---
title: '"Let Me Do the Talking! Serve in Silence" (WPA, San Francisco, 1941-1943)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/let-me-do-the-talking-serve-in-silence-wpa-1943/
description: A large cannon pointed at the viewer sits above 'Let me do the talking! Serve in silence', with the issuer named on a black strip.
section: Collection
---

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3. "Let Me Do the Talking! Serve in Silence"

[!["Let Me Do the Talking! Serve in Silence", 1943 US poster: A large cannon pointed at the viewer sits above 'Let me do](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/let-me-do-the-talking-serve-in-silence-wpa-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/let-me-do-the-talking-serve-in-silence-wpa-1943.jpg)

# "Let Me Do the Talking! Serve in Silence" (WPA, San Francisco, 1941-1943)

A large cannon pointed at the viewer sits above 'Let me do the talking! Serve in silence', with the issuer named on a black strip. The tell: the cannon gets the speaking role, and the viewer's own talk is made the thing to hold back.

A 1943 poster issued by the San Francisco Junior Chamber of Commerce and printed by the Northern California WPA Art Program, addressed to the domestic public on wartime secrecy. A large cannon points at the viewer above "LET ME DO THE TALKING! SERVE IN SILENCE". The archive tags fear appeal: the cannon takes the speaking role, and the viewer's own talk is made the thing to hold back. The issuer is a civic body, while the printer is a federal programme, which the record notes.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Full record

Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights

## Text on the object

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

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

```
LET ME DO THE TALKING!
SERVE IN SILENCE
ISSUED BY THE SAN FRANCISCO JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
```

[← Lamb feeders! Produce shearlings! Help keep our flyers warm](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lamb-feeders-produce-shearlings-1943/) [Let's catch more of this kind of fish! →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lets-catch-more-of-this-kind-of-fish-army-1943/)

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- [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)
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- [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, Ad hominem, Straw man)
- [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)