Spin Doctors of Olde – Persuading America Through the Ages

Andrea
American Literature 1
Farrell
4-28-5
Public Relations Headquarters. Human Affairs Consultant. Media Giant, The Press, Snake-Oil Lawyer, Advertising scandal. It seems in this day and age, the American public is overwhelmed with a sort of paranoia. We are awash with the fear of propaganda. No one likes to be led astray, we Americans like to think we know what is going on…. What’s the real story. And those troublemakers who either are so ignorant they do not know better, or those who enjoy causing a ruckus would have us believe this so-called brainwashing that is going on is a result of “modern times.” They would have us believe that “They” (with a capital “T,” the ever undefined evil powers that be) are doing Their best to control our minds, with their evil ad campaigns, tricky public relations departments and overall delight in hiding The Truth of the Matter. Our departure from Old Fashioned Values is morally corrupting us and eroding at everything that was good and truthful and pure about America, and endangering our precious Freedom.
But these proselytizers are leaving out an important element to the story. Either they are unaware of, or choose to ignore the fact that our ancestors in those glorified Good Old Days have been doing these same things for generations. Using spin and half-truth have been common practices since before our nation was founded. Only the buzzwords are new to this century. Before, it was simply called what it is (and was) - persuasion, or the attempt to convince another to embrace your point of view. From the great John Smith, Frederick Douglass, and Thomas Paine to lesser-known authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Harding Davis and Susanna Rowson authors throughout American history have been using literature as a powerful tool to influence the public mindset.
John Smith was a master of persuasion. His article, A Description of New England (p251-253), describes a veritable utopia, a place where there is abundant wealth, property, and ease of life. In fact, he goes so far as to say “’it seems strange to me, any such [laborer moving to the New World] should there grow poore’ (p 252),” a place where one can fish and
pull up two pence, six pence and twelve pence as fast as you can haule and veare a line….If a man worke but three days in seaven, he may get more then he can spend, unless he will be excessive (p252).

He is embossing one side of the argument (leisure time) and downplaying another (hard work), in order to win enthusiasm for his cause (the New World). (Which is rather odd since most English moving to the New World were Puritans, who valued above all, hard work and austerity…. But, I digress….) Smith most likely knew that Europeans were aching for religious freedom – or more accurately more freedom for THEIR religion. Smith draws from these values, and in the final paragraph, compares the founding of the New World to the Garden of Eden: “Adam and Eve did first beginne this innocent worke, To plant the earth to remaine to posteritie, but not without labor, trouble, and industrie (p253).” These glorified versions of toil are the only allusion to hard work. This is similar, in a way to the con men of the days of the Wild West. He mentions that there will be tough times ahead, just not HOW tough. It’s all in the way you say it.
John Smith’s attempts were apparently not in vain, for Europeans flocked to the new world to get themselves a little slice of heaven. The only problem was that there were already people living on the Europeans’ piece of the pie. And, in most cases, these people understandably fought wildly to keep what had been their home for ages. If the Europeans were going to take any hold in this wild new real estate, they had to stage a counter attack. And they could not lose faith. If the colonists were to falter, their home countries’ claim to a powerful political windfall would be in jeopardy. Therefore it made sense to support these people as best they could.
This was before the scientific age. There were a lot of things these people did not know about, and what was unfamiliar to them, they feared. They were afraid of a lot of things. The New World was one of them. This meant hundreds of pioneers shaking in their boots. Needless to say, they needed a little reassurance. And what better to convince the colonists to than inspiration from a fellow resident in the New World? Enter, Mary Rowlandson. Not only was she living in the wilderness, but the Savages had killed half her family and she was taken prisoner, traveling with these Indians for several months. Surely if a woman could survive these atrocities, a family could survive happily in a house in the center of a settlement. And even Mrs. Rowlandson, who survived the greatest horrors of horrors, ends her nightmare on a happy note, humming her tune in the same key as Mr. Smith;
I remember in the night season, how the other day I was in the midst of thousands of enemies, and nothing but death before me…. But now we are fed with the finest of the Wheat, and as I may say, With honey out of the rock: In stead of the Husk, we have the fatted Calf (p455).

The mindset behind this promotion was; if Ms. Rowlandson could survive such horrors, surely a resident in a home in Boston could manage. And even if one were to find him or herself in the dire situation of Mrs. Rowlandson, surely these courageous peoples would have the religious faith to pull them through. Throughout the story, Mary constantly quotes the Bible, its passages comfort her and allow her to think of this kidnapping as a religious journey and trial, not an unfamiliar strange thing; “For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee – Isaiah 54:7 (p444).”
Mrs. Rowlandson and her supporters were just as guilty of spin as many of our politicians and advertising professionals today. She is presenting the facts (but not all of them) to prove her point, she is using the ancient art of persuasion to try and align people to her cause. Unfortunately, her narrative is not without negative consequences. Her work is laden with racial stereotypes against her captors, the Native Americans. Once again, in order to conquer these native peoples who inhabited the European’s “property,” they had to fight ardently. If Europeans were to commiserate with the natives, they might decide they were being unfair and move elsewhere, or even worse, home. So texts such as the Captivity Narratives were encouraged.
Therein, it almost appears that Mrs. Rowlandson has thought of every negative thing the natives have done to her and recorded them. Examples can be found practically anywhere by flipping to a random page and placing one’s finger upon the words. A selection: (Rowlandson is secretly visiting a sick English boy)
I found him lying there without dores, upon the ground; I asked him how he did? He told me he was very sick of a flux, with eating so much blood: They had turned him out of the Wigwam, and with him and Indian Papoos, almost dead, in a bitter cold day, without fire or clothes…. The sight enough was enough to melt a heart of flint….(p443).”

This implies the savages must have no hearts at all, since even flinted hearts would melt. Throughout the story, these evildoers are constantly not feeding Rowlandson, leaving her cold, and killing helpless victims. It is conveniently glossed over that they are in the middle of King Philip’s War, and these natives are not doing this without cause. Also summarized are the times when they are nice, she is, after all taken in as a member of the tribe, she becomes married to one of the men. She also gets to lie in the wigwam, and receives food in exchange for helping with small tasks, such as sewing a papoose’s shirt or mending socks. They let her ride on a horse when they are traveling, and take care of her baby’s remains so she doesn’t have to deal with its death on top of her sickness.
Upon taking this stance, Rowlandson is doing two things at once. She is immediately infringing the rights of the Native Americans. If they are not people, but savages and animals, then they will have the rights as savages and animals. People who view them as such will be prejudiced against them, and they will most likely treat them differently. Once again, if these natives were to be seen as actual human beings, perhaps the Europeans would sympathize with them, and heaven knows that would be devastating to the progress being made in the New World. This is no better exemplified than when the papoose in the family with whom she has been living dies in the night. All Mary has to say about it was “there was one benefit in it, that there was more room (p444).” What has died is not a small child, but a small animal. And here we have the second consequence of her opinion. At the same time she is taking away the freedom of the Native Americans, she is also taking her own freedom. By never getting to know one’s neighbors, one could miss out on worlds of friendship, knowledge of another culture, and other valuable experiences too numerous to count. Many settlers had great difficulty acclimating to their new surroundings. The Native American’s ancient accumulated knowledge of their country could have been a great asset. She is taking away her freedom to an element of richness her life could have contained.
However, once again, these tactics of Mrs. Rowlandson (and Mr. Smith) proved to be quite successful. Now that they had settlers in America, who for the most part were convinced that Mother Nature should no more be the cause of hysteria, things were going well. So well in fact, that some of the settlers decided that it was about time for this New World to start being its own country. This was a new problem; they had to get the rest of the New World to agree with them. Some people were loyal to the British, some were against war, and some were apathetic. These rebels had to convince the rest of their fellow colonists. They had to persuade them, they had to use spin.
To do so, the revolutionaries centered their arguments upon two main rights that had been the very inspiration for leaving England in the first place. First, the ability to be unrestricted in one’s choice of lifestyle, thought, or actions (Freedom), and to punish those who tried to take away this liberty, those who have wronged the righteous (Justice). Of all the convincing revolutionary writers, Thomas Paine was top notch. Not only did he write in a style accessible to all, he did so in a way that was very persuasive. Most colonists were uneducated. Those who could read were lucky. Writers knew this and tended to show off, using the largest words they could think of, and putting on airs. Not Paine. As he put it, “I dwell not on the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes (p947).” Even today, Americans like to get “the hard facts,” or “the true story.” We do not, in general, like to know we are being deceived, or persuaded, or told tales. When someone “tells it like it is,” immediately there is a bond between the “common reader,” and the writer. Who would care to fight a war over something they did not understand? If he were to have written lengthy text about the iniquity of tariffs, convolutions of legal systems and the ramifications of a manacled society, it would seem unlikely that many would have read it, much less been moved by it. If we take this, added to his flair for the religious element, we have what made a very convincing argument to a colonist of the time:
Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM (emphasis Paine’s) should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but to “bind us in all cases whatsoever,” and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then there is not such a thing as slavery upon the earth (p942).

He makes the situation seem black and white. If one were to side with the Motherland, according to Paine, one might as well shackle themselves to a ball and chain, for they are as good as enslaved for life. But to agree with the revolutionaries, that is a different story. Only then can one truly be free and live in happiness and prosperity. And which of us would voluntarily enslave themselves?
After these points, Paine separates the two sides further, saying “and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes [me] not, let him suffer it unlamented (p947).” Essentially, if you don’t agree with me by now, you are beyond redemption and not worth my pity. By alienating these undecided parties, Mr. Paine cuts off a large category of people who could have eventually sided with him. In trying so hard to create freedom for the rebellious colonists, he backs himself into a corner. If he is to be avid, he must be firm, but if he is so strict he looses his freedom to this audience who could have helped him (and his political allies) win the war more quickly.
Despite this drawback, we all know the outcome of the situation. Eventually, enough people were persuaded (by speeches, written word, or on the battlefield) to see his point of view, and we formed what we now call the United States of America.
Although the twin tenets of Freedom and Justice have been held dear to the American people from the very start, there have been differing opinions as to what exactly they constitute. For some, this has meant that every man, woman, and child should be able to live happily and under their own supervision, free to do as they please. But to some this sentence is slightly modified. To them, freedom is the ability to do as one pleases and to live happily as long as you are white (of European descent), male, and a Christian.
To celebrate this “freedom for all (white Christian males),” they created a day, which we Americans all know as Independence Day. To those who were not seen as real, rational people (read: white women and slaves), this day was seen as a mockery. As Frederick Douglass put it in his historic speech What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he was a constant victim (p1889).” In his speech, he attempts to persuade the American public to become abolitionists.
This is a difficult task, since many slave owners and their sympathizers do not even believe in the personhood of the African American race. As Douglass says “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him (p1888).” This may be true, but who do the slave owners consider to be not brutes but men? They have completely cut themselves off from the freedom that could be offered if those enslaved had the opportunity to reach their fullest potential. The rapid development of technology and literature could have increased its speed tenfold. Not only that they also missed the culture and wisdom amassed by these peoples. Friendships, marriages, children, lives that could have been formed were forever lost because of the closed mindedness of a particular race.
Even after slavery ended, the racism remained. Part of the reason for this was, some of these people were completely oblivious to the fact that they harbored prejudices at all. Herman Melville’s Benito Cereno paints a vivid picture of this situation. Main character Capitan Delano sees himself as having “more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception (p2598).” Yet when he comes across a mutinied ship, despite being slapped across the face with evidence that it had been so overtaken, he cannot see the truth. Racism has so been ingrained upon his mind that he cannot see through it unless conflicting information is explicitly stated (by a white person). He cannot fathom that these men, who he several times refers to as “shepherd’s dogs (p2602),” or for that matter, any black man, could ever be capable of overtaking a ship. This ignorance almost ends up taking away Delano’s ultimate freedom, his life. In this narrative, Melville depicts a powerful argument (for those who allow themselves to see it) against slavery and prejudice. Some of the worst offenders are those who do not realize it. By restricting the freedom of the African American people, the white ruling class also restricted their own. This was a true example of a no-win situation. With the help of Douglass’ works (and those of many others, and that of some laws, and that of some bullets), millions of people regained the freedom that our nation has always promised them.
At the same time (or a few before,) as these great efforts toward freedom for racial groups were taking place, others were doing their best to convince us to restrict freedom for a different segment of society. Namely, women. The first stirrings of the feminist and suffrage movements were starting to take place, and the men in charge did not like it. Modern times were fast approaching, and like the colonists, they were afraid of things they knew nothing about. Therefore, the men (and a lot of the women) did everything in their power to keep things from changing. Perhaps the principle they held closest to their hearts were the roles of men and women in society. Their puritanical ancestors told them than men ruled the show and women cleaned up after it. So it followed that they should rule their lives in the same manner. If they could not keep up with technology, at least they (hoped they) could control their wives. As aforementioned, many still held strong religious beliefs. They used the Bible as an important standing point in their arguments. But does it not say; “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5)?” Obviously they skipped that passage, because they weren’t giving up any power.
Since, besides the argument “But that’s the way we’ve always done it,” the argument of men over women didn’t hold a lot of water, any evidence they could get their hands on was not taken lightly. And if the evidence came from the pen of a woman, all the better. It was then easier to rationalize their view, if women agreed with the men, then those who stood up must be a few inches shy of normal.
The most dangerous group towards their cause was the youth of the nation. Their young, impressionable, moldable minds had to be caught before any damage could be done, before any new ideas could be planted. Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple attempts to persuade the young adults of America not to fall into such a trap, the trap of independent womanhood.
The work begins as such: “For the perusal of the young and thoughtless of the fair sex, this Tale of Truth is designed; and I could wish my fair readers to consider it as not merely the effusion of Fancy, but as a reality (p1327).” This implies that the opinions related therein are the only valid opinions. Readers are going to get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The men in this story are seen as “dissipated, thoughtless, and capricious…[and] paid little regard to moral duties (p1334),” while the women are emotional and dramatic and weak-minded. Rowson even feels compelled to make this warning to her young female readers:
Listen not to the voice of love, unless sanctioned by parental approbation: be assured, it is now past the days of romance: no woman can be run away with contrary to her own inclination: then kneel down each morning, and request kind heaven to keep you free from temptation….[and] pray for fortitude to resist the impulse of inclination when it runs counter to the precepts of religion and virtue (p1331).

According to the passage, a woman’s emotions are so wild that they cannot even realize when they are in love, or just being duped. If they ever were able to choose their emotions, surely they would immediately give in to temptation. This is a very powerful weapon against young girls. The traditionalists of this time certainly did have one thing right; adolescence is a very impressionable age. And certainly many adolescents look up to their parents, and trust them. Perhaps sometimes they challenge their higher-ups, but if their peers are mirroring the same opinions, they are likely to subscribe to the idea. Charlotte Temple is definitely in their age group, and the hope was that they would be so mortified at what happens to her after all her rebellious actions (she dies), that they would never dream of copying it. Thus staying nicely in their subordinate place. Once again, a group has had its freedoms taken away, in some cases consciously, by its own members. These women were not free to make essentially any decisions about their lives, or to gain any sort of education. If one were not married by the age of 30, one was either a whore, or bound to die alone, an old maid, dependent on family to provide the essentials of living. In a way, the men had their freedoms taken away too. If a man didn’t like to work a full time job, that was his problem. He had no other choice, to be a stay-at-home dad would certainly mean ridicule. On the other side of the coin, if a woman wanted to have a career, she could never make it into an institution of higher learning, much less be hired at a job. Because of close-minded ways, once again, the citizens of America restrict their own freedoms, as well as those of others.
Eventually, America let women take better advantage of their constitutional freedoms. And once again, the nation turned around and discovered that another segment was being oppressed. This time it was the poor and the immigrants.
The industrial revolution was just beginning to open up its giant, smoky engines. Although mass production was possible, companies were still trying to get the hang of the operations. There were no laws governing what could and could not be done, and more was certainly produced if workers were forced to toil long hours, so many chairmen saw no reason to improve conditions. And who better to hire for cheap, unsafe labor than the immigrants and the poor, who were desperately seeking employment.
Once again, persuasion played a key role in shaping public opinion. One such example of an attempt to reform the living and safety standards of the lower class was Rebecca Harding Davis’ Life in the Iron Mills. She depicts a miserable scene, a town in which even the pet canaries are sooty, and the factories draw comparison to Dante’s Inferno. The workers there have lost the greatest freedom, that of the soul. When Wolfe says of his sculpture “she be hungry (p2773),” he is not speaking of physical necessity, but emotional. By working day in and day out, taxing their bodies to the utmost, eating little but rancid potatoes, and sleeping hours you could count on your hand, and having nothing to hope for, no chance of ever having enough to escape, the elite businessmen have taken the very cores of the working poor to further themselves and their interests. Davis’ picture of the working conditions is bleak, but her picture of the upper class is bleaker. One by one their reactions damn them, and it is not the workers that “bid fair to try the reality of Dante’s vision, some day (p 2771),” but the businessmen themselves.
Her final paragraph, in which she describes Wolfe’s statue at nightfall, is a final petition to help restore these people’s freedom:
A cool, gray light suddenly touches its head like a blessing hand, and its groping arm points through the broken cloud to the far East, where, in the flickering, nebulous crimson, God has set the promise of the Dawn (p2788).

Although the iron mill is perhaps as close to Hell as one might get while on earth, it doesn’t have to be a permanent fixture. There is a faint light of hope for these people, they cannot go on living as they have been, things either have to end or get better. This is Davis’ call to action, her persuasive argument – if you do nothing you are no better than those businessmen.
From the very beginning, Americans have used persuasion, spin and propaganda to influence others. People have used it to bring colonists to the country, they have used it to keep us from being afraid of our own homes, they used it as a tool to found our nation, debunk (and uphold) slavery, give women rights (and enslave them), improve the lifestyle of the poor, the list goes on and on. As long as there is an America, and as long as we are free to express our opinions, someone will always be trying to convince another that their ideas are right.
This is our call to duty. It has happened over and over and over again, one segment of society restricts the freedom of another by using persuasive arguments. It could easily happen again. Although our past may have been a nightmare and feared by many, our future need not. We must learn not to take all we hear from the media for granted. We have the gift of retrospect; we never have to repeat history’s mistakes. Look at what you believe in. Critically examine the words you are saying and the facts you are accepting. Are we ALL free to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?