Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1923 · page 31 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #44 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous rural anecdote masquerading as society news from the Whiz Bang Farm. A prize bull calf named "King Akkrummer Ormsby the 8th" arrives at editor Fawcett's farm, but the existing herd leader Pedro rejects him, biting and bellowing that his "blueblooded pedigree" is fraudulent. After the new bull despairs over being an outcast, the farm's Swedish worker advises him to read "Coueflapposophy" by Dr. Coue—a play on Émile Coué's actual self-help philosophy of autosuggestion ("Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better"). The satire mocks both rustic snobbery and the era's fad self-help movements by applying psychological theory to a despondent livestock problem.
📄 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 31 Robbinsdale Society Notes ET US say here, the society editor is pleased to acknowledge the arrival at the Whiz Bang Farm of a homely but well-bred bull calf, King Ak-krummer Ormsby the 8th. He was given to W. H. Fawcett, our farmer-editor, by Mr. Charles E. Lewis, of Minneapolis, nationally known in bond, grain and cotton circles, at the behest of his nephew, Leonard S. Allen. Pedro didn't take to his new pal very affectionately, biting chunks out of his stall and bellowing that the blueblooded pedigree label was all bull. Pedro's first prank was to line up Rosebud and all the other kine and for a time nobody would have anything to do with the handsome young Bullentino. At the end of the first disheartening week Akkrummer broke down. “Oh, why am I dif-ferent from other boys?” he sobbed to Olaf. “I have to live and I can find no work. What shall I do?” “Read this,” replied Mr. Fawcett's Swedish snoose-hound and pitchfork pedagogue, handing his young friend a book on “Coueflapposophy” by Dr. Coue.