---
title: '"It''s the least you can do!!"'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/owi-alston-its-the-least-you-can-do-1943/
description: A woman with a basket and ration book walks past a doorway marked 'Black Market' where a leering man beckons, while a caricature of Hitler peers over
section: Collection
---

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3. "It's the least you can do!!"

[!["It's the least you can do!!", 1943 US cartoon: A woman with a basket and ration book walks past a doorway marked 'Black](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/owi-alston-its-the-least-you-can-do-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/owi-alston-its-the-least-you-can-do-1943.jpg)

# "It's the least you can do!!"

A woman with a basket and ration book walks past a doorway marked 'Black Market' where a leering man beckons, while a caricature of Hitler peers over the wall above; a caption gives 'The Home Front Pledge'. The tell is the pairing of a rationing violation with the enemy leader's face, so that buying off-ration is presented as helping him.

## Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon

[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

```
BLACK MARKET
* I PAY NO MORE THAN TOP LEGAL PRICES.
* I ACCEPT NO RATIONED GOODS WITHOUT GIVING UP RATION STAMPS.
.....THE HOME FRONT PLEDGE
RATION BOOK
"IT'S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO!!"
Alston OWI
```

[← "If you only knew what it meant!!"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/owi-alston-if-you-only-knew-what-it-meant-1943/) [James Weldon Johnson - Author, Diplomat, Public Servant →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/owi-alston-james-weldon-johnson-1943/)

## 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)