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 71 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the May 1914 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure:
*** President Woodrow Wilson, for his economic policies which Pearson and his Fool Killer blamed for bringing back the anti-working class (Grover) Cleveland Times.
*** The Government Printing Office which the Fool Killer deemed not worth the money spent on it because all they print is the Congressional Record and what amounts to tiresome government pronouncements.
*** Bootleggers who were hurriedly transporting as much whiskey as they could from Virginia into North Carolina, where booze was now illegal. They did this because they could charge much more for liquor in a state where it was officially banned.
*** Pompous High Society members who looked down their noses at farmers.
*** Readers who demanded Pearson work only with printers who belonged to a union, even though he lived in a part of North Carolina where none were available.
*** Catholics. Pearson espoused an odd combination of Christianity and Socialism and insisted Woodrow Wilson and some of his cabinet were slanting their policies to please the Pope. Think of it as the 1914 version of today’s obsession with insisting politicians are slanting their policies to please Israel.
*** Continuing this issue’s unhinged obsession with Catholicism, Pearson bizarrely claimed the major issue of the 1916 presidential election was going to be how each candidate would “control” subordinating America’s interests to the Pope. In reality the major issue in 1916 was the raging World War and whether or not America should enter it. Ironically, Wilson won reelection in ’16 on the slogan “He kept us out of war” but then led us into the war anyway in April of 1917.
SOME OF THE FOOL KILLER’S PITHIER REMARKS THIS TIME AROUND:
“The suffragettes are not half as dangerous to society as the SNUFF-ragettes.” (Pearson supported giving women the vote but abhorred women who chewed snuff. Or smoked. Or wore pants. ESPECIALLY the ones who wore pants.)
“Men are the salt of the earth, and women are the pepper.”
“A man never tries to convince others that he is perfectly sober unless he is at least half drunk.”
“The smaller a man’s soul is, the more meanness it will hold.”
“Money makes a move and the devil seconds the motion.”
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 MY LOOK AT JOE MAGARAC, THE STEEL MILL VERSION OF JOHN HENRY AND PAUL BUNYAN, CLICK HERE
Balladeer's Blog 