Name Calling, we must ask ourselves these questions: What does the name mean? Does the idea in question-the proposal of the propagandist-have a legitimate connection with the real meaning of the name? Is an idea that serves my best interests and the best interests of society, as I see them, being dismissed through giving it a name I don't like? In other words, leaving the name out of consideration, what are the merits of the idea itself?

We must constantly remind ourselves of the danger of omnibus-word reactions. Such reactions, rather than detailed appraisals of a philosophy and its ideals, are what we commonly encounter.

GLITTERING GENERALITY Glittering Generality-associating something with a "virtue word"-is used to make us accept and approve the thing without examining the evidence.

We believe in, fight for, live by "virtue words" about which we have deep-set ideas. Such words are "civilization," "Christianity," "good," "proper," "right," "democracy," "patriotism," "motherhood," "fatherhood," "science," "medicine," "health," and "love."

For our purposes in propaganda analysis, we call these "virtue words" Glittering Generalities in order to focus attention upon this dangerous characteristic that they have: They mean different things to different people; they can be used in different ways.

This is not a criticism of these words as we understand them. Quite the contrary. It is a criticism of the uses to which propagandists put the cherished words end beliefs of unsuspecting people.

When someone talks to us about "democracy," we immediately think of our own definite ideas about democracy, the ideas we learned at home, at school, and in church. Our first and natural reaction is to assume that the speaker is using the word in our sense, that he believes as we do on this important subject. This lowers our "sales resistance" and makes us far less suspicious than we ought to be when the speaker begins telling us the things "the United States must do to preserve democracy." If we have permitted our "sales resistance" to be lowered by the use of "democracy" as a Glittering Generality rather than as a carefully defined term, we may soon find ourselves being "sold" such an anti-democratic notion as a "Corporate State" under a "democratic" disguise, one of Father Coughlin's tricks.

The Glittering Generality is, in short, Name Calling in reverse. While Name Calling seeks to make us form a judgment to reject and condemn without examining the evidence, the Glittering Generality device seeks to make us approve and accept without examining the evidence. In acquainting ourselves with the Glittering Generality Device, therefore, all that has been said regarding Name Calling must be kept in mind, and especially should we remember what has been said about omnibus words.

Propagandists are most effective in the use of both of these devices when their words can make us create devils to fight or gods to adore. By their use of "bad words," we may be led to personify as a "devil" some nation, race; group, individual, policy, practice, or ideal; we may be made fighting mad to destroy it. By their use of "good words," we may be led to personify as a godlike idol some nation, race, group, or the like. Before we are led to any such position, we should know what the propagandist is trying to do with us. If we are to be led, we should be led with our eyes open, not blindly.

In analyzing a Glittering Generality, we must ask ourselves such questions as these and suspend judgment until we have answered them: What does the "virtue word" really mean? Does the idea in question-the proposal of the propagandist-have a legitimate connection with the real meaning of the name ? Is an idea that does not serve my best interests and the best interests of society, as I see them, being "sold" to me merely through its being given a name that I like? In other words, leaving the "virtue word" out of consideration, what are the merits of the idea itself?

TRANSFER Transfer carries the authority, sanction, and prestige of something respected and revered over to something else in order to make the latter acceptable.

In the application of the Transfer Device, symbols are constantly used. With the Cross, the propagandist lends the sanctity of the Christian religion to his program. The flag, standing for the nation and for patriotism, performs a similar service. Cartoonists make "Uncle Sam" portray an aged consensus of public opinion. These symbols stir emotions. At their very sight, with the speed of light, is aroused the whole complex of feelings we have with respect to church or nation.

Propagandists seldom permit a Transfer to depend upon one symbol. Music, pageantry, uniforms, ritual, scenery-all are studied and utilized when appropriate.

How can we analyze the Transfer Device, now that we know how to spot it? How can we distinguish its legitimate from its illegitimate-its fair from its unfair-application? We must teach ourselves to suspend judgment until we have answered these questions:

What is the proposal of the propagandist, stated as simply and concretely as possible? What is the meaning of the thing from which the propagandist is seeking to Transfer authority, sanction, and prestige? Is there any legitimate connection between the proposal of the propagandist and the respected and revered thing, person, or institution? In other words, leaving the propagandistic trick out of the picture, what are the merits of the propagandist's proposal viewed alone?

"A lie," wrote Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf (My Struggle), "is believed because of the unconditional and insolent inflexibility with which it is propagated and because it takes advantage of the sentimental and extreme sympathies of the masses. ... There fore, something always is retained even from the most impudent of lies." And lies, we must remember, take a vast number of forms, the chief seven of which are the unfair applications of our seven Propaganda Devices.

TESTIMONIAL Testimonial consists in having some respected or hated person say that a given idea or program or product or person is good or bad.

"The Times said ... ," "John L. Lewis said ... ," "Herbert Hoover said ... ," "The President said ...," "My doctor said ... ," or "Our minister said ... ." Some of these Testimonials may merely give greater emphasis to a legitimate and accurate idea, a fair use of the device others, however, may represent the sugar-coating of a distortion, a falsehood, a misunderstood notion, an anti-social suggestion. The rest of such sentences may, of course, have given the impression that "So-and-so, a bad man, advocates such-and-such an idea, and therefore the idea is bad," or that "So-and-so, a good man, advocates such-and-such an idea, and therefore the idea is good."

In short, Testimonial is the fourth device used by skillful and dangerous propagandists to convince us of an idea before we become critical and examine the evidence in the case. It is also the fourth device-in our list of seven-used by fair propagandists to interest us in a useful idea so that we will examine the evidence and may eventually accept the proposal.

To beat bad propagandists at their game or to prove to ourselves that the propagandas we like are really as good as they sound to us, we will all do well to ask ourselves the following questions regarding each Testimonial we hear: Who or what is quoted in the Testimonial? Why should we regard this person (or organization or publication or whatnot) as having expert knowledge or trustworthy information or reliable opinion on the subject in question? Above all, what does the idea amount to on its own merits, without the benefit of the Testimonial? There are three ways in which the Testimonial Device may be utilized unfairly. These three ways are:

1. The use of untrustworthy sources.
2. The distortion of facts or opinions contained in and attributed to trustworthy sources.
3. The alleged quotation of facts or opinions from a reputable source that do not come from that source.

PLAIN FOLKS Plain Folks is the method by which a speaker attempts to convince his audience that he and his ideas are good because they are "of the the people," the "plain folks."

Politicians, labor leaders, business men, and even ministers and educators win our confidence by appearing to be people like ourselves-"just plain folks among the neighbors." In election years especially do candidates show their devotion to little children and the common, homey things of life. They have front porch campaigns. For the benefit of newspapermen, they raid the kitchen cupboard and find there some of the good wife's apple pie. They go to country picnics; they attend service at the old frame church; they pitch hay and go fishing; they show their belief in home and mother.

In short, these men would win our votes, business, or other support by showing that they're just as common as the rest of us-"salt of the earth"-and, therefore, wise and good.

Our defense against this device, when used by the undemocratic or the otherwise anti-social, is simply this: We must ask ourselves what the propagandist's ideas are worth when divorced from his personality. In other words: What is he trying to cover up with his Plain Folks manner? What are the facts?

Suspend judgment until we get enough evidence.

CARD STACKING Card Stacking involves the selection and use of facts or falsehoods, illustrations or distractions, and logical or Illogical statements in order to give the best or the worst possible case for an idea, program, person or product.

What might well be called "monopolistic" Card Stacking is a direct violation of America's Cracker Barrel Philosophy. Around our traditional cracker barrels, we expect each of our local spokesmen to present his case-to stack the cards-for a given proposal in the best way that he can. But we also insist that other spokesmen around the same cracker barrel speak right up and stack the cards in favor of their alternative proposals. From these conflicting arrangements and interpretations of evidence, we know that some fairly sensible compromise is likely to come.

The dangers of "monopolistic" Card Stacking, of submitting ourselves to a barrage of evidence presented from but one viewpoint, are what prompted an editorial writer for the New York Times to observe on September 1, 1937: "What is truly vicious is not propaganda but a monopoly of it."

When we are confronted with an effort at Card Stacking, we must remind ourselves to suspend judgment on the propagandist's proposals until we have answered such questions as these: Just what is the propagandist trying to "sell" us? Is this proposal in line with our own best interests and the best interests of society, as we see them? What are the alternative proposals? What is the evidence for and against these alternatives?

BAND WAGON Band Wagon has as its theme, "Everybody-at least all of us-is doing it"; with it, the propagandist attempts to convince us that all members of a group to which we belong are accepting his program and that we must therefore follow our crowd and "jump on the band wagon."

The Band Wagon is a means for making us follow the crowd and accept a propagandist's program as a whole and without examining the evidence for and against it. His theme is: "Everybody's doing it. Why not you?" His techniques range from those of the street-corner medicine show to those of the vast pageant.

The propagandist hires a hall, rents radio stations, fills a great stadium, marches a million or at least a lot of men in a parade. He employs symbols, colors, music, movement, all the dramatic arts. He gets us to write letters, to send telegrams, to contribute to his "cause." He appeals to the desire, common to most of us, to "follow the crowd." Because he wants us to follow the crowd in masses, he directs his appeal to groups held together already by common ties, ties of nationality, religion, race, sex, vocation.

With the aid of all the other Propaganda Devices, all of the artifices of flattery are used to harness the fears and hatreds, prejudices and biases, convictions and ideals common to a group. Thus is emotion made to push and pull us as members of a group onto a Band Wagon.

"Don't throw away your vote. Vote for our candidate. He's winning." Nearly every candidate wins in every election bef ore the votes are in and counted.

What can we do about the Band Wagon? Here are the questions we should certainly ask ourselves and should answer before we succumb to its wiles:

What is this propagandist's program ? What is the evidence for and against his program? Does his program serve or undermine the interests of the group-my group-that he says favors him and his ideas?

No fair use of the Band Wagon Device can suffer from such questioning. And there is never as much of a rush to climb onto the Band Wagon as the propagandist tries to make us think there is.

This search for truth has been vastly stimulated by the spread and preservation of the democratic way of life. Only in a democracy do scientists, artists, technicians, philosophers, and ministers of religious sects have the freedom that permits them to strive for more and more accurate approximations of that eternal earthly goal of man, the truth.

Our seven ABC's of Propaganda Analysis and our seven Propaganda Devices are offered therefore as workable means for aiding Americans to preserve their freedom of choice and with it their other freedoms embodied so largely in the expression, freedom of propaganda: freedom of speech and assembly, of the press, and of religion. In closing, then, let us merely sum up the spirit of our seven ABC's and seven devices in the following statements: