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.

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.

* * *