---
title: 'A Workman Gossiped - An Enemy Agent Acted: Don''t Talk About Your War Job'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/canada-workman-gossiped-enemy-agent-acted-1939/
description: 'Two photographs are stacked: a tram passenger speaking to a man in a hat while a third reads a newspaper, and below it an aerial view of a factory complex'
section: Collection
---

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3. A Workman Gossiped - An Enemy Agent Acted: Don't Talk About Your War

[![A Workman Gossiped - An Enemy Agent Acted: Don't Talk About Your War Job, 1939 Canada poster: Two photographs are stacked](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/canada-workman-gossiped-enemy-agent-acted-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/canada-workman-gossiped-enemy-agent-acted-1939.jpg)

# A Workman Gossiped - An Enemy Agent Acted: Don't Talk About Your War Job

Two photographs are stacked: a tram passenger speaking to a man in a hat while a third reads a newspaper, and below it an aerial view of a factory complex burning under heavy smoke. The headings link the talk to the fire; the fear appeal rests on that implied cause, shown as a result without any account of how the enemy agent learned of the plant.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
A WORKMAN GOSSIPED
DON'T TALK ABOUT YOUR WAR JOB
AN ENEMY AGENT ACTED
ISSUED BY THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC INFORMATION, OTTAWA,
UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF HON. JAMES G. GARDINER, MINISTER OF NATIONAL WAR SERVICES.
```

[← We're in the Army Now: Your Aid is Vital!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/canada-were-in-the-army-now-your-aid-is-vital-1939/) [Would He Fight Better if He Knew How You Worked? →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/canada-would-he-fight-better-if-he-knew-how-you-worked-1939/)

## 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)