Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE
JANUARY 1910 – James Larkin Pearson, poet and newspaper man, carried on the Fool Killer tradition from 1910 to 1917, then again from 1919 into the 1920s. 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.
Pearson’s Fool-Killer was the mascot of the entire publication, which was merely 4-6 pages anyway, not simply the supposed author of letters regarding his body count of “fools.” Think of this Fool Killer (I prefer no hyphen) as the written word equivalent of Puck (1876-1918), the political cartoon mascot of the humor magazine of the same name.
The targets of Pearson’s Fool Killer in this debut issue from January of 1910:
*** A flim-flam artist called Grammar who was selling bogus “eternal youth” treatments via his book Perpetual Life, or Living in the Body Forever.
*** Frederick Cook, who, the previous December, had seen his claim to have reached the North Pole ruled invalid and possibly fraudulent by the University of Copenhagen. (The Fool Killer was unable to locate Cook, however.)
*** Notoriously controversial and possibly corrupt Federal Appeals Court Judge Peter S. Grosscup.
*** A Professor Pickering who wanted to raise 10 million dollars to send a message to the planet Mars. Continue reading
PART FIFTY-TWO – Some of the targets from the December of 1911 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of The Fool-Killer: 
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. 
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