FOOL KILLER FIFTY-ONE: NOVEMBER 1911

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN THE 1850s, CLICK HERE

PART FIFTY-ONE – The Fool Killer is back to hurl his Truth Bombs at some more malefactors. NOTE: This month the Fool Killer added a Blacksnake Cattle Whip and a Double-Geared Buzz Saw to his arsenal of weapons. The one to whip the foolish, the other to slice skin off their backs. Some of the Fool Killer’s targets from James Larkin Pearson’s November of 1911 edition of The Fool-Killer:

*** The roughly seventeen multi-millionaires whose wealth supposedly allowed them to control the entire country. In more recent years that number has been lessened to around fifteen, but the basic sentiment remains the same – the country seems to exist for the profit and power of a very, very few.

*** Women who chewed tobacco. Pearson and his Fool Killer supported women’s right to vote but for some reason women chewing snuff really, really bothered him.

*** The federal authorities responsible for sending 12 year old Albert Dewey Carter to five years in prison for stealing $5.00 from the post office.

*** Writer Upton Sinclair, whose wife Meta had just left him for poet Harry Kemp.

*** Corporation lawyers who “smothered their consciences for a fat salary.”

*** Card-players. In his usual hostility to gambling, Pearson called a deck of cards “a bundle of admission tickets to Hell.”

*** People who open-carried at public places.

*** Pearson was, oddly enough given many of his opinions, a very religious man, and once again he and his Fool Killer targeted atheists who railed against religion.

*** Men and women who smoked.

*** Church-goers who were only pious on Sundays but were “sinful” and “worldly” the rest of the week. Again, I include Pearson’s religious remarks for the sake of completeness.

*** Women who played baseball. (?)

— Some of the Fool Killer’s pithier remarks this time around:

“When I hear people bragging about their distinguished ancestry, I can’t help wondering what made the stock run out so quick.”

“A kiss is a big mouthful of nothing that tastes like Heaven and sounds like a cow pulling her foot out of the mud.”

“Wind is air that is in a hurry.”

“A Dude is an empty place with clothes on.”

“If the Church wants to prosper spiritually, it must quit hanging on to Aristocracy’s shirt-tail.”

“The spoon that stirs the gravy is the spoon that rules the world.”

“About the only place the Dove of Peace can find to roost is on the top of a battleship.”

As I always say, it’s fascinating to read this old publication and its odd mix of viewpoints – even the ones you disagree with.

FOR PART FIFTY-TWO CLICK HERE.

I WILL EXAMINE MORE FOOL KILLER LORE SOON. KEEP CHECKING BACK FOR UPDATES.

FOR MY LOOK AT JOE MAGARAC, THE STEEL MILL VERSION OF JOHN HENRY AND PAUL BUNYAN, CLICK HERE

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