Propaganda Glossary

Last year Utopian Economist Stuart Chase, having discovered the 16-year-old science of semantics (the study of meanings), rushed off to write a book, The Tyranny of Words, whose point was in substance that if everybody used the right words, all misunderstandings and muddled thinking would evaporate and many of the world's ills would be cured. Last week Stuart Chase was again discovered playing his word game.

The New York Times's Arthur Krock laid alarmed hands on a little typewritten document by Stuart Chase. It was called Preliminary Suggestions for Standardizing Terminology, or First Aid to the Layman. Mr. Chase had prepared it for SEC's Temporary National Economic (antimonopoly) Committee. Its purpose was to prime Government examiners to use "good" words, avoid "bad" ones--the better to propagandize the New Deal. Excerpts :

"Savings is a 'good' word, tenderly regarded in the folkways. ... If savings are not invested, they become hoardings, or idle money. . . . Investment is a 'good' word. . . . Hoarding is a 'bad' word. . . . Always remember that one context pleases the layman and the other distresses him.

"Debt: The other side of an investment is a debt. Debt is a very bad word in the folkways. Yet few people realize that if there were no debts there would be no investments, and nothing to be called capitalism.* It is important to keep debt and investment closely associated throughout these hearings. Otherwise you are going to get stump speeches on the horrors of Government debt and the sublimities of private investment. It is equally in order to talk about the virtues of Government investment and dangers of private debt.

"Spending is a 'bad' word. Avoid it like a copperhead. Talk about Government running expenses and Government plant. Talk about putting the Government budget on a business basis, rather than about triple budgets or capital budgets. If spending must be discussed, always remember that every dollar spent by the Government is usually a dollar of sales on the books of some business man. Keep spending firmly associated with sales, wages, purchasing power--all good words.

"Economy is a beautiful word. Visions of thrifty Uncle Abner, rolling balls of waste string. Economy, however, means a loss to somebody else--loss of sales or wages. Keep economy and loss firmly associated.

"Use big business--sales of over $2,000,000 a year, or some such figure.

"Use small business--under $2,000,000.

"Capitalism is a fighting word. Avoid it. Also the profit system. Use our economy or our economic system."

SEC's Chief Monopoly Investigator Thomas C. Blaisdell Jr., hastening to deny that it had coached its witnesses to use Mr. Chase's words, referred to the record to show that Monopoly Witnesses Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. and John W. Barriger III had violated Mr. Chase's advice right and left.

The Philadelphia Inquirer cracked: "No recourse to semantics can increase a Government's revenue or improve the status of a man who is broke."

But, the New York Herald Tribune pounced on another Chase definition: "Physical investment--stuff you can kick with your foot: financial investment-stuff you can crumple in your hand," and quoted from the record:

TNEC Examiner Peter R. Nehemkis Jr.: Dr. Hansen ... I take it that you meant by "capital stock" physical plant--something you can kick with your feet?

Dr. Hansen: That is right.

Mr. Nehemkis: As distinguished from a piece of paper, which you crumple in your hand, is that correct?

* Mr. Chase admitted that an investment is not always a debt. One big exception: stock (the entire capital of such big companies as General Motors, General Electric, Montgomery Ward).

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