FOOL KILLER FIFTY-FIVE: APRIL 1912

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-FIVE – Here is a look at some of the Fool Killer’s targets in the April of 1912 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the character:

*** The Steel Trust – Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller and other “Big Ikes of the Steel Trust”, as Pearson and his Fool Killer called them. The bloated rich pigs were in the news again because – just like today’s corporate rich pigs at Google, Facebook, Twitter and others they were being called out on their prejudiced behavior and their contempt for the notion that Congress or the Stanley Committee or anyone else could hold them accountable.

              They had recently boasted that they were above nations because without their steel the U.S. and some other countries could not wage war or engage in engineering & construction projects or build cargo ships, railroads, etc. Whistleblowers at the steel companies had recently made public statements about the ways the Steel Trust collaborated to control steel prices, EXCLUDE COMPETITION and undertake other acts in violation of Anti-Trust laws at what they called “Gary Dinners.” Testimony from 55 figures had already been heard.

              Another way they were just as disgusting as today’s Big Tech/ Technofascists was the way that untold numbers of SUBPOENAED DOCUMENTS HAD BEEN DESTROYED BY THE CORPORATIONS INVOLVED (like privileged white one-percenter Hillary Clinton flagrantly destroyed so much of the evidence against her). Those documents allegedly contained proof that Steel Trust figures had not only violated the law but had committed perjury in their courtroom testimony. Corporate fascists like Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg and others seem to slither the same way no matter the time period.

*** Judges and other high officials who betrayed their public trusts. He favored the recall process for judges as well as others. 

*** Tobacco companies plus tobacco users like smokers and snuff-chewers.

*** People who wanted women kept out of government jobs. (Yet he still criticized women who wore pants or smoked or chewed tobacco. Unusual guy.)

*** A Mr W.H. Kerr of Great Bend, KS, who had published the book Kerr’s Great Discoveries, outlining his atheist beliefs. (Among Pearson’s many contradictions was the way he boasted about being a socialist, yet was intensely religious.) 

*** Bankers who charged usurious interest rates.

*** Wagoneers who opposed taxes to improve road conditions for the wagons they drove.

*** Wealthy people who put diamond-studded collars on their dogs while there were children in the world who went hungry.

*** “Ring Rule”, the term for governmental rule by rings of grafters and bureaucrats. 

*** Fools who, as he put it, “tamely submit to being systematically robbed day by day by the big corporations, and then fight and vote for the industrial hydras who are doing them to death.”

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

“Skin or get skinned – that’s the only chance these days.”

“A man’s will power is helpless when it butts up against a woman’s won’t power.”  

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-SIX 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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