Don't Betray Your Heroes: Don't Sell Your Vote! (1953)

An English-language poster distributed in the Philippines, catalog date 6 August 1953, in the U.S. Information Agency series for Asia. A helmeted infantryman, seven portrait heads and the Philippine flag surround a locked box "for valid ballots," above the line "Don't sell your vote!" No sponsor is printed (NAID 5729938).

What it shows

Two colours, one instruction. On the archive's description, a helmeted infantryman with a rifle, seven portrait heads and the Philippine flag are grouped around a locked ballot box, and a large V leads down into the slogan. The record lists every word on it, and there are not many.

DON'T BETRAY YOUR HEROES--THE MEN

WHO FOUGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE

[ballot box:] BOX

for

VALID BALLOTS

DON'T SELL YOUR VOTE!

Who made it

FRAME credits the U.S. Information Agency and its series of posters distributed in Asia, adding the note "no sponsor printed on the sheet." The archive classes the source as unidentified. A voter in the Philippines who read this poster had no way to know from the paper that a foreign government's information service stood behind it. Neither the artist nor the seven faces in the portraits are identified, and no print run is given.

The argument

FRAME tags it transfer and fear appeal. The portraits and the flag lend their weight to a single instruction, and the stake for ignoring it is betrayal of the men who fought. That is a strong appeal to make about a private act.

The instruction itself is sound. A bought vote is a corrupted vote, and a republic that lets ballots be sold soon has no real elections. Nothing on the sheet tells the reader whom to vote for, which is to its credit. What deserves a plain note is the missing name. An election message from a foreign government is a different thing from the same message signed by a local civic group, and a reader is entitled to know which one is speaking.

Another archive record with the same catalog date carries the shorter title Don't Sell Your Vote! On this site, compare the 1953 NAMFREL registration notice, which does carry a signature, and the Credo sheet from the same series. The U.S. Information Agency hub sets these beside the agency's other work abroad.