---
title: Our job is to beat the Hun. Vote Union Government (Canada, 1917 election)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/our-job-is-to-beat-the-hun-union-government-1917/
description: 'A type-only poster in heavy black capitals: ''Our job is to beat the Hun.'
section: Collection
---

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

[![Our job is to beat the Hun. Vote Union Government (Canada, 1917 election)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/our-job-is-to-beat-the-hun-union-government-1917.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/our-job-is-to-beat-the-hun-union-government-1917.jpg)

# Our job is to beat the Hun. Vote Union Government (Canada, 1917 election)

A type-only poster in heavy black capitals: 'Our job is to beat the Hun. Vote Union Government.' The enemy is named by a collective label (name-calling), and casting a ballot for the coalition is written in as the same act as defeating him, so that the choice of party stands in for the choice of the war effort (identity-fusion). The sheet is signed by its publisher and printer in small print.

- **Date:** 1917
- **Period:** [First World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwi)
- **Made by:** Union Government Publicity Bureau, Ottawa (printed by the Ottawa Printing Company, Limited)
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [Canada](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=canada)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Party](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=party)
- **Regime:** [Borden Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=borden-government)
- **Leader:** [Robert Laird Borden](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=robert-laird-borden)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Themes:** [Elections and party politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=elections-party-politics), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [1917 Canadian Federal Election](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=1917-canadian-federal-election)
- **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Identity fusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/identity-fusion/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (from Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-28-740, MIKAN 3635569)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vote_union_govt_-_canada-hun.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (published 1917, before 1931; Canadian Crown copyright also expired; PD-US and PD-Canada per Commons) Union Government Publicity Bureau, Ottawa, 1917. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-28-740, MIKAN 3635569, via Wikimedia Commons.

## Text on the object

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

```
OUR JOB
IS TO
BEAT
THE
HUN

VOTE UNION GOVERNMENT

Published by the Union Government Publicity Bureau [lower left]
Printed by the Ottawa Printing Company, Limited [lower right]

[small printer's union mark at bottom centre, illegible]
```

The photographic copy shows the poster's borders and paper edges; nothing has been cropped.

[← Putting the mortgage on the cradle](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/mortgage-on-the-cradle-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

- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [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/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [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)
- [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)