---
title: Loose talk can cost lives
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/loose-talk-can-cost-lives-beall-1942/
description: Two workmen talk over beer glasses at a bar while a large, faint, smiling face with a toothbrush moustache and forelock looms behind them.
section: Collection
---

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2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Loose talk can cost lives

**Content note:** A faint, smiling caricature face of Adolf Hitler looms over two drinking workmen. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Loose talk can cost lives, 1942 US poster: Two workmen talk over beer glasses at a bar while a large, faint, smiling face](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/loose-talk-can-cost-lives-beall-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/loose-talk-can-cost-lives-beall-1942.jpg)

# Loose talk can cost lives

Two workmen talk over beer glasses at a bar while a large, faint, smiling face with a toothbrush moustache and forelock looms behind them. The faint face implies an enemy listening to ordinary shop talk, a fear-appeal; the line 'Don't be a dope' is mild name-calling aimed at the talker.

## 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

```
[signature:] C.C. Beall
DON'T BE A DOPE AND SPREAD INSIDE DOPE
LOOSE TALK
CAN COST LIVES
[imprint:] © 1942
[imprint:] DISTRIBUTED IN THE INTEREST OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, AND AS A MEANS OF OBTAINING FUNDS FOR AMBULANCES WHEREVER NEEDED. BRITISH AND AMERICAN AMBULANCE CORPS, INC., 420 LEXINGTON AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY
[imprint:] LITHO. IN U.S.A.
[badge on overalls:] 11742
```

[← Loose talk can cause this](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/loose-talk-can-cause-this-treidler-1942/) [Loose talk can cost lives →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/loose-talk-can-cost-lives-holmgren-1942/)

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- [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.
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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)
- [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.
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