Whiz Bang Editorials “The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet”

The Whiz Bang desires to call the attention of its readers to the latest book published by the Reverend “Golightly” Morrill, famous author-traveler-preacher, who has been a regular correspondent to this magazine. Mr. Morrill is one of America’s most forceful writers and his varied experiences as a social worker and globetrotter fits him to deal trenchantly on varied subjects. The editor is not personally acquainted with Mr. Morrill but has been an interested reader of all his works for the past 20 years. Read his ad on page 64 of this issue and add his latest book to your library.

Tangier Island, in Chesapeake Bay, is where the natives still vote for Andrew Jackson. The island is nothing if not religious in the narrowest and most reactionary sense of the word. Only one church is on the island, and those who run it think that hell’s hottest fires are burning specially for all who do not agree with each and every religious dogma they have. The minister is almost qualified to butt into the Trinity and make it a Quartette. It is against the law to hold or attend any religious service not under the auspices of the local church monopoly. It is also required by law that you attend the church every Sunday, and as if that is not enough, you are not allowed to be out of your house on Sunday, not even on your own porch, except to go to and from church services. It is frankly claimed by the powers that be, that without such stern compulsion the natives would desecrate the Sabbath by congregating at stores or elsewhere, and then, if the devil should happen to come to claim his own, he might scoop up the whole island population as a consequence.

Roland Parks, a young man 17 years old, a resident of Tangier Island, was wicked and audacious enough to cut church service one Sunday and to take the air on the porch of his house while the meeting was in progress. Officer Connorton got on the job and ordered him to come to church. Young Parks refused, Connorton tried to arrest him, Parks fled, Connorton drew his revolver and shot Parks, dangerously wounding him. The inhabitants of the island regret the shooting, but hold that it would be better for such as Parks to be shot and killed rather than the law, which they approve, should be violated.

Among the other Puritan blue laws of Tangier Island are those prohibiting music anywhere during church service, even though the instrument may be far away and no sound come through the walls; playing ball at any time on Sunday, etc.

It may be a shock to learn that such archaic conditions exist anywhere in the world, let alone in our own country. True enough, we are the most backward people on earth to control landlords and profiteers. But it seems that the same may be said of us in regard to religious tyrants and persecutors.

Admitting, for the sake of argument, that things taboo on Tangier Island displease God, why can’t his agents safely leave it to Him to enforce His will and punish those who violate His law? God needs no human avengers. It is an axiom that the only call for human legislation is tangible wrong or harm to some member or members of society.

Just here we stopped to look over some exchanges, and find that the ministers of Lynnbrook, near New York City, have forced the Sunday closing of a local amusement park. This will not be allowed to open on Sunday, not even at hours that do not conflict with any church services of the day. Give these reverend gentlemen credit. They did not find shooting necessary in the process. But give them debit for a senseless piece of business. With Coney Island and Rockaway Beach near by, the Lynnbrook people will simply take a short trolley ride and get what they want much better. What was accomplished, what could have been accomplished, to help keep the Sabbath day holy? A zero with the circle erased. Any sensible man could have seen this in advance. But who has less sense than a tyrannical religious fanatic? Only a man who expects one such to have any sense at all.

Woman is creation’s best and last work and should be the most attractive thing in the universe.

Clothes are the index of character. A woman is known by the dress she wears. A standard of a country’s or century’s mind and morals is known by its fashion-plate.

Some women are as long in dressing as Caesar was in marshalling his army. They go to church to show their clothes, spend more money for hacks than for Bibles, strut home like peacocks, forgetting that clothes are but the reminders of lost innocency and that to be proud of rustling silk is to be like the madman who laughs at the rattling of his fetters. They only think of dress, and were you to steal their clothes you would rob them of the only valuable thing they possessed.

Skirts have been bloated like a balloon and long as a crocodile’s tail, but now they are meagre as a mummy and docked like a horse’s tail, for Fashion is a foolish and freakish goddess.

A short skirt is said to be economical in material, sanitary because it is not a street or sidewalk cleaner, and comfortable for locomotion—but when art sacrifices utility in attempt to show the figure, as Venus before Anchises or Medea before Jason, it is a matter not only of comment but censure. Too often on leading thoroughfares we fine a godless model of fashion which is an insult to sex and an outrage on decency.

The first short skirt was made in the Garden of Eden of fig leaves because there were no Parisian dressmakers present.

Skirt styles today are going back to the original fig-leaf fashion.

Mother Eve ate the apple, became “wise” and her first thought was of dress, and that is all some of her daughters have thought of since.

American women are willing to wear any skirt that bears a Paris label, but would they if they knew it was a French fashion to advertise demimondaine charms?

If good women, who wear the suggestive short, close-fitting and diaphanous skirt, knew what bad men said when they went by, they would fall dead or call for a taxi and break the speed limit to get home and hide in the cellar.

Men are a bad lot and women should help them to be better and not worse.

There are men in hospitals and hell who owe their damnation in time and eternity to the skirts of some bad, beautiful woman.

Fashion is the world’s undertaker and often charges a woman a big bill for a body with diseased functions, a mind with dwarfed faculties, and a soul with a future damned.

Girls, whose altar is a looking-glass, and their Bible a fashion magazine, might well pause to ask themselves how they will look in their coffin-shroud when the prevaricating preacher tries to offer some word of comfort to the mourners, and what they will say to the great Judge when they stand “naked and ashamed,” because on earth they wore the skirts of sin instead of the robe of Christ’s righteousness.

With the October issue, Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang will start its second year. This little publication was created with the idea of giving the former service men in the vicinity of Robbinsdale and the Twin Cities a continuation of the pep and snap we got in the army. The first run of the press was 2,000 copies. They went like hot-cakes and “seconds” were necessary. For several successive months it was necessary to double our monthly press order. We sincerely tender our heartfelt thanks for your loyal support and shall endeavor more than ever to merit your patronage.

For the benefit of new readers, as well as the old, The Whiz Bang will publish its first annual year book with the October issue. This “Year Book” will contain in part the livest selections from all previous issues. The back copies of The Whiz Bank have been “mopped up” so that it is not possible to fill any orders for previous issues. The demand for back copies brought forth the idea of an annual review. The editor will aim to compile the choicest poems, jests, jingles and stories from the previous 12 issues into this October Year Book.

One often hears wonder expressed that reputable persons find apparent pleasure in visiting cafes, road houses, country clubs or other places of amusement of questionable character. Yet the psychology of the matter is not so far to seek. The “young person,” and many persons continue to remain immature in mind long beyond the normal period of unripeness, likes to feel that he is very wise in the ways of the world. A young man likes to have his actions show that he is “a man of the world,” even though he may not make the claim in words. The fact that he is nothing of the kind urges him on to become better acquainted with “the primrose paths.”

Hence it often results that an innocent young person will go with others to a restaurant with a shady reputation, either in the spirit of bravado or to discover what the secret is. Often enough the place, on the outside of the life shown there, seems innocent enough and the visitors wonder at the secrecy, innuendo and charm draped about the place.

The real “man of the world” knows the taste of the “dead sea fruit” well enough.

The Footpath of Peace

To be glad of life, because it gives you a chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars, to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgust. To covet nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God’s out-of-doors; these are little guide-posts on the footpath to peace.—Henry Van Dyke.

Why the Editor Left Town

(From the Rochester, Minn., Bulletin.)

Miss Isabel Jones returned yesterday from Chicago, where she visited her son, Dick, and attended the Republican convention. Miss Jones also visited at the National Kindergarten College, which she formerly attended.

Free Verse

When a girl walks

Down the street

With hardly enough

Clothes on to make

A tail for a kite

You can’t expect a fellow

To have prayer meeting

Thoughts.

Little Johnnie rushed home from school, through the house and into the yard where he had a pen of pet rabbits. Picking one up he began to shake it violently, repeating with each shake and in a rather rough tone: “Two and two; two and two.”

Johnnie’s mother heard the noise. She ran to the window and yelled at him to stop abusing the rabbit. “Stop that, Johnnie,” she admonished. “You’ll kill poor bunny.”

“I don’t care if I do,” Johnnie replied. “Teacher told me a lie today. She said rabbits multiplied faster than anything and this one can’t even add.”