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
- Date
- 1917
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Unattributed; filed among U.S. Food Administration posters
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Wilson Administration
- Leader
- Woodrow Wilson
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Home front, War and the military
- Event
- World War I
- Regime
- Wilson administration
- Leader
- Woodrow Wilson
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 4 (U.S. Food Administration), World War I Posters (NAID 512439), retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- NARA Unrestricted; hosted by owner decision
Unattributed. National Archives and Records Administration, 4-P-152.
Text on the object
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.
