# Don't Fall for Enemy Propaganda: the VFW warns against division and prints "Japs"

Don't fall for enemy propaganda is a Veterans of Foreign Wars poster illustrated by Jack Betts and catalogued at 1941. Two caricatured enemies, one in a Japanese-style cap and one under a swastika badge, whisper into a civilian's ears, and the text warns against propaganda aimed at Catholics, Jews or Protestants, then says "Hitler and the Japs are trying to get us fighting among ourselves" (NAID 514139).

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      Don't fall for enemy propaganda

      Don't Fall for Enemy Propaganda: the VFW warns against division and prints "Japs"
      A VFW poster by Jack Betts warns against enemy propaganda that sets Catholics, Jews and Protestants against each other, then uses the slur "Japs." NAID

## Techniques named on the archive record

Name-callingFear appeal
      Date1941Made byVeterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (illustrated by Jack Betts)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514139; 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) Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-660 (NAID 514139).
      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

  Don't fall for enemy propaganda is a Veterans of Foreign Wars poster illustrated by Jack Betts and catalogued at 1941. Two caricatured enemies, one in a Japanese-style cap and one under a swastika badge, whisper into a civilian's ears, and the text warns against propaganda aimed at Catholics, Jews or Protestants, then says "Hitler and the Japs are trying to get us fighting among ourselves" (NAID 514139).

## Two whisperers and a man in a bowler hat

A note first: the sheet uses the slur "Japs," and the archive describes the figure in the Japanese-style cap as green-skinned. Both are reported here as printed.

The civilian in the middle is wide-eyed and wears a bowler. At one ear a green-skinned caricature in a Japanese-style cap whispers to him; at the other, a figure in a cap with a swastika badge does the same. The text lists three kinds of propaganda to refuse.

Don't fall for

ENEMY PROPAGANDA

- AGAINST OUR GOVERNMENT

- AGAINST OUR ALLIES

- AGAINST CATHOLICS, JEWS

or PROTESTANTS

Remember-Hitler and the Japs are trying

to get us fighting among ourselves

VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES

[signature:] ILLUSTRATED BY JACK BETTS

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514139, local id 44-PA-660, Record Group 44.

## A good warning in bad company

The core message holds up. A foreign power that wants Americans fighting each other by religion is a real kind of threat, and telling citizens to refuse that bait is sound advice. Naming Catholics, Jews and Protestants in one line treats all three as equally American. That is the right instinct.

The same sheet then does part of what it warns against. It draws one enemy with green skin and names that enemy with an ethnic slur. The FRAME catalog tags name-calling and fear appeal, and lists race and ethnicity and religion among the themes. A poster against division by group cannot cleanly ask for unity while teaching contempt for a people. Who saw it, and what it changed, is not on the record.

The first item also deserves a second look. "Against our government" sits on the same list as attacks on religious groups. In a republic, criticism of the government is the ordinary business of citizens. The sheet does not say where the line falls, and a reader could take it to cover any complaint.

## Who made it

The issuer is a veterans' organization, which the archive types as a movement, and the illustrator signed as Jack Betts. The archive's rights line records the sheet as a public-domain U.S. government work. A Think American poster on this site, Our Enemies' Orders to Their Spies, prints a similar charge that the Axis wanted to spread religious hatred. The anti-Japanese hub and the anti-Nazi hub hold related sheets.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Don't fall for enemy propaganda, catalogued at 1941. Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States; illustrated by Jack Betts.

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-660, NAID 514139, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/dont-fall-for-enemy-propaganda-vfw-1941/