Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE
PART NINETEEN: James Larkin Pearson, creator of this new Fool Killer, featured a complaint that I can relate to, since I go through the same thing here at Balladeer’s Blog – “Democrats write and ask me to lambaste the Republicans and Republicans write and suggest that I cuss out the Democrats. All right, boys, I am going to comply with both requests, and then you will both be mad.”
That also captures the position of Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans of the Milton Chronicle when he began the Fool Killer Letters around 1850. Evans and his Fool Killer (Jesse Holmes) were Whigs who bashed both the Democrats and the Republicans. After the Civil War, Evans and his Fool Killer bashed both the Democrats of the Ku Klux Klan and the Republican Carpetbaggers.
Coincidentally, James L Pearson and his Fool Killer observed that (just like today) the upheavals wracking the world of 1919 were proceeding from the bottom UP, so the “Silk Hat Brigade” at the top of the power and money structure (think of today’s Corporate Globalists) were the people least capable of understanding the emerging changes.
The Fool Killer’s targets in this October, 1919 edition:
*** Sleazy, money-hungry Preachers were taken to the woodshed yet again this time around. The Fool Killer loved preying on them because of their hypocrisy and corruption. And remember, this was long before Sinclair Lewis’ novel Elmer Gantry presented the definitive portrait of the type of Preachers bashed by Pearson.
The Fool Killer denied that it was just fear of him which was causing the shortage of young men willing to go into preaching, a shortage bemoaned by churches in 1919. The supernatural vigilante claimed it was also caused by talented men being driven away by the overall corruption in religion at the time.
*** Equally sleazy, money-hungry “spiritualists” – nicknamed “Boogers” in the slang of the time. Arthur Conan Doyle was still alive in 1919 and, as usual, that otherwise rational man willingly served as a public cheerleader for those con artists who claimed to be able to contact one’s dead loved ones.
The Fool Killer came down hard on them and denounced Doyle as a fool, but a fool who had the Atlantic Ocean keeping him safe from our vigilante’s wrath.
*** Politicians who made a big production out of helping royal and wealthy families in Europe but snubbed the poor and the working class from that continent.
*** The biased and unreliable Associated Press, which the Fool Killer always referred to as “the Ass-ociated Press.” (He should see how pathetic they’ve become TODAY!) Continue reading
PART EIGHTEEN: In this issue the Fool Killer stated his mission in his newest incarnation (Or “regeneration” we could say with tongue in cheek.) was “the general overturning of all established institutions of every kind.” … “The Hour of Doom has struck for many of this old world’s pet institutions.” Quite a long way from his 1830s mission of driving the Devil out of the Tennessee Hills and killing fools who tried stealing the “hidden” gold of the Melungeons!
PART SEVENTEEN: Resuming my look at James Larkin Pearson’s Fool Killer (Or Fool-Killer as he wrote it). In August of 1919 Pearson brought the Fool Killer (I prefer no hyphen) out of his latest hibernation with the words “After resting for two years the Fool-Killer goes on duty again.” 
*** People still pushing Democrat President Woodrow Wilson’s claim that the World War (1914-1918) was fought to “Make the world safe for Democracy.” The Fool Killer would swing away at such people while pointing out the less-than-democratic nature of some of the Allied Powers governments from the recent conflict, especially England, Italy and Japan. 
*** A preacher who publicly said that he “almost wishes sometimes that Jesus would come already.” The Fool Killer added a joke wondering how that preacher would feel if he was on a trip and his wife said that she “almost wishes sometimes” that he would come back from his trip already. (Pearson was, sad to say, very religious and often took shots at clergy members he found insufficiently “devout.”) 
PART SIXTEEN: James Larkin Pearson, poet and newspaper man, carried on the Fool Killer tradition from 1910 to 1917, then again from 1919 to 1929. Pearson’s fellow North Carolinian Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans had written the Fool Killer Letters of the 19th Century so it’s appropriate that another Tar Heel continue the lore for so many years of the 20th Century. 
In August of 1917 Pearson’s nationwide publication called The Fool-Killer changed its title and format because of America’s entry into World War One four months earlier. That change from the hard-hitting satire of Fool Killing was made to show solidarity while the war raged. 
PART FIFTEEN: Last time around I examined Joel Chandler Harris’ 1902 story Flingin’ Jim And His Fool-Killer, set in Georgia in October of 1872, plus Ridgway Hill’s Facts For The Fool-Killer, set in and around Buffalo, NY in 1909. 
PART FOURTEEN: FACTS FOR THE FOOL-KILLER (1909) by Ridgway Hill. 
Facts For The Fool-Killer finds the fictional character operating from Buffalo, NY and vicinity. The Fool Killer now wears the blue uniform and tall helmet of a turn-of-the-century policeman and wields a police officer’s billy-club in lieu of his usual club/ walking stick/ cudgel. 
PART THIRTEEN: FABLES IN SLANG (1899) 
“The written word equivalent of political cartoons” might be another way of describing the fables. In any event Ade did accompany the fables with assorted illustrations. 
PART TWELVE 
Now we’re in the 1880s and 1890s. The Fool Killer lore of the Melungeon people was absorbing traces of Mormon influence from the wider culture. The Melungeons were NOT Mormons but their Fool Killer tales took on pseudo-religious elements from Mormon lore, like the notion that the Melungeons may be even older than the previously held legends about pre-Columbian Portuguese explorers or ancient Phoenicians. 
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK 
PART ELEVEN: MORE MELUNGEON VARIATIONS
PART TEN: MELUNGEON VARIATIONS
If he had, one possible source would be the Fool Killer figure from Melungeon folklore in East Tennessee and other Appalachian areas. Or, since we have no way of checking exact dates, Evans’ darkly satirical tales may have influenced the existing Melungeon lore since Melungeons at the time were scattered from Tennessee to North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia. 
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