Newspaper History

Month: February 2023

  • ’Tis Life Beyond

    From the Newark Evening Star, February 8, 1915.

    I watched a sail until it dropped from sight
    Over a rounding sea. A gleam of white—
    A last far-flashed farewell, and like a thought
    Slipt out of mind, it vanished and was not.

    Yet to the helmsman standing at the wheel
    Broad seas still stretched beneath the gliding keel.
    Disaster? Change? He felt no slightest sign,
    Nor dreamed he of that far horizon line.

    So may it be, perchance, when down the tide
    Our dear ones vanish, peacefully they glide
    On level seas, nor mark the unknown bound.
    We call it death—to them ’tis life beyond.

  • My Son!

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 7, 1915.

    Yes, sir, I know; and your words are kind, an’ I tell you, sir, I’ve tried
    To think we can find the things we’ve lost, when we get to the other side.
    I’d give all I’ve got, sir, to know ’twas true, but I can’t, I just can’t see
    How some of those lost, those dear lost things’ll ever come back to me.
    I shall see her there; I know she stands right close to the pearly gate,
    Waitin’; and soon I too’ll be there; she won’t have long to wait,
    But when she asks for the boy—our boy—‘at she left when she went away—
    Asks all those questions a mother will—Oh, what am I going to say?
    Well, as I know he’s been dead this many and many a year,
    Do you think I’d dare to ask up there, “What! haven’t you seen him here?”

    God gives men power for good or ill that ain’t for this world alone;
    They can lift a soul to the gates up there in the light of the great white throne,
    Or sink it low as they sunk my boy—such beautiful eyes he had—
    Brown like his mother’s—you’d never have thought such eyes could have turned out so bad.
    An’ he wern’t bad either, but true and good, but—perhaps you know the rest—
    There was only one for to bring him up, and I tried to do my best;
    But the world, an’ the flesh, an’ the drink are strong an’ some men’s hearts are stone,
    An’ I tell you it seemed sometimes as if I was fightin’ ‘em all alone.
    For them as’ll lift their fellowmen there’s waitin’ a starry crown,
    But honor and power and wealth is got by them as’ll pull ‘em down.

    Most men they hope for the crown sometime, but they want it the shortest way,
    An’ they do their best an’ their hardest work for a different sort o’ pay.
    So, the world spins on at its rattlin’ gait as hard as ever she can,
    An’ it don’t much matter that boys are lost if they belong to some other man.
    One night—dead drunk—they brought him home—my boy—an’ I laid him there,
    The blood of a street fight on his face, an’ the gutter mud in his hair.
    He never knew me nor spoke again, drunk an’ asleep he died,
    An’ I prayed that his mother’d never know how we laid him by her side.
    Yes, the golden streets an’ the jasper walls—I’ve read of ‘em all—but then
    Do you believe, sir, that over there I shall find my boy again?

  • Creeds

    From The Bridgeport Evening Farmer, February 6, 1915.

    Believe as I believe, no more, no less;
    That I am right, and no one else, confess;
    Feel as I feel, think only as I think;
    Eat what I eat, and drink but what I drink;
    Look as I look, do always as I do,
    And then, and only then, I’ll fellowship with you.

    That I am right, and always right, I know,
    Because my own convictions tell me so;
    And to be right is simply this to be
    Entirely and in all respects like me;
    To deviate a hair’s breadth, or begin
    To question, doubt, or hesitate, is sin.

    I reverence the Bible if it be
    Translated first and then explained by me;
    By churchly laws and customs I abide,
    If they with my opinion coincide;
    All creeds and doctrines I admit divine,
    Excepting those which disagree with mine.

    Let sink the drowning if he will not swim
    Upon the plank that I throw out to him;
    Let starve the hungry if he will not eat
    My kind and quality of bread and meat;
    Let freeze the naked if he will not be
    Clothed in such garments as are made for me.

    ‘Twere better that the sick should die than live,
    Unless they take the medicine I give;
    ‘Twere better sinners perish than refuse
    To be conformed to my peculiar views;
    ‘Twere better that the world stand still than move
    In any other way than that which I approve.

  • In Memoriam

    From the Evening Journal, February 5, 1915.

    How long he struggled against disease,
        That baffled skill and care;
    How long he lingered, racked with pain,
        And suffering hard to bear.

    Hour by hour we saw him fade,
        And slowly sink away,
    Yet in our hearts we prayed
        That he might longer stay.

    His willing hands are folded
        His toils on earth are done;
    His troubles are all ended,
        His heavenly crown is won.

    Oft we wander to the graveyard,
        Flowers to place with loving care;
    On the grave of our dear father,
        Who so sweetly sleepeth there.

  • The Children’s Army

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, February 4, 1915. By Elias Lieberman.

    No tune of tootling fife,
        No beat of the rolling drum,
    And yet with the thrill of life
        The hordes of children come,
    Freckled and chubby and lean,
        Indifferent, good and bad,
    Bedraggled and dirty and clean,
        Richly and poorly clad,
    They come on toddling feet
        To the schoolhouse door ahead;
    The neighboring alley and street
        Resound to the infant tread.
    Children of those who came
        To the land of the promising west,
    Foreign of face and name,
        Are shoulder to shoulder pressed
    With the youth of the native land
        In the quest of truth and light,
    As the valorous little band
        Trudges to left and right.
    Creed and color and race
        Unite from the ends of the earth,
    Blending each noble trace
        In the pride of a glorious birth.
    Race and hate and the past
        Fuse in a melting heat
    As the little hearts beat fast
        To the stir of a common beat,
    A fresher brawn and brain
        For the stock which the fates destroy
    Belong to the cosmic strain
        Of American girl and boy.

  • Man Who Didn’t Succeed

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, February 3, 1915. By Peter Reed.

    They sing of the men who build the mills
    And girdle the earth with steel;
    Who fill the hour and wield the power
    That moulds the public weal.
    Honor to them that in honor do
    The work that the world must need,
    And yet in chief I hold a brief
    For the Man Who Didn’t Succeed.

    ’Tis not to excuse the indolent;
    Nor plea for the down and out;
    Nor specious rot condemning what
    The leaders are about.
    Merely to ask in a casual way
    Of those who chance to read,
    For fairer view, and kinder, too,
    Of the Man Who Didn’t Succeed.

    His house is small, his table light;
    His family must endure
    The snubs and sneers of the buccaneers
    Whose debts fall on the poor.
    Yet his is a home and no hotel,
    His wife is a wife, indeed.
    There’s nothing above his children’s love
    To the Man Who Didn’t Succeed.

    Admitting it’s true that he did not make
    The most of his talents ten,
    He won no pelf nor raised himself
    At the cost of his fellowmen.
    His hands are clean, his heart is white,
    His honor has been his creed—
    Now who are we to say that he
    Is the Man Who Didn’t Succeed?

  • Death of Henry Wohlleb

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 2, 1915. By John Osborn Sargent.

    On the field in front of Frastenz, drawn up in battle array,
    Stretched spear on spear in a crescent, the German army lay;
    Behind a wall of bucklers stood bosoms steeled with pride,
    And a stiff wood of lances that all assaults defied.

    Oh, why, ye men of Switzerland, from your Alpine summits sally,
    And armed with clubs and axes descend into the valley?
    “The wood just grown at Frastenz with our axes we would fell,
    To build homesteads from its branches, where Liberty may dwell.”

    The Swiss on the German lances rush with impetuous shock;
    It is spear on spear in all quarters—they are dashed like waves from a rock.
    His teeth then gnashed the Switzer, and the mocking German cried:
    “See how the snout of the greyhound is pierced by the hedgehog’s hide!”

    Like a song of resurrection, then sounded from the ranks:
    “Illustrious shade, Von Winkelried! To thee I render thanks;
    Thou beckonest, I obey thee! Up, Swiss, and follow me!”
    Thus the voice of Henry Wohlleb from the ranks rang loud and free.

    From its shaft he tore the banner and twined it round his breast,
    And hot with lust of death on the serried lances pressed;
    His red eyes from their sockets like flaming torches glared,
    And in front, in place of the banner, waved the locks of his snow white hair.

    The spears of six knights together—in his hands he seizes all—
    And thereon thrusts his bosom—there’s a breach in the lances’ wall.
    With vengeance fired, the Switzers storm the battle’s perilous ridge,
    And the corpse of Henry Wohlleb to their vengeance is the bridge.

  • An Ode: Boadicea

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, February 1, 1915. By William Cowper.

    When the British warrior queen,
        Bleeding from the Roman rods,
    Sought, with an indignant mien,
        Counsel of her country’s gods,

    Sage beneath the spreading oak
        Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
    Every burning word he spoke
        Full of rage, and full of grief.

    “Princess! If our aged eyes
        Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
    ’Tis because resentment ties
        All the terror of our tongues.

    “Rome shall perish—write that word
        In the blood that she has spilt—
    Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
        Deep in ruin as in guilt.

    “Rome, for empire far renowned,
        Tramples on a thousand states;
    Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—
        Hark! The Gaul is at her gates!

    “Other Romans shall arise,
        Heedless of a soldier’s name;
    Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,
        Harmony the path to fame.

    “Then the progeny that springs
        From the forests of our land,
    Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
        Shall a wider world command.

    “Regions Caesar never knew
        Thy posterity shall sway;
    Where his eagles never flew,
        None invincible as they.”

    Such the bard’s prophetic words,
        Pregnant with celestial fire,
    Bending as he swept the chords
        Of his sweet but awful lyre.

    She, with all a monarch’s pride
        Felt them in her bosom glow;
    Rushed to battle, fought and died;
        Dying, hurled them at the foe.

    “Ruffians, pitiless as proud!
        Heaven awards the vengeance due;
    Empire is on us bestowed,
        Shame and ruin wait for you.”