Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 57 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 57: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three gossip-column items satirizing 1920s celebrity and social scandals: 1. **The McLaughlin fight**: Major Frederick McLaughlin (husband of famous dancer Irene Castle) beat up a traveling salesman aboard a ship for making inappropriate remarks about Castle. The joke plays on Prohibition-era boxing matches held illegally beyond the three-mile limit. 2. **Elinor Glyn controversy**: Actress/novelist Elinor Glyn sent promotional stills of her film "Three Weeks" to Spain's queen but allegedly snubbed England's queen. The satire humorously suggests this diplomatic slight might damage Anglo-Spanish relations as severely as the historical Spanish Armada. 3. **Will Rogers**: The comedian made irreverent remarks about religion versus entertainment at a luncheon, which a clergy member found amusing rather than offensive. The column's tone mocks celebrity drama and social pretension through exaggeration and sarcasm.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
52 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang NO MATTER what troubles the promoters may have staging bouts in New York, there is plenty of room aboard ship. Thus, like the anti-prohibitionists, they may have to get beyond the three-mile limit. All of which is brought to mind by a lively set-to aboard the Steamship President Taft. While that vessel was plying the waters off Japan, Major Frederick McLaughlin, husband of Irene Castle, soundly thrashed a traveling man who made remarks about the dancer. It was a fight to a decision—said decision reached by the trounced traveling man that it isn't healthy to talk about a soldier's wife. *** Chalk up another European fracas on the social calendar—it's coming off. Elinor Glyn has sent stills of THREE WEEKS to the Queen of Spain—and she is said to have failed to mail any to the Queen of England. Just wait until royal circles hear about it! Relations between the two countries may get as strained as they were back in the days when Spain sent its Invincible Armada against Albion. *** WILL ROGERS has his own opinions about the relative values of screen and pulpit. He expressed a few of these ideas at a luncheon not long ago, while one of the gentlemen of the cloth sat by and chuckled over the comedian's after-dinner speech. ***