---
title: The Best and Safest Investment for Everybody Is Liberty Bonds Paying 4% Interest
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/best-and-safest-investment-liberty-bonds-1918/
description: A line of buyers of every age and class, including a sailor boy and a schoolgirl holding a United States history book.
section: Collection
---

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3. The Best and Safest Investment for Everybody Is Liberty Bonds Paying

[![The Best and Safest Investment for Everybody Is Liberty Bonds Paying 4% Interest, 1918 US poster: A line of buyers of every](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/best-and-safest-investment-liberty-bonds-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/best-and-safest-investment-liberty-bonds-1918.jpg)

# The Best and Safest Investment for Everybody Is Liberty Bonds Paying 4% Interest

A line of buyers of every age and class, including a sailor boy and a schoolgirl holding a United States history book, holds out banknotes to a Liberty figure displaying a placard of the 4% rate. The headline claims the bonds are the best and safest investment for everybody, so the poster sells the loan on universal participation and superlatives rather than on any stated evidence.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Bandwagon](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/bandwagon/) [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/)

## Text on the object

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

```
The Best and Safest Investment
for Everybody is
Liberty Bonds
paying 4% interest

[On the Liberty figure's crown:] LIBERTY
[On the placard:] LIBERTY BONDS PAY 4% INTEREST THE WORLD'S SAFEST INVESTMENT
[On the boy's cap:] U.S. NAVY
[On the girl's book:] UNITED STATES HISTORY
[Artist's monogram, lower right: illegible]
```

The word before '4%' on the placard is partly hidden by the figure's finger; read as 'PAY'. The cap ribbon lettering is small and read as 'U.S. NAVY'.

[← Beat Back the Hun with Liberty Bonds](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beat-back-the-hun-1918/) [Beware of the Wrath of a Patient Man! Keep Your War Saving Pledge →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beware-of-the-wrath-of-a-patient-man-war-saving-stamps-1918/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Consult of the doctors on the grave illness of the Grand Sultan (Consult vande medicijnen inde swaere siekte vanden grooten Sultaen)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/consult-of-the-doctors-sick-sultan-antwerp-1683/) (Spanish Netherlands · 1683 · Transfer, Bandwagon)
- ["Jackson ticket" with Hickory tree motto, Baltimore (1828)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jackson-ticket-hickory-tree-1828/) (United States · 1828 · Bandwagon, Transfer)
- [Democratic tickets, "Go it, ye Cripples!" and "Stop Van!!!" (Ohio electors, Van Buren and Johnson), 1836](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/democratic-ticket-stop-van-van-buren-1836/) (United States · 1836 · Name-calling, Bandwagon)
- [Democratic ticket, "Going the whole hog" (Ohio electors for Van Buren and Johnson), 1836](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/democratic-ticket-whole-hog-van-buren-1836/) (United States · 1836 · Bandwagon)
- ["Political race course - Union Track - fall races 1836"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/political-race-course-union-track-harrison-1836/) (United States · 1836 · Bandwagon, Name-calling). Content note: Partisan caricature of named politicians that uses the epithet 'Black Dan' for Daniel Webster and regional stereotypes in the speech balloons.
- ["Grand match between the Kinderhook poney and the Ohio ploughman", April 1836](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/grand-match-kinderhook-poney-ohio-ploughman-harrison-1836/) (United States · Apr 1836 · Transfer, Bandwagon)
- ['The People's Line -- Take care of the Locomotive', Whig woodcut, 1840](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/peoples-line-take-care-of-the-locomotive-1840/) (United States · 1840 · Bandwagon)
- ['The Fox Chace', Whig cartoon of Van Buren hunted by cider-barrel hounds, 1840](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-fox-chace-van-buren-harrison-childs-1840/) (United States · 1840 · Name-calling, Bandwagon)