Content note: A soldier faces masses of dim, beast-like figures in spiked helmets behind barbed wire, as issued. This object is shown as it was published. Why

You Can Do Something to Help Stop Them! They Must Not Pass! Buy Liberty Bonds, It's Your War!

A lone helmeted soldier with a bayoneted rifle stands at lower left facing a barbed-wire line, behind which a mass of dim, beast-like figures in spiked helmets advances under the flags of the United States, Britain, Belgium, Italy and France. Hand-lettered words ask the viewer to help stop them and to buy Liberty Bonds because 'it's your war.' The tell of fear-appeal is the advancing mass held back only by the wire and the soldier; identity-fusion is the claim that the war belongs to the viewer personally.

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Fear appeal Identity fusion

Date: 1917
Period: First World War
Made by: U.S. Treasury Department (Liberty Loan campaign); artist signature partly illegible
Region: North America
Country: United States
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Wilson Administration
Leader: Woodrow Wilson
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Fundraise
Themes: War and the military, Economy and finance
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
U.S. Treasury Department (Liberty Loan campaign); artist signature partly illegible. National Archives and Records Administration, 4-P-175.

Text on the object

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

YOU CAN
DO
SOMETHING
TO
HELP
STOP THEM!
THEY MUST NOT
PASS!
BUY LIBERTY BONDS,
IT'S YOUR WAR!
[artist's signature, lettered at lower right: C. F. BATCHELDER]

The signature at lower right is lettered and reads 'C. F. Batchelder'.