Category: The Fool-Killer

  • Yanktum Doodlebug

    From The Fool-Killer, June 1, 1915. By John McDonough.

    Yankee Doodle prayed for peace
        Upon one Sunday morning;
    Then sold some shot and shells to kill
        Young men and babies borning.

    So it is with Yankee Doo—
        Yankee Doodle Dandy—
    War is hell, but then, oh well!
        Blood money comes in handy.

  • What is the News?

    From The Fool-Killer, May 1, 1915. By James Larkin Pearson.

    “What is the news in the paper today—
        The news from over the sea?”
    The reader he flicked his fat cigar,
        And a billowy puff puffed he.
    “Oh, nothing—it speaks of a little fight,
        But it reads like childish play;
    A trifle of fifty thousand dead—
        There’s nothing important today.

    “The city of Skippit was burned last night,
        And half of the people killed;
    The living have fled, and the bloody streets
        With charred black bones are filled.
    The British dreadnaught, Mindyerbiz
        Torpedoed in Dareyou Bay;
    The blood in Flanders is only knee deep—
        There’s nothing important today.

    “Not more than twenty-five million men
        Are facing the shot and shell,
    And a trifle of ten times that, perhaps,
        At home ‘mid terrors dwell.
    Oh my! It’s an awfully dull affair!
        Why don’t they fight some? Say!—
    Here—take the old paper—I’m done with it all—
        There’s nothing important today.”