---
title: Putting the mortgage on the cradle
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mortgage-on-the-cradle-1917/
description: A saloon keeper, his apron labelled 'The Saloon', nails a sign reading 'Inherited Appetite for Liquor' to a sleeping baby's cradle while the father…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Putting the mortgage on the cradle](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/mortgage-on-the-cradle-1917.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/mortgage-on-the-cradle-1917.jpg)

# Putting the mortgage on the cradle

A saloon keeper, his apron labelled 'The Saloon', nails a sign reading 'Inherited Appetite for Liquor' to a sleeping baby's cradle while the father drinks at the table behind. The line beneath, 'Thirty-Six States Can Stop This By Constitutional Amendment', offers a single remedy for a harm staged on an infant, without evidence for the inheritance claim or any alternative.

- **Date:** 1917
- **Period:** [First World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwi)
- **Made by:** American Issue Publishing Company (Anti-Saloon League of America)
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Movement](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=movement)
- **Regime:** [Wilson Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=wilson-administration)
- **Leader:** [Woodrow Wilson](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=woodrow-wilson)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Themes:** [Health](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=health), [Elections and party politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=elections-party-politics)
- **Event:** [US Prohibition Campaign](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=us-prohibition-campaign)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2006690206/), retrieved September 27, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (published 1917 in the U.S.; LoC: no known restrictions) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

## Text on the object

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

```
INHERITED
APPETITE
FOR
LIQUOR [on the cradle]

THE SALOON [on the saloon keeper's apron]

SALOON [shop sign, background]

Putting the mortgage on the cradle.
—The Instructor.

Thirty-Six States Can Stop This By Constitutional Amendment

SERIES G. No. 19.

THE AMERICAN ISSUE PUBLISHING CO.,
WESTERVILLE, OHIO.
```

A small printed emblem/logo beneath the publisher's imprint is too small to read and is not transcribed.

[← Бо війна війною (For War Is War), Sich Riflemen postcard series II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kurylas-bo-viina-viinoiu-sich-riflemen-postcard-1917/) [Reinforcements. Our scrap of paper, honor it. Vote Yes. Referendum (Australia, 1917) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/reinforcements-referendum-vote-yes-1917/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (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/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)