Lest It Be Too Late! Help Greece Now, a Greek War Relief Association appeal

Lest It Be Too Late! Help Greece Now is a fundraising poster from the Greek War Relief Association of 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, signed in Greek by the artist Io. Kanellos. A robed woman holds a frightened child before a hilltop temple. The archive dates it 1939 (44-PF-24).

A charity asks for money, quickly

A private relief society in New York printed this sheet to raise donations for Greece. The archive describes a robed female figure holding a frightened child, with a temple on a hill behind them. Below the picture, the plea runs in two short lines, followed by the society's name and address.

LEST IT BE TOO LATE!

HELP GREECE NOW

GREEK WAR RELIEF ASSOCIATION, INC., 730 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

[signature:] ΙΩ. ΚΑΝΕΛΛΟΣ

The signature is in Greek capitals. The FRAME maker line renders it in Latin letters as Io. Kanellos and gives no more about the artist.

How the appeal works

The archive tags two techniques here: fear appeal and transfer. The fear is in the first line, which urges speed without naming the danger. The transfer is in the picture: the temple brings classical Greece into a request for present-day relief, so the old prestige of the place does part of the persuading. The catalog lists the purpose as "Fundraise" and the audience as "Domestic public."

Nothing on the sheet asks for a law, a tax, or a draft. It names a private, incorporated society, gives a street address, and leaves the decision to the reader. The pressure is emotional, and some of it is vague, but the giving is voluntary, and the sponsor signs its name. That is persuasion a free country can live with.

The same Record Group 44 foreign-poster series holds a Dutch relief appeal from the Queen Wilhelmina Fund, "They Can Take Only Our Bodies", which pairs a scene the archive reads as an execution with its request for money. Two other sheets on this site from groups in America backing a foreign cause are France Forever's de Gaulle poster and the Russian War Relief reprint that mocks Goebbels. The Roosevelt administration essay notes that not every item in the period's file was a government product.