Volume 3 — Whiz Bang Editorials
Reading edition
“The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet.”
Hats off to a real man of the cloth. The Rev. D. H. Jones has resigned the pulpit of Huntington Park, California, Baptist Church, because of the fanatical attempts of his flock to enforce Sunday closing.
“I prefer to dwell with the worldling and be true to my inner self than to live with the saint and betray it,” Reverend Jones says.
“There is a way to make the church the super-attraction; but it will never be done by coercing the consciences of men. The Cross of Christ is proving to be the greatest magnet in the world, but use it as a club, and it will become a colossal failure.”
“Killed professionally, yes. But, frankly, I would rather be a man than a minister. Character is greater than profession.”
“I would just as soon believe that the perfume of the rose comes from the polecat as to believe that the spirit of the blue laws comes from God.”
“Christ whipped men out of the church, but never into it. ‘Professional reformers’ and ‘Christian lobbyists’ at Washington may mean well, but most of them are misguided swivel-chair heroes of the Cross.”
“‘Close every door except the church’s,’ cries the reformer, forgetting that open hearts are greater inducements than closed doors.”
“The doctrine behind the blue laws is this: ‘I am in the right and you are in the wrong. When you are stronger than I, you ought to tolerate; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.’”
“All the proposed Sunday legislation is simply a human attempt to whitewash what God designed to wash white. To condemn movies because some things may be objectionable is like refusing to eat fish because it contains bones.”
“When human passion is subdued, when the turbulent tide ebbs, we see that the big thing that lies at the bottom of the opposition of theatre opening on Sunday, is simply bigotry.”
“It is a wonder to me how many bad things good people see in the movies; fortunately, if you are so disposed, you need never be disappointed. The product of a legal religion has ever been and ever will be either hypocrisy or persecution.”
* * *
A little white coffin rested on a small table, covered with flowers white as the waxen face and fair hair of the baby child whose short life of thirteen months’ suffering was ended.
A small company of kind neighbors was present. The clergyman repeated the Saviour’s words, “Suffer the children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,” and told how the little life had not paid in dollars and cents, but that judged by an immortal existence begun here, and to last forever, Death was gain. After the father, sisters and brothers said “Good-bye,” the mother took the last farewell kiss of her baby and baptized it anew with her hot falling tears. So small was the casket that the undertaker lifted it in his arms, just as the mother had the sick child, and carried it to the carriage and placed it on the seat.
We entered the beautiful green cemetery, and lowered the little flower-decked coffin in the grave to rest until God’s “Good morning” in the graveless, griefless home of heaven. As I looked back, the mound seemed so small that a child could step over it in his play, but I knew it was higher than a mountain top to the mother because in it was buried all her love and hope.
So we left the little casket and the little body in the little grave, feeling that this bud of promise would be transplanted to the Eternal Garden where the full flower would blossom and bloom without decay.
* * *
The Detroit Free-Press calls it the “Snoopers’ Brigade,” and we are inclined to think that is a well-fitting title for the aggregation of people who are urging the formation of a society that would compel all men to be spies upon neighbors and reporters upon their actions.
Sometime ago a federal prohibition commissioner announced plans for such an association, but he immediately discovered that the people of the United States are not ready to become investigators of their neighbors’ conduct, in any particular, and the project was squelched by higher authority.
The courts of the country are, very generally, excluding testimony obtained by men who lead others into the commission of crime, and properly; they regard such actions as a conspiracy to break the law, which makes the tempter a partner in the crime.
In a Mississippi case, where it appeared that a peace officer induced a man to purchase liquor for him and then arrested the man who succumbed to his blandishments, the judge ordered the accused discharged and the officer held. The official was subsequently convicted of his part in the crime, and the supreme court sustained the verdict against him.
There is a very general misapprehension on this subject and acts of the officials have been winked at because the public really did not know what was going on and did not realize the extent of the practice indulged in by what are very generally called stool pigeons.
The laws of this or any other state may be enforced without making all the people detectives, as the Snoopers’ League would have them, or without permitting the practice of certain classes of officials, who sometimes literally hire men to commit a crime, in order that that very crime may be suppressed.
* * *
Where did I get my education? Why, me dad used to take me over his knee. He made me smart.
* * *
Bully for the Chicago Tribune. That journal slips the prong into Bluenose Crafts in a recent issue:
It is beginning to appear that the movement led by Mr. Crafts is as bigoted and as savage in its purpose as those which we thought were buried in the semi-barbarous past. It must be held that no human uplift but maniacal desire to inflict physical punishment is the motive. Mr. Crafts and his followers wish to put as many of their fellow countrymen as possible in jail, and they are trying to wreck this republic in order to do so.
* * *
Farmyard Notes
Chickens get tough when they run around too much.
* * *
Be it ever so humble, there’s no flower like the cauli.
* * *
A bird in the oven is worth two in the bush and a berry in the bush is not worth two in the hand.
* * *
I wish I was cross-eyed, then I could stand on a windy day and gaze at a lady wearing a short skirt, right in the eye and still have a guilty conscience.
* * *
Cellar Ancestry
The potatoes eyes were full of tears, And the cabbage hung its head, For there was grief in the cellar that nite, For the vinegar’s mother was dead.
* * *
You can lead a cow to water but the Bull—he must be herd.
* * *
As It Is In New York
“On East Houston Street is the lasagne or ravioli belt where the gay boys from out of town take the leading ladies of the jobber plants out for a wild evening,” writes O. O. McIntyre. “You know the gay out-of-town man. He carries a patent cigar lighter and has a sterling silver monogrammed belt buckle and, oh, yes, a handkerchief with a purple border. His eyes are blue and he wrinkles them in a merry twinkle, at least he thinks it is a merry twinkle, but it’s just the sap oozing out. The Leading Lady knows Broadway because she reads Broadway Brevities and her theory of life in the abstract is that Ladies Must Live. After the first quart of red ink, he whispers a story the boys told him in front of the Bon Ton Store before he left for the east. She pulls the two gun, hair-trigger Bill Hart stuff and says ‘Naughty Man.’ To complete the evening and display the ultimate in savoir faire he calls loudly to the waiter: ‘L’addition, s’il vous plait garcon.’ They ride to one of the Oranges in a quick-firing metered taxi and he returns to the McAlpin to write the wife and kiddies of his lonesomeness.”
* * *
New York
This is the old famous New York poem, credited to a former collector of the port as author, but denied. However, you’ll note that every word carries a wallop and so we herewith, with your kind permission, republish it:
Vulgar of manner, overfed, Over dressed, and underbred, Heartless, Godless, hell’s delight, Rude by day, lewd by night, Bedwarfed the man, enlarged the brute, Ruled by Jew and prostitute Purple robed and pauper clad Raving, rioting, money mad— A squirming herd of Mammon’s mesh, A wilderness of human flesh. Crazed by avarice, lust and rum— New York! Thy name’s “Delirium.”
* * *
Farm Life
“I see you are keeping your hired man all right now, Ezra.”
“Yep, keeping him all right.”
“He seems satisfied, too. How’d you do it?”
“Did everything he asked me to. Let him work only four hours and eat with the family. He got to complaining of dull evenings, so every night I give him the use of a car of his own, and the money to spend, to go to the movies in town.”
“That ought to satisfy him.”
“It didn’t, though. He complained of his room, and so I coaxed my son to trade rooms with him. Then he seemed more settled like.”
“I notice you’ve cut off your whiskers, Ezra.”
“Yeah. Some more of that hired man’s notions.”
“How’s that?”
“He complained they tickled him every time I kissed him good-night.”
* * *
Wah, Wah!
“Golly, Moses! Dey got strawberries and cherries and all kinds o’ fruit covered wit candy. What kind shall ah git?”
“Git a choc’lat covered watermillion.”
* * *
Sic ’em, Tige!
“What you need is a tonic to sharpen your appetite,” said the Doctor. “By the way, what is your occupation?”
“I am a sword swallower in a circus side-show,” replied the caller.
* * *
Little Joe says, “They am jest as many sebbens on de dice as anything else, ony dey is bashfull.”