Chapter L: A. in Latin America stands for “licentious animals.” In Vera Cruz the (1)

principal male pastime is to talk about girls and not of God. From 4 P. M. to 2 A. M. men sit in the plaza portales drinking, smoking and talking about the women who pass by. The leading subject of “town talk” is girls, the one they went to the movie with last, the other one the night before, and the one they hope to get tonight.

The people make themselves a sewer for immoral filth, court the devil Lust that eats and burns up their blood; are spendthrifts of body and soul; waste their inheritance to purchase dirty, loathed disease; pawn their bodies to a dry-rot evil; make themselves patients for Lust’s rendezvous, a hospital, where their bill of fare is pills, not beef, and the doctor’s bill is longer than the moral law they have violated. What I have written here about Vera Cruz morals applies to the rest of Mexico where conditions are the same or worse.

The Ten Commandments are little in evidence in the country and free love prevails with the fruit of seventy-five per cent of illegitimate births. A respectable bachelor is not qualified to enter society until several children call him “papa.” Few men are without a separate establishment for affinities.

Honolulu

The Hawaiians are out and out in their dancing. They do not gloss it over and wear no hypocritical fig-leaves. They do not throw masks or mantles over their viciousness, under the guise of religious charity balls and philanthropic society parties. The hula is a hip dance, but the Hawaiians are not “hip”--ocritical in doing it. The dance is not sad or hippish but one of joy.

I have seen many dances--the Apache in Paris, du ventre in Cairo, the can-can in Buenos Aires, and with money here in Honolulu one can arrange with a chauffeur or at a hula house to see a hula combining all these vile and violent exhibitions. It is a composite of the compost of all dirty dances, most delightfully depraved, innocent of decency and shame, the dancers being quite careless about the exposure of their legs, arms and charms. What captivating indelicacy, so disturbing to the looker-on. But this it not the native hula. There is sufficient of the sun and volcano without it. The whites have taken away the native naivete and added their own nastiness. As a physiological study the dance is informing. In antiquity these antics were a religious service, combining poetry, pantomime and passion. The old edition of the heathen hula dance has been expurgated, but Christian foot-notes suggest more.

At one hula house I witnessed an unscheduled fight between several sailors who had quarreled over the charms of a hula girl with the result of broken heads, hearts and furniture. The native proprietor welcomed us with characteristic Hawaiian hospitality--we could eat, drink and stay as long as we pleased--all night in fact, with his hula girls for company. I thanked him for his ancient, beautiful and unbounded generosity but told him I was married and a minister, although he seemed unable to understand why that should make any difference with me, since it made little to some of the local clergy and laity.

One day at high noon, not night, I saw several native women bathing at Waikiki beach. All they had on was a holoku night-gown that was as good as nothing when wet. Three white, male strangers sauntered up from the nearby hotel, waded in, threw their arms around the girls and were guilty of “divers” familiarities. The girls didn’t object to the conduct of the boys. I couldn’t help seeing or thinking whether the fishes swam away or stayed and blushed all colors. Here was a “freedom of the seas” I refer to the naval board for diplomatic discussion.

God’s righteousness is like the great mountains. I often thought, as I marvelled at the islands’ scenery, that there are sermons in stones, but men do not listen; summits preach high ideals and purity, but people are deaf; and nature’s green only looks down on the mud and mire of lucre, lies, lust and laziness.

Havana

Havana is a fool’s Paradise--a lunatic limbo for people with loud clothes, lots of money, loose morals and light heads. It is the place where bad folks go to have a good time. The more disreputable a city is, the more popular it is to high society.

I have visited Havana many times and found the H in its name stood for Hell, not Heaven. On a recent sojourn I asked a traveling companion what the state of religion was and if Havana’s morals were improved. “Oh, yes, there has been a great reformation.” He had scarcely made this gratifying statement when a young man came up to me and showed some vile postcards and postals which he offered for sale. This did not happen in a side street at night, but in Central Park at noon.

Havana has reformed! The city has no “segregation,” but you may walk for miles along streets to the waterfront and find every other house with a seductive senorita at the door or window with extended hand or winsome voice urging you in broken Spanish or English to forsake the counsel of your mother’s Bible. Regular saloons and concert halls had scores of the women of the town at the tables sitting with motley men, while glasses clinked and phonographs scratched their screechy music. This was all bad enough but the lowest hell was reached when I saw a woman standing in the doorway offering to sell a girl of about 14 who stood by her side. At the end of certain streets the police were on watch to keep the women off the sidewalks, and so maintain an appearance of decency and order. Other places were unwatched and free.

Havana has reformed! The sporting women of the town advertise in several of the local magazines, where you find their photos, house address and some such paragraph in Spanish or in English for the benefit of the American tourist: “Tourist! Do you wish a good house in Havana, with plenty of women, pretty and elegant? Go to ---- street, No. ----, ask for Helena. Go today.” Here’s another: “Artistic Academy. If you want a place for pleasure and a good time, go to ----, plenty of nice girls.” Another want ad reads: “Ladies from all nations,” and still another, “Violeta has moved to ---- street, and with her Parisian arts welcomes the Havana public.”

Poor pleasure-seekers, whose law is fashion and folly their pursuit! Bubbles on the wave of pleasure, a tracery on the sand which Time’s tide will soon erase. Every year the siren voice of Havana calls, “Come in your private yacht on the Gulf Stream of gold; come with full purse and empty head and heart; come, you ‘best’ society, that you may be seen at your worst; come, all ye who would desert the temple of your mind and soul for this Circe’s palace of fleshy pleasures!”

Central America

Hamlet found something “rotten in the state of Denmark,” but it was sweet compared with what I discovered in Central America--the land of eruption and corruption, of dirt, disease, destitution, darkness, dilapidation, despots, delay, debt, deviltry and degeneracy, where a conservative estimate makes 90 per cent of the women immoral, 95 per cent of the men thieves, and 100 per cent of the population liars.

While strolling about the sultry seaport of Amapala, Spanish Honduras, and thinking of Morazan, the great Honduran liberator, two deceitful dames sought to enslave me. I was a stranger and they tried to take me in--their home nearby. Fortunately a policeman came up and warned me in broken English that these girls were “always--very--bad--to--everybody.” Each one took my arm and I thought it was time to take to my legs and get away. Anticipating my flight, one of them sprang upon me, wrapped her nether limbs about my waist and her arms around my neck. Thus in broad daylight in the heart of the town and in full view of the passerby I was attacked and assaulted. What a shipwreck of character might have happened had I landed at night! I hurried back to the ship and sought the seclusion my cabin afforded. The captain congratulated me on my narrow escape and informed me that on nearly every trip to this port native women of the town attempt to smuggle themselves at night on board to exchange their morals for the sailors’ money.

Panama

The last time I visited the Panama Canal it was closed, but the town was wide open. Former streets called straight were crooked and some rescued territory had relapsed. Just off the main street the scarlet woman and the red light flourished and flaunted. Posing as bar-girls these women came out boldly with the bar-sinister of their profession, came with forbidden fruit from the “Cocoa Grove,” and exposed it for sale on West Sixteenth street, contaminating the young. The groves may have been God’s first temples, but not this Panama “Cocoa” one. Here Satan conducts services every day of the year and passion-fruit is offered all who walk its thoroughfares. One finds all colors, classes and conditions of carnality. The U. S. soldiers are the police because the Panamanian police hate our boys sober or drunk, and when our boys had a fight the Panamanians beat them up. There are dens of high and low degree, full of filth, profanity, drunkenness, disease and debauchery, I know, for I saw, and I saw because I was there for local color and it was black enough.

Panama is famous for its canal, the wedlock of the oceans, but the city Panama is infamous, knows little of the family word “wedlock” and its red light “Cocoa Light” would make the fabled Daphne Grove wither up with envy. From the first to the fifteenth of each month the U. S. soldiers receive their pay and spend a large amount of it here in wine, women and song. In this pandemonium of profligacy, one may see, at any hour of the day or night, a brave soldier boy, intoxicated with love or liquor, sitting in a doorway with a half-dressed, bare-legged girl in his lap. These girls are o. k.’d by an M. D. twice a week and pronounced all right. Our soldiers cannot leave camp and visit them without a card certificate of good character. After they have made a night of it the boys repair to the “House of Lords” in the district and receive a bath and inoculation of anti-venereal dope. If they fail to take this treatment and are contaminated, they suffer more ways than one, being compelled to pay a fine. This is all too bad. Pleasures pure and simple should be given them at camp or in barracks. As it is, many of them are “shot to hell” before they ever go to war. If they have any extra money, strength or inclination, they may hit the opium-pipe, buy a get-rich-quick lottery ticket, or on Sunday attend a bullfight. A modern St. Anthony would find it difficult to withstand the temptations of this zone. More than one Pan-American religious conference is needed to make the moral atmosphere as pure as the city streets are clean. It is a bigger job to kill the devil than to exterminate the yellow-fever mosquito.

* * * * *

Friendship and Love

What causes the majority of women to be so little touched by friendship is that it is insipid when they have once tasted of love.

* * * * *

She Quit the Union

A party went to the opera and occupied a box. One of the men saw a raveling on the shoulder of one of the ladies. He picked it, and it kept on coming. He pulled and pulled till he had a tremendous mass, which he threw behind the door. Some days after the men met and talked it over. One of them said: “My wife had a good time, but she cannot figure out how she lost her union suit.”

_Highty-tighty Aphrodite_

At present, partly owing to what is very modestly called “barefoot” dancing, a severe season of clothelessness prevails; and the aforementioned exercises afford the public quite a fair idea of “the most admirable spectacle in nature”--that is to say, bowlegs, knock-knees, thick ankles, spray feet, shoulders scraggy or pudgy, knees bony or lumpy, and weirdly shaped legs.

The modernist poets also have been seized by the mania for nudity--but let us hope that with them it is rather theory than practice; for the average literator is not usually “a dream of form in days of thought.” One mocking rhymester thus makes game of such poetic aspirations:

All the poets have been stripping,
Quaintly into moonbeams slipping,
Running out like wild Bacchantes,
Minus lingerie and panties.
Never knew of such a frantic
Belvederean, corybantic,
Highty-tighty Aphrodite,
Stepping out without a nightie.

One of these modernist bards puts her own fancies into the brain of an old-time lady, stiff in pink and silver brocade, as she walks in a prim garden awaiting the coming of her suitor. She would like to leave “all that pink and silver crumpled on the ground”; for,

Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin.

Thus divested of raiment, “I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,” and her lover, seeing her, would pursue “till he caught me in the shade.” A writer of free verse is more candid; it is herself she would disrobe. “Since the earliest days I have dressed myself in fanciful clothes,” she says, trying to express herself in this manner; but now she is weary of putting “romance and fantasy into my raiment.” She realizes that “my clothes are not me, myself”; hence the stern resolve:

I think I shall go naked into the streets,
And wander unclothed into people’s parlors.
The incredulous eyes of the bewildered world
Might give me back my true image ...
Maybe in the glances of others
I would find out what I really am.

Doubtless she would; but perhaps not exactly as she means it. Wandering “unclothed into people’s parlors,” if police vigilance could be eluded, might be a way of seeing ourselves as others see us, since the owners of the parlors would probably be startled into candid comment, instead of, as usual, waiting until the unclad back of the visitant was turned. It would be a happy arrangement if only the truly symmetrical would indulge in semi-nudity. Such exhibitions are a form of female vanity; but if the average woman will but realize it, she owes any admiration she may excite to the saving graces of clothes. If she is wise she will foster the illusion. As a poet of another era expressed it, “Oh, the little less, and what worlds away!”

_In the Grip of a Dream_

The dreamer is with us. From early youth there comes anon a time when the sense of great loneliness and mysticism leads one out to the wilderness of the Dream God. Conceptions of dreams and of love are two difficult tasks, but Robert W. Chambers seems to have made greater headway than other authors. In his book, “The Danger Mark,” he thus describes the feelings that passed over poor, troubled Geraldine:

“We’re pretty young yet, Geraldine.... I never saw a girl I cared for as I might have cared for you. It’s true, no matter what I have done, or may do.... But you’re quite right, a man of that sort isn’t to be considered,” he laughed and pulled on one glove, “only--I knew as soon as I saw you that it was to be you or--everybody. First, it was anybody; then it was you--now it’s everybody. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” she managed to say. The dizzy waves swayed her; she rested her cheeks between both hands and, leaning there heavily, closed her eyes to fight against it. She had been seated on the side of a lounge; and now, feeling blindly behind her, she moved the cushions aside, turned and dropped among them, burying her blazing face. Over her the scorching vertigo swept, subsided, rose, and swept again. Oh, the horror of it!--the shame, the agonized surprise. What was this dreadful thing that, for the second time, she had unwittingly done? And this time it was so much more terrible. How could such an accident have happened to her? How could she face her own soul in the disgrace of it?

Fear, loathing, frightened incredulity that this could really be herself, stiffened her body, and clinched her hands under her parted lips. On them her hot breath fell irregularly.

Rigid, motionless, she lay, breathing faster and more feverishly. Tears came after a long while, and with them relaxation and lassitude. She felt that the dreadful thing which had seized and held her was letting go its hold, was freeing her body and mind; and as it slowly released her and passed on its terrible silent way, she awoke and sat up with a frightened cry, to find herself lying on her own bed in utter darkness.

* * * * *

In France, we are told, the English officers stepped about as though they owned the whole d----d country, whereas

The Americans walked about as though they didn’t give a d----n who owned the country.

* * * * *

New York liquor spotters have discovered liquor in baby dolls. That’s nothing new. Lots of baldheads have been buying wine for baby dolls in New York for generations!

_Questions and Answers_

=Dear Captain Billy=--I am 15 years old and have a sweetheart who is just 18. He owns a flivver and wants me to go riding with him. Should I?--=Lizzie.=

Walking is healthier.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--I have a girl friend who insists on writing to me and demanding an answer. What shall I do?--=Charlie.=

Tell her to enclose a stamp.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--My husband is going out with another woman all the time. What can I do to keep him home nights.--=Mrs. Brown.=

Take the other woman in as a boarder.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--I am a young lady attending a church college. Do you think it would be all right for me to wear skirts 15 inches from the ground.--=Marie.=

That depends on your height. If you are six feet tall it would be all right, but if you are only 29 inches “tall,” Not Yet Marie.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Bill=--What would you call the unoccupied side of an old maid’s bed?--=Simple Susan.=

No Man’s Land.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--My daughter has a sweetheart who just got back from France. He talks to her in French and says: “Villa vouz promenade,” or something like that, and then they go to some park. What does that mean?--=Anxious Father.=

That’s all right, old man. Your daughter’s sweetheart was only asking her to take a walk.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--What’s good for cooties?--=Returned Soldier.=

Bread crumbs.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--Please explain the uses of salpeter.--=Tommy.=

You are hereby referred to any soldier who will tell you its principal usage is in the manufacture of high explosives.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Bill=--What’s worse than a cow with the cooties?--=Hi Ball.=

A horse with a buggy behind.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Bill=--We are organizing a new lodge in ’Frisco to be known as the “Ancient Order of Modern Cavemen.” Will you kindly suggest a motto for our lodge? Yours truly--=Rough on Cats.=

My suggestion is: “Catch ’em young; treat ’em rough, and tell ’em nothin’.”

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--Why do they use castor oil in racing automobiles and aeroplanes?--=Eunice.=

To make them run, of course, Eunice.

* * * * *

=Dear Bilious Billy=--What would you write about if the country went wet again and you didn’t have the dry reformers to poke fun at and kid about?--=Reginald Pewter.=

We cannot tell a lie--we wouldn’t be able to write during the first few weeks.

* * * * *

=Dear Whiz Bang=--My husband, a returned soldier, did not get home until 3 o’clock this morning. He said he was at the Fort all night playing golf. Do soldiers play golf in the middle of the night?--=Worried War Bride.=

Yes, Worried Wifie, they do. One of the favorite sports of the naughty doughboy is the game known as African golf. Two galloping dominoes are used in place of a small ball. Instead of the greens, the latrine floor is usually garnished with greenbacks and set off in silver. “Big Dick” and “Little Joe” act as caddies and there is more cussing at a “flock of box cars” than a minister foozling a putt. I indulged in a friendly game of dancing dominoes last night with my old buddy, Mr. “Eighter from Decatur.” “Jimmy Hicks” and “Long Legged Liz” were there, but before I got through I had “fever in the South” and “crapped” out several points under par.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Bill=--Please tell me what is golf?--=Ignoramus.=

Well, Ig., golf is a game where old men chase little balls around when they are too old to chase anything else.

* * * * *

=Dearest Billy=--What’s the difference between a bachelor and a worm?--=Andy Gump.=

Somebody told me there was no difference--the chickens get them both.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--I have been married a year and am the mother of triplets who are now three months old. My husband has asked me to take dancing lessons this winter because he says he cannot afford to have any more children and that dancing will keep one’s mind off maternal cares. What do you think about it?--=Triple Trixy.=

Dancing’s all right, Trixy, providing you tango in the morning, fox trot in the afternoon and hesitate at night. Fine exercise, I say.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Bill=--I am struggling with myself to keep from falling in love with a handsome football player because I heard that football players were so terribly rough.--=Troubled Tillie.=

Move to the South Sea islands where it’s too hot to play football, or else to Norway where the summer sport is fishing and in winter it’s too cold to fish.

* * * * *

=Dear William=--I recently met a cute little second lieutenant on the train and am very anxious to get in touch with him. He said his name was Joe Latrino and that he was in the Sanitary Corps. How may I find him?--=Winsome Winnifred.=

Write to him in care of the Captain of the Head, U. S. Navy.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Billy=--What is the difference between Spanish Flu and Spanish Fly?--=Swede Harriet.=

Spanish Flu is a disease. Spanish Fly is a drug, technically known as cantharides and is used as a plaster to cure rheumatism.

* * * * *

=Dear Billy=--I am infatuated with a handsome young man from Akron, Ohio, but when he comes to visit me in a neighboring village he acts so embarrassed and appears always to be in a mood of deep thought. Do you suppose he wants to pop the question but hasn’t the nerve?--=Hellenic Helen.=

Now, Hellenic Helen, how in Hell’s Gate or Helena do I know? Overlook his seeming taciturnity and remember that “deep rivers move with silent majesty; small brooks are noisy as hell, and actions speak louder than words.”

* * * * *

=Dear Doctor Billy=--Please give me the definition of the spinal column.--=Slippery Lizz.=

It’s a long disjointed bone, covered with knots--your head sits on one end and you sit on the other.

* * * * *

=Dear Captain Bill=--What is meant by “bigamy?” =Dandy Dillon.=

Bigamy is a form of insanity which causes a man to pay three board bills instead of two.

* * * * *

=Dear Billy=--What’s the definition of a “humdinger?”--=Iva Hangover.=

A man who can make a deaf and dumb girl say: “O, daddy.”

* * * * *

=Dear Bilious Billy=--I was married last June and my wife wants me to obtain some polish in my manners so suggests that I take music lessons. What do you think about it?--=Silas Hopkins.=

It’s a very good idea, Si. You’ll soon gain a musical education by playing second fiddle. But beware of the jazz.

* * * * *

=Dear Skipper=--Why is a certain specie of beans called Navy Beans?--=Battle-Axe Liz.=

I dunno, Liz. You might as well ask me why I labelled The Whiz Bang an “Explosion of Pedigreed Bull.” No reason at all.

* * * * *

=Dear Bill=--They say there are germs on money. Do you think, then, it is safe for a poor working girl to carry her salary home in her stocking?--=Sadie Woolworth.=

Perfectly safe, I’d say. A germ couldn’t live on a working girl’s salary.

* * * * *

Betty’s Better Batter

Betty Botter bought some butter,
“But,” she said, “this butter’s bitter.
If I put it in my batter,
It will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter
Will make my batter better.”
So she bought a bit o’ butter
Better than the bitter butter,
And made her bitter batter better.
So ’twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better butter.

_Seeing Los Angeles_

By JACK ANDREWS

Rubbernecking via the bally-ho wagons has received a terrible set-back in the beautiful city of the Angels. No more will the gossip-hungry tourists be fed on the scandal of the movie colony from a megaphone in the hands of a husky-voiced “spieler.” An edict has gone forth forbidding these caterers to wet the appetites of the unlearned and seeking visitors of Los Angeles to exploit the “affairs” of the celebrities in press agent fashion.

Los Angeles officials contend that it is no nice way to entertain their guests where skeletons are said to exist in every closet in Hollywood.

There is no question but what the moving picture business has a lot of deserving people in it, and some of the most admirable characters to be found are of the cinema crowd, but we have recently had a few stellar lights before the international eye in roles that were disgusting.

Here are some of the utterances the city fathers say should be dispensed with:

=“To your right, folks, is the home of Charlie, now used
exclusively by Mildred and her mother, who is also her business
manager.”=

=“On your left is the home of Lottie, sister of Mary, who has a
standing offer to fight any woman in the business.”=

=“Jack, who is also one of the family, was living in the bungalow
on yonder hill before his wife came back from New York. He left
for Arkansas on the advice of his doctor the day before she
arrived. He was also in the service during the war.”=

=“Now folks this beautiful chateau on the right covering ten
acres is the possession of an illiterate cow-puncher, whose
salary is greater than the President’s.”=

=“To your left is the former home of Mable, when she wasn’t at
Vernon, and who is credited with staging a “come-back” after the
star of Sennett passed below her horizon.”=

=“The one who was once called “America’s Sweetheart” used to
live in sweet simplicity in the white bungalow on the right. She
used to be the idol of all children, but the page of her book is
closed that the youth should learn aright.”=

Is it any wonder that these “rubberneck” wagons did a thriving business in Los Angeles? It is said that each “spieler” tried to outrival his competitor and from all reports the tourists were well supplied with scandal.

* * * * *

Girls should remember that when they confide in a married woman they are probably confiding in her husband also.

_Whiz Bang Bunk_

As you show so shall we peep.

* * * * *

A shimmy dancer has to struggle for a living.

* * * * *

Many a rough neck is hidden by a silk collar.

* * * * *

Be it ever so homely there’s no face like your own.

* * * * *

You can’t feather your nest running after chickens.

* * * * *

Keeping whisky in your home is no crime--it’s an art.

* * * * *

Never slap children on the face; Nature provides a more suitable place.

* * * * *

Close the saloon and save the boys; close the garage and save the girls.

* * * * *

Sign in dry goods store: “Our woolen underwear will tickle you to death.”

* * * * *

A Shorthorn Bull

A man called for hair restorer at the drug store. The new clerk gave him something to apply. In the course of time the man returned with a complaint. He declared the stuff powerful enough for some purpose but not to grow hair. His head was as bald as ever but he was getting two big lumps like cocoanuts on the top. The clerk looked at the empty bottle and turned ghastly pale as he exclaimed “My Gawd, man, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I gave you bust developer.”

* * * * *

Gosh All Hemlocks!

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of a bucket of beer;
Up the street and down the line,
I’ve got the bucket; who’s got the dime?

* * * * *

“What’s Sauce for the Goose”

A colored woman and her husband were conversing together when the latter happened to express curiosity as to the meaning of the word “propaganda” which he was constantly running across in the newspapers.

“Well,” said his wife, “ah is not sure, but ah thinks ah know what propaganda is. F’r instance, wif mah fust husband ah had one chile, and two wif mah second. You’re mah third husband an’ we hain’t got none at all. Now, I’m the propah goose, but you ain’t the propahganda.”

_Whiz Bang Editorials_

“_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet_”

Is the theater becoming immoral? The majority of critics claim it is. The WHIZ BANG disagrees on this point. We claim the motion picture development has stopped the sporadic growth of suggestive plays on the legitimate stage.

The immoral, or at least suggestive plays made their first appearance in any large number twenty years ago. Witness “Three Weeks,” “Sappho,” “Du Barry,” and others, and still today you will find these plays in oblivion. Together with them, the women who starred in such plays are almost unheard of today. Most prominent among these is Olga Nethersole.

She was an English governess in the ’80’s and startled London with her portrayals of “The Transgressor,” “Magda” and other productions of like character.

Twenty years ago Miss Nethersole shocked two continents with her “Sappho Kiss.” She always maintained that playing the parts of these easy women would “make” her. Witness her interview of more than five years ago, in which she is quoted as having said:

“People have not understood that I chose to play prostitutes because I have felt it my work to aid the world by showing the suffering in it. If I felt that I had not been chosen for this task I should never have given my life to it.

“Do you know the story of Alexander Dumas, the younger? He was an illegitimate son, whose father refused to wed his mother. Thereupon the son gave up his life to the cause of woman and wrote his plays with the suffering of woman uppermost. ‘Camille’ will live forever.

“I have felt that if I could show the suffering and the misery that illicit passion causes I could do something for the world, could point a way toward removing the evil.”

And today, Olga Nethersole’s prediction has fallen flat. Her name, or the names of her mimics, no longer are blazoned on the electric signs of Broadway. Olga Nethersole, and the principle for which she stood, are in oblivion.

* * * * *

This is the era of keepers, too. Our collective national appetite has been entrusted to the keeping of four Bills. I refer to Bill Bryan, Billy Sunday, Bill Anderson of the Antisaloon League and Billy-Be-Damned. Those of us who once owned thirsts rapidly are becoming reconciled to the prospect of seeing about every other man in this country established in the role of his brother’s keeper--not his barkeeper, perish the thought--but the sort of keeper who keeps his charges locked up in an iron barred cage and whacks them across the nose with a steel rod of sumptuary discipline should they manifest a desire once in a while to indulge in a little personal liberty.

It has become the custom for many police departments to resort to underhanded methods in obtaining evidence wherewith to bring guilty persons to trial for certain offences, the plan adopted being the employment of what is commonly known as “stool pigeons”--go-betweens who act in direct conjunction with the police. Concerning those who allow themselves to be so employed there is little to be said other than that they are not fit for decent society. It is a sneaking way of securing a living and those who lend themselves to it ought to be ostracized by citizens who believe in conforming to the ordinary decencies of life.

* * * * *

Moral reformers are altogether too ambitious. They want to abolish vice but they cannot do it. Vice is not crime, although the two things are often confounded. The word “vice” literally means a fault or error. A crime is a deliberate violation of the law of God or man.

Why should we be so serious and so violent in our attitude toward human vice? The root of the evil is in the weakness or wickedness of human nature. What is needed is to invigorate humanity with that moral strength which resists the inroads of vice. There are periods in the history of every nation when certain forms of vice are particularly flagrant. This was so when civilized Greece had lost her pristine manliness. It was so when pagan Rome was near her fall. It was so, unhappily, in England in the nineties of the last century, which saw the popularity of such literary and artistic decadents as Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley. Wise reformers will not ever deceive themselves by thinking that they can eradicate vice. They will try to lessen vice by moral suasion and by removing the economic causes which are the promoters of evil living. To put wretched people into jail is not the best way to reform them. It is better to make them see that a life of virtue pays better than a life of vice. This may be a low utilitarian standard, but it will appeal to those who are altogether guided by considerations of profit or loss.

* * * * *

The alimentary canal of the business world needs a physic. It’s the same in business as with the human system, when things get clogged. We’ve been gorging the system of the business world until its tripe needs scraping. We’ve kept the hopper too full for a healthy elimination, and we need calomel and rhubarb for a change. Capital has allowed its cormorant-like propensities to assume the proportions of a boa constrictor in trying to swallow not only the calf but the whole herd. Labor, following closely in the wake of capital and profiting by its example, has pulled the bridle off of the horse and started it down the road of reason for a head-on collision with the captain of industry, who is stepping on the tail of his big Packard, and both will be injured. Cornering the earth and setting the price of all things required for man’s welfare has come home to roost in demands for wages double and treble what they used to be, and both capital and labor must be purged of this overload on the liver of righteousness or the undertaker will have an unusually thriving business very soon.

The tendency of present-day writers and authors of fiction stories to deal in suggestiveness is perhaps explained in the popularity of the magazines which cater to these outpourings. Gouverneur Morris is one of these, and who can say that Mr. Morris is not one of the foremost writers of the day? In his latest masterpiece, “The Wild Goose,” which appeared recently in Hearst’s, he writes, for instance:

One of the shoulder-straps of her night-gown had slipped so that Diana’s left breast was almost wholly bare. At her husband’s next words she hastily pulled the night-gown back into place, as she might have done if he had stepped suddenly into view.

“I could crawl to you on my hands and knees,” he said, “if I could lay my head on your breast just one little moment.”

“Frank,” she exclaimed, “I am so sorry! But please, please--this is no time to discuss what’s been and gone and happened. Do go back to bed.... Count the sheep going over the hurdle.... Don’t you know I’d do anything--anything--anything--except the things I can’t do?...”

There was a long silence. Then the man spoke again.

“Do have pity,” he said, “for Christ’s sake!”

* * * * *

Then we have Arthur Somers Roche who quite often reveals much truth in his fiction. Writing recently in the Cosmopolitan, Roche, perhaps unconsciously, reveals a time-worn trick of the woman of the street in “working” a male victim. He writes:

The difficulty with the Waiters’ Union had resulted in the engaging of girls as waitresses at the Central. An extremely pretty girl had just served Mr. Dabney with something. Inspiration had come to him as he started to tip her.

“Worth just fifty cents, m’dear, if I put it in your hand. Worth five dollars if I put it in your stocking. What say?”

The waitress essayed coyness, but failed in her endeavor. Five dollars was five dollars. She turned slightly to one side; her skirt was raised; into her stocking-top Dabney slipped the five-dollar bill.

No invention of modern history has ever been acclaimed with the enthusiasm that greeted Mr. Dabney’s strikingly original idea. There was a yell from Mr. Ladd’s table; as explanation shot about the room, hilarity reached its highest pitch. Immediately a dozen girls stood close to tables, while unsteady hands that held bills fumbled at the tops of stockings.

* * * * *

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How did your brewing do?
It has the smell, and kicks like hell,
But tastes like rotten glue.

* * * * *

Pass Her a Palm Fan

“What sort of tree is that?” queried a Chicago girl, touring California.

“Fig tree,” replied her escort.

“My goodness, I thought the leaves were larger.”

* * * * *

A. W. O. L. means, according to officers who ought to know, “After Women Or Liquor.” Usually it’s both.

_Smokehouse Poetry_

The Passing of Old Smokehouse

When memory keeps me company and moves to smiles or tears,
A weather-beaten object looms through the mist of years,
Behind the house and barn it stood, a half a mile or more,
And hurrying feet a path had made, straight to its swinging door.
Its architecture was a type of simple classic art,
But in the tragedy of life it played a leading part;
And oft the passing traveler drove slow and heaved a sigh
To see the modest hired girl slip out with glances shy.

We had our posey garden that the women loved so well.
I loved it, too, but better still I loved the stronger smell
That filled the evening breezes so full of homely cheer,
And told the night-o’ertaken tramp that human life was near.
On lazy August afternoons it made a little bower,
Delighted, where my grandsire sat and whiled away an hour.
For there the summer morning its very cares entwined,
And berry bushes reddened in the steaming soil behind.

* * * * *

Poor Girlie

My parents told me not to smoke;
I don’t.
Nor listen to a naughty joke;
I don’t.
They told me it was wrong to wink
At handsome men, or even think
About intoxicating drink;
I don’t.

To dance or flirt was very wrong;
I don’t.
Wild girls chase men and wine and song;
I don’t.
I kiss no men, not even one--
In fact, I don’t know how it’s done;
You wouldn’t think I have much fun--
I don’t.

* * * * *

Hunting the Wily Pole Cat

(As told by a French-Canadian).

I’m hunt de bear, I’m hunt de rat
Sometimes I’m hunt de cat;
Las week I’m tak ma ax an go
To hunt de skunk pole cat.

Ma fren Bill says hees ver good fur,
Same time good for eat,
So I tell ma wife, “I get fur coat
Same time get some meat.”

I walk, one, two, three, four mile.
I feel one awful smell--
I theenk that skunk hees gone and died
And fur coat’s gone to hal.

Bime-by I get up ver ver close,
I raise ma ax up high--
Dat gaddum skunk he up and plunk,
Trow something in ma eye.

Sacre blu; I tink ahm blin--
Gee Cri! Ah cannot see,
Ah run aroun and roun and roun
Till bump in gaddum tree.

Bime-bye I drop de ax
An light out for de shack
I tink about a milyun skunk
Hees climb upon ma back.

Ma wife she meet me at de door,
She sick on me de dog,
She say, “You no sleep here tonight,
Go out and sleep wit hog.”

I try to get in hog pen,
Gee Cri, now what you tink,
Dat gaddum hog no stan for dat
On count of awful stink.

So I no hunt de skunk no more
To get hees fur and meat;
For if hees breath he smell so bad,
Gee Cri! what if he speet.

* * * * *

The Girl with the Blue Velvet Band

In that city of wealth, beauty and fashion;
Dear old Frisco, where I first saw the light,
And the many frolics that I had there
Are still fresh in my memory tonight.

One evening while out for a ramble;
Here or there without thought or design,
I chanced on a young girl tall and slender,
On the corner of Kearney and Pine.

On her face was the first flush of nature,
And bright eyes seemed to expand;
While her hair fell in rich, brilliant masses,
Was entwined in a Blue Velvet Band.

To a house of gentle ruination,
She invited me with a sweet smile;
She seemed so ready, inviting;
That I thought I would tarry awhile.

She then shared with me a collection
Of wines of an excellent brand,
And conversed in politest language;
This girl with the Blue Velvet Band.

After lunch, to a well-kept apartment,
We repaired to the third floor above;
And I thought myself truly in heaven,
Where reigneth the goddess of love.

Her lady’s taste was resplendent,
From the graceful arrangement of things;
From the pictures that stood on the bureau,
To a little bronze Cupid with wings.

But what struck me the most was an object
Designed by an artistic hand;
’Twas the costly “lay-out” of a hop-fiend,
And that fiend was my Blue Velvet Band.

On a pile of soft robes and pillows;
She reclined, I declare, on the floor,
Then we both hit the pipe and I slumbered,
I ponder it over and o’er.

’Tis months since the craven arm grasped me,
And in bliss did my life glide away;
From opium to “dipping” and thieving,
She artfully led day by day.

One evening, coming home wet and dreary,
With the swag from a jewelry store;
I heard the soft voice of my loved one,
As I gently opened the door.

“If you’ll give me a clue to convict him,”
Said a stranger, in tones soft and grand,
“You’ll then prove to me that you love me”;
“It’s a go,” said my Blue Velvet Band.

Ah! How my heart filled with anger,
At woman, so fair, false and vile,
And to think that I once true adored her;
Brought to my lips a mock smile.

All ill-gotten gains we had squandered,
And my life was hers to command;
Betrayed and deserted for another--
Could this be my Blue Velvet Band?

Just a few moments before I was hunted
By the cops, who wounded me, too.
And my temper was none the sweetest,
As I swung myself into their view.

And the copper, not liking the glitter
Of the “44” Colt in my hand;
Hurriedly left through the window,
Leaving me with my Blue Velvet Band.

Had she been true when I met her,
Great future for us was in store,
For I was an able mechanic,
And honest and square to the core.

What happened to me I will tell you;
I was “ditched” for a desperate crime;
There was hell in a bank about midnight,
And my pal was shot down in his prime.

As a convict of hard reputation,
Ten years of hard grind I did land,
And I often thought of the pleasures
I had with my Blue Velvet Band.

One night as bed time was ringing
I was standing close to the bars
I fancied I heard a girl singing
Far out in the ocean of stars.

Her voice had the same touch of sadness
I knew that but one could command,
It had the same thrill of gladness
As that of my Blue Velvet Band.

Dear pals, when my “hitch” is completed,
Back to Frisco I’ll journey again;
Where my chances are worth a few dollars--
All the way from a thousand to ten.

Once again I will try to live honest;
Though I go to some far distant land,
And bid adios to dear Frisco
And the girl with the Blue Velvet Band.

* * * * *

The Little Red God

Here’s a little red song to the god of guts,
Who dwells in palaces, brothels, huts;
The little Red God with the craw of grit;
The god who never learned how to quit;
He is neither a fool with a frozen smile,
Or a sad old toad in a cask of bile;
He can dance with a shoe-nail in his heel
And never a sign of his pain reveal;
He can hold a mob with an empty gun
And turn a tragedy into fun;
Kill a man in a flash, a breath,
Or snatch a friend from the claws of death;
Swallow the pill of assured defeat
And plan attack in his slow retreat;
Spin the wheel till the numbers dance,
And bite his thumb at the god of Chance;
Drink straight water with whisky-soaks,
Or call for liquor with temperance folks;
Tearless stand at the graven stone,
Yet weep in the silence of night, alone;
Worship a sweet, white virgin’s glove,
Or teach a courtesan how to love;
Dare the dullness of fireside bliss,
Or stake his soul for a wanton’s kiss;
Blind his soul to a woman’s eyes
When she says she loves and he knows she lies;
Shovel dung in the city mart
To earn a crust for his chosen art;
Build where the builders all have failed,
And sail the seas that no man has sailed;
Run a tunnel or dam a stream,
Or damn the men who financed the dream;
Tell a pal what his work is worth,
Though he lost his last best friend on earth;
Lend the critical monkey-elf
A razor--hoping he’ll kill himself;
Wear the garments he likes to wear,
Never dreaming that people stare;
Go to church if his conscience wills,
Or find his own--in the far, blue hills.

He is kind and gentle, or harsh and gruff;
He is tender as love--or he’s rawhide tough;
A rough-necked rider in spurs and chaps,
Or well-groomed son of the town--perhaps;
And this is the little Red God I sing,
Who cares not a wallop for anything
That walks or gallops, that crawls or struts,
No matter how clothed--if it hasn’t guts.

* * * * *

Me for the Cave Man

By Charles C. Walts.

I want a Cave-man rugged and tough
To bite my neck and treat me rough.
To hold me whether I screech or bluff;
Me for the Cave-man stuff!

I want a Cave-man who can pick me up,
Slam me around like an ornery pup,
Out of his hand I would eat and sup--
Me for the Cave-man stuff!

I want a Cave-man when I’ve the blues
To take me and shake me out of my shoes,
To swear by note in lurid hues--
Me for the Cave-man stuff.

I want a Cave-man just for luck,
I’ll not be any sissy’s “duck,”
I’m no “honey” or any such truck--
Me for the Cave-man stuff!

* * * * *

The Profiteer

By George D. Brewer

When God made the buzzard, the toad and the snake;
As well as the worm and the rat,
He stirred what was left of the entrails and ends,
In an air-tight asbestos vat.
From this corrupt mass of intestines and muck
He skimmed the most rancid, I hear,
And took it away to a corner in hell
And from it produced a food profiteer.

* * * * *

Explosion of Pedigreed Cat

(With Apologies to Captain Billy’s “Explosion of Pedigreed Bull”)

A Persian kitty, perfumed and fair,
Strayed out through the kitchen door for air,
When a Tom Cat, lean and lithe and strong
And dirty and yellow came along.

He sniffed at the perfumed Persian cat,
As she strutted about with much eclat,
And thinking a bit of time to pass,
He whispered: “Kiddo, you sure have class.”

“That’s fitting and proper,” was her reply
As she arched the whiskers over her eye,
“I’m ribboned, I sleep in a pillow of silk
And daily they bathe me in certified milk.”

“Yet we’re never contented with what we’ve got
I try to be happy, but happy I’m not.
And I should be joyful, I should, indeed,
For I certainly am highly pedigreed.”

“Cheer up,” said the Tom Cat, with a smile,
“And trust your new found friend a while.
You need to escape from your back yard fence;
My dear, all you need is experience.”

New joys of life he then unfurled,
As he told her tales of the outside world,
Suggesting at last, with a luring laugh,
A trip for the two down the “Primrose Path.”

The morning after the night before
The “Cat Came Back” at the hour of four,
The look in her innocent eyes had went
But the smile on her face was the smile of content.

And in the after days when children came
To the Persian kitty of pedigreed fame,
They weren’t Persian--they were black and tan,
And she told them their pa was a traveling man.

* * * * *

Summer Idyl

The dragon-flies are on the wing--
Oh, would some power command ’em
To fly like any decent thing,
Instead of traveling tandem!

* * * * *

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb

We were bombed last night, we were bombed the night before
And we’re gonna be bombed tonight as we were never bombed before;
When we’re bombed, we’re as scared as we can be,
They can bomb the whole damned army if they don’t bomb me!

CHORUS

They’re over us, they’re over us,
One little cave for the four of us;
Glory be to God there are no more of us
Or they’d bomb the whole damned crew!

* * * * *

Wild Woman

If she drinks, we have taught her.
If she smokes, we showed her how.
If she has any bad habits,
What’s the use to knock her now?

For God made man, and God made woman,
Both on a different plan.
So if women do go wrong,
It’s done by us, the man.

* * * * *

It Used to Be

Booze, booze, you’re my guest.
You often keep me from my rest;
You often make my friends my foes;
You often make me wear old clothes;
But as you are so near my nose--
Tip her up, pals, and down she goes.

* * * * *

Memory

By Oscar C. Williams.

When I review the days we spent up there
Upon Youth’s mountain-top, when we had thrilled
To the throbbing of a love that God had willed,
And sipped together joyously the rare,
Rich strangeness of the brimming hours and fair--
When I review all this, those days so filled
With life, I realize how much was spilled.
We did not mind, we had so much to spare!

* * * * *

Friend Wife

Here’s to the girl I love the best.
I’ve kissed her without ’em
And I’ve kissed her dressed;
I’ve kissed her sitting
And I’ve kissed her lying,
And--Gol darn her soul--
If she had wings I’d kiss her flying.

* * * * *

Hold Fast

Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;
But when he nestles in your hand at last,
Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.

--Robert Graves.

* * * * *

Sam’s Girl