Newspaper History

Month: June 2022

  • The Lamp of Learning

    From the Rock Island Argus, June 29, 1914. By Henry Howland.

    The preacher looks out over empty pews,
        The scholar sits unnoticed and alone;
    The poet, collarless and needing shoes,
        Sings soulfully, unheeded and unknown.

    The actor who was born to grace the stage
        Reads splendidly the lines penned by the bard,
    But no one notices his noble rage,
        He is a creature robbed of all regard.

    The artist who has striven well and long
        Walks through the empty gallery and sighs;
    His canvases attract no eager throng,
        And hunger dulls the luster of his eyes.

    The halls of art are desolate and drear,
        The sacred lamp of learning feebly glows;
    Round roped arenas people wildly cheer,
        Or overcrowd the moving picture shows.

  • The Bloodless Sportsman

    From The Sun, June 28, 1914. By Henry Kelman.

    I go a-gunning, but take no gun;
        I fish without a pole;
    And I bag good game and catch such fish
        As suit a sportsman’s soul.

    For the choicest game that the forest holds,
        And the best fish of the brook
    Are never brought down by a rifle shot,
        And are never caught with a hook.

    I bob for fish by the forest brook,
        I hunt for game in the trees.
    For bigger birds than wing the air
        Or fish than swim the seas.

    A rodless Walton of the brooks,
        A bloodless sportsman I—
    I hunt for the thoughts that throng the woods,
        The dreams that haunt the sky.

    The woods were made for the hunters of dreams,
        The brooks for the fishers of song;
    To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
        The streams and the woods belong.

    There are thoughts that moan from the soul of the pine,
        And thoughts in a flower bell curled;
    And the thoughts that are blown with the scent of the fern
        Are as new and as old as the world.

  • The Summer Rain

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, June 27, 1914. By Ninette M. Lowater.

    I hear her dancing on the roof, the fairy footed rain!
    I hear her dancing in the eaves and tapping at the pane;
    I hear her calling to the flowers and to the creeping grass,
    And they come laughing up to greet her footsteps as they pass.

    She brings the promise of the year of food for hungry herds,
    Shelter and good for wildwood things, and for the singing birds;
    And food for man, the dainty fruits, the yellow wheat and corn,
    And all the largesse of the earth are of her bounty born.

    Sing high and sweet, O summer rain; with verdure crown the hills;
    Fill to the brim our wells and springs, fill all the little rills;
    Earth laughs with joy to see you spread your banners in the sky,
    For in the bounteous gifts you bring our wealth and welfare lie.

  • Fortunate Man

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, June 26, 1914.

    He does not yearn for riches
        That may be wrongly spent;
    He plods along life’s highway,
        His heart filled with content.

    Great fame may never crown him,
        Nor minions on him wait,
    But he knows where fish are biting
        And his backyard’s full of bait.

  • An Impractical Idea

    From the Evening Star, June 25, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    The Oriental dreams about a future blissful state—
    Nirvana, which will find him all oblivious to fate.
    Mohammed gave his followers a heaven of their own,
    Which those with our ideas are inclined to let alone.
    There is a heaven for each mortal striving here below;
    For some the pace is rapid and some want it rather slow.
    I fear my own ideal to a scanty height ascends—
    Just let me sit around addressing post cards to my friends.

    There’s a gentle satisfaction that is never known to fail
    In taking up your pen and sending scenery by mail;
    Or if a certain taste for art or humor you’d display,
    You can find a funny jingle or a picture bluntly gay.
    When weary of this mortal strife, oh, let me find a spot
    Where I can scratch a line about the climate, cool or hot,
    And somehow, o’er the distance which its strange enchantment lends,
    Devote myself to sending picture cards to all my friends!

  • At the Closed Gate of Justice

    From The Detroit Times, June 24, 1914. By James D. Corrothers.

    To be a Negro in a day like this
        Demands forgiveness. Bruised with blow on blow,
    Betrayed, like him whose woe-dimmed eyes gave bliss,
        Still must one succor those who brought one low,
    To be a Negro in a day like this.

    To be a Negro in a day like this
        Demands rare patience—patience that can wait
    In utter darkness. ’Tis the path to miss,
        And knock, unheeded, at an iron gate,
    To be a Negro in a day like this.

    To be a Negro in a day like this
        Demands strange loyalty. We serve a flag
    Which is to us white freedom’s emphasis.
        Ah! One must love when truth and justice lag,
    To be a Negro in a day like this.

    To be a Negro in a day like this—
        Alas! Lord God, what evil have we done?
    Still shines the gate, all gold and amethyst,
        But I pass by, the glorious goal unwon,
    “Merely a Negro”—in a day like this!

  • Fourth of July

    From the Evening Star, June 23, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    No dangers lurk in the display
        Of sizz-wheel or of rocket.
    So safe and sane we’ve made the day
        That no one dares to knock it.
    We’ll organize a picnic crowd.
        We’ll have a fine attendance
    And father will recite aloud
        About our Independence.

    Some pickles and some eggs we’ll take
        And pie—we’ll have to risk it.
    We’ll have ice cream, sardines and cake
        And special homemade biscuit.
    We are a bold and hardy race,
        But on the day in question
    The only perils we can face
        Are those of indigestion.

  • Business and the Golden Rule

    From the Rock Island Argus, June 22, 1914. By Henry Howland.

    A Chicago businessman says that no business man could live up to the principles of the golden rule.

    “Oh, let’s have done with the Golden Rule,
        For it isn’t business;
    It may do for the dreamer still or the fool,
        But it isn’t business.
    Let the poet sing on of brotherly love,
        And the joy that is earned through being kind;
    Let the preacher prate on of glory above—
        That will do for the meek and the lame and the blind,
            But it isn’t business.

    “You may fail, if you please, to gouge where you can,
        But it isn’t business;
    You may hate to bear hard on another man,
        But it isn’t business!
    You may scorn to undo one who’s weaker than you,
        And seek no more than you’ve earned,
    You may treat other men as you’d have them treat you,
        But, beaten and poor, at last you’ll have learned
            That it isn’t business.”

    Has it come to this? Must we deem it so?
        Then adieu to business!
    Let us back to the fields and the plow and the hoe,
        And have done with business.
    Yet, because some weeds have grown rank and tall
        Shall we say no flowers shall bloom again?
    There is greed, but it hasn’t engulfed us all,
        And honor is still in the hearts of men
            Who are doing business.

  • The Changing Picture

    From the Evening Star, June 21, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    How softly fall the memory lights
        On pictures of the past
    As still and sultry grow the nights
        That shade the glare at last.
    When like a furnace breath so hot
        The breezes ebb and flow,
    You think about the cherished spot
        Where once you shoveled snow.

    The eager tingle of the blast
        No more seems harsh and rude.
    That sky with clouds all overcast
        Seems gentle and subdued.
    Oh, how we wailed the bitter lot
        That faced us months ago,
    And now how lovely seems the spot
        Where once we shoveled snow.

  • How Not to Charm Him

    From the Rock Island Argus, June 20, 1914. By Henry Howland

    She railed at the man who had wooed her, because
    He was not such a man as another man was;
    She scolded him over the teacups and when
    The market went wrong she scolded again;
    She complained when he smoked, it was sinful, she said;
    She complained when he took up his paper and read;
    Each day she complained that his love had grown cold
    And she sighed to be loved as he loved her of old;
    She envied her neighbor and murmured, “Ah, me!
    Her husband still loves her! How happy I’d be
    To be loved as she is, to be cherished—alas!
    How our idols are broken, how soon the dreams pass!”

    Her neighbor, so blessed and so cherished, had praise
    For him that so loved her; in many glad ways
    She showed that she thought him exalted and wise;
    She flattered him fondly; she watched with glad eyes
    To see him approaching, to greet him at night;
    She brought his cigar and she gave him a light;
    When he made a mistake, as the wisest may do,
    It was never his fault, that she told him she knew.
    She was satisfied just as he was; she would not
    Have him changed by the very least tittle or jot.
    And through days that were fair and through days that were gray
    She loved and was loved and went singing away.

    There is nothing more sure, more absolute than
    That no woman can scold love into a man.