---
title: The Man on the Flying Trapeze
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/berryman-man-on-the-flying-trapeze-1935/
description: A man in a circus acrobat's costume labelled 'FRANCE' falls through the air, his top hat tumbling, past several trapeze bars each labelled 'MINISTRY'.
section: Collection
---

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3. The Man on the Flying Trapeze

[![The Man on the Flying Trapeze, 1935 US cartoon: A man in a circus acrobat's costume labelled 'FRANCE' falls through the air](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/berryman-man-on-the-flying-trapeze-1935.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/berryman-man-on-the-flying-trapeze-1935.jpg)

# The Man on the Flying Trapeze

A man in a circus acrobat's costume labelled 'FRANCE' falls through the air, his top hat tumbling, past several trapeze bars each labelled 'MINISTRY'; one bar swings empty and another lies in the foreground below him. The cartoon argues that French governments are succeeding one another so fast that the country has no secure hold; the technique tell is a weak fear-appeal (a falling figure and a missed grip), and the fit is weak.

## Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

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

```
MINISTRY
MINISTRY
MINISTRY
FRANCE
[signature: J.H. Berryman]
```

[← The Supreme Court Returns To Its Permanent Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/berryman-supreme-court-returns-permanent-home-1935/) [14 bills to be passed before adjournment →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/congress-14-bills-before-adjournment-berryman-1935/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)