# Can U.S. Have Peace? (1943), the Ladies' Home Journal's cartoon digest of Walter Lippmann Can U.S. Have Peace? is a 1943 newspaper advertisement reprinting the Ladies' Home Journal's 37-panel picture digest of Walter Lippmann's book U.S. Foreign Policy, with continuity pictures by Joel King. It retells American foreign policy from the Monroe Doctrine onward (NAID 514022). - Home - Archive - Can U.S. Have Peace? (1943), the Ladies' Home Journal's cartoon digest of Walter Lippmann Can U.S. Have Peace? Can U.S. Have Peace? (1943), the Ladies' Home Journal's cartoon digest of Walter Lippmann A 1943 Ladies' Home Journal ad reprints a 37-panel cartoon digest of Walter Lippmann's U.S. Foreign Policy, drawn by Joel King, for three big daily papers. ## Techniques named on the archive record Card stackingFear appeal Date1943Made byLadies' Home Journal (Curtis Publishing Company); continuity pictures by Joel King, after Walter LippmannMediumAdvertisementCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514022; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) Ladies' Home Journal / Curtis Publishing Company. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-543 (NAID 514022). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org Can U.S. Have Peace? is a 1943 newspaper advertisement reprinting the Ladies' Home Journal's 37-panel picture digest of Walter Lippmann's book U.S. Foreign Policy, with continuity pictures by Joel King. It retells American foreign policy from the Monroe Doctrine onward (NAID 514022). ## What it is A magazine advertising itself by reprinting its own feature. The Ladies' Home Journal had run a picture version of Walter Lippmann's book on foreign policy in its August issue. This sheet carries the same 37 panels, drawn by Joel King, with a block of copy explaining why the Journal was paying to print them again in daily newspapers. To appear during the week of September 20 in the Chicago Daily Tribune, New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times CAN U.S. HAVE PEACE? A pictorial digest of WALTER LIPPMANN'S celebrated new book "U. S. FOREIGN POLICY -Shield of the Republic"* [...] Peace or war for the United States for the next hundred years may be determined by this country's reaction to Walter Lippmann's far-seeing blueprint for our nation's policy makers. [...] In addition, as a part of the Journal's contribution to the making of tomorrow, we are mailing one complete reprint to every high school in America at the beginning of the school year. Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked; most panel captions are marked illegible there. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514022, local id 44-PA-543, Record Group 44. ## The argument in the panels Only the first five numbered captions are legible in the archive's scan. They tell a story about the Monroe Doctrine: the young republic made a bold commitment in 1823, but only after it was assured of British support, and British sea power let it pass unchallenged. Section headings carry the rest of the arc: "NO GREAT NATION CAN REMAIN ISOLATED," "WAR WAS WON - BUT NOT THE PEACE," and finally "YES, THERE CAN BE PEACE." Labels in the drawings name Manchuria, Ethiopia, Poland, Munich and "DEC. 7." ## How to read it The archive tags card stacking and fear appeal. The first fits a history told in a straight line toward the conclusion in its last heading, "YES, THERE CAN BE PEACE." The second fits the war labels used as warnings of what isolation costs. This is private speech by a private company, arguing for one side of an open public question. That is what a free press is for, and the sheet names its author, its book, its publisher and even its price. The fair complaint is about scale and audience, not legitimacy. The copy claims a reach of more than four million homes and promises a reprint for every high school in the country, so one argument about foreign policy was offered to students as study material. The sheet presents no other view. The government's own case for war aims ran in posters such as The State of This Nation Is Good. The Roosevelt administration essay notes that Roosevelt won elections against most of the editorial pages, and the Writers' War Board case study covers a board of volunteer writers whose work ran under their own names while its money came through the OWI. ## Sources - FRAME object record, Can U.S. Have Peace?, 1943. Ladies' Home Journal (Curtis Publishing Company); continuity pictures by Joel King, after Walter Lippmann. - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-543, NAID 514022, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/can-us-have-peace-lippmann-ladies-home-journal-1943/