Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, February 1922 · page 10 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #30 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical piece from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a post-WWI humor magazine. The main political reference is **Andrew J. Volstead**, the Minnesota congressman who authored the Volstead Act (1919), which enforced Prohibition. The satire mocks Prohibition's failure: the author claims to have found abundant illegal "mountain dew" (whiskey) in rural Minnesota—paradoxically more alcohol than during pre-Prohibition times. This highlights the law's ineffectiveness and the irony that banning alcohol increased bootlegging. The humorous poem listing strange animals (jack-asses, wild boars) encountered while deer hunting is comedic filler typical of the magazine's style. The anecdote about hogs acting strangely around trees is setup for what appears to be a continuation on another page—likely leading to a punchline about the hogs' actual behavior. The overall tone criticizes Volstead and Prohibition as counterproductive federal overreach.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
8 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang treal I hustled to the deer hunting regions of northern Minnesota and found no champagne or other imported wines, but plenty of “moun- tain dew.” With all due respect to Mr. Andrew J. Volstead, our Minnesota congressman, there is today in this grand and glorious land of the free and home of the brave more rotten booze than it was ever my lot to drink in the pre- prohibition days. But to get back to my deer hunting expedi- tion, I must admit that the deer were scarce but— But there were polecats and goosehawks, And a four-legged cow; Wild pigs and wild boars, And a thing like a sow. There were thousands of screech owls, Turkey buzzards and quail, And a little black jack-ass With a damnable tail, With their foll de dol dol And fol de dol day. * * * WHILE flivvering out near Golden Valley, Minnesota, I dropped in at the farm of my old friend, John Foss, to pass the time of day. I noticed a drove of hogs on his timber lot acting peculiar. They would run up to a tree and squeal like mad, then leave that tree and go to another and do the same thing, continuing in their mad scamper around the timber lot.