Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, January 1921 · page 46 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #16 — page 46: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents moralizing anti-drug poetry from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a 1920s American humor magazine. The editor frames these confessional verses as cautionary tales against drug use ("touch not, taste, shoot nor smoke"). The poems employ dated drug slang: "dope" (narcotics), "hop" (opium), "coke" (cocaine), "snow" (heroin). The author depicts drug addiction in melodramatic terms—ruined youth, moral corruption, and descent into Asian opium dens (reflecting contemporary racist anxieties about Chinese immigrants and drug use). The final poem, "Flirtation in a Flower Bed," offers comic relief through flower puns: a "bachelor's button" (a literal flower) appearing among "black-eyed susans" suggests infidelity in a garden. These pieces reflect 1920s attitudes: anti-drug messaging mixed with ethnic stereotyping and moralistic warnings presented as entertainment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
44 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Confessions of a Dope Fiend The following poem, written by a dope fiend, is the first of a series he has contributed to this magazine. Although these poems are morbid in character, the editor hopes their lesson will serve as warning to all to “touch not, taste, shoot nor smoke.” This is the author's opening explanation: I started out wrong when I was a kid, And now my days are blue; Cigarettes, booze, wild women and dope— I'm a wreck at twenty-two. *** In Dreamy Chinatown By B. T., Los Angeles As I lie in this room, all hazy with smoke From the “dopes” smoking hop and sniffing at coke, My mind wanders back just a short year ago To the time I first started at hitting the snow. But soon I'll be dreaming again in my sleep Of my little gray home away 'cross the deep; I've thought of dear mother as much as I can, I've fought 'gainst the dope and fought like a man. But here as I lie on my dirty old bunk In the Hong Kong hotel, with my head full of junk, I am hopelessly gone and await the last bell That will usher me home to the dark depths of hell. There's a little red devil a-prodding my feet, Begging me gently to fall into sleep; I'm gradually slipping, so here's my last knell, Because I am under the Chinaman's spell. *** Flirtation in a Flower Bed I had a flower garden, But my love for it is dead, 'Cause I found a bachelor's button In my black-eyed susans' bed.