A 1941 poster from Appreciate America, Inc. of Chicago puts a saluting Donald Duck over the line "I get exasperated at people who squawk," with a red, white and blue color key underneath. The National Archives holds it as NAID 513868.
What the sheet prints
A line drawing shows Donald Duck in a sailor cap with one hand raised in a salute. The quotation is set in capitals above him and signed in lower case with the character's name. Under the drawing, three lines assign a virtue to each color of the flag. The FRAME transcription reads the whole sheet this way:
APPRECIATE ★
AMERICA
"I GET EXASPERATED AT
PEOPLE WHO SQUAWK"
donald duck
©WDP
RED FOR COURAGE
WHITE FOR HONOR
BLUE FOR JUSTICE
[imprint:] COPYRIGHT 1941. APPRECIATE AMERICA INC., 130 NO. WELLS ST., CHICAGO, ILL.
Who issued it
The imprint names a private company, Appreciate America, Inc., at a Wells Street address in Chicago, with a 1941 copyright line. A ©WDP mark sits under the duck's signature. No federal office is named anywhere on the paper. Even so, the sheet is filed in the National Archives' World War II Posters series in Record Group 44, and the archive's rights line calls it a public-domain U.S. government work. The printed copyright and the catalog rights note do not agree, and this page reports both without choosing between them.
How to read it
The device is a borrowed speaker. A popular cartoon character is made to scold the viewer, and the target of the scolding is the citizen who complains. The sheet names no war, no program, and no shortage. It asks for a mood: stop grumbling, and take courage, honor and justice from the flag's colors instead.
A private group was free to print that, and nobody was compelled to agree. The trouble is with the request itself. In a republic the complaint is how officials learn what is wrong, and the First Amendment protects the grumbler as fully as the poster. A sheet that treats objection as a character flaw asks citizens to give up the habit that keeps their government honest, and it does so with a cartoon instead of an argument.
The same character turns up in the Disney short covered at Der Fuehrer's Face, which links this poster. The Treasury sheet Right in Der Fuehrer's Face uses the same phrase without the duck. The wider period is in the essay on the Roosevelt administration.
Sources
- FRAME object record, "I get exasperated at people who squawk (Donald Duck)," 1941. Appreciate America, Inc. (Chicago). National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-414C, NAID 513868, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
