---
title: Don't be a sucker! Keep your mouth shut
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-be-a-sucker-keep-your-mouth-shut-1944/
description: 'Security poster: a large orange fish with a wide eye leaps toward a bare fishhook on a line, above the slogan ''Keep your mouth shut''.'
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Don't be a sucker! Keep your mouth shut

[![Don't be a sucker! Keep your mouth shut, 1944 US poster: Security poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-be-a-sucker-keep-your-mouth-shut-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-be-a-sucker-keep-your-mouth-shut-1944.jpg)

# Don't be a sucker! Keep your mouth shut

Security poster: a large orange fish with a wide eye leaps toward a bare fishhook on a line, above the slogan 'Keep your mouth shut'. The word 'sucker' names both the fish and the person who talks. The sheet implies that careless talk gets a person caught, and calls the reader a 'sucker' if he does not comply.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
DON'T BE A Sucker!
KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT
W.D., A.G.O. "Sucker" Security Poster. Additional copies may be requisitioned as prescribed in AR 310-200, 1 May 1943, as changed by Changes No. 2, 15 September 1943.
[imprint: U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944 — O-595823]
```

[← Don't be a job hopper](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-be-a-job-hopper-1944/) [Don't be discouraged. Keep trying! Make a suggestion today →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-be-discouraged-keep-trying-asf-1944/)

## 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)