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
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Silence Means Security campaign (U.S. Government Printing Office); cartoon by Whitney Darrow Jr., courtesy of The New Yorker
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Home front, Security and surveillance
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Silence Means Security campaign (U.S. Government Printing Office); cartoon by Whitney Darrow Jr., courtesy of The New Yorker. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-480 (NAID 513959).
Text on the object
[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]
