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
- Date
- 1918
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- U.S. Treasury Department (Liberty Loan campaign)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Wilson Administration
- Leader
- Woodrow Wilson
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Fundraise
- Themes
- Economy and finance, Home front
- Event
- World War I
- Regime
- Wilson administration
- Leader
- Woodrow Wilson
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 4 (U.S. Food Administration), World War I Posters (NAID 512439), retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- NARA Unrestricted; hosted by owner decision
U.S. Treasury Department (Liberty Loan campaign). National Archives and Records Administration, 4-P-235.
Text on the object
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'.
