---
title: The Prayer of Millions (Suffering Europe)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-prayer-of-millions-suffering-europe-1917/
description: A large pencil portrait of a kerchiefed woman looking upward with open, pleading hands sits beside a column of text written in the voice of 'Suffering
section: Collection
---

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3. The Prayer of Millions (Suffering Europe)

[![The Prayer of Millions, 1917 US poster: A large pencil portrait of a kerchiefed woman looking upward with open, pleading](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/the-prayer-of-millions-suffering-europe-1917.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/the-prayer-of-millions-suffering-europe-1917.jpg)

# The Prayer of Millions (Suffering Europe)

A large pencil portrait of a kerchiefed woman looking upward with open, pleading hands sits beside a column of text written in the voice of 'Suffering Europe'. The text begs the American people to share their food, speaks of starving millions and of the war's causes, and says that if Americans knew Europe's true conditions the President would not need to ask for conservation. The tell is the speaker: an appeal to conserve food is delivered as a first-person plea from the people said to be starving.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
The Prayer of Millions

Oh, Wonderful American People! You who have strength and abundance, heed our hourly supplication for sustenance and help.

Can you not see the uplifted, pleading hands of the starving millions who are beseeching you to share from your tables of plenty, just the little that will keep life in our racked bodies and souls, so torn by grief, hunger and deprivation?

God and conscience are witnessing every act and those who have so mercilessly inflicted this indescribable torture upon us shall pay the exact toll.

May God for ever spare your Mothers from the piercing, deafening, heart-wrenching wails, such as we hear from our weak, emaciated babies, and we stand by so helpless.

Knowing the pure American unselfishness and the great hearts that beat within your strong bodies, we entreat you to save us, but it must be quickly or it will be too late for some.

May the Great God in the Heavens bestow upon your land and your people His richest blessings for your kindness and assistance already given. This Prussian carnage is adding daily to our terrors and suffering; we implore you to heed our prayers.

If you actually realized our true conditions it would be needless for your splendid President to even request the conservation of food.

Oh Hear us, Great People, in these terrifying hours of our need.

—Suffering Europe

This Space is Cheerfully Contributed
to the Cause of Humanity by
```

The artist's script signature at lower right of the picture and the small copyright line beneath it are not reliably legible.

[← Ten Million New Members by Christmas - Join the Red Cross](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ten-million-new-members-red-cross-us-1917/) [The Sentry Quits His Post Only When Properly Relieved →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-sentry-quits-his-post-only-when-properly-relieved-1917-1919/)

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- [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.
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