Content note: Racial caricature of a Japanese soldier with mock-pidgin speech. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Hon. Spy Say: Thanks for the Can You Throw Away!
On a black ground a grinning caricature in a Japanese army cap, with round spectacles, squinting eyes and bared teeth, speaks from beside a cream card in red script: 'Hon. spy say: Thanks for the can you throw away!' The mock-pidgin 'Hon.' and the distorted face are the label, and the enemy uniform is attached to an act of household waste so that discarding a can reads as helping the enemy.
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- U.S. War Production Board (Emergency Management Office), scrap-metal conservation poster printed by the U.S. Government Printing Office
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Themes
- Home front, Race and ethnicity
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Name-callingTransfer
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Northwestern University Libraries, World War II Poster Collection (object no. IIID.20), retrieved October 2, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government publication; Northwestern: No Copyright - United States)
Northwestern University Libraries, World War II Poster Collection (Government & Geographic Information Collection); the Libraries ask that users cite the item URL and Northwestern University Libraries.
Text on the object
HON. SPY SAY: Thanks for the Can you throw away! U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 16—[illegible]—1
The imprint number at the lower right is partly legible; digits after '16—' are not transcribed. Library stamps and pencil notes ('Documents Room', 'Map Case', 'U.S. President EMO War production board') are annotations added by the library, not printed text.
