Newspaper History

Month: January 2023

  • An Employment Seeker

    From the Evening Star, January 21, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    I long to serve my native land
        With efforts intellectual.
    I seek to lend a helping hand
        To struggles ineffectual.
    I will appeal to wealth and ease
        And likewise to the gallery.
    But first one question, if you please;
        Let’s talk about the salary.

    I fain would educate mankind
        To standards altitudinous.
    The manners we must leave behind
        That are considered rude in us.
    This world we’ll turn into a school,
        Likewise a sanitarium;
    But, touching on the golden rule,
        What is the honorarium?

  • Discontent

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, January 20, 1915.

    Formed of the elemental fierce unrest
    That seethes forever in the human breast,
    Coeval with the race of Man am I.
    I seem a curse from which he fain would fly;
    And in his efforts to escape from me
    He pits his might against Immensity,
    And bends the laws of Nature to his will;
    Yet I shall goad him ever on until
    He solve the problem of Infinity
    And read the meaning of life’s mystery.
    Then when he rests on heights as yet untrod,
    And learns that he himself is part of God,
    He’ll know that I first taught him to aspire—
    That I, the Curse, impelled him from the mire.

  • Tests of Life

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, January 19, 1915. By Minedith Hurst.

    The severest tests of the elements
        Produce the old oak tree—
    King—with a forest’s reverence,
        Enwrapped in majesty.

    Nor yet supreme, for needs must he
        Maintain his monarchy.
    So let the storms rage wild and free,
        And winds blow wrathfully.

    Strong characters in life evolve
        Through constant stress and pain,
    And only by perpetual strife
        May they that height sustain.

  • The Day

    From the Evening Journal, January 18, 1915. By Henry Chappell.

    (The author of this magnificent poem is a railway porter at Bath, England, and is known to his comrades as the “Bath Railway Poet.” A poem such as this lifts him to the rank of a national poet).

    You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day,
        And now the Day has come.
    Blasphemer, braggart, and coward all,
    Little you reck of the numbing ball,
    The blasting shell, or the “white arm’s” fall,
        As they speed poor humans home.

    You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day,
        And woke the Day’s red spleen.
    Monster, who asked God’s aid divine,
    Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine;
    Not all the waters of all the Rhine
        Can wash thy foul hands clean.

    You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day;
        Watch how the Day will go.
    Slayer of age and youth and prime
    (Defenceless slain for never a crime)
    Thou art steeped in blood as a hog in slime,
        False friend and cowardly foe.

    You have sown for the Day, you have grown for the Day;
        Yours is the harvest red.
    Can you hear the groans and the awful cries?
    Can you see the heap of slain that lies,
    And sightless turned to the flame-split skies
        The glassy eyes of the dead?

    You have wronged for the Day, you have longed for the Day
        That lit the awful flame.
    ’Tis nothing to you that hill and plain
    Yield sheaves of dead men amid the grain;
    That widows mourn for their loved ones slain,
        And mothers curse thy name.

    But after the Day there’s a price to pay
        For the sleepers under the sod.
    And Him you have mocked for many a day—
    Listen, and hear what He has to say,
    “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”
        What can you say to God?

  • The True Trail

    From The Sun, January 17, 1915.

    There’s a trail that’s rough and rocky,
        And it stretches to the sun,
    Through the heart of mart and jungle,
        Where earth’s valiant deeds are done.

    ’Tis the trail of true endeavor,
        Which the men of ages trod,
    And it runs beyond the sunset
        To the golden throne of God.

  • Work the Blessing

    From the Newark Evening Star, January 16, 1915. By Ninette M. Lowater.

    Once I thanked God for many a glittering thing
        Which now I know was worthless and which passed
        With things forgotten and behind me cast,
    As I moved onward, borne by time’s swift wing,
    But never thought I then that work could be
        God’s gift, but rather, punishment it seemed;
        And often in my lonely hours I dreamed
    Of days when from its bond I should be free.

    But now I know that work is man’s best friend,
        Heaven’s highest blessing to a world like this;
        And now I ask no longer ease and bliss,
    But only this: “Give me until the end
    Strength for the needed toil as each day passes by.
    When I can work no longer let me die.

  • A Regal Conflict

    From The Topeka State Journal, January 15, 1915. By Eva Dean.

    The Sunset donned a shining robe;
        “Who else is clothed as well as I?”
    She proudly thought. “I always wear
        The latest colors of the sky.”

    She glanced down at the quiet earth,
        So gravely garbed in green and brown,
    And saw the saucy River there,
        Clad in a copy of her gown.

    Indignantly her cloudy scarf
        She flung aside, so all could see
    The splendor of her glowing gold
        And ruby bordered drapery.

    But straightway, from her bed below,
        The laughing River flaunted wide
    A garment quite as elegant,
        Spread broadly on her flowing tide.

    The angry Sunset, mortified,
        Flushed crimson with embarrassment,
    But down below the River mocked,
        Still shamelessly impertinent.

    Then, purple in her stately rage,
        The Sunset’s glowing visage grew;
    And straight, the River’s dimpled face
        Took on an angry purple, too!

    No more could any Sunset stand.
        She dropped her veil of midnight blue;
    But first she pricked some holes therein
        To watch the flippant River through.

    The River saw the tiny holes
        With their escaping beams so bright,
    And scattered o’er her dancing waves
        As many a taunting, twinkling light.

    So they contend, as they have done,
        For ages more than man has known—
    Wee little man, who, down below,
        Thinks all life’s conflicts are his own!

  • The Cry of the Dreamer

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, January 14, 1915. By John Boyle O’Reilly.

    I am tired of planning and toiling
        In the crowded hives of men;
    Heart-weary of building and spoiling
        And spoiling and building again.
    And I long for the dear old river,
        Where I dreamed my youth away,
    For a dreamer lives forever,
        And a toiler dies in a day.

    I am sick of the showy seeming
        Of a life that is half a lie;
    Of the faces lined with scheming
        In the throng that hurries by.
    From the sleepless thought’s endeavor,
        I would go where the children play;
    For a dreamer lives forever
        And a thinker dies in a day.

    I can feel no pride, but pity,
        For the burdens the rich endure;
    There is nothing sweet in the city
        But the patient lives of the poor.
    Oh, the little hands too skillful,
        And the child mind choked with weeds!
    The daughter’s heart grown willful,
        And the father’s heart that bleeds!

    No, no! from the street’s rude bustle,
        From trophies of mart and stage,
    I would fly to the wood’s low rustle
        And the meadow’s kindly page.
    Let me dream as of yore by the river
        And be loved for the dream alway;
    For a dreamer lives forever,
        And a thinker dies in a day.

  • A Sad Story of Life

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, January 13, 1915.

    A member of the chorus
        Who visited a seer
    Was told that in six months she would
        Be married to a peer.

    Such talk should be discounted,
        It leads young girls astray;
    This maiden bought a lot of things
        For which she could not pay.

    And when she’d hoped to marry
        Her luck was very poor,
    For she was doing one-night stands
        She’d never done before.

    And no one said, “My lady,
        His lordship waits below.”
    Instead she warbled ragtime songs
        And critics panned the show.

  • The Mystery

    From The Topeka State Journal, January 12, 1915. By Edward H. Pfeiffer.

    I am a coward, that I know.
        I am a nothingness, sham;
        And yet withal I feel I am
    Fine-chiseled as a cameo.

    I am a crust of slimy mire,
        A slave to fear, to doubt, to shame;
        And yet I feel within my flame
    A soaring spark of solar fire.

    I am a clotted, earthly clod,
        A shade, a mere nonentity;
        I know the beast that lurks in me,
    And yet I feel that I am God!