Credo (1953), a citizen's creed for readers in Asia

Credo is an English-language poster in the U.S. Information Agency series for Asia, catalog date 4 February 1953. Eight numbered articles, from faith in God to "the eternal vigilance of the citizen," sit over a silhouetted family and the name Committee for Good Government (NAID 5729934).

What the sheet says

A creed for citizens, printed under a blue sky: the word "Credo" in red with an illuminated initial, and a man, a woman and a child in silhouette, as the archive describes it. Below the heading run eight numbered articles. The reader is asked to profess them in the first person.

I, believing in God, country, brotherhood of men of goodwill and in the processes of democracy, do hereby profess that

[...]

3- Equal justice under law, equally administered and equally enforced for rich and poor alike, for government official and private citizen must be upheld;

4- Government is the servant of the people, not the master, obeying the will of the majority and protecting the minority;

5- It is the duty of every man to serve his country, placing service to country above personal interest, party, friend or kin;

[...]

8- The eternal vigilance of the citizen is the best guarantee of good government.

Committee for Good Government

Who put it out

The maker line is the U.S. Information Agency, with its State Department predecessor program, in the series of posters distributed in Asia. The only signature in the transcription is "Committee for Good Government." Who that committee was, which country the sheet hung in, and how many copies were printed are all missing from the record. FRAME classes the source as "Unidentified," with the note "blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure." The archive's audience field is "Foreign public."

How to read it

FRAME tags the sheet glittering generalities, with the family as plain folks. That is fair for articles one, two and seven, which name large goods and stop there. Articles three, four and eight are something more. Equal justice "for government official and private citizen" alike, a government that is "the servant of the people, not the master," obeying the majority while "protecting the minority," and a citizen who watches the people in office: those are working rules of a constitutional republic, and they read as well in Washington as anywhere in Asia.

Article five asks more. It puts service to country above "personal interest, party, friend or kin." A free reader can accept a duty to the country and still keep the right to decide what serving it means. On that point the credo is silent: it names the duty and not the judge.

The same year, a registration notice signed NAMFREL carried similar civic advice in practical form, with dates and instructions. Both are on the U.S. Information Agency hub, with the wider set in the poster gallery.