Newspaper History

Month: April 2023

  • Our Own

    From the Newark Evening Star, April 20, 1915. By Margaret E. Sangster.

    If I had known in the morning
    How wearily all the day
        The words unkind
        Would trouble my mind
    I said when you went away,
    I had been more careful, darling
    Nor given you needless pain;
        But we vex our own
        With look and tone
    We might never take back again.

    For though in the quiet evening
    You may give me the kiss of peace,
        Yet it may be
        That never for me
    The pain of the heart should cease.
    How many go forth in the morning
    That never come home at night;
        And hearts have broken
        For harsh words spoken
    That sorrow can ne’er set right.

    We have careful thoughts for the stranger,
    And smiles for the sometimes guest,
        But oft for our own
        The bitter tone
    Though we love our own the best.
    Ah, lips with the curve impatient,
    Ah, brow with that look of scorn
        ‘Twere a cruel fate
        Were the night too late
    To undo the work of the morn.

  • When the Little Feller Grins

    From the Rock Island Argus, April 19, 1915. By W. D. Nesbit.

    They ain’t much to a baby, till it gets to know yer face
    An’ pesters till you take it an’ hug it ‘round the place,
    An’ grapples at yer whiskers with pudgy-wudgy hands,
    An’ sez a lot o’ gurgles its mother understands.
    An’ the time a gran’dad’s gladness and tickledness begins
    Is when th’ little feller looks up at him an’ grins.

    His grin shows that he knows ye, and trusts ye as a friend—
    A baby isn’t growed up an’ never can pretend!—
    His eyes has honest twinkles an’ somehow you know they start
    From ‘way down in th’ goodness that’s beatin’ in his heart.
    It’s confidence he gives you without no outs and ins
    When he begins to dimple an’ looks at you an’ grins.

    They ain’t much to a baby, but in its grin you know
    You’re seein’ lots o’ sunshine you lost long, long ago;
    It makes you feel religious—a baby’s heart is clean
    An’ when it gives its favor it’s purpose isn’t mean—
    You think the Lord’s forgiven a hull lot o’ your sins
    When that fat little feller looks up at you an’ grins.

  • The Sixty-Year-Old Boys

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 18, 1915. By Strickland Gillilan.

    It once was the rule, in your lifetime and mine,
    That the fifty-year man was far gone in decline.
    That he wore bushy whiskers and stooped as he walked,
    And quavered a bit in his voice as he talked.
    But, oh, what a change has come over mankind!
    The fifty-year youngster of now isn’t blind
    Or halt or decrepit or whiskered—nay! nay!
    The sixty-year “kid” is the rule of today!

    There may be some snow at his temples, ’tis truth;
    But folks say, “Some people grow gray in their youth.”
    He’s carefully groomed, and he’s straight as a rod;
    He laughs like a child and he smiles like a god.
    He’s natty and nobby and brisk as a boy—
    To meet him, to be in his presence, is joy.
    Instead of December, he’s April or May—
    The sixty-year youngster is with us to stay.

  • The Chant of the Vultures

    From The Sun, April 17, 1915. By Edwin Markham.

    We are circling, glad of the battle; we joy in the smell of the smoke.
    Fight on in the hell of the trenches; we publish your names with a croak!
    Ye will lie in dim heaps when the sunset blows cold on the reddening sand;
    Yet fight, for the dead will have wages: a death-clutch of dust in the hand.
    Ye have given us banquet, O kings, and still do we clamor for more;
    Vast, vast is our hunger, as vast as the sea-hunger gnawing the shore.

    O kings, ye have catered to vultures—have chosen to feed us, forsooth,
    The joy of the world and her glory, the hope of the world and her youth.
    O kings, ye are diligent lackeys; we laurel your names with our praise,
    For ye are the staff of our comfort, for ye are the strength of our days.
    Then spur on the host in the trenches to give up the sky at a stroke;
    We tell all the winds of their glory—we publish their fame with a croak!

  • Fashion’s Rule

    From the Evening Star, April 16, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    There is a reason for each thing
        That time brings to attention;
    Though sudden changes often bring
        A state of apprehension.
    Somebody wears a funny hat,
        His friends straightway go dashin’
    To get some headgear just like that
        Because it is the fashion.

    Somebody uses language queer,
        And others imitate it.
    An epigram we chance to hear
        And straightway all orate it,
    Not for the thought it may contain
        Nor poetry nor passion;
    We simply hand it out again
        Because it is the fashion.

    A stock wakes up some morning fine.
        Somebody thinks he’ll try it.
    The word is passed along the line
        And many rush to buy it.
    Few of them pause to calculate
        As ticker talk comes flashin’.
    It booms at an amazing rate
        Because it is the fashion.

  • A Gentleman’s Trade

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, April 15, 1915.

    When gentlemen wearied of castle and court
        In kingdoms that flourished of yore,
    They deemed it a pleasant and elegant sport
        To mix for a while in war,
    And skill with the mace and the crossbow and lance—
        Good well-seasoned killing ability—
    Enrolled a man’s name on the scroll of romance
        As a person of lofty gentility.

    When guns were invented the man who could aim
        With a steady and murderous eye
    Was the man who excelled in the gentleman’s game
        And whose rank was uncommonly high.
    Nobility rated according as men
        In murder grew cunning and keen;
    The gentle killed five and the gentler killed ten,
        While the gentlest killed twelve or fifteen.

    And now, when the howitzers mow down a crowd
        With a single discharge of a shell,
    The gentlemen soldiers should feel very proud
        For they seem to be doing quite well.
    When sometimes a couple of thousand or more
        Are slaughtered by one cannonade,
    It can’t be denied that the business of war
        Is still a real gentleman’s trade.

  • Time’s Revenge

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, April 14, 1915.

    I used to call you Carrots, dear,
        When we were girl and boy;
    I called you Ginger, too—I fear,
        With purpose to annoy.
    I held my hands above your head
        To warm my fingers cold,
    And it made you cry in the days gone by—
        But now your hair is gold!

    I used to call you Sorrel, dear,
        When you were small in frocks;
    But now you reign without a peer,
        My darling Goldilocks!
    For time’s revenge has come to you,
        And I am all forlorn
    In the silken snare of your glorious hair,
        With its aureole of morn.

    I used to call you Candy Drop
        When you were just a girl,
    And Mustard Seed and Sandy Top
        And Dandelion Curl;
    But now your head has won a light
        Like fields of summer wheat;
    I long to hold each lock of gold
        That binds me to your feet.

    I used to pull the tangled knots—
        Oh memory of shame!
    I called aloud for water pots
        To quench the ruddy flame.
    But now it is my heart that burns
        While you are cold and coy,
    And my life I’d dare for the golden hair
        That I laughed at when a boy.

  • The Road to Homeland

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, April 13, 1915. By George V. Hobart.

    There’s a big road in the city
        That they call the Great White Way,
    Where the bright lights—staring white lights—
        Turn the night time into day;
    But you’re lonely when you walk it,
        For you want once more to find
    In the shadows, in the darkness,
        That old road you left behind.

    It’s the old road back to Homeland,
        It’s the outcast’s only goal,
    Where the ever-cruel white lights
        Throw no shadows on your soul.
    It’s the old road back to childhood,
        It’s the road you want to roam,
    With the stars above to guide you—
        It’s the road to Home Sweet Home!

  • ’Spacially Jim

    From The Bridgeport Evening Farmer, April 12, 1915. By Bessie Morgan.

    I was mighty good lookin’ when I wus young,
        Peert an’ black-eyed an’ slim.
    With fellers a-courtin’ me Sunday nights
        ‘Spacially Jim.

    The likeliest one of ‘em all wus he,
        Chipper an’ han’som an’ trim,
    But I tossed up my head an’ made fun o’ the crowd,
        ‘Spacially Jim.

    I said I hadn’t no ‘pinion o’ men,
        An’ I wouldn’t take stock in him,
    But they kep on a-comin’ in spite o’ my talk,
        ‘Spacially Jim.

    I got so tired o’ havin’ ‘em round,
        ‘Spacially Jim!
    I made up my mind I’d settle down
        An’ take up with him.

    So we wus married on Sunday in church,
        ’Twus crowded full to the brim.
    ‘Twus the only way to get rid of ‘em all—
        ‘Spacially Jim.

  • The Flutes of April

    From The Sun, April 11, 1915. By Clinton Scollard.

    Don’t you hear the flutes of April calling clear and calling cool
    From the crests that front the morning, from the hidden valley pool,
    Runes of rapture half forgotten, tunes wherein old passions rule?

    Passions for the sweet earth beauty hidden long and hidden deep
    Underneath the seal of silence in the vasts of winter sleep,
    Now unleashed and now unloosened once again to pulse and leap!

    Don’t you hear the flutes of April, like the ancient pipes of Pan
    Summoning each slumbering kindred, summoning each drowsing clan,
    Sounding a far borne reveille to the laggard heart of man!

    Bidding every seed to quicken, bidding every root to climb,
    Thrilling every thew and fibre as with some ecstatic rhyme,
    Setting floods of sap to dancing upward in triumphant time!

    Don’t you hear the flutes of April blowing under sun and star
    Virginal as is the dawning, tender as dim twilights are,
    With the vital breath of being prisoned in each rhythmic bar?

    With their lyric divination, prescience of all things fair,
    With their magic transmutation, guerdon for each soul to share,
    Don’t you hear the flutes of April wafted down the April air?