Page:How We Advertised America (1920).djvu/39

 could not buy, done out of patriotism by men and women whose services no money could have bought.

In no other belligerent nation was there any such degree of centralization as marked our duties. In England and France, for instance, five to ten organizations were intrusted with the tasks that the Committee discharged in the United States. And in one country, in one year, many of the warring nations spent more money than the total expenditure of the Committee on Public Information during the eighteen months of its existence in its varied activities that reached to every community in America and to every corner of the civilized world. From the President's fund we received $5,600,000, and Congress granted us an appropriation of $1,250,000, a total working capital of $6,850,000. From our films, war expositions, and minor sources we earned $2,825,670.23, and at the end were able to return $2,937,447 to the Treasury. Deduct this amount from the original appropriations, and it is seen that the Committee on Public Information cost the taxpayers of the United States just $4,912,553! These figures might well be put in bronze to stand as an enduring monument to the sacrifice and devotion of the one hundred and fifty thousand men and women who were responsible for the results. A world-fight for the verdict of mankind—a fight that was won against terrific odds— and all for less than five millions—less than half what Germany spent in Spain alone!

It is the pride of the Committee, as it should be the pride of America, that every activity was at all times open to the sun. No dollar was ever sent on a furtive errand, no paper subsidized, no official bought. From a thousand sources we were told of the wonders of German propaganda, but our original determinations never altered. Always did we try to find out what the Germans were doing and then we did not do it.