Along with this voluntary and spontaneous unification of the group mind, came repression and coercion directed to forcing into agreement any unabsorbed minority groups. The Committee on Public Information was founded in September, 1917, to exert propaganda through the sources of public information, to send out favorable news and opinion, and even through censorship to suppress material considered dangerous to the general cause. The censorship exercised by the military forces on war bulletins, war correspondents and the personal letters of soldiers, was applied less strictly to the general population. The secret service, greatly expanded to cope with German spies, began hunting out strikers, radicals or any others who—in the minds of the detectives or of any other government officials—might possibly obstruct the war efforts. Emergency acts gave the President unusual power in these and other directions. This use of force was characteristic, not only of the government, but of local groups as well. In one place a German sympathizer (real or supposed) might be made to kiss the flag; in another a strike leader might be lynched. In Milwaukee, where public opinion was sensitive on account of the large number of German-Americans, a quota of Liberty Bonds was assigned arbitrarily to every person, and he was practically forced to purchase them, irrespective of his ability to do so, by threats of ostracism, by influence of his creditors, by every sort of social pressure,—in order that Milwaukee might rank as a real American community and go “over the top” in every “drive.” The military language applied to these campaigns was matched by a growing technique of organization. Professional propagandists perfected a method of meetings, songs, card-catalogs, and quotas, by which any cause might be assured of huge sums of money. The greater propaganda of our government and foreign governments was matched by the little propaganda of every subgroup, as long as this was not in conflict with the general purpose. A striking illustration of this is in the successful drives of the various war-work agencies, the Red Cross, American Library Association, Young Men’s Christian Association, Jewish Welfare Board, Knights of Columbus, and the rest; and especially in their enormous joint campaign just after the signing of the armistice. Every American felt that this joint campaign, first, would help the soldiers and the common cause; and second, indicated by its inclusiveness the complete unification of America. Along with this general unification came the similar process in many of the immigrant groups themselves. Professor Miller[68] tells how this was reflected in the Czecho-Slovak group in America, so that bitter atheists united with Catholic priests on joint committees for national freedom in their old home in Europe. 2.