CJass. Book.. ^' t^ tj c^ :;. -^O, COPYRIGHT DEPOSm C^^-tf ^/ ''■::SW i'TT'.';^ • ^ .■» ' ..^.^'^ . ■ -". 1,;' 1 *^;^y N (918 KLARENC.W/^PE MAK, M. D., American 'A'lfthor and Poet. (Dr. Mak's latest picture — taken April 4, 2928) Fellow mortals, let us pray, ^Z5hat to-morrow will be a beautiful day, CAnd that the day after Will be filled with laughter, CAnd that each to-morrow Will be free from sorrow. t;^^ 43^ <(i> %^l<^ o>\1 > A Mental DELICATESSEN STORE Written and Published by DR. MAK & HIMSELF, For People Who Want to Be Sensible, Healthy and Civilized OUR MOTTO: Never tell a lie if you can possibly palm the truth off on the boobs. This book is written with a Double-Barrel Pitchfork and has a date with your Nancy Animal. If you're honest, intelligent and in favor of fair play for all people, this book will feed your goat cake, pie, candy and ice-cream. If you laugh yourself to death the Author will stand for your funeral expenses and pension your minor children. We kill fools by destroying the Ignorance, Prejudice and Stupidity that make them fools. We are teaching our fellow men and women to do their own thinking and thus pry themselves out of the Boob and Hill-Billy Class. Every bird must use its own wings if it wants to play hookey with the clouds. The one who does your thinking for you will also have his hands in your pockets and you will be his meal-ticket. The author is not responsible for anv opinions ex- pressed in this book — not even his own. We try to tell the truth as much as possible, but as we had the misfortune to be born a Republican and raised a Democrat, you can't expect much of us. The Fool Killer A BRIEF AUTO-BIOGRAPHY. The Author of this book was bom near Fairfield, Iowa, and raised mostly in that state and in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri His father was born and reared in Ohio and Iowa, and his patrenal grandfather was bom in Virginia, and back of that his patemal stock came from Ireland. His mother was bom and reared in New Orleans and educated in Cincinnati and the Southland. Her people came from Georgia and Virginia, and back of that her ancestry pame from England. Dr. Mak is not a German and his ancestry is free from any Teutonic strain. He is purely and wholly American and stands firmly back of President Wilson in the conduct of this War. Kansas City, Missouri, March 27, 1918. Many a skirt has gone broke by betting her "whole heart on a natty pair of trousers with Quffs on one end of them and a cigarette at the other extremity. REAL MUSIC. The soft and tender lullabies a young mother croons to her first babe are the purest and sweetest music in all the world. These are the Primeval Race-Songs that never die. MEMORY, The Wordless Voice of the Past — The Silent Key that opens all the graves — The Dream Brush whose colors will ever last. And many a flower from the River of Leth saves. A REAL ROMEO. When it comes to playing the real old-fasliioned-all- soul-and-a-heart-wide Romeo in pink and purple tights, a Bull Pigeon has us all backed off the roof and labeled 30- Cents with the 3 painted out with lavender pigment. No matter how homely a woman is, if she has good manners and is sensible and cheerful, she Will always be considered good-looking, and will be popular wherever she goes. The Fool Killer A person Kvithout education is like a bird without wings^ — any old cat can get you then. Many a guy has hanged himself with a rope made of calico. It costs a thousand times more to be foolish than to be wise, but only the wise are aware of the fact. No matter how quietly and discreetly and carefully you eat "forbidden fruit'^ your neighbors will soon find some of the tell-tale rinds. Our neighbors are probably not much worse than they think we are. When a man gets too old to be folish anymore he is up to that point in years where he can give eternity itself a pretty good run for its money. Facts never quarrel nor fight each other — only false- hoods do such foolish things. When a man has lived long enough to have tried all the bad things in this world, he generally wants to hang on a little longer just to see if the Republicans and Demo- crats won't invest some new evils. It takes a ton of Wisdom to balance accounts with an Qunce of Foolishness. When a little child toddles up to me and gazes up into my face with its soul in its eyes, and then waddles up a little closer and timidly puts its little dimpled fingers on my knees and smiles, I'm all in — I surrender! And no matter what I'm doing nor how busy I am, I'm going to have a vacation right then and there and gather that kid up in my arms and squeeze it and love it a bit. Today is the best time to throw bouquets at your neighbors, and tomorrow is the best time to try out brick- bats on them. The Fool Killer Behaving yourself and keeping your nose at home is the best way in the world to make friends. A Saint is the married man who can look at a pretty girl in a modem skirt and think of his wife at the same time. A Perfect Man is the cuss who pleases his wife in every respect and is satisfactory to his mother-in-law and neighbors in every Way. I pass — ^ho w about you, brother? Immortality is a Love Dream that echoes in Eternity. Selfishness is the $-mark on the soul. GOOD FUEL. If there is anything that makes Old Nick's forked- eyes do the yellow snake-dance it is the sight of a Traveling Man they are bringing in on a barbed-wire stretcher who was untrue to his good and faithful wife back in the world and who passed himself off for single when he was out on the road so he could make love to the silly girls he met in the towns he visited. And lots of those dunks not only flirted with other girls, but often caused the ruin and downfall of some innocent and trusting little greeny who believed he was a gen- tleman. Yes, Steve, such human polecats always make the best of fuel, and Old Horns is always delighted when he sees one of them coming in on a barbed-wire stretcher and well deodorized with the Chloride of Sheol! Nick would wait up all night any time just to give such a stiff a proper reception. Bad habits, my son, are the weeds and cigarettes of life and will only steer your feet into the paths that lead downhill. They will never write your name in his- tory nor punctuate the Sands of Time with your foot- prints. They will give you entre and carte blanche to all circles where Decency is not a guest. Bad habits bid farewell to Hope, and hail Regret along the way. It's pretty hard to throw brickbats at your neigh- bors without hitting yourself. The Fool Killer HOME. A quiet and happy nest, Where Love is Queen and King; Where heart gives to heart its best. And life's a free and splendid thing. Just any little sheltered nook, Where Love eyes can ever look Into other Sweetheart-eyes and find An answering love so sweet and kind. Home is more than a place to sleep and feed, It's a shelter from every snow and storm — A place that supplies the Soul's every need, And keeps the heart forever young and warm. The Fool Killer Money can build a palace and fill it with costly furnish- ings and priceless pictures and rare Oriental rugs, but it takes a bit 'o calico and love to make it a home; and the happy laughter of children mingling with the songs of the birds among the vines and trees is Nature's Primeval Music — ^the finishing touch of color and harmony. SPRING. beautiful, Mysterious and Eternal Spring 1 Why linger in the arms of Winter so long? Every bird is waiting to give Thee wing, And every throat is choking with song; So hurp?' along with they Mystic powers. To revive the grass and pretty flowers. O Mysterious PoWer — incarnation of the Nazarene, Every bud and flower awaits they Mystic kiss; Only thy touch can carpet the earth with green, And bring to every life some hope and bliss. Thy Mysterious Touch in some unknown way, Revives the flowers and makes us gay. Thou art the Resurrection — ^the Rainbow in the East — The Eternal Promise to all the countless dead — Thy Mysterous Hands bring forth a yearly feast, And give an upward tilt to every drooping head. Thou art Nature's Romeo and thy loving breath revives The Spark-of-Love and paints a Rainbow on all our lives. How absurd to speak of a widow as a "widow woman." As she is a widow I don't see how she could help being a Woman, And don't call the postman or letter-carrier the "mail man." As he is a male it is quite unnecessary to tell him that he is a man. If he don't know that just let him gradually find it out for himself. Whenever I see a Glorious Sunset or the Mystic Moon- light writing verse libre on the star-lit waves, the Voice of the Wild begins to sing alto in my soul. The Fool Killer MUSIC. Music Is the Mental Perfume of Sounds — The dreamy South wind of the Soul; It's the Sweet Voice of Love and forever abounds. And like the fragrance of flowers It never g-ets old. It's a Love Song* that reaches all hearts — A soft Soul- Light that undarkens our eyes — A Sweetheart-Kiss that comes and imparts Wild Dreams for Fancy to ride in the skies. It carries us back to the June-of-the-Past, And softens the shadows that are folding so fust; And it takes me down to the River out there. Where I kiss some ringlets of soft brown hair. And when X take her hands so gently in mine, And when I kiss her sweet lips so red and so fine, I'm drifting through Heaven and the music I hear, Is the same sweet Voice that waji ever so dear. 8 The Fool Killjer Music is a Strange and shadowy Soul-Dream that waltzes with the Southwind of the Heart down through the pyxical and zig-zag places of an Evergladed and Storm- less forever. It's the Southwind of the Soul singing a winged and dreamy alto in Eternity — a Perfumed River of Melody that yodels every love-song from the cradle to the Grave. Music is the Voice of the Wild singing alto in our souls. BURNING OF THE PIPE-ORGAN AT THE WILLIS WOOD. No more will the Big Organ with the Angel Voice, Thrill the multitudes and make them all rejoice. How often have I sat within those sculptured walls, Listening to the music as it rolls and falls. When the Organist swept her hands across that wilderness of keys, I often heard the songs of birds and the whispered hum of bees, For she could make it echo sharp and shrill. Like the distant notes of the Whip-poor- Wil, Or the broken gurgle of a Mountain Stream, And then in the twinkling of a finger. It would change and yodle soft and low, A moon-lit alto that likes to linger In our souls like the evening glow In a Wood-Dove's leafy dream. BETTER THAN GRAND OPERA. The voice of a little bird up in the cherry tree, Singing its matins to the Morning Sun, Is sweeter music unto me Than any opera ever done ; And when I hear its voice so pure and sweet, I enjoy with rapture the dainty treat. The Fool Killer 9 When man, the piffmy egotist, can paint a Glorious Andean Sunset on the Indian Ocean, without pigment, like Nature does, he may consider himself an artist. Marrying without love is selling your soul on credit. Ragtime is the garbage of music — ^the weeds and cigarette of melody— the booze of harmony. It misses the soul and hits below the belt. The highest part of an education is finding out how much ov it isn't so. A flower's perfume is its voice and wings, And that's the way it flies and sings. ART is the music of form and color — ^the rhythm of shade and light — the harmony of arrangement — Nature's Grand Symphony of Beauty. Facts are Nature's invincible wings — The way to higher and better things. TfRUTH is the only mental-food that's nutritious, and it strengthens every mind and fortifies the soul. TIME is the inevitable cuss that finally makes us all look like 30-cents with nothing on but its eyebrows and a couple of pale freckles. A lie is a weed that thrives best in the dark. Truth is a flower that must have the sunlight. Young men should never keep company with girls they cannot, with honest pride, introduce to their mothers and sisters; and young women should not keep company with the kind of young men they would hesitate to have their fathers and brothers meet. I got all my goodness (the little I have) from my mother, and my cussedness I inherited from my "wife's relatives and the Republiran party. 10 The Fool Killer DIFFICULTIES THAT CAN DIF. 1. To tell a lie that won't leak. 2. To never make mistakes nor do foolish things. 3. To call a man a liar who can lick you. 4. To feel kindly toward the woman who invented work. 5. To quit eating and drinking when youVe had enough. 6. To look at yourself through your neighbor's eyes. 7. To understand a woman and the Kansas weather. 8. To behave as well as you think your neighbors ought to. 9. To tell the truth to your wife and the tax asses- sor. 10. To throw brickbats at your neighbors without hitting yourself. 11. To sew wild oats without sticking the needle in your fingers. 12. To not go to the circus when you have a compli- mentary ticket. 13. To be as good to your wife as you expect her to be to you. 14. To believe in the 13-superstition when you're get- ting $13 a day salary and not much to do. 15. To pom yourself off on your neighbors at your own valuation. 16. To feel glad when your mother-in-law comes to pay you a year's visit. 17. To find the silver lining to sickness and misfor- tune. 18. To live long enough to not be interested in calico any more. 19. To tell the truth about the number and size of the fish you caught. 20. To find a youngster who Would rather go to Sun- day School than the ball game. 21. To find an axe-handle that won't blister a boy's hands — unless he uses it as a ball-bat. 22. To find a fly that don't enjoy workincr on bald- lieads, The Fool Killer 11 NOT OLD ENOUGH. Harold, 7 years old, and slightly inquisitive : "Mamma, why do the girls and women wear such short dresses and such high shoes?" ''Run along, son, and ask your father — ^he studies those things more'n I do." "Pa, what makes the girls and women wear such short skirts and high shoes?" "Never mind, my boy, you're not old enough to be in- terested in such profound problems. Go over there and ask grandpa — ^maybe he's old enough to know." "Grandpa, (94) why do the girls and women wear such short skirts and high shoes?" "Harold, your grandfather is only 94 and isn't old enough to be wise to such problems — ask me something easy — ^like what makes the water wet? or why does a red cow eat green grass and give white milk?" "But, grandpa, you're not too old yet to look at the short dresses and high shoes — are you?" "0, run along to bed, you little interrogation point — it's get'n late anyway!" One drop of water can't drown anyone, but enough drops of water gathered together in the form of a lake or sea can easily drown the whole world — and still have enough left over to finance the Prohibition party and wash Billy Sunday's language. Here's the lesson the workers must learn if they ever expect to get away from the bottom of the ladder. Get together and co-operate — ^f ight your enemies instead of each other. A GOOD REPORTER. Whenever you feel like saying mean things about your neighbors, the Devil is at your elbow with an indelible pencil and plenty of writing paper; and Old Nick is also a good wireless operator. Man's days on earth are like the grass — it's green and beautiful for a brief season — ^the Good Old Summer Time— when the insects rasp their jigger songs of love in its emerald foliage, and then the hazy days of Autumn come 12 The Fool Killer slowly on, and with their frosts they awake within these emerald blades that mystic something called DECAY, and then the grass withers and fades aWay, and the mules and cows eat it in the form of hay; and the same with Man — the alleged immortal cuss. For a brief season he is young, and beautiful, and strong, and struts Life's Restless Stage and sings his little song; and then the soft' and silent days of Autumn come, and With the Golden Rod and Purple Poppies nodding in the sun, the falling Autumn leaves remind him that his race is nearly run ; and then the chilling frosts, alias Monsieur Decay, beckon for Old Sharon to row across this way — ^the hands of time swing wide Oblivion's Dusky Door — ^the King of Beasts — the Ace of Reptiles — ^has passed — and is no more! And in the case of man the worms are the msules and cows. Whenever a man feels like doing something the Devil would be ashamed of, he feels the need of booze and to- bacco. They stimulate and strengthen all his bad Impulses and Weaken and kill every good feeling that might smg glory in his soul. Broadway — ^The devil's electric lighted and perfumed Human Soul Trap — ^baited with women's eyes, men's smiles, jewels, booze, cigarettes, drugs that sing alto to tired nerves and lullabys to starved souls, gambling, art, music, gilded vice, flowers, eats, drinks, dancing, vaude- ville and every shade and degree of unrighteousness and indecency. Hell's sizzling and dazzling old Appian Way to Oblivion! A VISION. In my dreams I can see A world of humans sane and free — Where every throat is choking ^vith a song, To warble as it drifts along — Where every hand is swordless and longs to be Grasping all other hands in amity. The Fool Killer 13 Socialism is a political protest against Organized Greed. It is Organized World- Justice — just what the workers need. You can't reach the top of the ladder, my boy, by kicking yourself down hill with bad habits. The best way to make this wicked old world a bet- ter place to live, is to cut your own weeds before loan- ing your scythe to your neighbors. We are very tender hearted and hunger and suf- fering always distress us. We won't even knock a mos- quito off our cheek if it looks very gaunt and hungry and puts up a good hard-luck yarn about being out of work and plenty of sickness in the family, etc.; but it's got to be a mighty straight tale of woe if it expects to get by with it, Stephen. We have plenty of blood, but hate to be imposed upon. Health, Love, Liberty and Justice are the only kind of building material to make enduring foundations for homes or governments. If your ideas are right you won't need any force (law) to rub them into others with. Only falsehood and injustice need a crutch and a club. You can't become civilized long as your mind is full of barbaric ideas. Civiliaztion always follows an invoice of good ideas. THE DIFFERENCE. Steve, what's the difference between a cow and a cup of coffee? "As I never owned a cow and have quit drinking cof- fee, I give it up." When you milk a cup of coffee it changes its com- plexion — ^but a cow don't. 14 The Fool Killer As he IS the worst of all the measley bunch. He deserves the hardest and swiftest punch. It s a shame to starve the women and kiddies so. In orler to make his profits hump and grow. I hope Mr President, you'll camp upon his tracks. Until the last one of him is off our tired backs The Fool Killer 15 Ohio is the horse-collar state — ^it begins and ends with an alphabetical horse-collar. Truth is ever radical, while Falsehood is always con- servative. Truth is always a pioneer, while Falsehood is ever a trail hitter. The one is a fearless and splendid Eagle whose tireless and unstained wings are writing eternal poetry across the blue and shoreless vault of Heaven, while the other one is a cowardly and low-flying vulture skimming the battle fields -and bivouacing in deserted abbatoirs. The one investigates — the other believes. The one is a soul flower — ^the other one is a mental weed. "JESUS PAID IT ALL/ $ A 20th Century Church. $ 16 The Fool Killer Health and Love are the only artists that can paint your cheeks the right color and tint them with the per- fect shade. These primeval painters can give the eyes a finished gleam, and light them with Nature's primal glow — ^the immortal soul light — an imprisoned echo from Eternity. The Capitalist System and Dollarized Religion have got to go, or the human race "will have to ask for its passports. Sharon is already on this side and 'with oars dipped. Nature is something of a vivid writer herself, and when it comes to putting over a beautiful narrative, how about the peacock's tail? It would take a Dickens of a writer to beat that. The boob that's afraid of his wife has a piece of calico that's worth having. Good health, a clear conscience and a good wife are plenty of heaven material for any boob that isn't a hog. ilan is the only animal that Won't behave himself, and he is also the only creature that's religious and claims to be civilized. He mistakes his ignorance for religion and his crimes for civilization. THE BUILDERS. TRUTH builds homes. LOVE makes wings. FALSEHOOD builds prisons. BIGOTRY makes chains. Truth never asks for laws — only falsehoods require legal enactments. A GOOD TRINITY. TRUTH is my authority. REASON is my guide. EXPERIENCE is my teacher. The Fool Killer 17 Lansing, Mich., may be somethnig of a surgical feat, but it hasn't anything on Cutting, Ga. ; Wheeling, W. Va. ; Reading, Pa. ; Dunning, 111. ; Licking, Mo., and Eaton, Ohio. Only weak and worthless ideas require force to propa- gate them. A smile on the face indicates clear weather in the soul. My son, don't lose any time capturing the girl who would rather have a baby than a diamond ring. Calico is the best bait the Devil ever found for catch- ing the clergy. Fine clothes are well enough in a way, but when you have nothing else, you're a ragmuffin, indeed! Fine clothes often enable a naked savage to get by the ushers and sing grand opera in the choir. The modest and well-bred girl with kind and gentle ways never gets dumped in the divorce court. SAY, WHAT^S THE USE? The ant^ work hard and faithfully while the grasshoppers loaf and sing. But they're both destroyed by Death's impartial sting, And Nature plants more weeds than flowers, And everything succumbs to her mystic powers. The early bird may get the worm, but some damd old night-prowling cat that hasn't been to bed at all, may also get the bird, so what's the use of getting up so early? Cheating is picking the other fellow's pockets and | robbing your own soul. If you had everything you wanted, the other fellow wouldn't have enough — he probably wouldn't even have a wife left. 18 The Fool Killer Every soul that has the $-inark on it is uncivilized, and Old Nick has its address and telephone number stored away in his Date Book. Every mean thing you do causes the weeds to grow in your soul. SELFISHNESS is a Poisonous Jungle Weed that'a rapidly destroying the Human Race. No wonder the Devil ruptures his face laughing when he sees a $l,000-check that some multi-millionaire gouger has written to pay for a pew in some fashionable church within smelling distance of Haul Street. Owls must be Scotch, for they are always sajring "Hoot! hoot!" Work is all right for mules and machinery, and when man reaches the wisdom stage he'll let those lackeys do the work while he dreams and plays. The milk wagon with the prettiest wheels doesn't always have the best milk. The high heel skirt that goes to public dances and kicks the floor all night with any male animal that wears cuffs at one end of his trousers and cigarettes at the other extremity, isn't going to get much of a husband when those creatures are passed around. The Rube who speaks of his wife as "my woman,*' very likely has a piece of calico that refers to him as my man." It's horse and equine all right. it. When a man gets married he don't Want a piece of high heel calico that every Thomas, Richard and Harry has hugged and squeezed to ragtime music. He may not deserve anything better, but he is sure to want some- thing that hasn't the odor of a second-hand store about it ^ The Fool Killer 19 The political crook that struts the abbreviation "Hon." in front of his name, has got to let the people know it in some way. They would never have guessed it from his conduct. As you boobs have made hell out of this life by voting wrong, you can just as easily make it heaven by reversing your ballots. Getting something for nothing is the greatest trouble maker in the world. What would you think of the bird that wanted to comer all the wings in the world and get a chattel mort- gage on the sky? It would be decidedly human and probably belong to the Baptist church. The woman who Xvould rather have a poodle than a baby, isn't fit to be a mother anyway. She is a de- generate and should not attempt anything sacred like motherhood. The girl who would rather wear high heel shoes and learn to dance and play bridge than to cook, would be more or less of a joke as a wife and mother. The boy who likes cigarettes, booze, gambling and dissipation better than a clean life and honest work will be worse than a joke as a husband and father. He'll be a failure and a tragedy. When the useless and destructive activities of a peo- ple exceed their constructive operations, they're tobog- ganning toward the Bean Club and extinction, and Mon- sieu OBLIVION is opening the door for them. A grouch is a mental load that soon warps the mind and makes it crooked. A frown is a symptom of mental dyspepsia and in- tellectual belly-ache. 20 The Fool Killer Flirting is cheating with the heart and swindling with the soul. It would take considerable black pigment to paint a picture of what future historians will think of the kaisers. A girl's education is incomplete, says the Leeton Times, unless she has learned to sew, to cook, to mend, to be gentle, to value time, to dress neatly, to avoid idle- ness, to be self-reliant, to respect old age, to keep a tidy house, to be above gossiping, to make home happy, to control her temper and to take care of a baby. shucks! If she were all of that she'd be an ANGEL and St. Peter would be wiring her transporta- tion. A SKELETON KEY. Calico is a key to your safe, brother, and there are not many strong boxes it can't unlock. The Dollar that's got the nerve to walk into a first- class cafe now and say, '^Howdy" to the menu card, is sure from the short grass country and hasn't been to town lately. YESTERDAY is Time's Cemetery, the Necropolis of Eternity. TODAY is Life's Orchard and Flower Garden. TOMOJIROW is only a Dream— a Rainbow Kiss. A rut is the longest road in the world. It starts from nowhere and ends at the same place. Some people would rather be in the swim than in the right. Wihen the men learn how to hold a baby gracefully, it will be time enough then for them to twit the women on the way the latter sharpen a measley old lead pencil. The Fool Killer ^ 21 The female who is al^vays complaining to her neigh- bors about the shortcomings of her husband, seldom has any trouble convincing them that she got the best of the bargain on their wedding day. Wrong ideas are not an education — they are mental weeds, the base materials that prejudice is made out of. CONTENTED IGNORANCE is what keeps most of the boobs back in the sticks where the owls dance with the chickens. LIFE TOO SHORT. There are so many things to learn and see, The days are all too short for me; If I could live a million years or more, My mental soil would not be poor. For rd enrich it with all the garnered facts And the myriad flowers it so sadly lacks. What man knows is only a little drop of dirty water, but what he don't know is a Wild and Shoreless Ocean, whose vast and restless tides sweep on through all Eter- nity I OUR SYMPATHY. After studying the new and short dresses that are so popular and stylish at present — ^well, well, confound it! we're awfully sorry for all men who are blind — ^that's all. . Yes, we really like the present styles — even at our age; and we a deacon in a picture show. The cuss who remains ignorant is playing Darkness with the Devil — and the Gloom of Oblivion will get him. Thinking is death to chains. Believing is a shackle factory. Beng a hypocrite is insulting yourself and calling your soul a liar. 22 The Fool Killer Getting something for nothing is the basic error in our life and is the primary cause of nearly all our ills and toubles. It's the business way of picking pockets legally and the religious way of stealing ethically. Getting a great fortune at the expense of your health is like catching a fish that's so big it pulls you in the water and drowns you. Some fishing, to be sure, but not very satisfactory in its results. A cat's claws are its wings. A skunk's stink is its submarine. A RECKLESS DRIVER. Long as your stomach is your chauffeur, you'll ex- ceed the speed limits and go in the wrong direction. A POOR MIRROR. Every time a young man looks at himself through the bottom of a booze glass, he sees a face that is gradually becoming depraved and ugly — a face that can kill love by looking at it — a mug that the Rogues' Gal- lery is inviting to a place in its Hall of Oblivion. A mouse is not much of a quadruped in point of size, but the little fur-lined chigger can soon make a mighty big hole in a meal sack; and the same way with a small bad habit — it will soon gnaw the corners off your soul. A Fast Life is only Slow Death in a maze of cigarette smoke, booze fumes, ragtime music and soiled calico — the Fool's Paradise! CIVILIZATION is nothing much but behaving your- self and keeping your nose out of other people's affairs. It's the Golden Rule digested. Every mean, low-down and disreputable thing you do is an insult to the mother who bore you. Why not make her happy by doing the things that would cause her to be proud of you? The Fool Killer 28 Slang is the garbage of language — the cigarettes of speech. Every road that leads downhill is a farewell pike, and can only be traveled in one direction. Most of the roads to hell are paved with gold, calico and booze. If your religion can't stand being criticised it is in the same class with the gold ring that's afraid of acids. Such a ring is not gold at all — only a base pretender; and the same with the religion that can't stand the acid test of criticism — it's just as spurious and should be re- jected. God never made a religion that's afraid to be criticised. All cowardly religions are man's handiwork and are being used by crooks and hypocrites to pick the pockets of fools. PLATONIC KISSING. A Platonic Kiss is a lip flivver with the kick left out— a sort of near-beer drink for a throat that's yearn- ing for moonshine. Kansas City has three permanent jokes — ^the Gas Company, the Met. Street Car System and the City Ad- ministration ! But they are not funny jokes at all, they are tragedies. Kansas City also has three dra'wbacks — the Republican Parjy is one of them and the Democratic r Party is the other two. pi Giving up coffee is a great deal like trying to forget an old sweetheart and soul kisses. It may work in theory but coffee-kissed nerves are not much on theory — and the same with the lips that have sent wireless soul-kisses to the heart. Memory can't say good-bye to such lips. The best it can do is murmer au revoir. Your ignorance, Mike, is all that keeps you down, imd the cost of living up. 24 The Fool Killer THE ETERNAL RACE THAT'S DESTROYING THE HUMAN RACE. As the cemetery is such a short distance down the street, How foolish to put wing's upon our feet, And rush along with such soul-destroying speed. To gather up riches we will never need. How much better to sing and dreant along the way, And enjoy the pretty flowers from day to day. Let's take our time to live and love away the restless years, Instead of doing the things that fill the world with tears. Let's be sane and sensible women and men, For when we're gone we'll not pass this way again. We should leave a good and kind record on the Sands of Time- Footprints that leave no blood stains nor other marks of crime, The Fool Killer 25 The highest type of chivalry is the man who lets his wife select his neckties for him, and then tells his fellow boobs that she has better taste and judgment than he has. LANGUAGE FREAKS. Why is a fast mare considered a good thing, and a fast woman a bad thing? And why is a fat hog so prized and a fat man so despised? Probably for the same reason it is right for a women to iron but wrong for her to steal. There'd be no hell in this world if you boobs didn't vote for it. Never cross a river until you get to it, and not even then unless you are a good swimmer and have important business on the otHer side. Ignorance is a bird without wings, And to some kind of a cross it ever clings. LIFERS LOADED GAME. Life is a game that billions and trillions have played, but all have lost. Nature is the dealer and stakeholder, and all who play her mystic Game of Chance, called Life, must lose. The smiling Old Siren has no favorites — grants no quarter, plays all comers and ever triumphs. For awhile she may let you win a few chips and make faces at the stars — just to lure you on, but at last she writes 30 cents above your Voiceless Mound, but quietly omits the 3. If your ideas need to be protected by law, they're not worth protecting. Get rid of such weak and useless ideas and acquire a set of ideas that can protect them- selves by their own intrinsic value. An idea that needs a legal chaperon is in the Imbecile Class. An opinion that needs a battleship for a pal is hovering mighty near the Thirty-cent Class and the Cerements of Oblivion will just about fit it. 26 The Fool Killer TAKE A LOOK AROUND, Take a look around the world today, my brother, and after silently viewing the countless dead, the oceans of hopeless and helpless cripples, the desolation, the World wrecks, the sorrows, the broken hearts and ruined lives, the world bankrupt and in ashes and tears — billions upon billions of appalling debts rearing their ghastly heads beyond the sky — ^myriads of ruined and desolated homes — billions and billions of property use- lessly destroyed — billions of foodstuffs and treasures se- pulchered far beneath the Restless Waves. I say, gaze upon this picture of ruin and despair and then go off quietly in some peaceful and dreamy Old Orchard that's dozing in the Autumn Sun, sit down beneath some old apple tree that's fed your ancestors for generations and have a silent talk with yourself and see if you and your soul are willing to continue cultivating the kind of tree that has borne all this Dead Sea fruit? SOME STUNT. Arresting an individual and putting him in the hoos- gow on account of his opinions, is about as brilliant a stunt as shootng at the Fixed Stars with a .22-calibre pistol or making faces at the Noon-Day Sun with a tallow candle. Only capitalists with religous minds would be guilty of placing such pranks on themselves. Contented Ignorance has no wings and is the best slave in the world. We Socialists don't want to harm the Capitalists — we just want to arrange things so they can't harm us. We want to so change the laws and social customs that every one will have to do some useful and honest work in order to make a living. We are opposed to drones and parasites, and we consider all persons drones and parasites who render no just equivalent fo what they consume and use. We consider a certain amount of use- ful labor to be a requisite of health and man's normal condition. Idleness leads to dissipation and an insane and criminal life. The Fool Killer 27 FLY TIME UPSTAIRS. All baldheads look alike— to women, barbers and flies. It has always been a mystery to me why a fly would rather go afoot any time on a baldhead than to ride in a flivver or a Pullman with its fare prepaid. No one but a baldheaded boob fully realizes what a pest flies are. When I get to Heaven the first thing I'm going to ask St. Peter is if they have any flies up there, and if they have I might as well go right back to Wichita or Fort Worth. 'I If I had been consulted about being bom, I should have had the calamity indefinitely postponed, for ever since I drifted past my 40th birthday I reluctantly real- ized that there were already plenty of fools' in this world without my butting into the game. 28 The Fool Killer Helping* others with their burdens always lightens our own loads a little, and throwing bouquets at the neighbors is a good way to plant flowers in our own yard. Foolishness is Ignoranie kicking itself in the slats with both feet and encoreing itself with both hands. AGE AND YOUTH. Age loves to wander in the Garden of the Past And there among the withered flowers and trees It finds oblivion from the Vagrant Years that melt so fast And fondly clasps the Mystic Hands that Memory sees. The years have killed its flowers and their ashes scattered wide, But their fragrance clings to Memory and has never died. Youth has no key to this Valhalla Dreamland, No cloud-tipped wings to reach this dim Arcadian Shore; So it must stay without and roam the strand, Watch the Vagrant Clouds while drifting o'er; Chase the rainbows and Fancy's ever changing things. Until at last the years bring Memory's wings. IGNORANCE is a big diagonal hole in your pocket, and unless you sew it up with the Thread of Knowledge you're going to be mighty shy of cash all your life. THE KILLING ANIMAL. MAN is the greatest killing animal in all the world. He not only kills other creatures for food, but for pas- time. He calls this wanton and vicious destruction of smaller and weaker animals than himself "sport, hunt- ing," and greatly enjoys it. No other animal does such wicked and foolish things. Some of the other animals (the camivora) will slay their fellow creatures when they are hungry and must have food, but soon as their hun- ger is appeased they cease the killing — ^they would not think of continuing to slay their fellow creatures for pas- time or "sport" like humans do. The Fool Killer 29 THE PRIMEVAL VOICE. I should like to find an island in some far-off Tropic Sea, Where the Greedy Hand of Man could find no trace of me, And there among the flowers, the pretty birds and trees, To live and love and dream the very life I please. In that Fairy Dreamland besides the Mystic Sea, I could be happy as any bird, whose wings are ever free; And with my Sweetheart-Wife to help me dream the hours, We could be so free and happy with the birds and flowers. They would be our friends and neighbors, and from day to day, We'd all sing alto to the Jeweled Hours as they passed away; And when the Mellow Moonbeams kissed the Restless Sea, The Silvery Waves would come and sing with her and me. Those ignorant and vicious wretches who believe in an Eternal Hell are just about mean enough to deserve such a place themselves. When I see our dear Did Flag singing Freedom in the air, Something sweet and sacred stirs and tingles way in there. That is Patriotism — not the selfish and dollar kind, That never reaches deeper than the pocket and the rind; But when I see our emblem $-marked and descrated — Floating from Morgan's' Christless rolk or other pirate craft, I become a flebel and Patriot — ^my muscles twitch — my fingers Itch — ^to pull a trigger, for I would rescue it from such vandal Company and restore it to the air — ^the common heritage of all. Our dear Old Flag was intended to represent Organized Humanity — Not Syndicated Rascality and Sanctified Greed! ) 30 The Fool Killer Ideas that require force to propagate them will also need a battleship to keep them propagated. How foolish to waste our time and lives planting such venomous weeds and then building prisons for those who refuse to kow- tow to them. It would be just as sensible to arrest and imprison the honey bees, because they refuse to believe that the tumble bug's cargo is a basket of peaches. THE BEST WAY. A young man of 19 summers ^writes from Columbia, . Mo., and wants to know the best way to win a ''very beautiful and shy young girl who is very exclusive and cold toward all us young fellows?" Yes, Reginald, you came to the right place to acquire wisdom — and wisdom is digested and assimilated knowl- edge. You did not state the young lady's age, but as she is there to get an education and not to flirt with you frisky and immature young boobs, she is doing quite right to be exclusive and hold herself in the Aloof Class. A young lady who is exclusive and particular about her company, has evidently been Well and carefully reared in a first-class home by parents who are somebody, and, of course, she is a prize worth capturing. Let your habits and conduct be your references, and then try to obtain an introduction to the young lady through some proper channel. If you succeed in gaining entree to her social circles, then let the young lady see that you are the real thing in manhood and that she and her people won't ever have to be ashamed of you. But seriously, my boy, we'll bet a 3-bit piece that your folks sent you there to cop out an education and not to chase calico. When a boy's head is full of calico there isn't much room in it for anything else. The Truth is a Beautiful Thing, but it is so shy and modest it would rather slip off in the woods, wrap the vines and flowers about its delicate form, and dream at the Misty and Shoreless Stars alone while the birds and insects are singing a weird and perfumed alto in the Southwind. The Fool Killer 31 PIETY — Respectable stupidity and ofttimes a cloak for rascality. POLITICS — Getting people's consent to pick their pockets. DIPLOMACY — Polite and sugar-coated lying. PESSIMIST — The cloudy cuss who always sees weeds among the flowers. OPTIMIST — The sunny cuss who always finds flow- ers among the weeds. DREAMS — Moving pictures on the brain-screen. FLATTERY — ^An Irish sword and Celtic morphine. MUSIC— A Perfumed Sound-Bath for the Soul. SOME RAIN. It would have to rain at the rate of 416 feet and 8 inches a day for forty consecutive days to produce the amount of water mentioned in the Bible's flood story. Where in all creation did the Water Wagon ginks get that amount of moisture? A rain of ten inches in 24 hours is considered a mighty big bit of wetness. The above yam is a sample of the kind of junk and rubbish they stuff the children's minds with in Sunday school and church, in order to make them good — yes, good for nothing but bigots and trouble makers! If people can be made better by teaching them lies, why not abandon all facts and teach nothing but falsehoods? If one lie is good for us, why wouldn't two lies be better? Ask Mr. Sabbath, and his answer will be: ''You dirty, low-down, weezil-eyed, hog-jowled, knock-kneed, swivel- jointed, pot- gutted, hell-born whiskey-soak! you're on your way to hell and the Devil will gag to receive you!" Some argu- ment in that kind of language, eh ? I never did have much sense (according to my pious and Heaven-bound neighbors) but some how or other I have managed to out-live most of them, and am still well and making an honest living outside the insane asylum. Singing about the "Sweet Bye and Bye" won't put any molasses in the Bitter Here and Now. 32 The Fool Killer No woman is fit to be a man's wife and the mother of his children unless she loves him. Marrying without love is selling your soul to the Devil on credit, and the harvest will be H E L L L L L ! Ignorance is the only power that can keep people in chains and make them believe their shackels are Heaven-made jewelry. Those flowers that you were going to take over to your neighbor may be dead by TOMORROW and so may he. The Ignorant Mind is only a patch of poison weeds — a desert where reptiles creep and crawl, but, the Edu- cated Mind is a flower garden, an orchard Where birdies fly and sing — an emerald meadow where the South Wind drinks the nectared fragrance from the hawthorn fields. Don't waste any time nor money building a monu- ment over my Unconscious Dust — use it teaching others how to avoid my mistakes, and how to make the flowers outgrow the weeds, so this dear old world will be a better place to live. When you get too busy, lazy or indifferent to take care of your health. Nature will soon load you on the Swine Pullman and head you for the Cem. There are many ways a fly may get in our soup, but that makes no difference to us after we have dis- covered his flyship in our consomme. RELIGION is man's explanation of what he don't know and understand — his guess at Nature's mysteries. LOVE is the Soul's efforts to expand and be happy — ^the Heart's wings longing for the air and Shoreless Sky. The Fool Killer 38 (Froin Appeal to Reason.) HOW IT'S DONE. It don't do the poor boobs any good to get more wages under the Capitalist System of private o'wnership of the industries and the things the workers must have in order to live, because these capitalists have the power to fix the prices on everything the workers need, and through that power they can nullify all wage increases. When they raise the workers' wages with one hand, they grab it right back again with the other hand by raising prices accordingly; so the poor simps are right back at the bottom of the ladder again — and there they'll stay till they get wise enough to cut that price string With their VOTES! Vote against the Hellish System that gives the capitalists such wicked and dangerous power. A Socialist vote is the only kind of a knife that can cut that string so it wiU stay cut. 34 The Fool Killer A YOULESS TOMORROW. If YOU were not a part of tomorrow, It would indeed be a day of sorrow; All the clouds Would fill the sky, And every voice would weep and sigh, If YOUR voice sang not tomorrow. Every wing would droop and fold, ^ Every flower would perish with the cold, And all the insects that hum the air Would find the earth so dead and bare, If YOUR feet pressed not the fields tomorrow. All the brooks that babble at the sky Would soon be frozen hard and dry. And every tree that shadowed in the stream. If no more you sought its shade to dream, Would cast its leaves tomorrow. All the cows out in the fields so green. And the sasy goats so lank and lean. Would all be sick and sad with sorrow. If YOUR face could not be seen When they wandered home tomorrow. Even the chickens in the garden and the yard, And the little birds that flit from tree to tree Would find the future drear and hard, If YOUR pretty face they could not see — When the twilight brought them home tomorrow. If your face so sweet and fair, With its eyes so kind and true. Were never mine no more to share, This world would all be sad and blue — And there'd be no Sun tomorrow. The Fool Killer 35 If a man had the jumping abilities of a flea, in pro- portion to his size, he could jump a mile in three jumps; and if he had the lying ability of Billy Sunday and the Democrats, he could bamboozel Old Nick out of his job in less than one bam. I am very fond of flowers, but they won't do me any good on my grave — let me have them now. LIFE^ — ^A crawl and cry, a jump and a yell, a limp and a sigh, crape on the door, hole in the ground, DUST, Oblivion. DEATH is only the soft and silent Twilight of Eter- nity in which we kiss those that we love good-bye for- ever. The Missouri Eiver is the greatest fruit tree in the state — ^because it bears currents every day in the year. The truth is the only thing that won't crack when you stretch it. NEEDLE — ^The dressmaker's pen — her key to the butcher shop. ALFALFA — Kansas clover — ^Sunflower blue grass. Marrying for money is selling your soul to the Devil on credit — a case of the Stomach swapping the Heart for a meal ticket. A hard and disreputable way of making a very poor living by proxy. There is no beauty equal to the internal or Soul- beauty; and it's the only kind that Time can't hang freckles on and wrinkle the stuffing out of. There is something sweet, complete and soul-satis- fying about doing right that nothing else can give — it perfumes the soul with a fragrance that never wears off; and at night it comes and sings alto !n your dreams and fans you to sleep with angels' wings. 36 The Fool Killer ETERNITY. Eternity is that great Silent and Voiceless Darkness Where Time is not measured, That strange Dreamless and Comebackless Forever, Where rest those that we loved and treasured. Eternity is the great and Awful All — The Voiceless Deep calling unto Deep — The Echoless Chaos in whcih we fall. When Death has cradled us to Sleep. It is the Indestructible and Forevery ALWAYS, And embraces everything, including you and me, And after this fleeting speck of life decays. Our elements will surge in this Eternal Sea. A home without a mother is like a river witl^out water, a garden without a flower, a world without color, and a Heart sans love. A RARE SCHOOL GIRL. While in Tecumseh, Neb., recently, Xve ran across a rare little high school girl by the name of Miss Helen Murphy. This beautiful and spiritual little miss of 16 seasons was deploring the fact that the schools would soon be out, and she did so like to go to school and study. Now, boys, wouldn't that overtake your aeroplane and loan you a cargo of gasoline? Who ever heard of a youngster moaning because school would soon be out and play time would be on the carpet? The little imps are usually tickled to death when school is out and they can roam the streets and fields and do as they please. That's all right. Miss Helen, St. Peter has already re^ ceived a polite request from this office to clear the blocks and swing the portals wide open when he hears the music of your little tootsies on the atmosphere. How long would it take a Topeka girl togged out in Omaha bloomers to slide down the Rainbow on a scoop shovel, stopping only at county seats? ^ The Fool Killer 37 If a woman had everything she wanted, what else would she want? And if a man had all he wanted, how long would it take it to kill him? The Devil has a warm place in his heart for the fellow that's afraid of work. A PLEASANT HOTEL. The hotel in Western, Nebraska, is a pleasant place to stop, for the landlady knows how to make her guests feel at home. In the office is a big card bearing the following: *'Board, 50c a square yard — ^meals extra. Don't pay your bills — the hotel don't need any money. If you get dry at night you can find a spring under the bed. If you find the bed buggy and have a nightmare, hitch the mare to the buggy and take a ride. If you get hungry during the night, get out on the floor and take a roll. If you haven't stamps for your letters we have plenty of them to loan. If you feel like breaking up the fur- niture there is plenty more of it in town that we can buy. Checks cashed and money loaned without security. We are just running this hotel for our health and to have a good time; so don't hesitate to make yourself at home and have a good time." A guest that couldn't enjoy him"- self at that hotel, must, indeed, be a grouchy pesimist. When a person once starts downhill everybody and everything give him a push and a shove and a kick with all fours and then spits on him for good measure; and when he reaches the bottom of the stairs with a bump and a slam, they shout down at him and want to know why in blazes he don't climb up on the roof again. Such Is Capitalist life. It would hardly be safe to mention the Darwinian Theory to any self-respecting monkey that's familiar with human history; and especially to a simian that's been reading the war-bulletins from Europe. 38 The Fool Killer POTATO OMELET. (Polp) A few years ago we wrote a potato omelet, and it is such an excellent feed, we have concluded to tell our readers how to prepare this nutritious and palatable dish. It is made out of potatoes and cheese and a few trim- mings. First, put a skillet on the fire and put a little water in it and bring it to a boil. While the water is gettng hot pare the potatoes and slice them up into small pieces, and when the water begins to boil put them in and thus cook them until they are done, but be careful and not cook them too much, and don't let them scorch. So arrange the amount of water that when they are cooked enough the water is just about all evaporated. Now put in a little good butter and some evaporated milk or real cream, a little celery salt and a little pepper and then add the grated cheese. Now keep stirring it until the cheese is all melted and it and the potatoes are all one mass, when it is ready to serve. Be careful to not get in too much nor too little of the cream or evaporated milk. If you haven't got enough of the cream and butter it will be too dry and you won't be able to prevent it from scorching and sticking to the bottom of the skillet; and if you get in too much of the cream and butter it will be sloppy and won't taste just right; and the same wdth the celery salt and the pepper — ^not too much nor too little. The amount of cheese should be one-fourth the amount of the potatoes. If you are very fond of onions you can season this with onion- salt, and if you are fond of pimentoes, you can add a few of them — just about enough to season it and give a slight pimento flavor. If you should get it too thin and sloppy you can partly correct this by adding one or two Shredded Whole Wheat biscuits crumbled up finely and thoroughly stirred in with the omelet. This omelet is a perfect sub- stitute for meats and has none of the bad effects of meats. This omelet along with some good whole meal bread and butter and some raw tomatoes or raw or friend onions and a drink (milk or coffee, make a perfect meal. If you can't get the tomatoes or onions some fruit, such as grapes, pleaches, pears, dates, figs, prunes or fried apiJa« The Fool Killer 39 go nicely with the omelet. Fried mush goes perfectly with it and so does smear kase. Monkey bread (cocoanut) goes nicely with it and you can use a little peanut butter on the bread if you like. MAK'S CABBAGE DISH. Boil sliced cabbage in a little water till it is well done and then add a little good butter, celery salt and pepper and a little sour cream, and let it simmer in these for ten mnutes on a slow fire. Chop the cabbage up fine and have the water boiling before you put it in. Be careful to not have too much water nor too little and watch it and not let it burn. The amount of water should be so gauged it will just about be all evaporated when the cab- bage is cooked enough. This sour cream gives it a pe- culiar and a delicious flavor. The amount of the celery salt and pepper to suit the taste. The cream should be slightly sour. MAK^S OYSTER STEW. Ste'w the oysters in a httle milk that is about half cream, and when they are cooking, season with a little celery salt and black pepper. When they are done and ready to serve ad about one-fourth of their amount in sour cream and stir this in with the soup thoroughly. This gives a peculiar and a most delicious flavor. The cream for this should be slightly sour. SOOLK. A rare dish of peculiar and delicious flavor can be made in this way. Cook together in soft water (dis- tilled water is best) equal parts in weight of ripe Malaga grapes and ripe persimmons. Have the water boiling be- fore you put in the fruit, and the latter should be well crushed before putting it in the water. To a quart of this add four tablespoons of pulverized sugar, one tea- spoon of finely grated nutmeg, six tablespoons of malted milk, six ounces of good blackberry brandy and eight ounces of real cream. Boil the fruits for about five minutes first and then add the other ingredients and let the whole thing simmer for five minutes on a slow fire. 40 The Fool Killer This can be kept in jars or bottles and if kept corked up tight it will keep for months. This goes nicely over oatmeal or any of the breakfast foods or cake, or just by itself. A dish of this Soolk with a cup of good coffee or chocolate and a few oatmeal or graham crackers or Nabisco, make an excellent and dainty little breakfast or supper where one does not want a hearty meal. It also goes nicely with monkey bread, and one may use a little peanut butter on the bread if he likes. This dish, the name and all, is one of Mak's concoctions, and makes one feel romantic, poetical, sentimental and young. GOOD BY, NEMAHA, Greedy Man, in his senseless and shameless $-chase has desecrated and raped the beautiful Nemaha River up in Nebraska. The shameless and $-marked barbarian has robbed this wild and beautiful little rio, with the Indian moniker, of its old ancestral bed and has it tucked away into a dirty, grassless and treeless ditch, and now the poor little helpless thing cannot sing its primeval songs to the Eternal Stars anymore. It looks Uke a disgraced 30- cent piece that never had a 3 and borrowed its cipher from the Indians. The poor little feral stream, the erst- while friend and companion of the Mighty Buffalo and the weird and Stately Elk — ^the boon pal of the Booming Prairie Chicken and the shy and modest Antelope, is now destitute of all romance and beauty and is ashamed to look at the Kastelated Stars and say howdy to the Wild Prairie Flowers. It looks like a dirty and shameless tramp that's lock-stepping his way to Rulo in quest of a hand-out and booze. Commercialism makes Man a ruth- less and shameless vandal, and in his mad currency-chase he has no respect for Nature and her grand and beautiful works. KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE. Ignorance is the only darkness, and knowledge is the only light. Ignorance is a weed and knowledge is a flower. Ignorance is a cloud and knowledge is sunlight. The Fool Killer 41 Igncrrance is a chain and knowledge is a wing. Ignorance is discord — ^knowledge is harmony. Ignorance is a stench — ^knowledge is a perfume. Ignorance is disease and knowledge is health. Ignorance is failure and knowledge is success. Ignorance is hate — knowledge is love. Ignorance is tallow-candle — ^knowledge is the noon- day sun. Ignorance is a fly-in-the-milk— knowledge is an Eagle against the purple sky. Ignorance is a stagnant pool — knowledge is the Rest- less Ocean. Ignorance is starvation — knowledge is nutrition. Ignorance is decay and death — tonowledge is growth and life. The bird that flies the highest is often only a buzzard taking a cloud-vacation. RAILROAD MEN. The editor of this Bean Storm has had a wide and extensive experience with railroad men, and he feels competent to pass judgment on the boys. According to the politicians and the Big Skinners of Labor, railroad men are only human beings about two weeks before elec- tion. The rest of the time they are "just damned railroad men!" These Knights of the Toot-Toots may be a little dirty on the outside (owing to the nature of their work) but we are here to tell you that they are the whitest set of men on the inside that we ever found in all our sojourn on this wicked and wobbly old globe. Of course, there are a few renegades among them, but take them as a class and they are bright, alert, cheerful, brave, kindhearted, generous, courteous and gallant to women folks and chil- dren. They're always "Johnny-on-the-Spot" and faithful, and are not to blame for poor railway service the public has to put up with. These brave and patient lads are always in favor of a square deal and are ever ready to lend a helping hand to those in distress. They are proud and sensitive and quick to resent a wrong or insult. The most of them ai^ loyal and steadfast and are good to their wives and little ones. It's true the railroad boys are very fond of calico, but the boob that isn't fond of 42 The Fool Killer cerese and ribbons doesn't amount to shucks and isn't worth a mess of mushrooms that grow on toadstolls! We sent a wireless some years ago to St. Peter to let the rail- road boys pull right in anyway and "tie up for 24 hours' sleep," and to see that the blocks were all clear whenever he saw one of them "heading in" for the "Pearly Gates;" but Hight-Gate-Pete wired back that our request was unnecessary, as he had millions of the boys on the inside already, and. they had all proven to be worthy and such good celestial citizens that he always cleared the blocks whenever he had a wireless that another crew was headed his way; and the poor devils who had to work on the Frisco and the. Central Branch, he always personally introduced them to President God and asked General Man- ager Christ to get up and let them have his seat awhile. These brave men ought to have double the wages they are receiving, shorter hours and better working condi- tions, and when they get hurt and are unable to work, they should receive free medical treatment until they are well and also full pay during the time they are incapaci- tated; and in case their injuries are incurable, they ought to be retired on a good pension. We hereby drink a bumper of Nebraska cream flav- ored with Missouri clover and Kansas alfalfa, to the boys who keep the toot-toots in motion and the wires talkiafif through space. The Devil has a great big warm spot away down in the bottom of his sooty heart for the man that is mean to his wife and kiddies and neglects them for booze, to- bacco and Dollie-Chickens; and if we had St. Peter's job those renegades would have a hell of a time getting in. Good-behavior and courtesy are two keys that will unlock more doors than you can ever enter. Your conduct will either put you on the map or the hog-train. The best "way to be successful arid popular is to be- have yourself, be kind and courteous and mind your own business. The Fool Killer 43 No matter how beautiful and artistic your nose is it will never make much of a hit in other people's affairs. You'll never accumulate much of a bank account by being honest and decent, but you'll soon have a soul- credit running up into the millions. The woman who has servants to wait on her and who dawdles away her life wearing diamonds, playing bridge- whist for a booby-prize and fondling a bulldog and fliver- jng around with a good-looking chauffeuer, instead of doing some honest and useful work and raising a few children, is a naked odor that's enough to make any self- respecting turkey-buzzard become a vegetarian and florist. Selfishness and bad-habits will soon slam every door in your face. If you want to find out how much you amount to in this wobbly old world of war-taxes and frenzy, just take one drop of water out of the ocean and then ask the Big Wet if it's lost anything lately. I'd rather be alone on the right side of a question than to be President of the multitude on the other side. Long as your soul is giving you an E-mark every night you don't need to worry much about what your neighbors think of you. Quit gouging each other and behave yourself and you'll find heaven all around you. You can't tell a lie without stepping on your own soul. The main trouble is caused by keeping to many brainless days. Every mean thing you think and do makes you uglier and older. Every time you fail to do your duty, your soul calls you a slacker. 44 The Fool Killer The more you forget yourself the more others will remember you. Good ideas are tools that can be used in any trade or profession. The years don't travel very fast, but they keep everlastingly at it — and that's Why they win every race and write the word victory over every battlefield. Married men make the best soldiers because they know how to obey orders and have lost all fear of death. When I look in a person's face I can tell whether there's anybody upstairs or not. A useless life is a weed existence — a poison tare, and no one can lead such a life without sliping back toward the Jungle. Burden, Kansas, mlust be quite a load on the Sun- flower-State. Doing nothing is an admission that you are a failure, and Old Horns has you spotted. The failure that's not a quitter won't long to be a failure. An ignorant mind is the darkest place in the world. If you want your wives to be young and beautiful you must make them happy. Happiness and health are the only beautifiers. Every mean thing you do helps to rope your own Nancy Animal. Beating your debts is pulling feathers out or your own wings. Every good deed is a shower that irrigates the flow- ers in your soul. The Fool Killer 45 Every smile is an asset and every frown a liability. Love-Kissing is Writing Eternal Poetry on the heart — painting Landscapes in the soul. The woman who requires a maid to help her dress and undress is either an invalid or a joke on herself. The Devil always chuckles gleefully to himself when- ever he sees a Childless Society Woman autoing around with a bulldog and a good-looking chauffeur. The highest flying bird in the world is a buzzard; and the loftiest flying human-bird, from a financial stand- point, belongs to the same species. JUST A DREAM. Just a little sunshine — Just a little dew and rain. To revive the pretty flowers, And make them bloom again. Just the little birdies, To fly and sing the air — I like to hear their voices, Lifting in the orchards — everywhere. Just a little leafy cottage — Far back among the trees, • Where the lowing of the cattle Comes drifting on the breeze. Where the wild and Vagrant Moonbeams, Play shadow-tag among the trees — Painting landscapes in the birdies' dreams, And Fairy-dancing on the summer breeze. Just a little Sweetheart-wife, To dream these dreams with me — And when the Evening Shadows touch our life, To love me on through all Eternity. 46 The Fool Killer The sewing-machine is the dressmaker's typewriter. SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS. "Stay with it, man, and "Thanks! I'll now re- 'make good !' *' lieve you I" (From the Melting Pot.) Yes, Henry, it does you a lot of good to "'make good," under the present system. You work like hell early and late and sweat in summer and freeze in winter and partly starve all the time to produce the world's crops and all the other good and needful things and then tug and climb like a galley-slave to carry these good The Fool killer ^ things to the top of the ladder (the market) and when you get there and about to realize your dreams and cash your hopes, some lazy and worthless parasite relieves you of your cargo and you drop back to the bottom of the ladder empty-handed and naked— and even have to buy your own court-plaster and bandages to bind up your bruises and broken limbs. Henry, why not fasten both ends of that ladder to the Government, and then when you reach the top (the market) you won't be robbed and let fall back to the bottom empty-handed and naked? A Socialist-vote is a staple that will fasten that rope to the Guv. Producing a big crop under capitalism helps the workers who produce it just like the osprey is fattened by catching a big fish — ^there's a lazy and dishonest Big Eagle watching the osprey, and soon as he sees the osprey has caught a big fish he sWoops down on the smaller bird and takes the fish away from it. The eagles are the landlords and bankers of the bird tribes. If the ospreys could remely their misfortunes With such a simple remedy as their votes, they would probably be intelligent enough to do so. Why should humans con- tinue to be robbed by the Buzzards and Eagles of their own species when they have such * an easy and simple way of banishing these birds of prey? . Whisper this question in both ears at once and look at your stupid self in the glass at the same time, and then drop down on your empty belly and kick yourself with all 4's until you become intelligent enough to find your own navel without a compass and a chart. Wake up, Rube, and vote 'em off your back. Poetry is the music of language — the South wind Waltz of speech. Music is the poetry of sounds — 'the cream of tone- vibrations. As Nature has given every human being one mouth and two hands to pull grass for it, she evidently did not intend that this earth should be disgraced with drones. 48 The Fool Killer The persons who put out food for the birds when there's a deep snow on the ground, wouldn't have to do much knocking on the Pearly Gates if I had St. Peter's job. Socialism would arm the people with wings instead of machine-guns. WHO WOULD RAISE THE CROPS? Now that a Christian Nation has captured Palestine and the "Holy Land," there seems to be a widely exist- ing sentiment all over Christiandom that this historical and natural habitat of the Jews should be restored to them, and that they should be made safe in their occu- pancy of it for all time, and that they should be free to make their own laws and live their lives as they see fit- free from all outside interference or control. Such a plan is historically poetical and appeals strongly to our feel- ings and sense of fairness, and we favor it, but as they would all want to make a living by loaning money or selling old clothes, who would raise the crops and feed them? Man never gets too old nor to wise to make a fool of himself often occasionally or several times in a semi- while. Love and money are the only things that speak all languages and laugh at trouble. Minding-Your-Own-Business is the greatest Peace Maker in the world, and would soon close every law- office and gun-factory in the world. A Fly or a Match is not much of a gatling-gun in point of size, but when it comes to deadly potency the one is an armanda of submarines and the other one is an aerial flotilla. Virtue is only sexual integrity and calico-righteous- ness, and looks mighty good to most people after they get too old to be frisky any longer. The Fool Killer 49 A landless people become weak and wobbly, uncer- tain and immoral — just like a house becomes shaky and unsafe when its foundation is saped. A FEW JACKAS DONrS. (By The Jakas.) Mr. Jacksonass, a quiet, modest and well-behaved animal that man slanders through envy. !• I don't flirt nor divorce my top-grass at the equator to balance my beans. 2. I don't dip snuff, smoke opium and cigarettes nor chew gum and tobacco. 8. I don't wear corsets, high-heel shoes, spectacles nor filed teeth. ' 4. I don't take medicine, get vaccinated nor die of syphillis, cancer, paralysis and insanity. 5. I don't play poker and football, hang around saloons and frequent the "Red-light District." 6. I was never in debt, the penitentiary, insane asylum nor congress. 7. I don't beat my debts nor wife, don't dodge my taxes, no grand-jury ever indicted me, and my picture is shy in the Rogue's Gallery. 8. 1 don't waste my money on booze, tobacco, gamb- ling and other women, and then tell my wife she is very extravagant and will have to cut down on the household expenses. 50 The Fool Killer 9. I don't build battleships and Krup-guns, never carried a revolver nor bowie-knife, and wouldn't be guilty of persecuting my fellow jackases on account of their opinions and nationality. 10. I don't lie and cheat, adulterate foods and drinks and short-Weight my customers all week, and then go to some fashionable church on Sunday and sing "I Want to Be An Angel" and "0 How I Love Jesus/' 11. I don't use profanity, was never baptised nor divorced, and wouldn't think of deserting my wife and children. 12. I never joined the church, don't burlesque re- ligion nor Dan Patch dollars with a baseball-cross and slang. 13. I live with my own wife and don't swat the 7th Commandment, and was never arrested for breach-of- promise nor bigamy. 14. I don't go to law nor the cabarets, was never pinched for a slacker nor embezzled trust-funds. 15. I don't belong to a "Labor Union" and boast ol being a "unionman" and then vote a scab-ticket at every election. 16. I'm not the kind of a "patriot" that decorates my clothes and automobiles with flags and then steer clear of the recruiting station. I have no country of my own, but I'm to self-respecting to help the Kaiser. 17. I w^^s never operated on for "appendicitis;" don't go to Hot Springs, and have no use for "Cotton- Root PiUs" and the "Keley Cure." 18. And I'm not foolish enough to worry and work myself to death for others in order to get a chance to support myself; neither is my moniker on the Arrival Book at the Foolish Works; in fact, I'm not such a dam jackas as lots of people think I am. You can't cheat others without swindling yourself. There are thousands of people in Kansas City (under a capitalist administration) who are so poor if turkeys were selling for 3 cents a dozen, the couldn't watch ft blyejay fly across the streets on the installment plan. The Fool Killer 51 DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS. Most everything looks different when viewed from a different angle and when looked at by different minds. This point is well illustrated by the reply Little Willie made to his mother's criticism of the way be buttered his bread. The greedy youngster was putting very lib- eral Quantities of butter on one side of his bread, and just as liberal portions of peanut butter on the other side, and quite a liberal supply of honey around the edges. His mother watched him quietly for awhile, and then with a surprised air inquired: *'Why, Willie, that is very extravagant to put two kinds of butter on your bread and then honey around the edges!'' "No, mamma, it is economical." "How so, my son?" "Why," said Willie with a roguish twinkle in both his lamps, "the same piece of bread does for all three/*' And the young wag was quite right from his view- point, and the mother was just as right from her angle of view. All children should be taught from their earliest infancy to never dislike nor illtreat people on account of their opinions or nationality — ^nor on account of the kind or style of clothes they wear. Human tastes and ideas differ so widely, and we are all so weak, ignorant and falible, it is very foolish and egotiscal for any of us to set ourselves up as judges and censors for the remainder of the aggregate bunch. Yesterday and tomorrow are the two best days for doing mean things, but TODAY is the only time for pull- ing off good stunts. Knowledge is an asset — a bank account that never runs low — ^A Good Old Friend to help you wherever you go ; . but — Ignorance is a liability — ^A perpetual debt on the grow — A (Relentless Enemy to plague you wherever you go. Belief is confidence in what you don't know — an over- draft on the mind. 52 The Fool Killer I don't feel half so bad about being foolish since Fve lived long enough to have discovered that about ten peo- ple out of every nine are traveling in the same jolly boat. We don't like to be ethnolojikaly curious, but we should like to know what Would become of the Jews if there were no garlic, onions and money in the world? Wouldn't it be a thriller to read a history of the Human-race written by the other animals? Under Socialism when we throw brickbats at others we will only hit ourselves; therefore, only flowers will be used as missiles. Art is the Poetry of Colors — ^the music of shade and light. The booh who hires others to think for him will al- ways be at the bottom of the ladder and clinging to some kind of a cross or crutch. Love — ^That Strange and Mysterious Something that causes a 300-pound man to let a 90-pound woman boss him. All people are fools, but only a few are aware of it; in fact, I'm several kinds of a dam fool myself, but am almost as well aware of it as my neighbors are. Many a poor boob would stay home at night if his wife's company were worth keeping. It's a poor sort of a skirt that a gink will desert for a saloon and its bar- flies. SOME NAMES. There's not much in a name after all, unless it is the finale at the omega of a bank check; for instance, we know of an old maid in Missouri who is dying of tuber- culosis, and her name is Wedding; and about the warmest proposition in the calico line we ever ran across, was a young grass-widow away out in the wilds of Kansas The Fool Killer 53 anmed Isa Snow; and then there was Mr. Siim Lean, of Arkansas, who attained the enormous altitude of four feet and seven and one-half inches and weighed 692 pounds in the shade; then there's Mr. William Sassy, of Missouri, a mild and gentle little cuss who is so timid and modest he wouldn't sass his wife's relatives by proxy; and one of the softest and easiest men I ever met was Mr. Hardy Stone, of Iowa; likewise, the blackest negro we ever saw bore the strange name — Snow Whit;e and one of the fairest and prettiest golden-haired blonds we ever saw was Miss Inkey Darke Black, of Kentucky ; and not long ago we were called to see a gentleman who weighed 68 pounds after meals and "was a hopeless paraletic, and when I discovered that his moniker was Mr. Sampson Strong, I was almost paralyzed myself; then there was Mr. Little Stub Short of Rhode Island, who was only seven feet and nine inches up as the Honey Mer- chant buzzes; and he was a good match for Mr. Lenticus Longfellow Long, of Vincenus, Ind., a modest little top- notcher who grew up amidst the slu-grass and cattails of the Wabash River until he reached the phenominal alti- tude of three feet and one inch. The smartest cuss \ve ever met rejoiced in the in- nocent and misleading name — ^Algernon Greenleaf Green; and about the stupidest Gink that ever stooped was Mr. Brainard Gilroy Smart, of Ohio, who gave away his farm and all his other property to avoid paying taxes and then joined church and eloped with his mother-in-law to spite his wife. Thompson's historic colt that swam the Wabash River to avoid getting wet by the rain, had noth- ing much on Mr. Brainard Gilroy Smart; and there was Old Mr. P. M. Hinds who Was the foremost and leading citizen of Damfino, Mo., and who was always ,up with the chickens and sparrows, and was the leader of the local band and always in the front of every procession. Mr. Beardley Beard, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, never wore a beard in his life ; and Mr. Cutting Taylor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, couldn't cut out the cigarette habit nor a Chinaman who was skating with his skirt, let alone cut- ting out a suit of clothes and making them; and Mr. 64 The Fool Killer Kalikut Lyttle Kradel, of Bird Center, Iowa, was a macadamized old bachelor, and the very thought of calico or a cradle gave him zero weather of the vertebrae; and Mrs. Melba-Sousa-Museik, of Hutchison, Kansas, couldn't tell ragtime from sacred music without consulting the program, nor Yankee Doodle from Pixie without assist- ance; and not many years ago Mr. Morgan Rothschild Riche died a pauper in New York City; and Mr. Lyttle Poore Lowe, of Tacoma, Washington, is a multi-million- aire, and is seven feet three inches tall and only weighs 476 when he is run down and not feeling well; and there was Miss Constance Virginia Wright, of New Orleans, who constantly went wrong and died of a social disease in the Crescent City a few years ago; and Miss Irene Belle Fairman of Fairfax, Va., was about the homeliest Woman that ever homed — in fact, her face was a Keeley Cure for I^ove and all kindred affections; and Prof. Harry Baldman of Paducah, Ky., had the heaviest and bushiest mop of sky-grass we ever lamped; and Mr. Finley Water- man Fish, of Peekskil, N. Y., never drank water, had no fins nor skales, and the first time he went swimming got drowned; and Dr. Andrew Hugh Bear, of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, drew Miss Amity Patience Love of Battle Creek, Michigan, to his heart and tried to vaccinate her with a bear hug and a Nat Goodwin-Olga Nethersole kiss, but the fair Michigoos deftly sidestepped his center- rush, pitched a left swing to his right glim, swotted him in the slats with her parasol, kicked him below the equator with both hind wheels, yanked a handful of sky- grass from his fly-pasture, and then — ^had him pinched for assault and battery. Mr. Badaxe up in the Thumb of Michigan was such a good and satisfactory Indian, the whites named the town after* him as a token of their esteem and good- will. Mr. Timothy Barley Otes, of North Dakota, recently married Miss Winnie Reyfield Wheat, of Minnesota, and as the happy cpreal pair meandered down the isle of the church after the marriage ceremony had been pronounced by the Rev. Komelius Greene Hay, the organist, Miss ^^ The Fool Killer 56 Prudence Cook Beans, either thoughtlessly or maliciously played the old Methodist hymn: ''What Will The Harvest Ber Mr. Upham Plum Strait, of Savannah, Ga., was one of the lowest-down degenerates and all-^ound crooks that ever wore out time in a prison; and Miss Joy Divine Goode, of Providence, R. L, married an old hick by the name of Leon Griswold Gunn, from somewhere up in the pines of Vermont, and who was pining for matrimony and trouble, and in less than 18 months she poisoned him for his life insurance and eloped with his nephew; and Miss Berry Plum, of Peach Tree, Alabama, never cared for fruit at all, but ate enough meat to be classed with the kamivori; and Mr. Art Penn Painter, of Grand View, Oregon, was not an artist at all, except in his internal capacity for storing booze and food-supplies. We like to see people live up to their names, like Mr. Woodbury Allmen Coffin, of Blue Earth, Minn., who follows the cheerful and str^ady occupation of undertaker; and Herr Fuller Tubbs Tank, of Alliance, Ohio, who runs a brewery; likewise. Miss Hattie Bonnette Lydd, of Terrel, Texas, who used to conduct a millinery store; and then there was Miss Prudence Patience Kidd, a life- long school teacher in the kindergarten schools of Lowell, Mass.; but she had nothing on Miss Leone Lyons Taymor, who used to travel with the Selspaw and Fore Bros, circus and ride lions and waltz with the tigers every day and night; nor on Miss Tina Little Bird, of Bird Point, La., who raises canaries, humming-birds and wrens for a living; and Mr, Beaman Sweet Ilyve, of Honey Bend, Va., who crossed his bees with lightning bugs so as to get a breed that could see to work at night as well as all day, was something of an artist, too, in his line; and Mrs. Goldie Lockes Hare, hairdresser, of Atlanta, Ga., and her husband, Harry Rutting Hare, barber, wasn't a hairbreadth behind the rest of the Consistent Bunch; and we mustn't let Mr. Locke Sells Keys, warden of an Eastern penftentiary, escape a place in this list of im- mortals. Say fellows, what's the use? 56 The Fool Killer Ignorance is the most useless and expensive thing in the world, and is warranted to keep you at the bottom of the ladder. Knowledge is legal tender and at par in all countries and cannot be counterfeited. IN HIS OWN PASTURE NOW. Mr. Jak Bull recently married Miss Irene Goodpasture, so reports a Missouri exchange. Well, it is our sincere wish that the gentleman with the taurene moniker never gets tired of his Goodpasture. THE FORD GOT STUCK. Away out in the wilds and tames of Kansas, Mr. Ford recently married Miss Stuck. That's a case where a good new Ford got Stuck when the roads were not muddy; however, we hope he'll get out all right without getting some farmer to help him. If it takes two apples to make a pair, how many plums would it take to make a peach? As a piano has more than 80 keyes, why can't it unlock its own case? If it's proper to call a rabbit a hare, why wouldn't it be equally proper to call a duck a feather? A bank account may not be able to speak gramattic- ally, but its language is readily understood and respected by all nationalities. Giving people wings after they're dead and don't need transportation is about as brilliant a stunt as providing the boobs with a banquet after they have starved to death. We're denied flowers all our lives and then our brilliant neighbors decorate our graves with a few joy- weeds and imagine they're given us an artistic send-off. The Fool Killer 57 JUST DREAMING Of the dear days of yester-year, And in the waters of every stream, She sees some faces drifting near — Forms that shadow every dream. 58 The Fool Killer MOUTHOLOGY. 1. Is the easy-going, lazy and sensuous mouth that is vain, fickle and unreliable. A come-and-kiss-me mouth. 2. Is the sneering, jealous and suspicious mouth — the eavesdropper and spy — ^the sneak and incendiary. 3. Is the leader — ^the ambitious, planning and ener- getic mouth. 4. The Well-balanced mouth that is quiet and steady and reliable. 5. The sub-boss — ^he looks to those higher-up for his ideas and authority — a rut-traveler — an orthodox ani- mal. IMMOiRTALITY is merely the Primal Urge in us crying for Cosmic Expansion in order to be coeval with ETERNITY. Just think of giving Jay Gould, Vanderbilt, Morgan and Rockelfeler a harp and telling them to stick around and twang on that thing forever and that would be ''Heaven." If they couldn't organize the boobs up there and syndicate the place and convert it into a Dollar- Chase, it wouldn't be much of a heaven to them. And if they didn't give Reubens, Angelo, Rembrandt, Bonheur and the other great artists a brush and some The Fool Killer 59 paint, instead of an orchestra, they'd have a hard time making the place a heaven for those pigment slingers. And imagine Edison, Tesla, Napoleon, Roosevelt, Bryan, Byron, Poe, Bill Nye, Mark Twain, Carrie Nation, Ty Cobb, John L. Sullivan, Sarah Bernhardt, Shakepeare, IngersoU, Charlie Chaplin and Gov. Capper wasting Etem- ity trying to play a harp! If it is not right to punish, one for what his grand- parents did, then why are we compelled to pay interest on the debs they contracted before we were bom? HER ANTHROPOLOJIKAL STATUS. Miss Queenie Evanjelene Wild wood of Damfino, Mo., writes to acquire our learned and inf alible opinion in re- gard to her proper anthropolojikal status. She says in her letter: "My father was German, English and Irish, and my mother is French, Spanish and Indian — so what and I?" Well, Miss Queenie, as near as we can diagnose the case, your male projenitor was a plain Duke's Mix- ture, and your dam is a Coko Cola Cocktail seasoned with Chili Concame and Cactus Plant, and that would make you only an ordinary hotel of Expurgated and Revised Peruna, flavored with a little sawdust and Ozark poetry. The Human Mind often finds its greatest pleasure in riding Memory back through the Vast and Voiceless Past, The most ignorant man in the world is the cuss who knows a great deal that is not so. Time is Nature's undertaker, and the Past is the Cemetery of the Ages— the Necropolis of Eternity. If your husband prefers to go down town at night without you on his arm, and boozel-woozel up and down the Pikadily (12 street) and cigarezel along The Strand (Grand avenue) that is pretty conclusive evidence that there are several little Petticoat Lanes in his heart that your tooties don't know how to tango. 60 The Fool Killer If your neighbor's wife fits your heart so exactly and entirely that you want to elope with her, don't do that, but go to her husband like a man and tell him that you have such great faith in his judgment of women that you want him to pick out a soul-pal for you. As he has picked out one skirt (his wife) that suits you so well, there's no doubt but what he could easily pick out an- other piece of cerese and chiffon that would make just as good a kimona for your heart as his wife would. What a lot of trouble and bloodshed this simple and sensible plan would save. LIFE — Trouble with a sandbur in it. BUSINESS— ^Legalized gouging. MAERIAGE — Bumping the bumps. SUICIDE— Solving the hight cost of living. DEATH— Shooting the chutes. LIBRARY— The Mind's dining-room. RIGHTEOUSNESS— Behaving yourself, keeping your nose at home, and throwing bouquets at your neighbors instead of brickbats. GOAT— A weed-sheep. MULE — ^A weed-horse. EDUCATION— The Mind's invisible tools— its un- seen wings, with which to fly and reach the higher things. There are two keys that will unlock every door to a woman's heart — Courtesy and Kindness. Wlien a man has married a skirt he don't love he has simply and emphatically kicked himself in the heart "with both feet and legaUzed it. The water that is flowing by now is the river — not the water that is past. The water that's gone is only a Rippling Memory — a Lost Dream — an Alto Chord that's still vibrating and yodling the Farewell Song. The Fool Killer 61 Paris is the cream of the European cities, while Lon- don is only the milk and Berlin is the Buttermilk. If the Lord wil only tell me why he made some people, I will agree to keep it dark — ^but I would like to know. Minding your own business will often keep you out of the hospital and win the good-will of your neighbors. Boys, it's lots better to marry a homely girl who loves you, than to tie-up to a pretty one who don't. If a Woman will she won't, if she won't she will — and there you are and likely to stay. TIME AN ASSET. How many of you lazy boobs realize that time, every minute of it, is a valuable asset and should be wisely used and conserved; and yet millions of young men are idling away hours and hours of precious time every day — just standing and loafing aronud with a stink fire nuder their noses and letting their minds starve to death. What an education they could soon have by buying literature instead of tobacco, and using that literature as a plow to unweed their dirty and vacant minds! And when you get through reading a book or paper you still hve it; but when you get through with the tobacco, what have you left? A diseased body and a weakened and depraved mind. And as you acquired your education by plowing your mental field a little every day with some good book or magazine, how proud you would be of your growing library! Soon every tome would be a friend and pal — a chum to kill ennui! Reading develops and^ spreads our mental wings, smoking weakens and folds them I RAISINS— Uplifting food. OYSTERS— Ocean Bedbugs. Cash — ^Wings that know how to fly. 6g The Fool Killer City Bacteriologist, Harris, of St. Louis, recently examined a condemned egg and found that it contained more that 4,000,000 bacteria. — ^Ne'ws Item. It must have been a Roosevelt egg, and somebody ought to throw it at the Kansas City Star, A beautiful girl without a h'eart is only a pretty weed — a peach tree that's a slacker. Credit — Rainbow Currency. Weeds — ^Vegetable snakes. Those ten cigars you smoked today or passed out your friends would have bought your wife a nice pair of silk hose, and the high-brow socks wouldn't have swatted anyboly's health nor polluted the atmosphere. Say, Henry, isn't your wife a friend of yours too? Well, why not treat her with some of the high-brow stuff you pass out to your other friends every day? Think this over, boys. Whenever you feel like buying a nasty cigar, booze or other useless and foolish things, just take the money you thus intended to waste and put it in another pocket and keep this up all day, and then on your way home stop in somewhere and buy Irene and the kids some socks, shoes or other useful article of raiment, and in a short while you and the neighbors will be surprised what a happy and well-dressed family you have. The Golden Hours that are now passing by are the only ones that can be used. Each one is a Restless Steed, all saddled and bridled and ready to mount. Use each one as a Pegasus to go over the top and to lariat the stars. The Rebel Mind is a dauntless wing that likes to try The far-flung, the star-lighted and Shoreless Sky, Where every sail can lip the waves and kiss the Va- grant Winds while passing by. The Fool Killer 68 THE WAY TO DO IT. If you want to make your wife a better woman and Improve her looks just give her the money you waste on booze, tobacco and other foolish and bad habits, take her and the kiddies out to the theatres or other places of amusement two or three times a week, and stay at home and love and play with them the rest of the nights and you will have the pleasure of seeing their wings grow like weeds in August. A vote for Socialism is an asset, but a ballot for Capi- talism is a liability. One is a step forward, but the other Is a journey backwards — one is a hopeful look at the stars, but the other one is a dismal and groggy roll in the gutter. IGNORANCE is the only thing that needs a god— CRIME must always have a savior, and — DISEASE is all that needs a doctor. Fear, Hate and Greed are the cowardly and incen- diary tro that lighted the fires of Hell in the mind of man; but it was the gentle Hand of Love, Nature's great- est artist and only true painter, that dipped his red and faithful wings in the emerald tints of the Rainbow and pained the Star of Immortality on every human heart. ,QRANK — ^A gink who is so far ahead of his neigh- bors tha can't understand him. A boob who's trjring to write his name across the Milky Way opposite the post office. When death presses his cold anl noiseless . Kiss of Oblivion on the lips of love, he unconsciously plants the seeds of Immortality. The Hand of Love dips his brush deep down in the red paint of human hearts, and with the aid of Memory and Imagination, paints a beautiful and glorious • picture and lights it with an Everlasting Star that twinkles on forever. That picture is Heaven, and its dazzling star is Immortality — the Morning and Evening Star of Love, 64 The Fool Killer Willo^v plumes on a woman's hat are about as useless and expensive as cocktails on a man's breath. If a man praises a homely woman after he is married to her, he either really loves her or is afraid of her. Long as you are blinded by ignorance and prejudice you won't be able to see the fat and lazy hands that slip in and out of your pockets. If you have good health, a clear conscience and a clean hide, you can sleep well at night — even though your bed is only the soft side of a rough board with a diagonal knothole in it for a pillow. DIPLOMACY— Polite and succesful lying that's well paid for. OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION— Trying to find out what you already know and then swearing that what you've discovered to be true isn't so. A HOT WEATHER COSTUME. Some boob from Manhattan, Kansas, writes and wants to know how to dress for the extreme hot weather. He signs himself "A Fat Brother." Alright, Fat Brother, we're always willing to help our fellow mortals all we can. The laws won't allow us to dress for the torrid weather as most of us would like to; in fact, if we had our way about it we wouldn't wear a iDlamed thing during the extreme hot weather but our initials and street number, and around the house we'd leave the street number off; and about all a fashionable woman would need would be her eyebrows and a couple of pale freckels turned down low. And such simplicity garments would be right in line with the government's conser^^-ation policies. Just think what a saving in materials, tailoring, laundry, to say nothing of the time saved in dressing and un- dressing. • As we are not permitted to dress in the proper primeval style, we should wear as few garments as possible and they should be of white color and of porous The Fool Killer 65 materials; or light weight grays of the lightest shades. White is the coolest color and black is the hottest. The next hottest colors are dark Turkey red, dark blue and dark green. All underwear should be made of the best linen and kept thooughly clean; so should the body be kept clean — ^both inside and outside. Thorough ventila- tion and contact with the earth much as possible will greatly help in keeping cool. The diet is of paramount importance if you don't want to suffer with the heat. Cut out the meats, sweets, greasy and starchy stuffs, and make your diet mostly of the fruits and watery vegetables. Avoid tea, coffee, tobacco, intoxicants and ice water. Keep your bowels active and go barefooted all you can. Eat about 30 per cent less than in cold weather, and tWo light meals a day will be plenty. Don't worry nor get excited and don't think of the Nveather at all. Read the Fool Killer and behave yourself as be- comes a fat man and gentleman. FOOLISH THINGS. Speaking of foolish things, Steve, we've pulled off a few pretty raw stunts ourself ; for instance, we came into this world absolutely naked and when it was 28 below zero, and we didn't have a blamed cent in our kik nor a rag to our name, had no job and din't know a soul on earth, and didn't even have a front name yet; but there was a kind-hearted old doctor present and he introduced me to the best woman on earth, and a mighty nice gentleman who was a little bit rattled, and it didn't take us long to find where they kept the milk. Money seldom gets people in bad — its generally calico and booze using money as their medium that puts us on the wrong side of the checkered window. AN OBLIGING KUSS. Whenever you want to slide downhill, the Devil will loan you his skates. Whenever you want to reach the top of the ladded, you'll have to use your own wings. 66 The Fool Killer A DECAYED CITY. Last fall we were riding west from Chicago on the main line of the C. B. & Q., and after we crossed the river at Burlington, Iowa, the next stop was Ottumwa, but it would be quite a while before the train arrived there as it was a fast one that only hit the high places and stopped occasionally. The colored porter had been up a great deal of nights lately and Was very sleepy. It was his custom to snatch a few winks between Burling- ton and Ottumwa when the occasion required, and this was one of the times when old Morpheus had the toe-hold on the colored gentleman for fair, and he was putting over some new and Alpine steps in the snoring line that sounded like the Allies making a combined attack on the" whole German frontier. Several toolts were aboard and one of the innocent and sinless cusses was a representative of a big Chicago grocery house, and among his samples had a hunk of lim- burger cheese. He listened to and watched the colored man for a few minutes and then his innocent face lighted up with a merry twinkle and he remarked to the rest of us: "S-h! I'll show you some real sport!" Then he went back in the chair coach and got his sample of the far- smell food and held it under the darky's expansive nostrils for a few minutes, when that ebony functionary jumped about four feet into the air and shouted: "Ot- tumwa ! Ottumwa ! !" Flies are chickens for spiders and persimmons are possum peaches. The harder life we live in this world the more vividly we dream of an easier life in the so-called ''Next World/' living in dirty shacks in this world is enough to paint immortal landscapes on most anything in the form of a brain. When a boob wants a piece of real trouble, he's got to trim it with calico and flavor it with booze. The Fool Killer 67 A Grasshopper sat on a barbed wire fence, Singing a song of the Vast Immense, When an old rooster came strolling along, And quietly gobeld the singer and song. "Is that all of it?" No, Steve, there are several more verses, but that's enough. No wonder the Missouri River never stops at Jeffer- son City — a town of 13,000 boobs, 23 saloons and 3 or 4 breweries, the Missouri legislature, the Penitentiary, the Railroad Lobby, and — ^the Madison Hotel ; now, What in the world would any self-respecting ^iver want to be stopping at a place like that? As its water is too dirty to bathe in, they'd have absolutely no use for it. The mosquito is not much of a bird in the insect family, but when it comes to provoking profanity and liv- ing up to its evil reputation it has few equals. It has nerve enough to write life insurance and be a base ball evangelist. MAN— The Ace of Beasts. WUMAN- — Man's excuse for living. KRADEL — Man's first horseless carriage. WALKING — Eating space with the hind feet. DREAMING — piding Memory around in the mental dark. HOPING — Dreaming while you are awake. St. Apolis and Minne Paul are the Siamese Twins of Minnesota. Davenport, Iowa, is the Milwaukee of the Hawkeye state. Tulsa is the Kansas City of Oklahoma, Joplin is the Tulsa of Missouri. Omaha is the Kansas City of Nebraska, and Council Bluffs is its Kansas City, Kansas. Dancing is singing with the feet, and singing is dancing with the voice. 68 The Fool Killer H o o o < o < Q H H m The Fool Killer 69 EAROLOGY. TMIEF. PERFECT. nVRDERER nOLAVES. Fix this perfect ear in your mind as a pattern or model and then measure all ears by it. The nearer a person's ear is to this model, the more honest and moral and well balanced he is; and vice versa. This is valuable knowledge and will save you from being imposed upon. When a woman wants a male dog for a pet, that's a pretty good sign that her hubby has failed in the pet line. A slave is a chump who supports others in order to get a chance to support himself. I shall never forget how disappointed I was the first time I peeped into a mirror at myself, and I have always been prejudiced against the cussed things ever since. I want you boobs to put this under your hat-band: It is your own vote that takes away the land, And leaves nothing but a mortgage on which to stand. Ignorance, Greed and Hate build all the prisons and forge every chain. 70 The Fool Killer Yes, Steve, there's a silver lining to every cloud if you can only find it; for instance, when the snow flies the mosquitos don't; and when you have nothing to eat you will not suffer from gout and obesity. It takes some of us a long time to realize that we are even bigger fools than our neighbors think we are. NOT SUCH A MUCH. A pound of gold is worth only $300. A pound of Radium is worth $300,000,000. So we see that the much worshipped gold is not such a much after all; it's a good chain, however, to bind fools to their bondage and make them think their shackels are heaven-made jewelry. As the women do more than half the "work of the world they ought to cast half the votes. The person who wants to boss and control others is never fit for that kind of a job. If each boob will control his own passions and appetites properly and keep his nose at home and his feet in the right paths, he'll have as big. a job of bossing on his hands as he can possibly get away with. DECEIVING THE HENS. While in a country town recently we saw a basket of plaster of paris eggs that were intended to deceive the poor old faithful hens and make them believe they were sitting on real eggs that would soon yield the little fuzzy harvest the poor old mother-heart so longed and hoped for. Is their no limit to man's baseness and per- fidy ? ^ He deceives his neighbors, the police, his children, his wife and even himself, and now he has descended to such depths of depravity as to practice a cruel and painless deception on the poor old hens — his best friends. The shameless barbarian thus crucifies their sweet and sacred instincts of motherhood and feeds their mater- nal longings on rainbow food. Is there anything this dollar-blemished polecat won't humbug? The Fool Killer 71 IGNORANCE is what makes you foolish and keeps you on a rainbow diet in the slums — it's the Mental Darkness that makes your chains look like jewelry. HOPE is the Mind's Eternal Rainbow — ^the Everlast- ing Anchor that keeps us from sinking. It's the only star on cloudy nights. TEDDY'S ANCESTORS. ''A tooth weighing more than 14 pounds, evidently from the jaw of some extinct animal, was recently found in a gravel pit near Yorktown, Ind." — ^News Item. We'll bet the Kansas City Star a box of William Allen White's best Havanas that the above mentioned tooth at one time in the dim and misty past belonged to some of Teddy's ancestors. YES MAM & NO MAM. It is useless and foolish to say ''yes mam" and ^'no mam" to a woman when replying to her questions. She is better aware of her mamnes than you are ; so what's the use of volunteering such silly and superfluous in- formation? It is not politeness to tell her that she is a she every time you answer a question— its just plain foolishness and ignorance. Simply say yes and no when replying to questions from anyone. Of course, if you are a servant and required to use it as a mark of- your station and servility, why, alright; but otherwise, cut it out and stand erect like a man and talk like a man instead of a lackey or poodle dog. If death is not destruction it is .certainly a damn fine imitation of it. Surprise your wife now and then with a ten dollar bill, but don't be mean enough to ask her what she is going to do with it — she knows, but that is none of your business; and your children need some spending money occasionally — ^it will make them happy and enable them to hold their heads up among the other kids; and what pride and pleasure it is for a kid to tell the other guys that his dad is the real stuff — ^not an old tight wad. 72 'The Fool Killer SEPTEMBER MORN. fair and beautiful maiden! How sweet and graceful you be, When from fashion's rubbish unladen, You^re a Poem in the Edge of the Sea. Like a flower in its wild primeval beauty, You inspire my soul with a lofty admiration, And I feel it a sacred duty. To homage Nature's best creation. IF I WERE PRESIDENT. If I were President and had the power, Fd change every weed into a flower — Fd take the kinks and poisons out of every mind. And fill it with ideas that would make it good and kind. Fd repeal every cruel, unjust and vicious law, And do away with every fang and crooked claw. Fd free every mind from hate, from want and fear, And fill it with love and the music it likes to hear. Fd establish Justice and Freedom in every place, And make it a fit habitation for the Human Race. Fd give every Wing to the Wild and Shoreless Air, And have no lid nor limit to their flights up there. Fd abolish GREED and Profits from every place. And then we could be brothers — a sane and happy race; In fact, Fd make this world a beautiful Paradise, By freeing it from the causes of every crime and vice. "Time and Tide wait for no man." We don't blame them; but that's not saying they don't wait for a woman — especially if she is young and pretty. No woman ever went to Hell until some man opened the gate for her and gave her a shove through the Re- tumless Portal. ^____ The Fool Killer 78 What in the world are those kids grinnnig about, Steve? "The school house burned last night and they've just learned of it." HOLIDAYS. The Fool Killer considers it foolish and childish to celebrate so many holidays, and especially, the natal days of individuals. What good can it do Lincoln and Washington for the people of this nation to be incon- venienced every year on acount of their birthdays ? There should be only one legal holiday, and that is Labor Day. BEAUTIFUL OZARKS. Nature must have been in a very artistic frame of mind when she made the Ozarks and draped their slient and eternal tops with a weird and mystic haze that sings a soft and dreamy alto with the Southwind and Liquid Moonlight. How sweet and peaceful and restful to wander away among those silent and friendly hills and just dream and dream up at the clear and opalescent sky while the brooks and birds and insect bands are softly sere- nading us into a dreamy and far-away reverie! The Ozarks are Nature's Eternal Dreamland — a soft and moon- lit Coney Island for tired and hungry souls. Down here in- this dreamy land of birds and flowers and luscious fruits, every river is a harp, every cataract is a banjo -with moonbeams for its strings, every creeping creek is a guitar and every humming brook is a violin with rainbow strings and every feathered throat is a Victrola with Hawaiian records and Aeolian needles — Nature's weird and Eternal Troubadors that sing and dream away the drifting and floWer-scented years. LOVE is the only thing that can take the lid off our souls and make us civilized. Long as the workers vote for what they don't want they'll have plenty of it. 74 The Fool Killer HARVEST TIME, How beautiful and glorious the fields are looking now, With their crowns of fruits arid ripening grains — Howe sweet and peaceful the loing of the dear old cow, As she wanders homeward through the woods and shaded lanes; And the farmer with his faithful and helpful wife, As they dream in the shade of the Old Apple Treea, Are enjoying the sweets of an honest and useful life, As their whitening locks are tossed by the soft summer breeze. A Guilty Conscience is some artist — ^its specialty is painting indelible pictures that never fade. The Fool Killer 75 IDLENESS. When you have Nothing to do the Devil soon conies along and shakes hands with you and gives you a light for your cigarette; and if you're a woman he kindly fishes out a package of chewing gum and politely asks: '^What's the latest gossip, girlie?'' Doing nothing is the hardest job in the world — and that's why the Devil is always on hand to help you. Doing work that you like is not work at all — ^it's ex- pressing our desires and ambitions through our muscles pleasant and healthful form of self-expansion. "Doc, do you know that the Frisco Railroad is the only one the Bible mentions ?" • No, Steve, I was not up that far in my scriptural studies yet — ^where does it make such a digression? "Why, over in Genesis where it says: *And the Lord made every kreeping thing T" Thanks, awfully, Steve — we're getting real rusty on scripture. USELESS ADVICE. When God made Adam and placed the lazy boob in a beautiful and fragrant garden with an Hawaiian climate and no neighbors to watch him, and then dolled him up gorgeously in a frayed fig leaf and the Southwind, and then made a beautiful piece of calico for him, and out of the same frisky and sporty material, and correctly costumed her in a smaller size Fig Leaf and her Primeval Eyebrows, it has always seemed to us that it was. quite supurfluous for the Good Lord to tell the pair to not Hooverize any in the use of the Multiplication Table. Bad habits are an introduction to all circles where the Devil is the chairman and Don't Care is the Invi- tation Committee. They're a one-way ticket to the slums and the bottom of the ladder. 76 The Fool Killer SOME COLD WEATHER. The Big Snow-Storm and Cold Wave that devastated the country last winter, reached beyond the Rio Grande River, and it was a sight to see the Mexican fish come out on the south side of the stream and the American fish emerge on the north bank and snow-ball each other; and after the stream froze over they organized inter- national skating parties on the under side of the ice. As the Old Residents were skating on the river for the first time in their lives they could look down and see the fish skating on the under side of the ice. Some sport, eh, Senor? OUR LECTURES. Yes, Steve, we still give public lectures occasionally, when we find any one fool enough to want to hear us; so if any of you boobs want to hear us and think you can stand it, our price for one lecture within 200 miles of Kansas City is $100 and our fare both ways. Any one of our lectures is warranted to kill at least 300 fools. The lecture must be arranged for Sunday evening, and if I have to travel over the Frisco to get there my fee will be double. INCONSISTENCY. A woman will gather her skirts about her and flee at the sight of a tiny little mouse — a diminutive creature 5,000 times smaller than herself, and yet she will waltz right up to a big 6-foot, 300-pound animal, called Man, grab him by the heart or pocket-book, yank him into court or church, annex him legally, and in less than a week the poor devil will have a scared and subdued look on his face, a sad and far-away taste in both eyes, and feel about as important as 30 Cents after a woman has bought an Easter outfit with it. It's better to have your Soul snuggle up to you and call you Sweetheart after *the sun is down, than to go off by yourself and make thousands of dollars during the day-time in accordance with the Capitalist code. ^ The Fool Killer 77 Canada is England's" Kansas and Australia is her Oklahoma. Oklahoma is Arkansaw's Kansas and Texas plays the Sunflower role for Louisiana. Wisconsin is Michigan's Kansas and Minnesota is Wisconsin's Sun- flower realm, and the Dakotas play Kansas for Minne- sota. Illinois is the Kansas for Ohio and Indiana, and the latter two play Kansas for Pennsylvania. Michigan is the Kansas for New York. Missouri is the Kansas for Illinois and Iowa plays Dakota for the Suckers. Cali- fornia is the Florida of the West, and Florida is the Cal- ifornia of the East; and Germany is the Infernal Regions for the whole world! OUR VACATION. Yes, Steve, we've got to hav« a vacation in order to let our beans cool off and to give our readers a rest. Our contemporaries haven't got that much decency about them — ^they just keep on pouring the bunk and piffle into their poor tired readers all the time. Readers need a rest even more than do the editors. Look for the next issue of this Bean Storm about the omega finale of Sep- tember. We believe in vacations, and if we had our way about it, we'd have about 13 vacations a year and of 37 days each. Soon as this edition is on its ^vay to our poor victims, we're goig to take our dear little wife and slip off into the woods where the rivers and brooks sing alto with the birds and flowers, and there get better ac- quainted with each other and with our Great Primeval Mother-— Nature. And here in the deep and quiet soli- tude of Nature, with birds and flowers and vines and trees, with no one to gouge us, we're going to have an- other old-fashioned honeymoon and get better acquainted With ourselves. Here in the fondling arms of Mother Nature, and kissed by our Great Cosmic Father, the Eternal Son, and soothed and luUabied to sleep at night by our Great Nocturnal Aunt, the soft and Alto- Voiced Moon, we're going to forget the hideous and sordid dollar- chase of Capitalist Life, and dream the sweet and flower- scented dreams that Immortality is made out of. We'll 78 The Fool Killer probably bring back with us a good collection of 4-leaf chiggers, and if any of our readers would like to have one for a pet, just send in a new subscriber with your renewal, and you may have a pair of them. THE BUFFALO. Thou Mighty Monarch of the Grassy Seas, Thy native habitat was the feral plains — Thou wert gentle as the summer breeze, And yet cruel Man blew out thy brains. In the name of profits. men have committed every crime, And for thy horns and hide and dusky meat, He hath wantonly destroyed Thee in every clime, Until Thou art only a Meomry — dim and sweet. Many a time have I gazed in thy soft and dreamy eyes, And gently stroked thy shaggy hide, Ajid thus have we stood together side by side, And watched the swallows skim the evening skies. With a 13-ounce brain (the normal and average brain is 52 ounces) it is quite easy to believe in the 13-super- stition. The 13-ounce brains are just the right size for sawdust religion. The Fool Killer 79 ''Loving your neighbor as yourself" is all right and proper enough provided she is not married and is willing for you to do so ; but even then you are likely to fracture the peace and dignity of the Seventh Commandment. The Old Seventh wasn't built to stand much of a strain — especially the kind of a strain that is likely to take place when a male boob of the Human species tries out the Commandment on one of his good-looking young neigh- bors of the sex immediately opposite. And ^Tlatanic Kissing'' is another fearful strain on the Old Seventh. Behaving yourself is the best way to make your neighbors behave themselves. MEMORY'S CARGO. When the Restless and Comebackless Years are gone, Only Memory can bring them back and screen them on the Dawn; So let us act in such a kind and noble way, Memory's Cargo will not embarrass us some future day — Let our thoughts be flower-seeds and scatter them here and there, And they will become blossoming vines in the places dead and bare. Traveling downhill destroys every bridge as you cross it. Idling your time away in dissipation is burning up the space between you and the Cem., and also provides plenty of weeds for your grave. If every working Woman or girl had $30 in her kick every Saturday night, the Red-Light problem would soon go out of the problem business. Every insane asylum is an indictment of th^ Capi- talist System that don't need an attorney to present it; and every Red Light district calls Christianity a liar and a fraud; and White Slavery makes faces at every church and court-house and black-shadows every home. 80 The Fool Killer NATURE^S JOKES. No, Mabel, the mosquitoes are not on mischief Dent, But Nature made our blood their aliment, Gave them a pair of win^s and a sleepless appetite, And that's why they often come and take a bite. We don't like the siren song they sing. Nor their infernally irritating sting, But it makes no difference to the little devils, Whether we like or dislike their gory revels. Vve often asked the question and would like to know, Why the weeds and flies — ^the rats and mice, The mosquitoes, bedbugs and other things unnice. Always come unasked and profusely flourish so; While the fruits and flowers and other things we deed, Have to be planted and cultivated from the seed. Only the bad and nasty things we hate Are always on time—the other trains are late. Nature is a strange and Mysterious Old Skirt, to say the least, And has made this earth the habitat of many a vile and useless beast — The mosquito, the alligator, the sightless mole and necky old giraffe — The flea, the elephant, the skunk and peacock that makes us laugh; But of all the mean and useless creatures beneath the shining sun; Der Kaiser is the meanest and vilest one I Der Kaiser und hiz Gott (Satan) will have to go, But it will not cause a tear to start and flow, For in all this world of stress and strife, Their going will be a blessing to every life. The Fool Killer 81 THE LORD'S PRAYER. Why does the Lord need a prayer? He'd have to pray to himself, and what good would that do? That would be a great deal like a young boob writing love letters to himself — the practice might improve his pen- manship a little, but in the role of a heart-diet it would be a rather Hooverized menu. Pray to the soil with a hoe, And watch the vegetables grow; But shooting bull at the sky, Will leave you to starve and die. LIFE is but a Dream — a Rainbow Chase, But now and then along the lonely way, We find a flower whose fragrance leaves, a trace On Memory's screen that will forever stay. NATURE^S WAY. It's no use to weep and cry Because the years keep drifting by, And leave us old and halt and gray, For that is Nature's cold, eternal "way. There's one good thing about this plan, It romoves the wrecks and frees the land From mortals who are unfit to longer live. And thus a place to others give. If Nature did not take our Vital Spark away. And remove our shells with her Fingers of Decay, We would so encumber the earth with our increase, Reproduction would surely have to cease. As Nature allows us a hundred years or more. To enjoy the flowers and scenery along the shore. We have no cause to kick when we pass New Orleans and can see Death's Vast and Voiceless Gulf of Eternity. FRtN0L0JI5T PHRENOLOGY or MINDOLOGY is the Science of Human Nature, and Scfence is what we know about things; therefore, Phrenology is what we know about ^_^ The Fool Killer 88 Human Nature or the Mind. Human Nature is a very complex thing, embracing the Human Mind or Soul, and includes all our thoughts, feelings, desires, impulses, hopes, ambitions, tastes, talents, ideas and acts. Take these as a whole and they constitute Human Nature or the Soul. Character is somewhat different and considerably less, for it only embraces an individual's acts taken as a whole. The Mind and Character can be dignosed more or less accurately from the head and face, etc. GJIEATNESS— A bubble that soon will bust. FAME — ^A bauble that soon is dust. AMBITION — A wing that ever tries to fly. But soon it's broken and droops to die. RICHES — ^Moth-groceries and their toxin rust Cankers the soul and makes it dust. LOVE^ — ^A Soul-food — ^an Eternal Dawn That Memory paints when we are gone. HUMAN ENEMIES. The most injurious thing that humans drink is hard water. The hard earthy materials the water contains in solution clog up the whole system more or less and thus interfere with the normal functioning of the whole or- ganism. The lime, iron, sulphur, soda, or any other mineral salts or matter in the water are left behind in the system and are very much in the way, and the sys- tem is put to a great deal of labor and expense in getting rid of this waste and useless material. It collects be- tween the coats of the blood-vessels and also coats their inner walls, and that interferes with their important work of carrying blood (nourishment) to the different tissues all over the body and to the remotest and mmutest recesses of the brain and nerves. Whenever the normal amount of blood going to any part of the organism be- comes diminished, weakness of the part ensues and that in turn causes imperfect functioning — ^the net result of which is impaired health and efficiency. After the Iieft 84 The Fool Killer Ventricle of the heart contracts on the blood and thus starts it on its long- and devious journey to all the tissues, it is necessary for the arteries themselves to contract on the blood and thus help propel it along on its life-giving tour. The impetus imparted to the blood by the heart is soon lost, and then it is up to the arteries themselves to keep it moving, but they cannot do that very well if they are clogged and hardened by accumulations of lime and other hard materials; and another very serious ef- fect of drinking hard or any kind of mineral water is the clogging and derangement of the delicate glands by such mineral matter. The joints also are recipients of these waste materials. The liver, kidneys, mesentery, pancreas, spleen, lymphatics and other glands become clogged by any excess of earthy matter in the system, and that seriously interferes with their work, which in turn impairs the health and efficiency of the individual. Most of the weaknesses and deblity result from a gradual diminution in the amount and quality of the blood going to the brain and nervous system. The arteries become smaller and smaller as they proceed toward the surface and extremities, and of course, a small tube is easier to clog up than a larger one; anyway, this gradual filling-in and hardening of the blood vessels that carry the life- giving blood to the brain and to all the other tissues, re- sults in debility and ever lessening vitality and elimina- tion of the poisons and waste materials and insidious im- pairment of all the vital processes. The Arteries carry the new blood to all parts of the body to repair the wastes of the tissues, and their little pals, the Veins, gather up all the worn-out and waste materials that are no longer needed, and return this waste matter to the eliminating channels for exit from the body; so we see that when the arteries and veins become clogged and deranged the tissues are starved and weakened from lack of nourishment, and poisoned and weakened from the retained waste matter, which is dead matter, and is decaying and thus generating toxins that will soon destroy life if not removed. The system needs a certain amount of hard earthy materials to repair the bones, teeth and The Fool Killer 85 nails, but when a greater amount of this hard material is taken than is needed, a surplus remains behind and clogs and hampers the delicate machinery, and thus impedes its functions, and soon ill-health prevails. How utterly useless to take ''medicine" and begin "doctoring'* for your various ailments when you continue to take in more hard materials than Nature needs. The drugs you take into your system to ''cure'' you, only add to and aggravate the clogged condition that is causing your ill-health. If you expect to get well you must remove the cause of your ill-health, and then it will be an easy matter to regain your health. Most of the Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Paraly- sis, Appendicitis, Prostatic Enlargements, etc., are due to an excess of lime and other hard earthy materials in the system, and by getting rid of this surplus the patient can soon regain his health. However, drinking hard water is only one of the ways the system becomes over- stocked with mineral matter. Bear in mind that three- fourths of the human body is water and one-fourth is solids. I The blood is 78 per cent water and only 22 per cent solids; therefore, it is very important to know how to maintain this necessary balance, for without it we can- not have health and the proper efficiency. My Health- Book will give you all necessary information along these lines, and all other knowledge you must have in order to get well and keep well. See advertisement of that book on the outside of the back cover of this book. The most injurious thing that humans eat is white bread and pas- tries made out of white flour and lard, salt and sugar. Long as they feed on such health wrecking and suicidal truck, more than half their lives will be wasted in suf- fering from weaknesses and ailments thus caused. Next in the way of Human Enemies is Tobacco, Coffee, Tea, Lard, Pepper and Vinegar and Booze. And to escape the suffering caused by all these poisons and evil things that humans believe they must have, the poor chumps bom- bard their systems with a lot of other poisons called "medicines," and which the doctors and drug-vendors tell them to take in order to get well. Is it any Wonder, then, that we see millions of little children not yet ten years 86 The Fool Killeb old who are wearing glasses and filled teeth; neither is it strange that more than half of all children never live to be 6 years old. My Health Book has one special chapter on Water and Drinks, tells how to take all the lime and other waste materials out of water, and thus render it pure and perfect. It is much cheaper to send and get this book than to continue doctoring in the old way. That book gives all my methods of treating all ailments and bad habits, etc. It's the very book youVe been looking for all your life. NEBRASKA PRAIRIES. TTie Beautiful Prairies are fragrant and all a-bloom, With the wild and pretty little flowers, And amongst these blossoms where e'er there's room, The Meadowlark builds her nest and dreams the drifting hours. On a nearby post the male lark pipes his jerky lay, To cheer the farmer harvesting his sWeet alfalfa hay. He's a Prophet of the Harvest and Autumn's rich content, And to joy-up the gloomy his rag-time voice is ever lent. Yes, the sight of Nebraska's prairies in June, all redolent with millions and millions of wild and fragrant flowers, whose fragrance makes the warm and limpid atmosphere a Perfumed Ocean, is enough to make any- one a poet and vagrant dreamer. Even a gloomy and Hell-bound Calvanist would forget his tearful creed and dream a little in this Elysian Arcadia; and even Morgan and Rockefeller would turn the $-chase over to the saw- dust theologians, take off their shoes and hats, and in a pair of homespun jumpers would roam the Alfalfa Seas and gaily sing a soft and dreamy tenor with the broken- alto of the fuzzy and vagrant bumblebees. It is only next to Nature — on the wild and boundless prairies where every vagrant breeze carries a cargo of pefume, or in the deep and silent woods where happy and clinging vines are playing Juliet to every sturdy tree, or on the Ocean's wild and wave-washed shore where every Bohemian Wave is a troubador and lazily yodels Nancy Lee and White The Fool Killer 87 Wings to every Pond Lily on the shore, that I am happy and my soul grows pregnant with content! IMMORTAL LOVE. LOVE is the only Morning that has no Night — The only Eye that can see beyond the Grave — The only Wing that never tires by flight- Hie only Flag that will always wave. It's the only Flower that ever blooms — The only Fruit that's ripe forevermore — The Mystic Hand that flowers all the tombs, And sketches Rainbows upon the Other Shore. It's the only River that's never dry — The only Ocean that reaches every shore — The Mystic Light that beautifies the eye — The Happiness that reaches to the core. It's the only Dream that imimortalizes life-— An Immortal Star out in the Vasty Vast — A Setless Sun for every maid and wife— The only Fragrance that will always last It's Nature's Mellow Moonlight singing in the soul — A Vast-Forever Summer without the snow and cold — A Flower Garden where the birdies live and sing— A Stormless Sky that welcomes every wing. Just a Tranquil Sea out in the Mystic Yonder, Where every barque can dream and ponder— A Dreamy Island in the soft, sweet Southern Seas, Where happy hearts can dream beneath the Bamboo Trees. It's an Alto Voice singing in the Tawny Twilight— The South wind kissing all the pretty flowers — A Dream Star that vigils us at Night— The HAPPINESS that sweetens all our hours. f-^ 88 The Fool Killer LOVE is the Music of the Heart and the Poetry of the Soul — it's the Rainbow of Youth — the Dream of Man- hood — ^the Perfumed Memory of Old Age, and is the only thing that can keep the eyes bright, the heart warm and the soul from freezing over. A Democrat couldn't be any worse than he is unless he had been born twins and the other half of himself had gone Republican. The misdeeds of Democrats are about as plentiful as the drops of water in all the oceans, while the crimes of Republicans are only as numerous as the seconds in Eternity. A SLOW TRAVELER. The Truth is a slow traveler, but eventually gets there "with both feet and all its baggage. Falsehood is a swift runner, but never wins the race ; and when it has arrived it is still a long way off. The person who steps over or around a worm on the sidewalk in order to not crush it, has a stock of wing- material concealed somewhere in the mysterious and flower-embroidered cells of his brain, and his soul is a flower garden. THE DEPTHS. The heartless and shameless cuss who lives upon dol- lars coined from the sweat and blood and tears of inno- cent and helpless childhood, has reached the depths — ^the uttermost depths — below which maggots will not go out of pure self-respect; and only human capitalists With a $-marked religion in their black and pitiless hearts are so debased and shameless. No wonder the Simians who have read Human History resent and reject the Darwinian theory. No wonder snakes like to bite humans. No wonder every bird jabs its wings into the air at the sight of man. He's the meanest and greediest old pot-bellied Receptacle of Sin and Iniquity that ever wobbled and strutted down the Corridors of Time on his hind legs and ever looking for something to shuv into his guts ! The Fool Killer 89 The boob that is too busy to cultivate wings, Will have to stay in the Jungle and stand its stings. If the lazy shirkers Helped the workers, And each one did his honest share, About four hours a day, Would be the way, Sans all worry and all care. Knowledge is a Fearless Eagle with outspread wings, And scorns all crosses and similar things; But Ignorance is a crippled rooster, And always needs a booster. Paving the streets of "Heaven'' with pure gold won't help the sidewalks of this "world any. DIPLOMACY — Playing poker with mental chips — polite and successful lying. DIPLOMAT — ^A polite and well-bred burglar who picks your pockets with his mind instead of with his fingers. MAN'S THREE RIDES. Yesterday, It was the Cradle, with Mamma as the Chauffeur, and her soft and crooning song; Today, It is the Honk- Wagon that rushes so rapidly along; but. Tomorrow, Just the Glass Carriage with its hushed and measured tread. Strolling out to Dust City — the destination of the Dead. Death is but a noiseless, cloudless, frostless, mosqui- toeless and bedbugless Night that has no Morning at the other end of it. If the big Empty Noise with the Tombstone Teeth keeps on knocking everything Wilson does, he will soon be about as popular as a bill collector and a long-term mother-in-law. 90 The Fool Killer HER VOICE. It's the sweetest music I ever heard, And like the fragrj^nce of the flowers, It softly clings to every word, And sweetens them for many hours. It is so gentle, so loving and so kind, Tm ever longing to be near it: It's music is a fragrance to my mind, And that is why I always like to hear it. It sings to me while I'm asleep, And comforts me when I would weep. And like a mother's love it never sleeps, But a constant vigil ever keeps. Nature never made hands that fit other people's pockets. More wages and shorter hours in This World, Is the kind of religion the workers need. Promises of good things and lovely times in the "Next World" don't make much of a hit at grocery stores in This World. The wretch who is mean to his wife and wee'ns and abuses and neglects his horses, would have a hell of a time getting through the Pearly Gates if we had St. Peter's job. LOVE is an Eternal Meal Ticket on which two can eat forever. Love is the only peach that don't grow less by eating it. A vote for what you think is right. Is never wasted nor thrown away, But a ballot cast for what you know is wrong, Is not worth the dismal, croaking song Of a Cricket dirging in the Night, And such a course will lead you on astray. The Fool Killer 91 We have a very poor opinion of the man who lets a bulldog alienate his wife's affections; we also sympathize with the dog. Wake up, you boobs, and read a book on Phallik Worship. By the time we have acquired enough intelligence to step off our own ears and quit being foolish, we are old enough to eat hay-in-the-stack, and Nature is ready to try her great Dust Experiment on us. What little in- telligence we ever get comes to us at the wrong end of life — ^it's like the banquet that comes along after we have starved to death. There are times when everyone feels like kicking the supreme stuffing out of himself and getting a divorce from the neighbors. SOCIALISM will put love in every heart, music in every home, flo'wer^ in every life, and peace in every mind. Feed it with your votes and watch it grow. It's the only salvation that can sal. The cuss who wants to be a BOSS and lord it over others has a big streak of yellow metal in his make-up. You have probably pulled off just as many mean stunts as your neighbors have, only you haven't kept track of them. What your neighbors don't know about you they will guess at, and some of them are pretty dam good guessers, tool The least a person has in his head the more he wants in his guts; and that's why so mnay people are always eating, but never reading. You can fool the public— you can fool the police, and you can fool your wife, but I'll be damned if you can fool yourself— unless you are a Democrat and intend to vote as your grandfather did! 92 The Fool Killer NEW Bog Slats and Kakel Fniit— Ba- kon and egs. Sow Slabs and Wing Berries — Bakon and e^s. Hog Kaboos and Shel Wing» — Ham and egs. Drainaje Kanal — Fried liver. Float Food — Soup. Jurman Peaches — Unynns. Red Splash — Tomato soup. Kakel Fruit in the Moonlite — Poached egs. Kloudy Moonlite — Fried egs. Irish Swim — ^Potato soup. Valid Moonlite — Boild egs. Ges Float — Medly soup. Moonlite on the Harvest — Ega on toast. Kakel at Home — Eaw egs. Hen Kow — Cheez omelet. Kindergarten' Bossy — Smal steak. Hibrow Bossy — Sirloin steak. Oshun Quails on a Submarine — Oysters on haf-shel. Root and Song — Pork and beans. Boston Orkestra — Baked beans, Irish Steak — Fried potatoes. Swis Kow — Cheez. Red Sea — Wotermelon. Sea Splash — Oyster soup. Sawdust Afloat — Brekfast food with milk or kream. Kow Koffee— Milk. Sawdust Koffe — Postum. Goat Koffee— Buttermilk. Kalikoi Booz — Koffee. Kakel Koffe— Tea. Kakel Koffe in Alaska — Ice tea. Dream Milk — Kream. Kow poetry. Klondike Pudding — Ice kream. Alaskan Hibol — Lemonade. Rubber Heels — Koko-Kola. Suffrajet Koktail — Pink lemonade with a hairpin in it. Brunet Soothing Syrup — ^A choko- late ice cream soda. Baby Beer — Malted milk. Irish Tea — Wisky. Jurman Koffe — Beer. French Koffe— Wine. SLANG. Spanish Koffe — Brandy. Russian Koffe — Vodka. Glory Dane — Mince pie. Anejel Egs — Strawberries. Wor Grease — Butter. Guber Lard — Peanut butter. Irish Wiskers — Spinach. Old Glory— Pie. Baled Hay — Shredded wheat. Tame Wings — Chiken. Wild Wings— Prairie chiken or grouse. Woter Wings — Duk. Honk Wings — Goos. Anejel Fruit — Peaches. Nigger Chiken — Tossum. Tre Steak— Squrl. Jump Steak — Frog legs. Romeo — Pijun. Juliet — Squobs. Kotton Steak— Rabit. Alfalfa Venison — Jakrabit. Kloth Meat — Sheep or mutton. Baby Tok — Lam chops. Yello Rain — Kantaloupe. Dixie Irish — Sweet potatoes or yams. Rabit Potatoes — Kabaje. Irish Ammunishun — Peas. Robert Harvest — Quail on toast. Drouth Harvest — Dry toast. Wet Harvest — Milk toast. Oyster Weeds — Celery. Hibrow Gras — Lettuce. Munky Bred — Kokonut. Squrl Bred— Any kind ov nuts ex- cept kokonuts. Vermilion Tramps — Beets. Strut Steak— Turky. Dimund Wates — Karrots. Italian Oysters — Makaroni. Hebrew Sausaje — Spagetti. Sea Pork or Hogs — Fish. Yidish Lard — Garlik. Grain in the Stak — Bred. Grain in the Shok — Biskuts. Nigger Pie — ^Korn bred. Fodder — ^Korn on the kob. Hibrow Bred — ^Kake. Wor Bred — Bukweat kakes. The Fool Killer 93 Wor Bred and Tre Juce — Bukweat Drink Bone — T-bone steak. kakes and mapel syrup. Bryan Beer — Grapejuce. Baby Ribons — Veal kutlets. Toasted Wings — Pried chiken. Chinese Oatmeal — ^Kice. Munky Pie^ — Kokonut pie. Hog Tok — Pork chops. FASHION NOTE. Giraffe-neck shoes and bottomless skirts are still popu- lar with the swell Willie Girls who possess beautiful kin- dergarten bovenes and expensive lingerie, and nothing to do but roll about Pettiocat Lane and tango Dollie Avenue, matinee at the Shubert and Gayety, sip at Morton's and nibble at Emery-Bird's and luncheon at the Boozbak and Baltimiore. The chicken that is too lazy to scratch worms for itself would be a curiosity to its neighbors; but among humans such a worthless bird is respected and envied. Many a boob is grouchy and sour on the world be- cause he has nothing but himself to love. No wonder the birds refuse to sing to him. The person who lives only for himself hasn't much to live for, and his grave will never be taken for a flower garden. A f ishworm and a spider are the only boobs that ob- ject to having their backs scratched. They don't know what real pleasure is. What has become of the old-fashioned man who used to lie flat down on his belly and drink branch water out of the creek? The kid that feels sorry because the schoolhouse bumd will more likely be found in Sunday school than at the ball game. If we could sell ourselves at our own valuation, the most of us would be millionaires and playing hooky in the High Clover over on Easy Street and Joy Avenue. 94 The Fool Killer ^i A DISCIPLE OF DOLLARIZED RELIGION. The Fool Killer 95 A mouse is not much of a quadruped in point of size, but the little fur-lined chigger can soon make a mighty big hole in a meal-sack; and the same way with a small bad-habit — it will soon gnaw the comers of your soul. Knowledge la mental wing-power, And helps you every hour To fly away from trouble. It is an asset — every^vhere a start — A recommendation in every clime and mart, And makes every joy double. If your Conscience calls you on the lenoleum after midnight and your Soul makes faces at you every chance it gets, you'd better revise your business methods, send your habits to a Keeley-laundry, subscribe for The Fool Killer, join the Socfalist Party and attend the Church of This World. Nothing so beautifies ones hands as using them in doing useful labor and helping others; and any kind of a nose can be made handsome by keeping it out of other people's affairs. Tadel your own canoe," says a capitalist proverb. That might do if you had a canoe, but about 90 per cent of the boobs haven't any such a conveyance as a Water flivver ; and then all capitalists waters are so full of mines and subs it would be a rather ticklish job if one had a whole flotilla of canoes. All capitalist advise has a string to it and a hole in it. Thinking is flying with your mind, and reason is the key that will unlock all the shackels on your beans ; but it must be your own reason. The bedbug is not a very spry boob, But no one ever calls him a Rube; He's quietly doing the best he can To make a living without work — the same as a man. 96 The Fool Killer THE KAISER AND RATTLESNAKES. A rattlesnal^e always shakes its rattles and thus warns its victim of impending death — but not so the kaiser with his infernal submarines. There's quite a dif- ference between those two reptiles, but it all seems to be in favor of the rattler. Behaving yourself, keeping well and ahead of the Wolf, playing the Old Game (Life) fairly and loving some good woman who loves you is about all there is to it anyway. The boob who wants to sit up with a girl till away into the wee small hours of the niorning is just the kind that makes a very poor husband. After he has been married to her a week or so he 'will go off downtown at nights and have a good time with the boys and not return to her till after midnight, and then usually in a soused condition. Every well bred and sensible girl who values her good name will dismiss her beau at 11 p. m. The nights were made for sleeping-r-not for sitting up with some 30-cent boob and seeing how long you can stand his silly and emjpty love-making. If he is a reputable young man and really loves you and means business instead of camouflage, he will not want to do anything that will put a stain on your good name. Don't be weak and vacil- lating — ^be firm and positive and make him go at 11, and he will think all the more of you for it. If he finds that you are weak and wavering and can't say no at the right time and place, he won't want you for a wife, for he will realize that a weak and vacillating wife could be easily influenced by other men during his absence from home. By sitting up until several o'clock in the morning with a cigar eted and high-colared guy is the very best way to disgust him with you, and to lessen your chances of ever winning any other man that's Worth having. The money that men waste on booze and tobacco would just about keep the women supplied with corsets and face dope, $18 shoes and $50 hats. Oh, it's the life, Steve! The Fool Killer 97 "Dead men tell no tales." The above wonderful peace of wisdom evidently does not apply to dead women. Hoping is dreaniing while you are awake — ^the mind window wishing through the universe without any clothes on. Heredity is the seed, Environment is the soil and Education is the plow. Without the plow the seed will have a hard time getting by. It's a pretty safe bet that our soldiers and sailors won't name any of their coming sons "WilhelmT* THE CHAMPION VILLAIN. If any man deserves to be shot with a diagonal and snake-dancing bullet that's tipped with rattlesnake poison and the cyanide of hell, it's the sneaking and profit- seeking cuss who puts gravel in with salted peanuts to make them weigh well. We've nearly ruined our million- dollar set of teeth trying to masticate the gravel "we find in salted peanuts. Steve, if you ever find the habitat of one of these human-formed snakes, please call us up on the nearest wireless. Marrying one you don't love is playing a dirty, low- down, Shanty-Irish trick on your heart, and your soul will never forgive you. Marry only for love— ^nd if you are too lazy to work for a living, you can have the thrilling romance of starv- ing to death in each other's arms. JIM CROW LAWS. What's the matter with having separate coaches and separate waiting rooms for those white females who are dusky enough on the inside to sell themselves for a meal ticket and then get a buck dog for a pet and companion? Your ignorance is the key that enables the other fel- lows to unlock your pocketbook and henhouse. 98 T he Fool Killer Humans are the only animals that marry commer- cially and miurder their unborn offspring, and then have the dirty nerve to get drunk on religion and ask "Gtod*' to save their worthless souls. What use would Gtod have for such souls? Ignorance is a big diagonal hole in your pocket, MSke, and unless you sew it up with the Thread of Knowledge, you're going to be mighty shy of cash all your life. Boys, it never pays to be anything but a gentleman — unless you're a sissy and smoke cigarets, and then no one expects you to be a gentleman. There seems to be some mysterious connection be- tween musical talent and an appetite for booze and calico; the mlore of a musician a man is, the greater his capacity for Glory-Juice and Dolly Birds. This is one of the mys- teries that continues to mist. If you want to see the biggest fool in town, just leer at yourself through the bottom of a booze glass; and if you want to squint at the dirtiest and cheapest bounder in all the world, just look at yourself through your neigh- bors' eyes when you're loafing around smoking cigarets! Then you will see a picture of what every pure woman hates and contempts in her soul. You'll then understand why monkeys deny the Darwinian theory! The high cost of living is only the price that fools pay for the privilege of voting for what they don't want. Notwithstanding the hard times and the h. c. o. 1., the grocers are still selling more tobacco than flour, and the Man-in-the-Moon is wearing a clothespin on his nose in order to avoid the cigaret smoke with which Christians are polluting the universe; even the turky buzzards are flying much higher and the polecats are all dying off from envy! The military age is 18 to 45, Percival, but Death, taxes, grass widows and the h. c. o, 1. have no age limit. The Fool Killer 99 A NIJW PROFESSOR NEEDED. Every college needs a Chair to teach the students how much of what they know isn't so. Sifting out the bull is the highest part of an education. The girl who smokes cigarets and drinks cocktails is a real Willie Boy — a regular guy; and would be about as successful as a wife as a Snowflake touring Hell with a fur-lined overcoat on. FOUR FRIENDS. Eating Too Much, Breathing Impure Air, Drinking Hard and Impure Water, and Tobacco, are the four best friends the Cemjetery ever had. Man knows very little at most, and most of what he does know isn't so. Christians have spilled enough blood of other Chris- tians to float the combined navies of the world — and still the Red Faucet is not turned of. DECEITFUL CITY. Yes, Miss Panzy Mercedes McHope, of Paloa, Kansas, the "D.C." that is written after the Potomac city of Washington means Deceitful City, and if you don't think The Fool Killer is a reliable historian, you just go down there to that village of Official Sin and High-Powered Cussedness, and locate, and see hoW long your Nancj Animal will be a free Angora; but you'd better take the precaution of buying a round-trip ticket, for Paloa is always a pretty good old town to come back to. If some of these married men would stay home at nights with Genevieve and the kidoes instead of building a stink-weed fire under their snoots and then going down on Pipe-Organ Avenue (12th street) and Glory- Juicing the movies with the Dollie-Bird Nightingales; and if the employers of female labor would pay their girls enough to live on decently, the Sparrow Avenues and the Chicken Cabarets would soon be as lonesome and obsolete as Old Union Avenue or a Livery Stable in Detroit. 100 The Fool Killer 1tf»o6a::|(dod^|>:ce$(k FACEOLOGY. The* above cuts show how to read character from the face, and this knowledgre is a valuable asset to one's mental equipment, and will often save you from being- imposed upon by disreputable persons. The B. & N. on the facial scale stands for Brain and Nerves; the B. & M. for Bones and Muscles, and the V. & R. for Vital and Reproductive. The Fool Killer 101 FACEOLOGY. This signifies that if the B. & N. predominates the individual will be brainy and nervous; if the B. & M. are in the lead he will be bony and muscular — an athlete and inclined to roug^h work and outdoor sports, but if the V. & R.' take the lead, the individual will be inclined to eating:, drinking, indolence and will be a calico chaser. 102 The Fool Killer THE GREAT BUILDER LOVE is the Carpenter that builds all real homes and the Artist that decorates them with invisible flowers and unseen pictures. Every fact is a shutless-book in Nature's Indestruct- ible Library — an Unmuzzled Voice singing grand opera in the wilderness. Joplin is our human Prairie-Dog Town — ^the Kansas City of the Ozarks. Never argue with a woman — either let her have her own way or take an ax to her; but you can be polite and gentlemanly even in the use of an ax. A hunk o' wine, a jug of bread, a book of vurs libre, a few Hawaiian records and a chicken underneath the bamboo tree, may have been an ample menu for Old Omar and his Persian boes, but that kind of a layout would be considered a rather Hooverized banquet by our mpdem poets like Harry Kemp, Walter Hurt and the editors of the Pink Rag and The Pitchfork. THE PASSING YEAES. The years pass on, but do not die, They play a game we cannot beat — They drift adown Time's mouldy corridors — Eternity's vast Old Appian Way, And like a memory, dim and sweet. They acho back from day to day. They always say farewell when passing by, And no matter what our thoughts miay be, Our only answer is a hungry sigh, And they drift on — to dream Eternity. Only Memory can overtake them in their wandering flight, And brings back rich cargoes to feed the soul at night. Every lie is a rope with which Superstition strangles the Truth — a poisoned arrow aimed at every wing. The Fool Killer 103 THE CALL OF THE WILD, Mtiss Gloria Undine Barkwood, of Mexico, Missouri, writes and wants to know what the ''Call of the Wlild" is. That's right, sis, always ask when you don't kno'w, and in that way you are acquiring an education on the in- stallment plan. ''The Call of the Wild" is the poetical name for the Cave-Man in us, and especially when that primordial and feral cuss gets restless and begins to send out S. 0. S. calls by wireless for his Primeval Doll-rags. Come again, Gloria. A Rebel Mind is a Breakless Wing that laughs the clouds away and makes faces at the Changdess and Eternal Skies! My son, a Free Mind is the only Life Boat that can- not be submarined nor stormed uix)n the rocks. Mr. Time is the only Worker who don't lose his job when he gets old. THE QUESTIONAIRE. "Poppa, wot makes the water wet?" asked Little Bill, "And why is the grass so green on every hill?" "And while you're at it," mused Little Jim, "Why is the M^ in the Moon, and wot do you know of him?" "And if you please, poppa, dear," piped Ethel May, "Wot makes the Peacock's clothes so bright and gay?" "And I'd like to know," said Little Bob, with a twinkle in his eye, "Why are the stars so far up in the sky?" "And if you're not too tired, poppa," coaxed Mamie May, "Who put the odor in the new-mown hay?" "Why are flies so fond of baldheads?" demanded Sweet Marie, "And why do firds fly and humans flee?" "You kids make me tired and my head aches like' Hell !" "0 yes! papa," chimed in Little Nell, "Also tell us where is Hell?" 104 The Fool Killer BIG WAGES. Man comes into this world a naked and hungry In- terrigation Point — ^a blank and helpless little [Restless Worm — and immediately gets a temporary job on the Milk Wagon and begins to make trouble. After a hard life of work, struggling, suffering and deprivation, he plays the same role of Blank Nothing at the Good-Bye Gate that only swings outward and never takes back, and then he becomes a table de hote dinner for the Voiceless Mouth of the Pallid Worm. He came into this world from the Silent Womb of the Great Nowhere, and returns back into that Voiceless Uterus of the Vast Unknown as a finale act. The only difference between his advent and exodus is the insignificant fact that Society mag- nanimously hands him a cheap suit of brunette clothes at the Farewell Portal as his Pay Envelope for a life of toil and suffering. Some wages, eh, Steve? He must have belonged to a Labor Union and voted the Old Party tickets ! Behaving yourself and not injuring others is about the sum total of righteousness; but these are the two things that humans are most reluctant to do. Every time you swat yourself in the slats with a bad-habit, it's several days nearer train time, and the Devil is your Engineer and Mr. Tastegood is the Con- ductor, and he's drunk and running without orders and the Bridge over Deep Creek is out! THE SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON. Who was the smallest man mentioned in the Bible? Mr. Ne-hi-mi-ah. What part of the Bible mentions socks? The Book of Hosea. What part of the Bible do horses and mules like best? First and Second Timpthy. When is it dangerous to attend church? When there's a Big Gun in the pulpit, backed up by the canons of the church, and when the ladies of the congregation have their faces loaded with powder. TheFool Killeb 105 Health is the Foundation of Life, but LOVE is the Music and Color that gives it the finishing touch and makes it an Eternal Poem — an Imm^ortal Dream. I would rather have my health and self-respect and be at peace with myself than to have all the wealth in the world and know that my own soul was making faces at me. Behave yourself in the forenoon of life and then you and your soul will be good friends in the p. m. of existence, and can enter the Evening Shado'ws together arm in arm, and without any fear of Memory throwing brickbats at you. The only principle the old parties know anything about is spelled with an a. Wlhat's the difference between the Union Man and the Scab when they both vote the same capitalist ticket? And where would you draw the dividing line between the pious church miember and the bartender who vote the same old Republican or Democratic ticket? The Devil may have some very fine lines in his mighty tool-box that would be able to segregate them, but we'll be damned if we have any! Drive on, Steve. , II 1 One touch of winter makes us all akin — Especially those poor devils who have no fuel in their bin, And while the hi-kost-of-living makes us swear, It brings us closer together in our deep despair. Every good deed is a flower seed and will come back some time in the middle of the night and smooth the wrinkles out of your pillow and sing alto in your dreams. Ninety-nine women out of every hundred would be good and tango the right road if they had a criance. It's hard for a woman to be good on an empty life and a broken heart. 106 The Fool Killer 4^ 0Q»T3 J C^ C6 ^ 3 Q ce p {^ 0!) 55 .^ S o S) § £.ie S "^"^ ^ oj o P -MO ^; g P . ^ & . The Fool Killer 107 BETTING. Yes, Steve, we used to do a little gambling in our earlier days, but of late years we've been a miodel deacon — a deacon that can deak. The last time we took a flyer on a sure thing was about two weeks after 'we got mar- ried, when, one morning at breakfast, we nonchalantly tossed a two-bit piece on the table and tauntingly offered to bet that amount that we were going to be the BOSS in our family henceforth and in the neighborhood of for- ever, and that no confounded woman (even if she did weigh nearly 109 pounds in the shade) should play the Mosaic role in our household and get by with it. Well, Old Scout, it is never a very pleasant nor hilarious sub- ject to discuss one's Waterloos and Verdun^ so we'll naerely add that we soon and suddenly became a convert to the "peace at any price" doctrine, and any of you mar- ried men can easily informl the historian Who won that two-bit piece. THE STRAIGHT OF IT. Mary had a little husband, Whose clothes were old and gray — * He was very much opposed to dryness, And hated toil in every way. He followed her to work one day, Which was against the laundry rules — It made the other girls all laugh and say: '^Married women are such silly fools T' So the foreman kicked him out. And said a job would be the proper thing — "A job indeed!" sed Tommiy Stout, 'The boob must think I am an easy thing!'* IGNORANCE is the Devil's mortgage on the worker's mind. The boob that can't read nor write nor think Is the ideal servant. 108 The Fool Killer Long as you behave yourself and play fair, your Soul will be your Sweetheart and go mooning with you in the Twilight. REASON is the Mind's only light that Superstition can't blow out — it's Humanity's Eternal Sun that out- shines the Night — ^the Morning and Evening Star of Hope. Men may have been evolved from monkeys, but it is more likely that the women are descended from the bears, for they're called ''tale-bearers" even unto the present day. There's nothing like a religious jag to make you think your chains are jewelry and your slavery freedom. Man is the only animal in the world that can jolly himiself into believing that he is not dead after he dies. Yes, Steve, he's some loUapaloozer all right! Give him the Booby prize and a Koka Kola Koktail 'with a Y. M. C. A. cigarette in it. Man gets drunk on sky-promises and calls it re- ligion and thinks it will save him. Save him from what? Failure? Sickness? Suffering? Freezing? Prison? Star- vation? Defeat? Death? Instead of saving him it gets him into trouble and makes him more or less of a lunatic and nuisance. A TRINITY OF HOLES. Yes, my son, the Cigarette is a Trinity of Holes — a hole in your pocket — an apperture in your health, and a hiatus in your morals; and after a few years of auto- poisoning with these toxin weeds, you're holey enough to be eligible to high rank in the Thirty-Cent Class. The Whisky Bottle closes every door that's worth entering and opens every portal that leads to failure and Oblivion. It will introduce you to the Rogue's Grallery and slip you Mr. Potter's address. The Fool Killer 109 Man is the Slang of Animals — the Rag-time of Cre- ation — Nature's Tin Horn Sport and Standing Joke. He's the only bird, that can entertain himself with his own foolishness and never get tired of it. What is your address, Irene? A FAMOUS PAINTER. The Whisky Bottle is a famous artist — ^in fact, it has painted nearly all the mugs in the Rogue's Gallery. It has also painted most of the slums — in water colors — the tears of women and children! The Whisky Bottle will at last call your Soul a liar, and the Cigarette will second the motion; and it can mock you in every language when your misery is too great to bear., The Cigarette will soon locate every saloon and bawdy house for you and introduce you to the Rag-Time Brother- hood — the loud-neckwear gents that you wouldn't want your sister to meet. Why have debts such a sting? Because every one has a b in it. Why doesn't a tree move when it leaves? Probably for the same reason that a dog's bark is not its skin, and for the same reason that an elephant's trunk has no lock, key nor lid to it, and yet nobody ever steals from it. Crank the Ford, Steve. IN BOTH CLASSES. The human race is divided into two classes — ^fools and dam-fools — and we generally manage to hold down a place in both sections. Bad habits are a religion to the fools who l^t their guts boss them. It don't take the Devil long to find out all the bad things you know s^bout your neighbors. no The Fool Killer o •^ o THE ETERNAL BATTLE Between Right Ideas and Wrong Ideas. All trouble in this world is caused by wrong ideas. These wrong ideas are the poisons that are rapidly destroying the race. By reading the Fool Killer you Will discover how much of what you know isn't so, and that's the knowledge you need to keep you from cork'n jfourself and drift'n into the Foolish Wtorks. The Fool Killer 111 UNCLE SAM'S DUMPING GROUND. Oklahoma is Uncle Sam's dumping ground — Creation's Garbage Pile, and the step-child of Kansas and the victim of the Profit System and the Democratic party. It is made up largely of the flotsam and jetsam and the dis- possessed of the other states and all creation — ^the crook and criminal — the gouger and grafter — the 600 per cent Christian — the leather-saloonist — the squaw-man — the slacker and dodger — the land-grabber — the gambler and speculator — the cheat and fraud — the sneak and snoop — the white-slaver — ^the wage-slaver^ — the squatter — ^the drifter — ^the sooner — ^the outlaw — ^the inlaw — the politi- cian — the evangelist — the hoo-doo — ^the fortune-teller — ^the Hill-Billy — the Night-Rider — ^the mental-prostitute — ^the sanctified sneaks^ — the liar — ^the fink and spy — the com- pound-hypocrite — ^the shylock — ^the short weight sneak — the land-lord — the murderer — the train robber — ^the bank robber — ^the yeg-man — ^the Indian-cheater — the Hun — ^the Shanty-Irish — the Greaser — ^the prairie dog — ^the cactus — > the mesquite — ^the coyote — the kangaroo-louse — the Po'h White Trash — the quack doctor — ^the jackleg syhster — the peanut politician — the rattlesnake — ^the pro-German — • the pan-villain, and several unclassified crooks and kroos- ters, and nearly all of them trying to make a living by gouging and deceiving each other. It makes a hell of a social and political conglomeration that defies classifica- tion. The state itself Is rich and varied in its natural resources and climate, and could easily be made a garden spot — a heaven-on-earth. It is one of the prettiest places on earth, and Nature was surely in a generous mood when she . endowed it for mian's habitation. All it needs is a sane and decent social system^ — so the people can make a living without gouging each other. The state only has three drawbacks, and the Democratic party is all three of them — and then some. The most of its people are good at heart and want to do the right thing, but it is simply impossible for a people to be nice to one another, and at the same time make a living by gouging each other. The profit-system and morals will not mix, and it's use- less to waste time and effort trying to make them hook 112 The Fool Killer up together and be brothers. Socialism is the only rem- edy and hope. It's the only thing that can keep this fair state from drifting back into the Primeval Jungle. Buy two tickets to K. C., Steve. As people do not start for "Heaven'' until they're dead, it is no wonder they never reach their destination.. NOT AFRAID. No, Steve, we're not afraid of Death, for it is only one of Nature's eternal processes by which we are all reduced to a handful s)f Elemental Nothing; and with this old raw material Nature grimly spits on her Al- mighty Hands and start all over agoin, hoping to do a better job next time. Only the ignorant blockheads who have been duped and frightened are afraid of Death — our nearest neighbor and best friend. A UNIVERSAL WEAKNESS. Most parents think their children are the only bub- bles on the cream, whereas, they are generally only mis- erable flies in the milk. But then Every old Black Crow Thinks her babies white as snow, And every old Gray Rat Thinks her little hairless brat The King of Beasts; And even the sparrows up in the tree, Think their nestlings soon will be iRex Eagles — Emperors of all the air; And my mother used to think that I Would some time write my name High upon the Walls of Fame, And navigate the Shoreless Sky. A PASS KEY. The whisky hotel is the Master Key that will unlock every jail to you — an invitation from the Cemetery to go swimming in Oblivion. The Fool Killer lis My son, if you are looking for a wife, squint clear above ana over the iDoUie-ied females who are obliquely sticking out of the ninth story skylight of $30 shoes and wearing $50 lids on two-bit cranium's. Nature never in- tended such $-marked cartoons for wives and mothers. THE SOUL'S NEEDS. LABOR— Food for the soul. READING— Growth for the soul. SLEEP— Rest for the soul. CLEANLINESS— Health for the soul. REASON— Light for the soul. THINKING— Strength for the soul. LIBERTY— Wings for the soul. CONSCIENCE- Guide for the soul. HOPE — ^Anchor for the soul. HONESTY— Peace for the soul. GENEROSITY— Wkrmth for the soul. CHEERFULNESS— Sunshine for the soul. FRIENDSHIP— Vines for the soul. AMUSEMENT— Play for the soul. KINDNESS— Perfume for the soul. POLITENESS— Cream for the soul. HOSPITALITY— Wine for the soul. MUSIC— Poetry for the soul. ART — Refinement for the soul., PURITY— Flowers for the soul, LOVE— Life for the soul. ABOUT AN EVEN BREAK. Which is the more injurious — corsets or cigarettes — high-heel shoes or high-balls^ — woman's foolishness or man's stupidity — woman's extravagance or man's^ 'waste- fulness — woman's bad temper or man's ugly disposition — woman's vanity or man's conceit? NEOLOGY (New Words). TUMP— A chump hoo tela al hiz FOOZEL— Eed tapein? — putter- privet affares to enywun he ing around and duing uceles meets. and unnecessary things. WOOZEL— The brain. BOOLK— Wun hoo shoots th« bul BOOLK — A medler — a but-in-»ky. with a flag. 114 The Fool Killer SKIK — ^A cigar store. OOK — ^A book store. NAD — ^A newsstand. MEX — ^A drug store. HAMP — ^A hardware store. BUSK — A butcher shop or meat store. FESK — A fish shop wher only fish and oysters ar sold, KILK — ^A kash rejister. LOMP — ^A lumber yard. LEK— Elektrik Ute. GUNT— A shotgun. SLET— A sneak theef . BAZ — A bathroom. HARNT — ^A hames shop or store. DURP — A real estate or land offis. ZOKE—A land ajent or durt gambler. TUNK — ^An insuranc ajent. RESK — ^An insuranc offis. TUKE — ^A muny lender or shylok. PANK — 'A pawnshop — Unkel Take. FOODEL—A pet huzband. MUZ — A masheen shop or Tepait shop for masheenery. ZOP— A redlite distrikt— the BLal- iko Hel. ROONT— A rooming hou«. KUZ — ^A railroad kumpany. SMELK— The stok yards. KRUT— A chiken koop. FRUN — A pikchur frame. KOOV — A propozal ov marraje. SNUL — A sno storm or Wizard. NOLK— A publik hi skool. MELK— A medikal skool or kol- ledj." TOONT— A dental kolledj. ZOOV — A marraje ceremony. GOK — A Sunda skool wher relijun iz taut. PRILT— A printing shop. KALP — A kaning f aktory. LAWK— A law skool or kolledj. NUKE— A muzik skool. PADJ — A smol pece ov koton or kloth uzd to apply a m-edicixL RUKE— A kukumber. MAWK — ^A muther-in-law. PAWK— A fother-in-law. DAWK— A dauter-in-law. SAWK — A son-in-law. BRUM— A bruther-in-law. SINT— A sister-in-law. GRALF — A supreme kourt. FLIMP— A bank akkount. STEK— A stepchild. MUNT— A muny order. EK — A postal kard. MEK — A postkard. SWUMP— A mental bio or a swot in the mind. TRUNT— A railroad trak. NEP— A door nob. GRAK— The slak and uther tail- ings from a mine that it ground up into smol partikal* and uzd into road bilding and in making konkrete wols, etc. BLUZ — A dust or sand atorm. VEO — An overkoat. XJDE — ^An undershurt. VOR — ^An overshu. NID — A dinner tabel. LEB— A riting tabel. WAMP— Wol paper. KLET— A tabelkloth. GIS — ^A nitegown. TRIN— A shustring. &RON— A grindstone. NINK— A whetstone. STRILP— A straw hat. SILP— A silk hat. DAL^ — ^A lead pencil. SLAL — ^A slate pencil. SKAP— A skul kap. PEL— Appel pi. PELP— Peach pi. NIM — Mine pi. TARP— Kustard pi. PULT— Kokonut pi. BLEP— Blakbery pi. RESP— Raspbery pi. INT— Raisin pi. NUP— Punkin pi. GOR— Goosbery pi. BALK — Kurrant pi. CHEN— Chiken pi. WO Y— Oyster pi. The Fool Killer 115 ISH— Irish stu. V^EJ — ^Vejetabel tjoup. ULJ — Insanity from disappoint- ment in luy. SLIL — A mail sak. ST ANT — A stamping masheen. DEG— A dicing: masheen. YAN— Frunt yard. YAB— Bak yard. MULJ — Insanity from disappoint- ment in biznes. RELJ — ^Relijus insanity. KALJ — Sexual insanity. ZXJLJ — Insanity from booz. DUL J — Insanity from drugs. FALJ — Flag insanity. FAL JAK— A flag lunatik. KOLK— The spinal kolum. GILT— An oil wel. GAW — A gas wel. ALK — ^A koal mine. GINE~A gold mine. SILV — A silver mine. NEN — ^A lead mine. ZEN — ^A zink mine. POR — A kopper mine. DALK — A dimund mine. FREG— A railroad frog. BAM — A match box. PLET— A kom planter. BLOOK — ^A lunatik asylum. FOW — ^A flower garden. A P — ^A rat trap. E P — ^A mous trap. TEB — ^A bear trap or eny larj trap. OHELP—A cheez omelet. POLP— A potato omelet made with potatoes, cheez, kream, celery-solt, butter and blak pepper. JELT— A jely omelet. HALP — A ham omelet. SALP— Potato salad. SALG — ^An eg salad. FRULT— A fruit salad. DISP— A chafing dish. RILT — ^A tjrpewriter ribon. DOM — A male dog. DAM£r— A female dog. NIZ — A woch chain. ZOB — ^A woch charm or fob. STUV— A kook stove. PEZ — ^A paint store. ZAM — ^A mining kumpany. PROKE — ^A produce dealer. GRAST— A garbaje kan. ROM — A waiting room. OIT— An oil tank. IRG — An irrigating ditch. GALD — A gambling den or hous. KROOSTERr— A krook hoo swin- dels wimen by* making luv to them. GRIK — Wun hoo thinks for an- uther. BRUNK — A male sex maniak hoo iz addikted to booz, tobako and drugs. GRUNK — A sex purvert hoo duz not uze booz, tobako and drugs. KRUNK — ^A wite slaver or pimp ov the male sex. GRULK— A wite slaver of the fe- male sex. KEL— A handkerchief. STOPO— A railway station. STRELK— A street kap. GARK — ^A garage. ROLK — ^An autdmobele. A K — ^A flying masheen. AKIT — An aviator ov the male sex. AKEL — ^A female aviator. AEO — ^An aviashun field or grounds. AKUM — ^A gark or stabel for akt. DREN— A female duk. DRELr-A baby duk. GAN — The male goos — a gander. GEN— The female goos. GEL — ^A baby goos. FIS— A male fish. FES— A female fish. FEST— A baby fish. GAB — ^A female turky. GEB— A baby turky. GOB-^^A male turky. 116 The. Fool Killer POTRAK— A male ^ny. PUTRAK— A female ^ny. PETRAK— A baby giny. HEZ-ZE-AM-PER— A dam fool hoo Iz aware ov it, but iz proud ov it and glories in it. GULK — A uneyun man or wuman hoo votes a s£aB tiket. RELK — An independent and sasy kus boo duz biz own thinking and wont let enywun step on hiz toe& or rijhts. GIKEL — A boob hoo mixes relijun ■v^-ith hiz biznes. BOOBEL— Pifel with a thret at- tachd to it. BUNKEL— A dececd bean— a ded or stagnant brain. PREED — ^A moral purvert ov the kommurshal and vishus kind hoo beleevs in kiling his fello humans for profit. GILK — A vain, shalo and homely boob hoo iz more or les af- flikted with kalikoitis. KAL— I-KO-I-TIS — The akute and adolescent staje ov sex mania and sexual purvurzhun. KAL-I-KO-NO-IA — The kronik and senile staje ov sexual purvurzhun and mania. PU M — A strap-hanger in a strelk. GRILK— A lazy boob. JULK — A race maniak — a gink- hander hoo hates and boykots pep el on akkount ov thair nashimality. PELK — A hypokrit hoo pretends to be non-partisan. PREEM — A female prostitute hoo iz addikted to booz, tobako and drugs. PROOM— A female wanton hoo iz not addikted to booz, drugs, etc. PREL — A female hoo iz more or les ov a sex purvurt and hoo goes astra soley for the fun ov it, for in bur kace thare iz no ekonomik necesity. She may be singel or married. Prels ar very rare. STULK — A purson hoo iz habit- ualy mean from pure kused- nes and without eny apparant motiv. JELK — A chump hoo klings to hiz chains for fear he wud starv to deth and go to hel if he lost them. He kareses hiz shakels and fears thoze hoo wud set him fre. SKELK — A jentleman hoo iz so polite and kurteus he allows hiz wife to selekt hiz nekties and klothes for him and bos him, and then boasts ov it. NALK — ^A gilk hoo rites luv let- ers to himself. ROLT— A baby karraje. FALT — A lazy boob hoo lets hiz wife or children make hiz liv- ing for him. FRUNK— A frate train. FONK — A pasenjer train. BAMP — A bagaje room. TILK— A tiket off is. TINK— A telegraf offis. TELG — ^The wireles telegraf. WILG — A wireles telegraf offij. TONK— A dispatcher's offis. ROMP— Hedquorters. MANG— A battleship. BLOOKY — A dreamy and poetik hjrpnosis — a sort ov wild and romantik lunacy. STELK— A kowardly skunk hoo wont fite fair, but ambushes yu in the darJ^ — an unfair antagonist. KRIM— A kriminal. ENK — A dining room. TOOLT— A kommurshal traveler. OLK — A Chautauqua speaker. DRILK— A blind tiger— a place wher likor is sold unlawfuly. SELP — A divorc lawyer. NULK— A rapist. KANK— A child stealer. PURK— A postoffis. U K — A postaje stamp. GRIMP — A grip or handbag. SUMP— A suitkace. DREEP— A bedroom. The Fool Killer) 117 RIMBEL — Rusty, obsolete and de- kaed orthodoxy, RIMP— A fly bean hoo thinks he kan get the best f the bar- gen by cheating himself on the sly. SHELK — A dam fool hoo respekts thoze hoo bunko him. BELK — ^A dam fool hoo likes everything that iz injurius to him, and dislikes everything that iz good for him. DUNK — A male cigaret fiend. UNK — A female cigaretist. EELK — ^A printing pres or lino- type. KEM — A typewriter. ONK — ^A roking chair. KIK — ^A poketbook or purs — ^the trazhury. QUELK — A short story or sketch. SPALK — ^A washing masheen. BINK — ^A hiwayman — a bold rob- ber. TELT— A toothbrush. POLK— A politikal party. KALT— A katel ranch. BALT — ^A sheep ranch. HOLK — ^A hogpen. SWIMP — A hedquorters for krooks. THRESP— A threshing masheen. WINT — ^A politikal speech or ad- dres. FENT— A fenc post. KOW-FA— A big kaffa or res- taurant. KAF-FA — A smol restaurant or eting place. BUL-FA — ^A saloon wher foods ar also servd if dezired. K AB-A-RA — A hel-joint wher booz and etes, tobako and muzik and kaliko ar al survd together in wun stol. FLENK— A cheap skate and shurk hoo iz unwiling to du hiz part in the way ov paying hiz just share ov the expenses wen he iz out skylarking with uthers. KALK — ^A gilk hoo uzes a fone to jitny kaliko with. PALK—A female kalk. SQUELK— A klothes wringer for squeezing woter out ov klothes. WUNK — ^A wuman hoo iz mean to her huzband. HELK — ^A female fone gosiper wher the gosiping is with wimen. MALK — A male fone gosiper wher the gosiping is with men. RULT— A family quorl HENT— An old maid. BONT— An old bachelor. SELK — A sewing masheen. USK — ^A graf afone or similar mu- zikal instrument. ORG — ^A pipe organ. BLUNK — ^A man hoo iz mean to hiz family. MOLK — ^A wuman or gurl hoo haz dogs for kompanyuns. GUNK — A man or boy hoo asso- shiates with dogs. GOLK — ^A motorcykel. TROLK— A m'otorl tricykel. GINK-AN-DER— A smart alek chump hooz beans ar al ful ov kinks and loops, az a re- zult ov leting uthers think for him, and hoo gets mad and rateld in an argument and wants to shoot hiz ideas into hiz opponent. SLOK— A slop buket. SWELK— A sugar buket. NELK— The last baby in a family. FELK— The furst baby in a family. FILK — A muving pikchur sho or theater. VOLK — ^A vaudevil sho or theater* HIMP — Grand opera. FUNT— Komik opera. VANK— A tent sho. RULZ — A burlesk sho or theater. ater. 118 The Fool Killer SUJ — ^A suffrajet meeting. LONT — A married wuman. LUNT— A gras wido. GROOK — A married man, GRUMP— A ^as widoer. DILT — ^A divorcd man. DELT — ^A divorcd wnman. TULK — ^A male gosip. MULK — ^A female g^osip. LULK — Wun hoo lies for the plazhur ov it. SHULK— A pade liar— a diplo- mat. HALK — A purson on the fenc — undecided — ^vacillating. SUNT — A presing, klening and repair shop for klothes. TANT— A tailor shop wher klothes ar made. DRENT — A dresmaking shop. HORK— A livery stabel. NUMP — ^An adding masheen. TOLT— A telegraf pole, POLT— A f one pole. DIB — A railroad sekshun houB. FLUN— A flour mil. SANT— A sawmil. KONT— A kom field. WOLT— A wheat field. OLT— An oat field. POTB— A potato patch or field. WALT — ^A wotermelon patch. DOLK — A department store. BLUK — ^A polece stashun, FIK— A fire stashun. JIK— A danc hoi. SHEV— A barber shop. STRET— A trunk strap. riKE — A marraje surtifikate. UKE — ^A weding ring. WENK— A woch spring. WUSK— A worsh stand. SHUP— A shu store. DILP— -A snuf uzer or addikt. KOKE—A drug addikt. NUK — A muzik store. SKINK— A klothing store for men's klothes and furnish- ings. EAK — ^A grocery store. JELT — ^A juelry store. DEEST— A feed store that buys and sels feed for domestik animals. FURNT— A fumichur store. MILST — ^A milliner store or shop. ZEP — Luv siknes. YUB— A city manager. MUX— War bred. A bred made out ov wheat and other cere- als and materials. HUX — ^A wor council. WIX — A peece treety or pakt. VAX — ^A wor map. BAF — A blak sheep — a renegade — a dejenerate — a human weed. SNAF — ^A stool pijun — a decoy duk — a paid sneek — a spy. SKUB— A nobody that's ambi- tious to be somebody. NOTE— The above new wordi were all born in Dr. Mak's mind^ and from that Mental River many Dther new words wiU flow into our language from time to time. Words are Mental Tools and are needed to facilitate the exprefiaion of our new thota and ideaa. The boob that's never been loved by some woman is far afield in the Weed-Class. He's a Cactus-Bird playing solitaire under the mesquite bushes out in the Foothills of Nowhere. Sowing "wild oats'' before you're 30 is the best Way to reap spectacles and filled teeth after you're past 50. The Fool Killer 119 My son, whisky will never write your name on the stars nor plant flowers on your grave. It ^vill put your face in the Rogue's Gallery and citizenship your mSoniker in the Potter's Field. The person who owns the job you have to use in order to live is your master, and the very fact that you don't realize this is the reason he is your master. Promises are only Rainbow Currency and are not legal tender at the grocery stores. They are Hope Cock- tails. Yes, Harold, if you're stuck on cabareting the Jef- ferson Hotel and the Blue Goose and tangoing DoUie Bird Avenue, you'll not 6nly have to pay the orchestra union wages now, but you'll need a fat roll to invest in neosalvarsan and Arkansaw baths later on. The way of the transgressor never was much of a Seeley Mattress! We'd rather have a good Steinway piano in this •world than the promise of a golden harp in the ''Next World;" and a rolk here will give more satisfaction than a whole squadron of aks ''over there!" Guzzling booze and smoking cigarettes is shooting it into yourself pretty hard, but the tobacco and booze trusts can stand it awhile longer if you can. The Whisky Bottle soon teaches you the language of the gutter, and the Cigarette punctuates the patois of the underworld. Bad habits are paying yourself with counterfeit' money — its killing yourself in order to have a "good time" — it's playing Death with the Devil and Old Nik has the cards stacked against you! The old rooster can crow just as loud as the young cock, but it's more like a threnody than a challenge — ^it sounds like the crinkle of autumn leaves and has an adios tang about it. 120 The Fool Killer When Old Nik finds an idle mind he chuckles to himself and gets out a handful of weed-seed and gossip- germs. An Ignorant Mind is a Briar Patch— a Serpent Jun- gle! a Buzzard Nidus — a Reptile Hutch — a Tiger Warren! Man is the only boob that can fool himself and that believes he will get wings after he dies. Please send me your address, Irene? If you keep your snoot properly lidded and boss your appetites and passions, you won't have much time to boss anyone else. "What is LOVE?'' asks 'Miss Graycele Ventry, of Parkville, Mo. It's the one thing that catches our Nancy Animal with moonshine and feeds it cake, pie and candy. It's that Eternal SOMETHING that has played tag with us all down through the Vast and Voiceless Ages that are sepulchured in Eternity. It's the one Problem that does all its own probing and refuses to be solved. It's the one thing that gives life any real significance and makes ex- istence worth while. It's that Eternal Something — ^that quenchless Urge that builds nests and wants the flowers to come back again. It's the Beckoning Hand that plants the Seed of Immortality in every life — ^it's the Chisel that carves flowers and anchors on the tombstones and hiero- glyphics the Tongueless Pyramids. It's the Beautiful Hand that keeps a light in the window and weeds the graves. It's the Whispering Voice that gets Hope to Write it aurevoir at the Farewell Gate. It's the only light that can make the Human Eye beauiful and divine — the Heart's Primeval Challenge to Atmihilation. It's the Soul's Wireless Message the Heart telegraphs through the eyes. There you are, Miss Graycele, and don't you go and forget it. Life is a doughnut with a hole in it, and Capitalism is ever enlarging the hole. Socialism wants to make the hole smaller. The Fool Killer 121 TAME HUSBANDS. If husbands were as true, loyal and attentive as dogs are, there'd be more pet-hubbies and less pet-dogs. A woman's nature requires a great deal of love and constant attention. If you want her heart to play in your back- yard (and no place else) and her soul to holler down your rain-barrel, why you've got to get out there and let your heart and soul play tag with hers every day — not just occasionally or on legal holidays, but every day — and then dream of her a little every night and tell her of it in the morning — ^whether you dreamied of her or not. Her love is a Soul-Flower, and like all other flowers it's got to have plenty of rain and sunshine. You boobs never heard of a pet dog leaving its mistress at night to go off down- town and have a ''good time with the boys!" It stays at home and plays with her and worships her, and that's just why it soon displaces you in her affections and be- comes her constant companion and pet, while you soon take second place and become her old Tom-cat of a worthless husband whose blood is mostly a natatorium for wander-lust germs. Savvy, you bloom'n boobs? Every vote for the old-parties will make the hole in the doughnut bigger and the milk-bottle smaller. ONE ON THE DOCTORS. It beats all how many prominent doctors are dying off before they reach middle age, and of the very ail- ments they make a specialty of treating. Those very diseases saunter right into the doctor's home unbidden and play tag With his Nancy Animal awhile, and then another diploma is turned to the wall, and Monsieur Sharon is signalled by wireless to row over to this side again. As we have often remarked before, there are a few things the doctors don't know, and most of what they do know isn't so. Wake up, gentlemen, and give Old Shary a vacation! Cancers are the Kaisers of Diseases — Syphillis is the Czar of Ailments, and Tuberculosis is the King of the Whitecaps. 122 The Fool Killer LOVE gets Hoi>e to write it au revoir at the Fare^ well Gate. If your mother-in-law were half as bad as you think she is, you'd never have married an offspring of hers. Perhaps her opinion of you is even worse than your opin- ion of her? Our money is on the Old Lady? Pineapples are the porcupines of the fruit world, and the porcupine is the pineapple of the animial kingdom. KANSAS CITY'S SIZE. "Tombstone, Ariz., March 15, 1918. "Editor ov Foolkiller: "Fv bin read'n your kon- founded krazy magazene until I don't noe wether I'm kum'n or goi'n. I am thinking ov muving to a larjer place, but I'v never bin in your city and wud like to noe sumthing about it — its size, etc. I'm a lether wurker and muvd here 9 years ago from Rochester, N. Y., on akkount ov my wife's helth, but it woz tu late to du hur much good, and she died 7 munths after we got here. Yours for a better wurld, J. N. S." Yes, brother, we're always willing to be of service to our fello'wmen and women. In point of numbers and physical size Kansas City is some pumpkin with a rich strawberry flavor. It has more than 550,000 and is growing like a church scandal in a small town; but mor- ally, she is away back in the Cave-Class. If you have the kale you can find everything here except righteous- ness. If you are looking for anything as Utopian and antiquated as righteousness, you'd better stop off in Wichita or Tulsa. As to catching on here and getting a start, if you are a live grafter and mierciless gouger, you can soon live on the sunny side of Easy Street and Kom- fort Avenue; but if you have any old-fashioned and So- cialistic ideas about being decent and making a living honestly, why you can come on and stick around and gradually starve to death with the rest of us righteous and baldheaded boobs, and we'll say howdy when we meet you in Mr. Potter's Mortis Pasture 1 ^ The Fool Killer 123 Don't whip your children nor swear at them — ^they are not to blame for having inherited your defects and bad habits. Treat them courteously and kindly and al- ways be fair and truthful with them. Fill their lives with good things and their minds with right-ideas and they'll grow into flowers and bless you and society. If they won't respond to kindness and good treatment and a normal environment, it will be worse than useless to try ill-treatment and brute force on them. Brutality is the weakest force in all the world and only degrades us and pulls us down hill. Kindness is the only uplifting and civilizing force, and with its white and gentle hands is ever trying to write our names upon the stars., » FREEDOM. Like an eagle in a cage I'm weary and sad — The glad free air is calling my wings; Only Liberty and Freedom can make me glad^ — Away in the hills where the Southwind sings. I despise ''Civilization" with its snares and its stings — Its stinking hypocrisy that throttles our wings — Its false standards, its ideals so rotten and bad — Just give me the hills and the streams where I can be glad. Just give mte the freedom of the hills and the streams,, Where the wood-dove coos and the whipporwill dreams — Where the skies are kind and Nature is friendly to all — Where ''Civilization" can't $-mark our wings and cause us to fall. As a piano has more than 80 keys, why can't it un- lock its own case ? For the same reason the potato can't see With its eyes. It's not so bad, Steve, to be a dam-fool--especially after you've discovered that most of your neighbors are vaudevilling on the same circuit. The Cigarette is a corkscrew for the Whisky Bottle. 124 The Fool Killer COWARDLY IDEAS. If you have ideas that are afraid to meet all other ideas, you had better get rid of them. The reason they're afraid of other ideas is because they feel their own weakness and sense their own unworthiness. Ideas that are sound are always friendly and courteous to all other ideas. Only false ideas are cowardly and hostile to other ideas. The real champion is not afraid to meet all comers. HOW TO KEEP HIM AT HOME. Many a poor boob would stay home at night if his wife's company were worth keeping. Wake up, Mary, and sing and dance a little in his heart. Do a few fancy steps in his soul. When he comes home all tired and weary from his long and exacting toil, hand him a few of those All-Soul and Vast Forever Kisses he sees in the movies, and he'll soon forget all about Wanting to go down on Pipe-Organ Avenue and trailing Dollie Chickens. You can't keep the lid on your soul and keep Charley at home. A FEW KAISERS. Booze is the Kaiser of Drinks. Tobacco is the Kaiser of Weeds. Flies are the Kaisers of Insects. Profit is the Kaiser of Business. Selfishness is the Kaiser of Society. DEATH is the Kaiser of All — the ruthless hand that plucks every flower and furls all the flags. Note: We haven't put Kaiser Bill in this class, be- cause he is too mean to be classified, and all other kaisers object to having him put in their class. A HARD JOB. It's a hard job to be nice to people and win their respect and good-will, and at the same time make a liv- ing by gouging them, but that is the capitalis way and causes about all the trouble in the world. The Socialist way is to make a living by helping each other — and this will bring peace and good will to the race. Why not help up to make the change, brother? The Fool Kjller 125 Man's foolishness is all that keeps this 'world out of the Garden-Class. THE BOOZE QUESTION. We are unalterably opposed to the business and the cause of it — profits. Booze is one of man's "worst ene- mies and is always coaxing him downhill and wallowing him in the gutter. As profits are the cause of this universal evil, we must first abolish profits. Take the 4c profit out of the glass of beer, and no one would sell it. It's that little old 4c profit that is at the bottom of the whole business. People don't engage in the liquor business because they are bad or depraved, but solely be- cause they can make big and easy profits selling the in- fernal stuff — it's the only or easiest way millions have of making a living; and the same with all other bad en- terprises — people can make a living in such ways. The saloon men are well aware that it is a bad and scurvy business, but there is big and easy money in it. We are not in favor of the Prohibition program as a remedy for the Booze Serpent. Their program does not touch the cause (profits) of the liquor traffic, and that is why it fails. The Prohibs are more intent on propagating their religion than in bringing about temperance. Our pro- gram is to have the Government or the State provide every man in the booze business with a better Way of making a living for himself and family, and then there would be no economic necessity for them to engage in this disreputable business. Then put it up to the whole people (including the women) whether or not the Gk)v- emment should make and sell the hell-poison. If a ma- jority voted for it, then let the Government make it chemically pure and sell it at cost — about Ic a gallon ; but if the majority voted against it, then the (Govern- ment would not make it at all, and if the Government would take over all industries and employ all the people at legitimate and necessary work, no one would have any incentive to embark in such a degrading avocation — ^the Devil's pet enterprise. If no one had to depend on booze for a living and had no pecuniary interest in it, we feel 126 The Fool Killer sure that 88 per cent of the people would vote solidly against it. Every saloon man on earth would be glad of a chance to get in some other business — something he and his loved ones Would not have to be ashamed of. They are not bad and depraved at all, but are human beings just like the rest of us,' and are doing the best they can under the circumstances. Let's give them a better way of making a living and see how quickly and gladly they will respond to it. We never drank booze in our life and do not use tobacco, but we have met thou- sands of saloon men and brewery men in one way or another, and we find the most of them good-hearted, honest, generous, friendly and in favor of a square deal; and another virtue they possess is their inclination to keep their noses at home and mind their own business. Don't curse and blame the poor devils for selling booze for a living, but help abolish the infernal system that drives people into all sorts of disreputable ways of making a living. And what an immense gain for us all to divert the millions of laborers from the foolish and useless waste of producing and distributing a poisonous and use- less product to the production of things that the race really needs for its health, advancement and happiness. Of course the booze business makes lots and lots of work and business, but so would the digging of holes one day and the filling up of those holes the next day. The main difference in these two useless enterprises would be altogether in favor of hole-digging, for that kind of use- less labor would not injure anyone's health and morals — it would simply be the waste of time, labor and capital in the production of a useless product — ^holes that could not be used at all. And .the same applies to all other use^ less activities. Let's give the saloon men a chance to be decent, and I'll bet my last dollar they'll come across and make good. Every good thought is an asset and will give you strength to climb the steep places of life; but every bad thought is a liability and will furnish ' you the weak- nesses that will cause you to get stuck in the mud. The Fool Killer 127 So live that your Conscience will be your pal and your Soul won't make faces at you while you're flagging Old Sharon. The Multiplication Table is the only thing that don't shoot the bull — it's the one thing that's got the goods and is never late. It's the only thing We can't call a liar and bamboozle. It never short-weights us nor exceeds the speed-limits. It's the only thing that can preach a ser- mon the boobs won't quarrel about. It may be a little bit old-fogyish and conservative, but it never misses the bull's eye nor the train. It's the one thing we can tie to when the other wharfs have all drifted away. WHAT DOLLARIZED RELIGION HAS DONE TO THE CROSS OF CHiRIST. 128 The Fool Killer Health, LOVE and a Clear Conscience are the only things that can make life beautiful and worth While. IMMORTALITY is the Pream Star that Hope hundi the Heart at the Grave, MUSIC gets nay Nancy Animal and feed« it cake, pie and candy. The words in this book that are not spelled according to Webster, are spelled according to Mak, and as they are both high authorities on orthography, you should worry. The printers tried out some of their own spelling at places, but I have carefully eliminated that. Webster's orthography and Mak's spelling are about all that an ordinary mortal can stand at one time. CIPHERS. It seems that human beings are never quite happy unless they are doing something foolish and unnecessary. Did you ever notice how most of these ginks write num- bers — especially dollars? For instance, if they want to write five dollars and express it in figures, they usually also Write in two ciphers to represent the cents that do not exist in this case — thus: $5.00; now, what on earth or off is the use of using two characters to represent nothing? Nothing don't need any representation. Write it like this: $5. Remember, it is the proper placing of the decimal point (period) that indicates whether the number is cents or dollars. The dollar mark should al- ways be used at the head of the f giures to indicate whether you are speaking of dollars, bushels, yards, or something else. When you write it just 5., we know it is a whole number, but can't tell whether it is 5 dollars or 5 bushels, etc. In writing cents alone, Where no dollars are in the game, it is necessary to use a cipher sometimes — thus: '05; but if you wrote it this way: .5, it would The Fool Killer 129 be fifty cents or fifty per cent of a bushel or other thing; and if your number contains mills and you wish to write down 5 mills, for instance, you would have to use two ciphers, thus: .005. Remember, that all numbers to the left of the decimal point are whole numbers, while those to the right are fractional parts of a whole number. You have no idea, Steve, how many grown folks don't know how to use the decimal point and write numbers properly. M^suring red tape or doing useless things is wasting life — it's like burning up your fuel in the hote weather when you need ice instead of heat. In fact, every useless stunt you pull off is like going to mill horseback and put- ting a big stone in one end of the sack to balance the grain in the other end instead of putting half the grain in one end and half in the other end, and thus balancing it without adding any additional weight to your back or the horse's back; and yet it took humans many centuries to learn how to balance the grist without a stone; and some of the Hill Billies haven't learned it yet. When the clouds of battle have cleared away. Humanity is going to have its splendid day, And all the dollarized and tearful creeds. Will be replaced by the flowers the race so greatly needs. WHAT IT^S GOOD FOR. ^ Yes, my son. Whiskey is good for lots of things — selling it is an easy way of separating fools from their kale. Booze is a great and successful booster for the prisons, bean-jails and Final Homes — cemeteries. It chains your feet to all the paths that wind-up at the bottom of the ladder. It's a deep and Restless River whose hed and frothy waves are ever lapping onward toward the Black Ocean of Death and the Red Sea of Perdition. Whiskey spells depravity with an h— Hellpravlty, and slams every door in your face that is worth enter- mg. It introduces you to the Underworld where a cigar- ette is the pass-key and a bottle of Cocaine is the Grand Hailing Sign. It shanties you in the slums— reg- isters you in the Rogues' Gallery and sepulchurs your 130 The Fool Killer worthless dust in the Potter's Field — the Necropolis of whiskey-washed derelicts, where all respectable worms will hold their noses with both hands during your obse- quies. It don't think enough of its victims to even mark their graves with a beer-bottle for a tombstone. Cut it out, boys, and let the tobacco go with it, and then quit voting for Capitalism — the cause of all evils. You've no idea how nice it feels to be sane, intelligent and normal. Behaving yourself is playing a game of solitaire. "DOROTHY DIX TALKS/^ Headline in Daily Paper. Sure she does — in fact, did Dorothy ever do anything else? Only an educated gentleman or a traveling man can lie artistically. THE WORLD^S IMPERATIVE NEEDS. 1. Sensible human beings who know how to be- have themselves. 2. Weather that is always just right. 3. Crops that will plant themselves and grow like weeds without cultivation. 4. Bad habits that will promote good health. 5. An automobile that never needs "fixin." 6. Babies that never cry and are no trouble. 7. Flies that won't walk on bald heads. 8. Lead pencils that never need to be honed. 9. Fuzzless peaches and boneless fish. 10. Husbands that won't fall for booze, tobacco and calico. 11. Wives that love their husbands better than dogs and that won't gossip. 12. A telephone that can't be used for gossiping. The Fool Killer 181 CHICKEN FEATHERS ; or, Poetical Refreshments. A Kentucky Cocktail — A jug of moonshine whiskey with a horseshoe in it and flavored with bluegrass. An Oklahoma Cocktail — A ^uart of crude oil with a handfull of Johnson grass in it. A Kansas Cocktail — A glass of revised and censored buttermilk flavored with alfaifa and a grasshopper rfong. A Missouri Cocktail—nAny old thing thai is get on both sides and has a kick in it and that's flavored with a little musicHand Ozark poetry. A Y. M. C. A. Cocktail — A glass of Coco Cola with a toothpick in it and flavored with chewing gum. A Salvation Army Cocktail — A glass of skimmed milk with a safety-pin in it. A Suffragette Cocktail — A pink lemonade with a hair- pin in it — a good drink for deacons and ministers' sons. A Yiddish Cocktail — A glass of beer with a nickel in it and flavored 'with garlic. An Irish Cocktail — A quart of Old Crow with a shamrock in it. A "Kultur"' Cocktail — ^A stein of blood with a u-boat in it and flavored with chlorine gas. An American Cocktail — A barrel of grape- juice with an American flag in it and flavored with World Democracy — the best dink in the world. • It puts real pep in you and makes you go over the top instead of In the gutter, and makes a man and a human being out of you instead of a kaiser. Step up, boys, and drink an American Cocktail with the Fool Killer. Snowing is caused by the clouds crying puffed-tears. Wings in the *'Next World'' won't help you over the muddy places in this life, and a flying machine ''over there" is a very poor substitute for an automobile here. 132 The Fool Killer INTRODUCTIONS. Tobacoc introduces you to Booze, and tne latter gent presents his near neighbor — Mr. Morphine, and that sleepy mortal has a first cousin, Herr Opium, he wishes you to meet, and Mr. 0. in turn asks you to shake hands with ' his nephew — Senor Cocaine, and that Disciple of Dreams wishes you to meet his old college chum, Monsieur Absinthe, and that green-eyed and bitter fatalist asks you to over the Presipice with him. THAT SILVER LINING AGAIN. San Antonio, Feb. 2. — ^Private Ivey Clevland, negro, will be honorably discharged from the army because his feet are so large that the quartemiaster decided that it would cost $20 a pair to buy him shoes. It's sure a dark cloud that has no silver lining to it— and the wind that blows nobody any good must be in the kaiser class. DONT NEGLECT WIFEY. Yes, Harold, a man is a rather poor and slow sort of a critter when his wife gets so tired of him she wants a male dog for a pet and companion; but then the dog don't use tobacco, don't get soused and leave her home at nights while he goes down town and tangoes the Dollie Chickens up and down Bryan Avenue; neither does the dog curse her and blame the h. k. o. 1. on her head. The dog is always true, loyal, affectionate and attentive to her. Boys, why not try out some of the dog's good traits on your wives and see if you can't win them back? If you have the love of a good and .faithful wife and the loving trust of a little child that watches at the gate for you every night, and then flies down the street to meet you and slip its little hand in yours, why, why — well, confound it! you don't need to envy Wood- row Wilson his little old 30-cent job down there on the Potomac. The Fool Killer 133 Swat your kiddies with kisses and caresses and fill their young lives with the good things and they will develop into flowers instead of weeds. Emp^y lives soon become weed-patches. Don't cram their tender minds with the dead and useless weeds of religion and tell them that lunatics who lived thousands of years ago are looking for them with a club and a box of matches. Banish all fear from their minds and teach them to abhor all cruelties. Feed their hearts with the green foliage of Love and menu their minds with the ripe fruit of Reason and perfume their while souls with the delicate fragrance of Kindness and Gentleness, and you will be proud of them as they develop into Deau- tiful and normal Human-rfuit trees. There's nothing much the matter 'with the woking people except they're dam fools and don't know it. Most of the roads to Hell are paved with gold, calico and booze. Don't deceive and neglect your wife and she'll meet you on the square and level with the compass in one hand and her heart in the other one. Give her a chance to make good and you will find that she Is more silk than calico. She's got plenty of good in her, but you are not providing her with the kind of environment that will bring the good to the surface. Your treat- ment of her is probably the kind that develops claws instead of wings; and if it is, you deserve to be scratched good and hard. A BAJ> LETTER. Steve, do you know that the letter B is one of the worst citizens in the alfredbet? "No, Doc, how's that?" Because it starts every Blizzard, Buzzard ana Blight, and is the beginning of Booze, Bunk and Bad- ness, and introduces every Boodler, Brute and Bagmo, and is the insect in every Debt. 134 The Fool Killer IMMORTALITY— A Red Anchor made out of Love Dreams — the Green Necktie the Heart wears when say- ing Good-bye. To be a Socialist one must have the intelligence to understand it, the honesty to want it and the courage to fight for it. "JUST A MINUTE!" How often do we hear this expression, and how little do we realize that these tinesey minutes quickly grow into hours, and the hours have a persistent habit of de- veloping into days, and the latter make a* specialty of bulging into years, and the annuals lazily stretch off into the Misty Centuries, and the centuries have nothing to do but dream away into ETERNITY— where TIME is only a Measureless and Shoreless FOREVER! If the workers don't make any better use of their wings in the next world than they have of their brains in this world, it will be a woeful waste of wing-material to furnish them with such useless transportation. RAISED THE LIMIT. In one of our magazine articles we penned Just after we had slipped past the 50 mark, we made the pompous and self-satisfied statement that people never acquired good sense until they were 50, but we've pulled off so many foolish stunts since then we've had to raise the limit to 60, and from present indications the limit will have to be raised later on to 70. Yes, boys, it's your laugh — heave to! Yes, Steve, there's always room at the top, as the capitalist sophists are wont to tell us, provided you liave teeth and claws long and sharp and strong enough to bite and scratch your way up there ; otherwise, you'll function at the bottom of the ladder as a door mat for the muddy and dirty hoofs of the big-bellied and long-snouted hogs who don't care a dam how they reach the top of the heap aod, get all-fours in the trough simultaneously. The Fool Killer 135 Man is the only animal in all the world that sows ''wild oats'' and imagines he's having a "hell of a good time." He swells up like a poisoned toad in fly time and wabbles and struts around on the features of Mother Earth, kidding himself with one hand and grabbing calico with the other fore foot. He's a lurid and wapsied eyed, pot-bellied, bow-legged and knock-kneed old shank of per- dition and Terre Haute who prays to his own Belly^ and considers his foolishness wisdom and his crimes civilizar tion. He's a lollapaloozer that knows how to loll You must scratch and bite, And hate and fight, And do all other selfish things To break your neighbors' wings, And thus beat them to it, For that is business — And the hogs all do it. Yes, Steve, if your salary is tall enough to reach up over $18 shoes and anchor $50 hats on 25c heads, and swat the high cost of loving with a 30-cylinder Cadillac, a Stein way piano and a $125-a-month flat on Woodland avenue or a $30,000 house out Country Club way, nd a few other trifling incidentals like food, clothing, phone, water, electric lights and gas that won't travel in cold weather, a 25-dollar-a-night theater box. It's all right to let your fancy lightly turn to thoughts of love, but other- wise you had better stick to $15 suits and safety razors and cigaroozel up and down the Piccadilly with a weed- fire under your snoot, play solitaire at the movies and new and then banquet the Lower Walnut street grisettes at a 15c Kosher joint over on Missouri and Independence avenues. Missouri is the best state in the world, everything considered, and only has three drawbacks — the Republican party is one of them and the Donk party is the other t^. 136 The Fool Killer _^^ The best way to make a young lady behave herself is to give her enough salary to be decent on and not work her to death. And she needs a few hours every day In which to dream and play, For without these essential things She'll develop claws instead of wings. THE BIGGEST FOOL. If there's anything in this world that's a bigger fool than a man, it's the woman who marries him and thinks she can make something worth while out of him. She stands in a class all by her snub-nosed, frecklelfaced, high-shoed and dauntless little self, and we don't intend to ask her to sit down, either. If there are as many Fords in Hell as there are in Kansas, I don't see how a man with a good car is ever going to squeeze in there. THE ETERNAL SPHINX. DEATH replies to all: "Curious Mortals, I will not tell Whether I'm the Dood to Heaven, Or the Shutless Gate to Hell ; So, it's no use to ask me why, I bring darkness to every eye, And cause all wings to droop and fold, And kill the flo^vers with winter's cold? But such a fate to everything will fall, For that is My Decree to one and all." A QUARTET OF SAVIORS. Health, Intelligence, Love and Justice are the only things that can save the Human Race from Extinction and Oblivion. These are the four Creators that can re- build the world on an enduring foundation. Aurevoir, my readers. The Author. ^ f . ., V 'i l 19^