---
title: Even a fish wouldn't get caught if he kept his mouth shut!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/even-a-fish-wouldnt-get-caught-1941/
description: Cartoon of a red fish with open mouth about to bite a baited hook; the bait is a yellow worm with a human head, round glasses.
section: Collection
---

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3. Even a fish wouldn't get caught if he kept his mouth shut!

**Content note:** Cartoon enemy figure drawn as a bait worm with a caricatured East Asian face (round glasses, bared teeth) wearing a swastika armband. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Even a fish wouldn't get caught if he kept his mouth shut!, 1941 US poster: Cartoon of a red fish with open mouth about](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/even-a-fish-wouldnt-get-caught-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/even-a-fish-wouldnt-get-caught-1941.jpg)

# Even a fish wouldn't get caught if he kept his mouth shut!

Cartoon of a red fish with open mouth about to bite a baited hook; the bait is a yellow worm with a human head, round glasses, bared teeth and a swastika armband. Banner above reads 'Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut!'. The tell for fear-appeal is the capture-by-talking image; name-calling shows in the enemy drawn as bait worm in a caricatured face.

## 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

```
KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND YOUR MOUTH SHUT!

EVEN A FISH WOULDN'T
GET CAUGHT IF HE
KEPT HIS MOUTH SHUT!

PRODUCTION OF OCASC
-INTELLIGENCE SECTION-

[emblem:] [illegible]
```

[← Enough to win the War, NOT enough to WASTE](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/enough-to-win-the-war-not-enough-to-waste-army-save/) [Every minute can count! If there are spares →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/every-minute-can-count-if-there-are-spares-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)