Persuasive Posters

A poster outside an enlistment office in Newark, N. J. had to be taken down last week. Reason: It was too effective. Its screaming eagle and covey of zooming pursuit planes made every recruit want to join the Air Corps. To lean, soft-spoken Major Thomas B. Woodburn, this was cause for quiet satisfaction. With the U. S. Army upped to 227,000 men by Presidential proclamation, it is Tom Woodburn's job to boom recruiting. He paints posters to that end, rejoiced to hear that his latest was so attractive.

A busy man these days is Major Woodburn: besides his persuasive posters, his recruiting publicity bureau on Governor's Island, off Manhattan's southern tip, turns out recruiting sales talks for radio programs. These tweak a prospect's ear with You're in the Army Now and The Stars and Stripes Forever, catch him by the nose with slogans like "Join the Air Corps and earn while you learn." One record starts with a guitar-plunked Hawaiian melody that compellingly conjures up dreams of grass skirts and whispering palms, ends with sign-on-the-dotted-line insistence: "See the glamorous tropics, the Orient. . . . This is a wonderful opportunity for you to travel to these faraway interesting places with Uncle Sam."

A Texan who had studied art and architecture, Tom Woodburn was commissioned in the Infantry a month after the U. S. entered World War I. He hopes it will never have to enter World War II. Wife Margaret and Daughters Betty, 17, and Peggy, 6, are also artists. Two years ago Betty posed as a streamlined Miss Columbia for one of her father's posters. When his superiors discovered Tom Woodburn's talent, they added painting to his other duties as Chief of the Recruiting Publicity Bureau. What he says of his own Army experience is a tag he might well use in recruiting: "They soon find out what you're suited for."

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