---
title: '"Keep off! Monroe doctrine" (T. E. Powers, 1912)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/powers-keep-off-monroe-doctrine-1912/
description: Uncle Sam lifts the sombrero off a squatting "fisherman" at Magdalena Bay and finds a Japanese soldier with a bayonetted rifle, a line hung in the water…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Caricature of a Japanese soldier disguised as a fisherman (1912 cartoon). This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!["Keep off! Monroe doctrine" (T. E. Powers, 1912)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/powers-keep-off-monroe-doctrine-1912.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/powers-keep-off-monroe-doctrine-1912.jpg)

# "Keep off! Monroe doctrine" (T. E. Powers, 1912)

Uncle Sam lifts the sombrero off a squatting "fisherman" at Magdalena Bay and finds a Japanese soldier with a bayonetted rifle, a line hung in the water and a can of cartridges labelled "Bait", and orders him off with "Git!". Fishing is drawn as a cover for a military landing, the claim that drove the 1912 scare.

## Text on the object

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

```
[speech balloon, inset circle at upper left, Uncle Sam speaking] A FISHERMAN, I WONDER IF HE KNOWS THIS LAND IS POSTED
[inset ground] MEXICO
[speech balloon, upper right, Uncle Sam] GIT!
[sign] KEEP OFF! MUNROE DOCTRINE
[water] MAGDALENA BAY
[can of cartridges] BAIT
[signature, lower left] T.E. POWERS
```

Read from the 1085 x 1536 px Library of Congress master (a film-copy negative scan). The sign reads "MUNROE" as printed, a variant spelling kept as drawn.

[← Saludo y felicitación al Señor D. Francisco I. Madero al tomar posesión de la presidencia (Salute and Congratulations to Francisco I. Madero on Taking the Presidency)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/saludo-madero-1911/) [Tripoli è italiana! (postcard) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tripoli-e-italiana-postcard-1912/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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)
- [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)
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
- [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/) (Qing China · 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/) (United Kingdom · 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/) (Venezuela · Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)