# Tell That to the Marines! (1918), Flagg's angry civilian Tell That to the Marines! is a 1918 Marine Corps recruiting poster by James Montgomery Flagg for the New York office at 24 East 23rd Street. A civilian tears off his coat beside a newspaper headlined "Huns kill women and children!" - Home - Archive - Tell That to the Marines! (1918), Flagg's angry civilian Tell That to the Marines! Tell That to the Marines! (1918), Flagg's angry civilian James Montgomery Flagg's 1918 Marine recruiting poster shows a man stripping off his coat over a "Huns kill women and children!" headline. Library of ## Techniques named on the archive record Name-calling Date1918Made byU.S. Marine Corps recruiting (New York); James Montgomery Flagg (artist)MediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeWilson AdministrationSourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceLibrary of Congress , retrieved September 27, 2026SourcePublic domain in the U.S. (published before 1931) Flagg, James Montgomery, 1877-1960, artist. 1918. Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18600. 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 Tell That to the Marines! is a 1918 Marine Corps recruiting poster by James Montgomery Flagg for the New York office at 24 East 23rd Street. A civilian tears off his coat beside a newspaper headlined "Huns kill women and children!" ## What the sheet prints Content note: the newspaper in the picture uses "Huns" for Germans. It is quoted as printed. A man in shirtsleeves and waistcoat is mid-motion, pulling off his jacket with his fists closed. His hat is on the ground. So is a newspaper. Its headline is the only reason the poster gives for his anger, and the street address is the only thing it tells him to do. TELL THAT TO THE MARINES! AT 24 EAST 23rd STREET HUNS KILL WOMEN AND CHILDREN! Transcription in the FRAME record; the small dateline above the headline is not legible on the scan. Signed James Montgomery Flagg. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. ## Who issued it U.S. Marine Corps recruiting in New York, art by James Montgomery Flagg (1877–1960), 1918. The image is the Library of Congress copy, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18600, public domain in the United States as a pre-1931 publication. No NAID is given. ## How to read it Flagg also drew the pointing Uncle Sam of I Want You for U.S. Army. That sheet asks. This one shows a man who has stopped asking himself anything. The legible headline names no town, no unit, no date; a small dateline above it is unreadable in the scan. It is a wire story reduced to a slur and a crime, and the man's reaction is offered as the right one. The Marine Corps recruited volunteers, and a recruiting office has every right to tell a young man that his country needs him. The objection is to the route. A poster that teaches readers to enlist in a rage over a headline they cannot check is teaching them to act on what they cannot check. That habit did not stay at the recruiting station; the CPI case study shows the same war years asking citizens to report neighbors on little more. The same "Hun" vocabulary runs through the Treasury's Hun or Home? and Halt the Hun! The Wilson administration essay separates the wartime pictures that came from other offices, such as the Army's I Want You sheet, from the Committee on Public Information's own work. The kinder reading is also available: the man is a volunteer, and the poster dramatizes a decision he makes for himself. The record supports that too. But the decision is made on the strength of one word. ## Sources - FRAME object record, Tell That to the Marines!, 1918. U.S. Marine Corps recruiting (New York); artist James Montgomery Flagg. - Library of Congress, item 2008679015, LC-DIG-ppmsca-18600, retrieved by the archive 27 September 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/tell-that-to-the-marines-1918/