---
title: Don't talk out of turn!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-talk-out-of-turn-1941/
description: 'Color cartoon poster: a wide-mouthed factory worker with a lunch pail shouts ''Information'' while caricatured Axis-style listeners, in German-style.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Don't talk out of turn!

**Content note:** Caricatured enemy-style faces, including a Japanese figure with exaggerated teeth and ears, drawn as grotesques. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Don't talk out of turn!, 1941 US poster: Color cartoon poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-talk-out-of-turn-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/dont-talk-out-of-turn-1941.jpg)

# Don't talk out of turn!

Color cartoon poster: a wide-mouthed factory worker with a lunch pail shouts 'Information' while caricatured Axis-style listeners, in German-style, Japanese-style and other caps with cupped ears, gather above him. Text urges workers to 'imitate a clam' and report pumping strangers, and calls the worker a 'production soldier'. A fear-appeal built on a plain-folks everyman figure.

## 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

```
DON'T TALK OUT OF TURN!
INFORMATION
An Innocent remark made to the wrong person at
the wrong time, may spell disaster. Be suspicious
of the pleasant stranger who trys to "pump" you. Just
Imitate a Clam, and pass your suspicions along to
the proper Authorities. Keep Safe! Keep Mum!
You are a PRODUCTION SOLDIER...
America's First Line of Defense is HERE
[signature: HUNGERFORD]
[imprint: Copyright 1941, Cyrus C. Hungerford, Pittsburgh, Pa.]
[handwritten in pencil: can be blanked out]
```

[← Don't talk out of school](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-talk-out-of-school-1941/) [Don't talk us out of this! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dont-talk-us-out-of-this-1941/)

## 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)