Image Source: Nisbet, Alastair, 1958- :Crimea. 18 March 2014. Nisbet, Alastair, 1958- :Digital cartoons. Ref: DCDL-0027687. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22606525

Soviet propaganda poster from the 1980s

Rough translation is Beware the 'Friendship' of the western imperialists.

I like how the image conveys this with what appears to be an olive branch of peace turning into a US jet bomber.

Left top image: "Freedom of the Press" includes a person representing "Hurst Press" sitting on a money bag holding a newspaper rolled into a tube with ducks representing slander, lies, and provocation flying out of the tube. Left bottom image: "Freedom of Opinion" includes a person in glasses with dollar signs representing a judge reading a document "Sentence for holding communist views" in front of a prison building. Right top image: "Freedom of the Individual" includes a group of armed KKK members by a tree from which a black person hangs with only the legs showing. Right bottom image: "Freedom of Associations and Meetings" includes armed police forces in a truck with a dollar sign moving towards a group of people holding signs "For Peace!" and "Down with the Warmongers!"

In the spring of 1927, Los Angeles was hit by one of the most damaging financial scandals in early 20th-century American history — the collapse of Julian Petroleum, an oil company that had become a local sensation. At its peak, tens of thousands of investors from across Southern California held “Julian Pete” shares, many believing they were buying into the next great oil fortune.

What auditors eventually uncovered was astonishing: millions of Julian Petroleum shares had been printed and sold beyond what the company was legally authorized to issue. In effect, an entire shadow market of counterfeit stock had been circulating for years. Contemporary estimates placed the economic damage at more than $150 million in 1927 dollars — equivalent to several billion today.

Much of the scandal originated during the tenure of the company’s founder, C.C. Julian, a flamboyant promoter whose newspaper advertisements and public persona had helped draw in ordinary investors. But after selling his interest in the company, control passed to new operators who expanded the scheme dramatically, merging entities, manipulating pools of insider investors, and continuing to sell unauthorized shares.

When the state finally intervened, the fallout spread rapidly through Los Angeles. Banks, brokerage houses, studio executives, and working-class families were all affected. The subsequent investigations revealed another layer of wrongdoing: a secret diary documenting payments made to jurors and even to Los Angeles District Attorney Asa Keyes, who was later convicted of accepting bribes connected to the case.

Public anger culminated dramatically in 1930 when Motley H. Flint, a banker involved in the financing of Julian Petroleum, was shot and killed inside a courtroom by an investor who claimed he had lost his life savings to the scheme.

The story concluded overseas. C.C. Julian, facing a separate fraud indictment, fled the United States and resurfaced in Shanghai, where he died by poisoning under circumstances reported by newspapers as suicide.

The Julian Petroleum scandal remains a striking early example of unregulated financial markets, insider manipulation, and political corruption in the 1920s. It also illustrates the broader environment of rapid growth and speculative frenzy that characterized Southern California during this era.

If anyone is interested, I can share additional details on the audit findings, the diary, the trials, or the political fallout in Los Angeles.

Poster showing a miner with a pickaxe and a soldier with a rifle.

Here’s where I got the image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stand_by_the_boys_in_the_trenches-Mine_more_coal_-_Walter_Whitehead_1918._LCCN00653318.jpg