Chapter I: Front Matter

Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Vol. II. No. 13, October, 1920

AN OPEN LETTER

The Whiz Bang Farm,
Rural Route No. 2, Robbinsdale, Minn.

To Our Readers:

With this issue, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang discards swaddling clothes and starts bounding on its second year of existence. In this number, which we have termed “Our Annual,” the writer has taken the liberty to review many of the stories and poems from the 12 previous issues. It is obvious that a new publication must start with no circulation. If it strikes a popular appeal in the heart-chord of human existence it succeeds; otherwise, it sinks into journalistic oblivion.

Thanks to a legion of loyal readers and volunteer scribes, The Whiz Bang has weathered the colicky and diarrhoetic stage of life. Our eye-teeth have been cut and the worst is over. This little family journal of uplift has no one to thank but its readers. It is your magazine and it is you who send in the snappy articles to fill its pages each month. Again we extend our heartiest thanks.

We are now spread from the mackerel munching macaroons of Manhattan’s bright isle to the squawking squabs of sunny California; from the wily, wicked pole-cats of Northern Minnesota to the perk and prim creoles of feverish Orleans.

On this month, the month of our birth, the editor feels as happy as a kid sucking a lollypop and smearing its chin with an ice cream cone. All we lack to complete the illusion is about three fingers in a wash-tub. Adios until November rolls ’round.

CAPTAIN BILLY.

_Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang_

OUR MOTTO:
“_Make It Snappy_”

October, 1920 Vol. II. No. 13

Published Monthly by
W. H. Fawcett, Rural Route No. 2
at Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Entered as second-class matter May 1, 1920, at the post office at
Robbinsdale, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

_Price 25 cents_ _$2.50 per year_

_“We have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to
the American People”--Theodore Roosevelt._

Copyright 1920
By W. H. Fawcett

_Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the
fighting forces of the United States, past, present and future._

_Skipping with the Skipper_

Just one short year ago, under the above caption: “Skipping With the Skipper,” Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang exploded for the first time. It was the publisher’s idea at that time to compile a snappy joke-book for former soldiers, sailors and marines living in the immediate vicinity of the village of Robbinsdale. The demand greatly exceeded the initial press run, and we’ve been running ever since.

For the benefit of new readers, the opening explanation for our existence on this mundane sphere is herewith re-published. It explains itself, I believe:

=Whiz-z Bang!!! We’re off and in our trail follows a mighty
explosion of pedigreed bull. “Make It Snappy” is our motto.
Snap! Pep! Ginger! Even more. The first issue of CAPTAIN BILLY’S
WHIZ BANG is off the press and with its advent the editor and
contributors hope to have added something really worth while to
brighten the atmosphere of human existence. Captain Billy’s only
and original WHIZ BANG will explode in every issue. No “duds”
allowed in our monthly Literary Indigestion. Today we are the
Cherry Sisters of journalism with the fond hopes for “Big Time”
sometime.=

=As the old saying goes, “Laugh and the world laughs with you,
near beer and you drink alone.” If we dance we must pay the jazz
band; no matter what we get we must “put up or shut up.” Doctors
of Dope and Doctors of Divinity must have the price of our life
and love and the undertaker smiles with a self-satisfied grin as
our mortal flesh and bones are delivered to the charnel house.=

=Therefore the motto of the WHIZ BANG will be: Be happy while
you live; live a full life and while you are living, live on
the square so you may be able to follow that quaint western
philosophy and look every man in the face and tell him to go to
Hell.=

=Please do not get the impression from the title page that the
WHIZ BANG is to be a military publication only. There will be 100
laughs for the service man and 97¼ laughs for the civilian. We
will give the soldier, sailor and marine the benefit of two and
three-quarters per cent because we believe he is fairly entitled
to it. (Brewers please note.)=

=THE WHIZ BANG is only in its infancy, so look for the November
issue. Then we will burst out and explode into a full-grown bull.
We will be fatter, lovelier, snappier and juicier and--oh, girls,
we just hate to tell you. Watch for Mr. November and see if we
don’t make Bill Bryan’s Commoner drier than an Algerian caravan
in the Sahara desert, 20 miles from the oasic grog shop and the
Cliquot Special two weeks overdue. The bull is only half grown
and he surely will be some lively animal next month when we sling
him over to our readers.=

=Those of us who have lived through the past five years have the
satisfaction of knowing that we have seen the mightiest and most
stirring five years in history, and we are watching from day to
day the unfolding and ending of the colossal drama. Never has
there been such a crashing of empires, such a falling of thrones,
such righting of wrongs and deliverance of the oppressed,
such vivid demonstration of the wickedness, the folly and the
weakness, the nobility, the wisdom and the courage of which human
nature is capable.=

=As a grand finale, an alleviation from the terrific strain,
Billy’s WHIZ BANG will come as a relieving Balsam--an ointment
on the checkered skein of life. Please remember that the
oldest truths are the freshest. They are rich with the blood
of humanity. As the apple tree in your yard may be a sprout
from the apple tree in the Garden of Eden, so the idea that
just came to you may be the same that struck King Solomon.
Thoughts are deciduous, as trees, and appear green and fresh to
each generation, and like desert soil, we are unfurrowed and
unfettered. THE EDITOR.=

_The Crap Shooting Major_

By SKIPPER BILL.

This is a story of a major in the Motor Mechanics brigade, Signal Corps, U. S. Army,--A. C. Rebadow, by name. He hails from the city of Buffalo, N. Y., where he was employed in an automobile manufacturing plant and received his commission because of the supposition that he was a motor sharp.

“Soldiering” and gambling go hand in hand. The greatest indoor sport of the military man is to riffle the “pasteboards,” while his outdoor pastime consists of blowing on a pair of galloping dominoes as he prays for a “natural” to rear itself heavenward. Rebadow is neither soldier nor gambler but a dyed-in-the-wool squawker.

The “major’s” system was simple. If he lost he merely issued checks on his bank at Tonawanda, N. Y., and then “Stopped Payment,” on them. So simple, in fact, that his racial instinct led him promptly to the telegraph office to void the payment.

The Major relied upon military discipline to save him from his outraged victims. He believed that none would have nerve enough to make complaint against his ungentlemanly and indecent behavior, but at least on one occasion he reckoned without his host. That was at Camp Hancock, Georgia, where Rebadow lost $400 during several days’ indulgence at craps. The victim, however, took the matter up with the superior officers.

Rebadow was traced to an air post far behind the whiz bangs’ zone where he possibly imagined himself safe from his debtors as well as from the Jerries. This is a letter which compelled payment. It was written by one superior officer to another, the commandant at the air post where Rebadow was then situated:

“1. It is requested that the Commanding Officer of A. A. A. P. No. 1 take this matter up personally with Major Rebadow, as the following are the facts in the case, as can be supported by the record of the Motor Mechanics Brigade, which records I have personally inspected. Several months ago an exhaustive investigation of the merits of this case was made and it was shown that Major Rebadow was entirely in the wrong in this matter and was dropped on account of an indorsement he signed in which he stated he would make good the amount of these checks, approximately $400.

“2. The unprincipled manner in which Major Rebadow now treats this matter is considered so reprehensible that effort is being made to secure the forwarding of the personal file of Major Rebadow and he may be informed that unless this account has been settled by the time those records are received that this office will make all efforts to have Major Rebadow brought to trial as a result of his derelictions.”

Needless to say, Major Rebadow cowered before the eye of his superior officer and forthwith repaid the broken pledge.

I look back on my days in the ranks, where a man was a man, true blue and shorn of falsity, insolence, domineering and double-crossing ways. They were the days when we got paid together, painted the town together, and went broke together, where every man “shot square” with his “buddie.”

As for this crap-shooting major, he is in civies again and military discipline will afford him no protection for such breeches.

* * * * *

Willie and Mollie played in the sand,
Indulging in youthful folly;
The sun was hot on Willie’s back,
And the sand was hot to Mollie.

* * * * *

’Twas Ever Thus

Every time we see an article offered at an uncommonly low price--whether it be shoes, prunes, fountain pens, wood blocks, or a personal service of some kind--we are reminded of Chief Big Smoke.

The owner of this picturesque name was a copper-colored native employed as a missionary to his fellow smokes out in Oklahoma. A tourist once asked him what he did for a living.

“Umph!” said Big Smoke, “me preachum.”

“That so? What do you get for preaching?”

“Me get ten dollars a year.”

“Well,” commented the white man, “that’s d----n poor pay.”

“Umph!” replied Big Smoke, “me d----n poor preacher.”

* * * * *

The Eternal Feminine

Women want marriage and a home. They should. And there are more women than men. Even before the war there was, in Europe and America, an extra sixth woman for every five men, and the sixth woman brings competition. She bulls the market, and makes feminine sex solidarity impossible. And, of course, added to that is the woman who requires three or four men to make her happy, one to marry and support her, and one to take her to the theatre and to luncheon at Delmonico’s, and generally fetch and carry for her, and one to remember her as she was at nineteen and remain a bachelor and have a selfish, delightful life, while blaming her.--Mary Roberts Rinehart.

* * * * *

Move Over

Bridget failed to get up one morning to cook breakfast for the Smith family. Instead she yelled downstairs that she was “pretty sick.”

Mr. Smith promptly summoned his family doctor who gave the “sick” servant a thorough examination. The doctor was unable to find anything wrong with Bridget.

“My good woman,” he said, “you’re not sick at all.”

“I know I’m not,” Bridget replied, “but the Smiths owe me $20 and I’m going to stay in bed until they pay me.”

“Well, if that’s the case, move over; they owe me $50.”

_Golightly Highballs_

BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL.

Mexico