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Show . 75 Lee: .Frenetus-es: ePropeqendist in 1775 : Who, ·does not .know what would happen if an American: army of the present daywere.found-to be destitute even of /:. chocolate' drops? It would not-be three days before: the metro> politan dailies would be voicing loudly. a' nation's wrath, and car-loads of chocolate drops would. be rushed promptly "to every camp. Let us be fair to' the moderns, and not Iabri cate an imaginary golden age in the undeveloped Arliric: "'oJ 1776.11 .;:: .: '. . : : " '. . ", .., ., Propagandists were needed to make p.atriots before there could be heroes to wage a successful ar .. "Even under such provocation as the Stamp Act," says 'Philip Davidson, "sponta neous action is incredible; some there had to be who, sensing the popular but unexpressed opposition," first made articulate the popular attitudes and provided the machinery through which they could express themselves in concrete .action."12 The written word is but one of the many vehicles ofpropaqanda effective in wartime, and its appeal is limited to the few who can and do take the trouble to read; but there is an authority in the printed word that is not carried in the sermon or the song. It is one of the most powerful weapons when men are trying, to use reason as, well as emotion, and in Revolutionary times appeals were made to both reason and emotion. .. . . Into print went the stirring words of such, expert propa .... gandists as Samuel Adams, who from 1748 on was con stantly writing for the press under a variety of pseudonyms. And there was John Adams, not so clever as his cousin, but sig nificant. There were Josiah QUincy, Joseph Warren, James Otis, John Dickinson, Arthur and William Lee, William Henry, Dray ton, John Trumbull, Francis Hopkinson, .and Benjamin Franklin. There was Tom Paine with his beautiful, passionate, iri'endiarY prose. And there was Philip Freneau. In' 1775 Freneau, emerging from obscurity, wrote "Th New . .... . Liberty Pole," in which he defended the "honored tree" that had he'e:ri erected for the second time in New York. (The first had been chopped down 'one' dark niqht by a gang of. British sympa-. thizers.] This is' a poem 'of admonition: it attempts to prevent further trouble. Let them beware, 'says Freneau, who would'. aten,1pt a 'second 'tihlJ.fto work th :o.9m of Libry.1a .But 'th': its jt1;stif,ir. poem lS not satire.' As' propaganda' fe: . . is:'}fnificant; ,Jr uPp. 67. i'l2Philip Davidson;' Propaganda and the Amet-i1'can Revolution;' Intro., xvi. '. ,13The: Liberty. Tree or .Pole was a symbelic representation of: the pr'OpaJ) qandist's appeal.. Effigies and :Liberty P.9k::>aC;:9w.p.anid dm.onstcitiQ.tJ:s'a¥Si Davidson (p .. 1,84}: ",1B ·effigies. sYJ:IlJ?Bli,:<;e,d oppe.ssO, ;.pr &VrY.;, peb!:+ freedom: and one was s common as We '?Fhe, ,f9J most !rITI9.nstr:\t8-9s g,e.?Wri :. r=.» ,,. 01' i ended at the } n."""· :{,l.!". ":'. lliberty Tree." . . • : .... ." ' .' '. .. .. .. . . . ». ., ," ",. ..",' ".' ' |
