---
title: As duas imprensas (The Two Presses)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/as-duas-imprensas-o-malho-1922/
description: On a Senate rostrum a grey-haired presiding figure raises a giant axe labelled 'Lei de Imprensa' while a woman with Justice's scales stands by and a…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![As duas imprensas (The Two Presses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/as-duas-imprensas-o-malho-1922.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/as-duas-imprensas-o-malho-1922.jpg)

# As duas imprensas (The Two Presses)

On a Senate rostrum a grey-haired presiding figure raises a giant axe labelled 'Lei de Imprensa' while a woman with Justice's scales stands by and a bowed man in a chair marked 'Bom Senso' pleads for the press. At left a grinning figure holding a pen-lance lettered 'Imprensa Amarella' and a scowling companion are drawn as grotesques, while the other press is defended as 'innocent'. The tells are the label 'Imprensa Amarella' (yellow press) attached to caricatured faces and the scales of Justice placed beside the press the cartoon defends.

- **Date:** December 16, 1922
- **Period:** [Interwar](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=interwar)
- **Made by:** O Malho (Rio de Janeiro illustrated weekly); cartoonist J. Carlos
- **Region:** [Latin America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=latin-america)
- **Country:** [Brazil](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=brazil)
- **Medium:** [Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=cartoon)
- **Issuer type:** [Media](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=media)
- **Regime:** [Bernardes Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=bernardes-government)
- **Leader:** [Artur Bernardes](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=artur-bernardes)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Theme:** [Media and information](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=media-information)
- **Event:** [Adolfo Gordo Press Law](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=adolfo-gordo-press-law)
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (from Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira, Fundação Biblioteca Nacional)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:As_duas_imprensas.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (published 1922, before 1931; PD per Wikimedia Commons) J. Carlos, O Malho (Rio de Janeiro) no. 1057, 16 December 1922, via Wikimedia Commons

## Text on the object

Original (Portuguese) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
AS DUAS IMPRENSAS
A proposito da grande discussão no Senado sobre a lei Adolpho Gordo:

[on the axe:] LEI DE IMPRENSA
[on the chair:] BOM SENSO
[on the pen-lance at left:] IMPRENSA AMARELLA

O BOM SENSO — Ellas são duas, senhor. Essa que vos olha altiva e imperturbavel não teme tribunaes; é innocente!

[signature, lower right:] [illegible]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
THE TWO PRESSES
On the subject of the great discussion in the Senate on the Adolpho Gordo law:

[on the axe:] PRESS LAW
[on the chair:] GOOD SENSE
[on the pen-lance at left:] YELLOW PRESS

GOOD SENSE — There are two of them, sir. This one, who looks at you proudly and unperturbed, does not fear the courts; she is innocent!
```

[← Възвание към селския народ в Варненския окръг (Appeal to the peasant people of the Varna district)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/vazvanie-bzns-varna-1922/) [Calaveras: revelación de ultra tumba del espíritu de Francisco Villa (Skulls: Revelation from Beyond the Grave of the Spirit of Francisco Villa) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/calaveras-espiritu-de-villa-vanegas-arroyo-1923/)

## Using the same techniques

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- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)
- [Van Moscouw tot Elba moest ik wyken (From Moscow to Elba I had to give way), Napoleon caricature by Wijnand Esser](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/van-moscouw-tot-elba-napoleon-esser-1814/) (1814 · Name-calling)