Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, October 1921 · page 21 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #25 — page 21: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical essay (not a cartoon) by Rev. "Golightly" Morrill attacking Palm Beach, Florida as a den of moral corruption and wasteful excess. Writing from a conservative Protestant perspective, Morrill uses military metaphors to mock the resort's dining culture and hyperbolic language to condemn beachgoers' scanty clothing ("low necks, high skirts, bare legs") and flirtation ("wicked winks," "conquests"). The piece ridicules both the commercialism (money extracted immediately upon arrival) and the social hierarchy of the wealthy resort, where outsiders face "cold shoulders" while "regulars" enjoy status. The comparison of dinner to a battlefield and guests to soldiers humorously exaggerates the competitive, materialistic atmosphere Morrill finds morally objectionable. The satire targets Jazz Age leisure culture and changing sexual mores—particularly the abandonment of Victorian propriety—as symptoms of spiritual emptiness.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang 19 “A Fool’s Paradise” BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL Pastor of People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn. PALM BEACH is the place where the palm is held out for your money as soon as you land. Here nothing is free save the air, looks and morals of the visitors. On the beach color, costume, commotion, low necks, high skirts, bare legs, wicked winks and studied poses kindle the onlooker’s thoughts into a flame that Neptune cannot put out. This is the place for high jinks that would shame the half-naked savages of the South Seas and outdo the love-antics of the nymphs and gods in old mythology. Dinner is the day’s event at the Poinciana Hotel. ’Tis a thrilling sight to see an army of waiters “charge” through miles of dinner table trenches, while the guests, armed with sabre knives and bayonet forks, fight to get food. After the attack the survivors sit around in the lobby, stand or march about the miles of halls and foyers, shooting glances at each other and attempting to make “conquests.” Despite the heat of the room, there were many chilling glances and cold shoulders if you were not one of the “regulars.” Giddy boys and girls, thor- oughbred sports of men and women, were all there to see and be seen, to show all they dared,