---
title: Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/must-children-die-and-mothers-plead-in-vain-1918/
description: A painted scene shows a woman in ragged clothes holding two infants, pointing upward amid smoke and household debris.
section: Collection
---

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3. Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds

**Content note:** A painted scene of a ragged woman holding two infants amid smoke and debris, as issued, used to appeal for bond purchases. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds, 1918 US poster: A painted scene shows a woman in ragged](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/must-children-die-and-mothers-plead-in-vain-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/must-children-die-and-mothers-plead-in-vain-1918.jpg)

# Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in Vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds

A painted scene shows a woman in ragged clothes holding two infants, pointing upward amid smoke and household debris, beside the question 'Must children die and mothers plead in vain?' The poster pairs an image of civilian suffering with a financial request, asking the viewer to answer the question by buying Liberty Bonds.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
MUST
CHILDREN DIE
AND MOTHERS
PLEAD IN VAIN
?

Buy More
[L]IBERTY BONDS

[imprint line at bottom right: illegible]
```

The first letter of 'LIBERTY' is cut off in the scan.

[← A Merry Christmas. Peace. Your Gift to the Nation](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/merry-christmas-peace-your-gift-to-the-nation-1918/) [My Daddy Bought Me a Government Bond of the Third Liberty Loan. Did Yours? →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/my-daddy-bought-me-a-government-bond-1918/)

## 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)