---
title: Dare you to say or think you do not feel
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dare-you-say-or-think-1943/
description: Painted scene of a naval officer in a peaked cap holding a shirtless wounded sailor with a bloody bullet wound, barbed wire behind them.
section: Collection
---

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3. Dare you to say or think you do not feel

**Content note:** Painted image of a wounded, shirtless sailor with a bloody bullet wound held by an officer. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Dare you to say or think you do not feel, 1943 US poster: Painted scene of a naval officer in a peaked cap holding](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dare-you-say-or-think-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dare-you-say-or-think-1943.jpg)

# Dare you to say or think you do not feel

Painted scene of a naval officer in a peaked cap holding a shirtless wounded sailor with a bloody bullet wound, barbed wire behind them. The verse beneath asks workers whether they dare take time off from the job. The tell: wounded servicemen shown as the cost of absence, with 'then we are lost... and YOU!' as the closing threat.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
DARE YOU TO SAY OR THINK YOU DO NOT FEEL
THE BULLET THAT HAS PIERCED THE FLESH OF HIM
WHO FOUGHT SO GALLANTLY, WITH FIERY ZEAL,
WHILE THINKING NOT OF LOSS OF LIFE OR LIMB?

DARE YOU DENY TO THOSE WHO ENTER HELL,
FOR WAR IS HELL FOR ALL OUR FIGHTING CREW,
THE HOURS OF STICKING ON YOUR JOB? THINK WELL-
FOR-IF YOU DARE, THEN WE ARE LOST... AND YOU!
[imprint:] COPR. 1943 GENERAL CABLE CORPORATION
[signature:] e. c. beall
```

[← Czechoslovakia (illustrated information map sheet, blue printing)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cz-czechoslovakia-heart-of-europe-blue-map-sheet-1943/) [Days off cost lives! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/days-off-cost-lives-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)