---
title: Our street corners must not be next!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/our-street-corners-must-not-be-next-1941/
description: Company-sponsored sheet showing a helmeted German soldier with a raised bayonet at a corner under a street sign reading 'Rue St.
section: Collection
---

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3. Our street corners must not be next!

**Content note:** Painted illustration of a German soldier with a raised bayonet on a street corner, with a swastika eagle badge and Iron Cross. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Our street corners must not be next!, 1941 US advertisement: Company-sponsored sheet showing a helmeted German soldier](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/our-street-corners-must-not-be-next-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/our-street-corners-must-not-be-next-1941.jpg)

# Our street corners must not be next!

Company-sponsored sheet showing a helmeted German soldier with a raised bayonet at a corner under a street sign reading 'Rue St. Etienne', a large white V painted on the brick wall behind him. The tell is the text box: 'The enemy now is nearer than you think' and 'the time is short' pair an invasion image with a call to work harder, a fear-appeal, closed with 'priceless freedom'.

## Propaganda techniques used in this advertisement

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

## Text on the object

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

```
Rue [partly cut off]
St. Etienne

Our street corners must not be next!

• The grim spectre of conquest hangs over the entire world—make no mistake about that.

The enemy now is nearer than you think . . . more desperate, more deadly than you know!

We, right here in America, are in grave danger of losing everything for which our fighting forces have died since 1776.

Complacency and cocksure over-confidence are tragic handicaps to the tremendous goals we have set . . . the great superiority we must attain. We must work as we never before have worked . . . each of us—right now. We must fight as we never before have fought . . . each of us—right now.

We must pledge, sacrifice, sweat and toil. We must dig deeper, harder, longer. Only steadfast purpose can bring victory. Only victory can save our priceless freedom.

But remember . . . the time is short!

GILBERT PAPER COMPANY • MENASHA, WISCONSIN

[signature: McCale]
[imprint, lower right of text box: Litho. in U.S.A.]
```

[← Our part in the war effort](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/our-part-in-the-war-effort-odt-1941/) [Ours... to fight for: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ours-to-fight-for-four-freedoms-on-one-sheet-1941/)

## 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)