---
title: Better a Live Cluck Than a Dead Duck
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/better-a-live-cluck-than-a-dead-duck-1943/
description: 'A New Yorker cartoon: two women at a dance check room watch an unaware serviceman, one saying ''The one I''m with is certainly a cluck.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Better a Live Cluck Than a Dead Duck

[![Better a Live Cluck Than a Dead Duck, 1943 US poster: A New Yorker cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/better-a-live-cluck-than-a-dead-duck-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/better-a-live-cluck-than-a-dead-duck-1943.jpg)

# Better a Live Cluck Than a Dead Duck

A New Yorker cartoon: two women at a dance check room watch an unaware serviceman, one saying 'The one I'm with is certainly a cluck. He don't know where he's been, or where he's going, or anything.' Headline: 'Better a live cluck than a dead duck'. Humour and the fear-appeal of a 'dead duck' promote tight-lipped servicemen.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
[signature:] Whitney Darrow Jr.
Courtesy of The New Yorker and the artist
"The one I'm with is certainly a cluck.
He don't know where he's been, or where he's going, or anything."
Better a live cluck
than a dead duck
... SILENCE MEANS SECURITY ...
[imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943-O-505182
[in drawing:] CHECK ROOM; BENEFIT DANCE PROCEEDS TO NAVY [partly legible]
```

[← Bessye J. Bearden - Club Woman, Social Worker](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bessye-j-bearden-club-woman-social-worker-alston-1943/) [Beware! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/beware-absentee-bug-placard-26-1943/)

## 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)