Newspaper History

Month: February 2023

  • The Price of Philosophy

    From the Evening Star, February 28, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    A lot of wisdom was produced by Hezekiah Bings.
    He wrote about the good and true and various other things,
    But his very best production was a long typewritten page
    Descriptive of the vices and the follies of the age.
    He said a man should be above the cares of sordid pelf;
    He ought to seek the birds and flowers and just enjoy himself;
    The stuff that we call money is a superstitious sign
    Which mystifies us as to what is yours and what is mine;
    We should avoid its contact, for with evil it is fraught,
    And happiness is something which with coin cannot be bought.
    The men who crave not lucre, scribbled Hezekiah Bings,
    Escape the cares which have undone philosophers and kings.
    He copied it with care and then—oh, reader, do not laugh—
    He sold those beauteous thoughts for seven dollars and a half.

  • Research

    From the Evening Star, February 27, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    “What constitues ‘Society?’” inquired the Man from Mars;
    “Is it a gathering of wealth and intellectual stars?”
    “Ho! ho!” replied the rustic youth who wore a grin serene,
    “Society’s our Mayday dance upon the village green.”
    “Not so,” the housemaid gaily said, “That isn’t it at all.
    To find society, you should attend the coachman’s ball.”
    The serious woman said, “If for society you search,
    You’ll find the very best there is by coming to my church.”
    The studious one remarked, “The very highest social force
    You may discover if you will attend our lecture course.”
    And some said that society was made for games of chance,
    And others mentioned art and brains and beauty and the dance.
    The Man from Mars looked puzzled and remarked, “It seems to me
    Society is all mankind, including even me;
    And each of us looks just beyond his own familiar sphere;
    The impulse is what made me leave my home and come down here.
    Society’s a picture which we fill with fays and elves
    And, when we meet them, find that they are persons like ourselves.”

  • The Bright Scenes of Nature

    From the Newark Evening Star, February 26, 1915. By J. McKenna.

    In the bright scenes of nature no greater delights
    Than the bright summer mornings and clear, cloudless nights,
    When we think of the beauty of land and of sea
    Then our hearts fill with gladness and happy are we.
    No picture, how skillful, will ever compare
    To the bright scenes of nature so charming and fair,
    The hills and the valleys, the clear running stream,
    All blending together in beauty serene.

    Let us gaze on the sun, on the sweet summer days
    When it shines in all splendor with bright golden rays.
    Once more let us turn to the sky in the West,
    Bright day is declining, all nature at rest.
    Let us list to the nightingale sing in the trees
    And inhale the sweet roses in June’s gentle breeze
    When we sail o’er the ocean, the moon sparkling bright,
    Reflects on the water its clear, silvery light.

    What joy and what pleasure when evening comes on
    To list to the strains of sweet music and song,
    To meet the dear friends that we all love so well
    In our dear native homestead, where happiness dwells.
    The bright scenes of nature and friends that we love
    Is a reflex of Heaven, the land up above.
    Soon springtime and summer once more will be here
    To bring joy and gladness, fond hopes and good cheer.

  • The Good Night Kiss

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, February 25, 1915. By W. D. Humphrey.

    I am tired of tongues that are lying
        In their cunning schemes for gain—
    I am tired of worry and sighing
        That ravish the soul and brain—
    And I long for the peace of the wildwood
        Near the dear old home that I miss,
    And the happy trust of childhood,
        And mother’s good night kiss.

    I am tired of faces smiling
        In deceit to hide the frown—
    And life’s false joys beguiling
        The soul but to drag it down;
    And I long once more to listen
        To the sound of a step I miss—
    That I knew when the tears would glisten
        At my mother’s good night kiss.

    I am tired of all the idols
        That claim a right to my heart—
    I am tired of falsehoods’ bridles
        That are worn by all in the mart.
    And it’s ever the words that were spoken
        In truth and love that I miss—
    When each night I received their token
        In my mother’s good night kiss.

    I am tired of living and learning
        That the false exceeds the true—
    I am tired with years of yearning
        For a love like my childhood knew
    When life seemed not deceiving,
        And I dreamed it held but bliss—
    When I slept in peace believing
        In mother’s good night kiss.

  • The Old, Old Song

    From the Newark Evening Star, February 24, 1915. By Charles Kingsley.

    When all the world is young, lad,
        And all the trees are green;
    And every goose a swan, lad,
        And every lass a queen;
    Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
        And round the world away;
    Young blood must have its course, lad,
        And every dog his day.

    When all the world is old, lad,
        And all the trees are brown;
    And all the sport is stale, lad,
        And all the wheels run down;
    Creep home, and take your place there,
        The spent and maimed among;
    God grant you find one face there
        You loved when all was young.

  • Hunger

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 23, 1915. By Dana Burnet.

    The Starving Men they walk the dusk,
        With hunger in their eyes.
    To them a Lighted House is like
        A lamp of Paradise.

    It is the Window in the dusk
        That marks the drifter’s coast;
    It is the thought of Love and Light
        That mocks the drifter most.

    Now I have been a Starving Man
        And walked the winter dusk;
    And I have known how life may be
        A Heaven and a Husk.

    The Fainting Hands they pulled my sleeve,
        And bade me curse the Light.
    But I had seen a Rich Man’s face
        That looked into the night.

    A hungry face, a brother face,
        That stared into the gloom,
    And starved for Life and starved for Love
        Within a lighted room.

  • The Comforter

    From the Rock Island Argus, February 22, 1915. By Anne P. Field.

    Silent is the house. I sit
    In the twilight and I knit.
    At my ball of soft gray wool
    Two gray kittens gently pull—
    Pulling back my thoughts as well
    From that distant, red-rimmed hell,
    And hot tears the stitches blur
    As I knit a comforter.

    “Comforter” they call it—yet,
    Such it is for my distress,
    For it gives my restless hands
    Blessed work. God understands
    How we women yearn to be
    Doing something ceaselessly—
    Anything but just to wait
    Idly for a clicking gate!

    So I knit this long gray thing
    Which some fearless lad will fling
    Round him in the icy blast,
    With the shrapnel whistling past;
    “Comforter” it may be then,
    Like a mother’s touch again,
    And at last, not gray, but red,
    Be a pillow for the dead!

  • Confidence

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

    The news is most discouragin’ at Pohick-on-the-Crick.
    The joy is gettin’ thinner an’ the gloom is growin’ thick.
    But underneath the willows there’s a space of ripplin’ stream
    Where the sunlight seems to sparkle with a soft, peculiar gleam.
    The birds come sweetly singin’ to the hours that drift away,
    An’ the great, big world seems peaceful an’ contented for a day.
    You toss a line an’ watch it, with your troubles all forgot,
    An’ it doesn’t make much difference if you catch a fish or not.

    The fish, of course, is mighty large on which your hope is set,
    But it keeps you interested, if a nibble’s all you get.
    Somewhere the world is strugglin’ in the darkness an’ despair,
    An’ perhaps your turn will come to land a hand an’ do your share.
    But we all have a notion that the future is secure,
    No matter what our feelin’s may be called on to endure;
    Fur some day we’ll have time to tie a string onto a stick
    An’ go a-fishin’ once again at Pohick-on-the-Crick.

  • Song of Life

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, February 20, 1915. By Charles Mackay.

    A traveler on a dusty road
        Strewed acorns on the lea;
    And one took root and sprouted up,
        And grew into a tree.
    Love sought its shade at even-time,
        To breathe its early vows;
    And Age was pleased, in heights of noon,
        To bask beneath its boughs.
    The dormouse loved its dangling twigs,
        The birds sweet music bore—
    It stood a glory in its place,
        A blessing ever more.

    A little spring had lost its way
        Amid the grass and fern;
    A passing stranger scooped a well
        Where weary men might turn.
    He walled it in, and hung with care
        A ladle on the brink;
    He thought not of the deed he did,
        But judged that Toil might drink.
    He passed again, and lo! the well,
        By summer never dried,
    Had cooled ten thousand parched tongues,
        And saved a life beside.

    A nameless man, amid the crowd,
        That thronged the daily mart,
    Let fall a word of hope and love,
        Unstudied from the heart—
    A whisper on the tumult thrown,
        A transitory breath,
    It raised a brother from the dust,
        It saved a soul from death.
    O germ! O fount! O word of love!
        O thought at random cast!
    Ye were but little at the first,
        But mighty at the last.

  • The Sorrowfullest Thing

    From the Newark Evening Star, February 19, 1915. By H. M.

    “This is the sorrowfullest thing to know,”
    The Persian said, “the coming of the woe,
        And have no power to stay
        The inevitable day.”

    But he who had the power to bless, and chose
    Iron and blood, and now foresees the close—
        I reckon such a king
        Earth’s sorrowfullest thing.

    He living plumbs the dark abyss of hell,
    Who shudders for the land he loves so well,
        And knows, beyond recall,
        Himself the cause of all.