Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, December 1921 · page 23 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #28 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is satirical editorial commentary on 1920s Los Angeles, not a cartoon. The unnamed author critiques the city's rapid modernization and moral decay. **Key targets:** - **Oil wealth**: Mining fortunes surpassing old-master art prices—critiquing nouveau-riche values - **Automobile danger**: Sarcastically blames cars rather than alcohol for accidents ("auto-intoxication"), noting one car per thirteen people causes "unlucky accidents" - **Beach culture**: Mocking the lowbrow crowds—gum-chewers, popcorn vendors, "freaks"—and amusement parks as sites of vice - **Urban corruption**: References "low dives" where "innocent were doped, debauched and robbed" The tone is moralistic disapproval wrapped in exaggerated wit. The author presents Los Angeles as a cautionary tale of American excess: prosperity enabling hedonism, technology enabling danger, and commercialization degrading traditional values. This reflects early-20th-century anxieties about urbanization and modernity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
21 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang color is irrigation that turns the brown earth green. The “oil” is petroleum from which modern mining masters are making millions compared with the price the oils of the old mas- ters bring. Murder is one of the fine arts of Los Angeles, promoted by autos which assume the pedestrian has no rights and deliberately knock him right and left and leave him bruised and bleeding. The trouble is not so much wine as auto-intoxication. There is an auto to every thirteen inhabitants, which may account for so many unlucky accidents. The auto roads in the state are the finest in the world. They can’t be called “rotten” even though they are made from decomposed granite. Most attractive are the beaches near Los Angeles. Here caterpillar trams crawl along, sidewalks which swarm with gum-chewers, popcorn-munchers, gingerale-guzzlers, peanut- masticators, hawkers of red hot dogs, spitters of tobacco, ice cream cone venders, stylish freaks and freakish styles, nice and naughty men, good and bad girls, and roller skaters. I grew dizzy at Ferris wheels, aeroplanes, roller- coasters, the plunge bath of the great un- washed, pavilions of dirt, drink, dancing and dissipation. Over all there hung a Cologne variety of smells. Couples were swinging in pier dance halls to ragtime orchestras. There were high dives in the water, and low dives on the street where the innocent were doped, debauched and robbed. Noise was raised to the