---
title: While Someone Gives His Life, What Are You Giving? Think a Minute
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/while-someone-gives-his-life-red-cross-1918/
description: A large red cross on a plain ground sits between a question about giving and the words 'think a minute', with a line at the foot saying all of the Red
section: Collection
---

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3. While Someone Gives His Life, What Are You Giving? Think a Minute

[![While Someone Gives His Life, What Are You Giving? Think a Minute, 1918 US poster: A large red cross on a plain ground sits](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/while-someone-gives-his-life-red-cross-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/while-someone-gives-his-life-red-cross-1918.jpg)

# While Someone Gives His Life, What Are You Giving? Think a Minute

A large red cross on a plain ground sits between a question about giving and the words 'think a minute', with a line at the foot saying all of the Red Cross War Fund goes for war relief. The poster contrasts a soldier's sacrifice with the reader's donation to prompt guilt. Its second claim, that every dollar goes to relief, is a verifiable assurance printed in the same type as the appeal.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
While someone gives
his Life - what
are you giving?

-think a minute

All of the Red Cross War Fund
goes for War Relief

FORM N.Y. 3-SECOND WAR FUND
```

The form line at the lower right is very small; 'N.Y. 3' is read as printed but is faint.

[← Which? Soldier or Mechanic: Enlist in the First Replacement Regiment of Engineers and Be Both](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/which-soldier-or-mechanic-first-replacement-regiment-of-engineers-1917-1919/) [Why Loyal Americans Are Keeping the Pledge to Eat Less Wheat and Meat →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/why-loyal-americans-are-keeping-the-pledge-1918/)

## 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)