Newspaper History

Month: November 2022

  • The Reason

    From The Topeka State Journal, November 30, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

    Got a letter yesterday
        From my cousin Jim.
    Guess it’s been almost a year
        Since I’ve heard from him.
    Says he hopes I’m prosperin’,
        For he’s fond of me;
    Hopes I’ll drop the old-time grudge
        An’ be friends you see.
    Takes occasion to remark,
        Incidental like,
    New kid at this house is named
        In my honor, Ike.

    Uncle Pete has written me,
        Quite a letter, too;
    Hopes my health is on the gain,
        Then hands me a few
    Hot ones on his love for me;
        Says it is intense,
    Like to see me if he could,
        Barrin’ the expense.
    To’ard the close he manages
        To slip in a line
    That the suit I gin him once
        Lasted three years, fine.

    Cousin Hank and Brother Bill
        Both have written home,
    Tellin’ us about their trip,
        Where they’re apt to roam.
    They’ve been gone eleven months,
        Prospectin’ out west;
    First we’ve heard from them is now;
        Said they’d done their best
    But their luck seemed kinder poor,
        They’re homesick, almost.
    ‘Long about the twenty-fifth
        They’ll reach Painted Post.

    Letters comin’ all the time,
        Mailmen, as a rule,
    Say I must be runnin’ some
        Correspondence school.
    Sisters, uncles, cousins, aunts,
        Long forgotten friends,
    Sending picture postal cards
        Just to make amends.
    But the end of this rush will
        Come soon, never fear.
    Reason for it all is this:
        Christmas time is near.

  • A Little Nonsense

    From the Evening Star, November 29, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    A little nonsense now and then
    Is relished by the best of men;
    But so is ice cream, cake and pie.
    ’Tis surely a mistake to try
    To make a meal of stuff that’s sweet,
    Avoiding simple bread and meat.
    And when a statesman is inclined
    To dish up for the public mind
    A mental bill of fare that’s made
    Of syrup, fluff and marmalade,
    The public, weary though polite,
    Complains of loss of appetite
    And turns away, with yearning fraught
    For simple, homemade food for thought.

  • The Children

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, November 28, 1914. By Charles Dickens.

    When the lessons and tasks are all ended
        And the school for the day is dismissed,
    And the little ones gather around me
        To bid me “good night,” and be kissed;
    O, the little white arms that encircle
        My neck in a tender embrace;
    O, the smiles that are halos of Heaven,
        Shedding the sunshine of love on my face.

    And when they are gone I set dreaming
        Of my childhood, too lovely to last;
    Of love that my heart will remember
        When it wakes to the pulse of the past.
    Ere the world and its wickedness made me
        A partner of sorrow and sin,
    When the glory of God was about me
        And the glory of gladness within.

    O, my heart grows weak as a woman’s,
        And the fountains of feeling will flow,
    When I think of the paths, steep and stony
        Where the feet of the dear ones must go;
    Of the mountains of sin hanging o’er them,
        Of the tempests of fate blowing wild;
    O, there is nothing on earth half so holy
        As the innocent heart of a child.

    They are idols of hearts and of households,
        They are angels of God in disguise;
    His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
        His glory still gleams in their eyes.
    O, those truants from home and from Heaven,
        They have made me manly and mild
    And I know now how Jesus could liken
        The kingdom of God to a child.

    I ask not a life for the dear ones
        All radiant, as others have done.
    But that life may have just enough shadow
        To temper the glare of the sun.
    I would pray God to guard them from evil
        But my prayers would bound back to myself
    Ah, a seraph may pray for a sinner,
        But a sinner must pray for himself.

    The twig is so easily bended,
        I have banished the rule and the rod;
    I have taught them the goodness of knowledge,
        They have taught me the wisdom of God.
    My heart is a dungeon of darkness,
        Where I shut them from breaking a rule.
    My frown is sufficient correction
        My love is the law of the school.

    I shall leave the old house in the Autumn
        To traverse its threshold no more.
    Ah, how I shall sigh for the dear ones
        That mustered each morn at the door!
    I shall miss the “good nights” and the kisses
        And the gush of their innocent glee,
    The group on the green and the flowers
        That are brought every morning to me.

    I shall miss them at morn and at eve,
        Their song in the school and the street;
    I shall miss the low hum of their voices
        And the tramp of their delicate feet.
    When the lessons and tasks are all ended,
        And Death says “the school is dismissed,”
    May the little ones gather around me,
        To bid me “good night” and be kissed.

  • The Old Clock

    From the Evening Star, November 27, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    My Uncle Jim, he has a clock.
        He bought it years ago.
    It used to sound a smart “tick tock,”
        But now it’s kept for show.
    It used to move with nimble hands
        To count the minutes o’er,
    But now its record always stands
        At strictly half-past four.

    “It’s weary now,” said Uncle Jim.
        “It did its work right well;
    And fading into memories dim
        Are tales it used to tell.
    It sort of halted on the way
        It went so well of yore.
    And, finally, it stopped one day
        Right there, at half-past four.

    “That is the hour when I awoke
        To greet the dawn anew,
    And next, the hour that softly spoke
        Of toiling almost through.
    My old clock tells of early day
        Of the rest in store;
    And so I simply let it stay
        Content at half-past four.”

  • Should Not Be Overlooked

    From the Evening Star, November 26, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    A man and his wife in a little back room,
    Who hadn’t an oil stove to lighten the gloom,
    Whose children were learning to ask with a sob
    The reason why father was out of a job,
    Beheld from the window a well-laden dray
    With gifts for the sufferers far, far away.
    “I am tempted,” the woman explained, with a moan,
    “To wish ourselves there, where the want is well known.”

    A generous thrill sets the heart all aglow
    For the sorrows of people we never may know.
    Like astronomers searching the stars far away,
    Regardless of earth and our own little day,
    The distant and strange we would fain understand,
    Regardless of problems that lie close at hand—
    For instance, those folks in the little back room,
    Who shiver and hunger up there in the gloom.

  • The Lawless Heart

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, November 25, 1914. By Berton Braley.

    Dull trade hath bound me in its grip,
        And never shall I be free,
    Yet I dream of the decks of a pirate ship
        In the roll of the open sea;
    I dream of the pennant dread and black
        That flies at the mast alway,
    As we swoop along on a merchant’s track
        In the sting of the flying spray!

    Oh, I am a law-abiding chap,
        Yet deep in my heart I’d be
    A buccaneer with a scarlet cap
        And a Terror of the Sea;
    As lawless and ruthless a bandit brute
        As history ever knew,
    Roaming the seas in search of loot
        At the head of an evil crew!

    Oh, here at home I am meek and mild,
        A man with a family,
    Yet I dream of deeds that are dark and wild
        And of red, red fights at sea;
    And under my breath I softly hum
        A stave from a pirate song,
    And my throat grows parched for pirate rum,
        For I have been dry so long!

    My life is ordered and shaped and bound
        And kept to its rule and line,
    But my thoughts can wander the whole world round
        And my dreams—my dreams are mine!
        And I hungrily long to be
    A pirate chief on a low, black ship
        In the roll of the open sea!

  • Money

    From the Newark Evening Star, November 24, 1914. By Edgar A. Guest.

    I would like to have money and all it will buy,
        But I never will lie to obtain it;
    For wealth I am eager and ready to try,
        But there’s much that I won’t do to gain it.
    I won’t spend my life in a money-mad chase,
        And I’ll never work children to win it;
    I won’t interfere with another man’s race,
        Though millions, perhaps, may be in it.

    There are prosperous things that are crusted with shame
        That I vow I will never engage in.
    There is many a crooked and dishonest game
        With a large and a glittering wage in,
    But I want to walk out with my head held erect,
        Nor bow it and sneakingly turn it;
    Above all your money I place self-respect;
        I’m eager for gold—but I’ll earn it.

  • The Blessings of Hard Times

    From The Topeka State Journal, November 23, 1914. By James J. Montague.

    When Farmer Jones’ Berkshire hog was living on the farm
    His personality was gross, his manner had no charm;
    He daily wallowed in the mud, he guzzled from his trough,
    And grew a mass of embonpoint which nothing could take off.
    And while his body waxed so great that he could hardly crawl,
    His brains became so dull and thick he couldn’t think at all.

    But when one day the farm burned down, the Berkshire hog got loose,
    And had to put his thickening brains to very active use.
    Nobody came to feed him now; he had to hustle ‘round,
    And use his nerve and judgement to provide his daily found.
    And soon new muscles thewed his flanks instead of flabby fat,
    And his once soggy countenance became worth looking at.

    There is no startling moral to this tale of Jones’s swine,
    Except that when one has to work before one sits to dine,
    And has to keep expenses down, the life he learns to lead
    Is pretty sure to keep his brains from running all to seed.
    And though no doubt it will surprise a lot of soft-raised men,
    A little pinch of poverty won’t hurt them—now and then.

  • Father Coyote

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 22, 1914. By George Sterling.

    At twilight time, when the lamps are lit,
    Father Coyote comes to sit
    At the chaparral’s edge, on the mountain side—
    Comes to listen and to deride
    The rancher’s hound and the rancher’s son,
    The passerby and everyone.
    And we pause at milking time to hear
    His reckless caroling, shrill and clear—
    His terse and swift and valorous troll,
    Ribald, rollicking, scornful, droll,
    As one might sing in coyotedom:
    “Yo! ho! ho! and a bottle of rum!”

    Yet well I wot there is little ease
    Where the turkeys roost in the piñon trees,
    But mute forebodings, canny and grim,
    As they shift and shiver along the limb,
    And the dog flings back an answer brief
    (Curse o’ the honest man on the thief),
    And the cat, till now intent to rove,
    Stalks to her lair by the kitchen stove;
    Not that SHE fears the rogue on the hill;
    But—no mice remain, and—the night is chill.

    And now, like a watchman of the skies,
    Whose glance to a thousand valleys flies,
    The moon glares over the granite ledge—
    Pared a slice on its upper edge.
    And Father Coyote waits no more,
    Knowing that down on the valley floor,
    In a sandy nook, all cool and white,
    The rabbits play and the rabbits fight,
    Flopping, nimble, scurrying,
    Careless now with the surge of spring—
    Furry lover, alack! alas!
    Skims your fate o’er the mountain grass!

  • Requiescas in Pace!

    From the New York Tribune, November 21, 1914. By Irwin.

    When you are dead and buried, friend,
        There’s nothing to delight or grieve you;
    You live, you die, and that’s the end,
        Let no religious myth deceive you.

    Your goodly wife no more will meet
        You as you wave the evening paper;
    Once dead you’ll read no sporting sheet,
        You’ll cut no latest fox-trot caper.

    For death destroys your petty “I,”
        You do not know that you’ve existed;
    Though folks may pity you, and cry,
        They’ve got their metaphysics twisted.

    They weep for you and mourn your fate,
        And prate of all the joys you’re losing;
    You’re happy (this they never state),
        In one eternal, dreamless snoozing.

    They moan, dissolved in salty tears,
        Their wailing is a mournful riot;
    The fools! They quake with noisy fears,
        At least you rest in peace and quiet.