Newspaper History

Month: May 2023

  • The Home Team

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, May 21, 1915.

    I hate to see the home team lose;
    A contest dropped gives me blues;
    But when they win—they sometimes do!
    I go home happy, same as you.

    Yet, after all, why should I care
    Because nine men from everywhere—
    Except the town in which I live—
    Have acted as a human sieve
    Through which the red-hot ones have poured
    Like water through a leaky gourd?

    And why should I bemoan the fact
    That nine strong men have whacked and whacked
    The summer air in vain desire
    To make a showing for their hire?
    Nine men I scarcely know by sight
    And might not recognize tonight.

    Why mourn because some other town
    Has scoured the earth and found one Brown
    Who throws a zigzag ball that jolts
    Like lubricated thunderbolts,
    While our man’s curves drift o’er the plate
    In manner tempting unto fate?

    Yea, verily, why should I fret?
    ’Tis naught to me, and yet—and yet
    If you’d but seen the awful way
    In which our team behaved today!

  • Better Than Much Learning

    From the Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 20, 1915.

    Pretty little Polly lacks
        The intellectual bent—
    In fact, for culture and the like
        She wouldn’t give a cent.
    And at the highbrow festivals
        She wonders what is meant.

    But pretty Polly dances like
        A dainty woodland sprite,
    And e’en to watch her elfish grace
        Is pure unmixed delight.
    And Polly’s lips are scarlet buds,
        Her neck is milky white.

    What does little Polly care
        That no one thinks her wise?
    Why, wisdom doesn’t stand a chance
        When she employs her eyes,
    And each discerning man in sight
        To do her bidding flies.

  • A Confederate Veteran’s Dream

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, May 19, 1915. By Lance Hendrix.

    He marches away in his slumbers,
        With a gay, romantic heart,
    And thinks of the coming battles
        In which he will soon take part.
    He thinks of a mother he’s leaving,
        And a sister so bonny and gay,
    But his thoughts are most of another,
        His beautiful, dark-eyed May.

    Again he’s with Lee in Virginia,
        Where the Rappahannock flows,
    And forming in line of battle
        To fight the northern foes.
    His heart is again rent with passion,
        His mind is fiery with hate;
    He rushes into the battle,
        Leaving his safety to fate.

    He sees the flag of the southland
        Flaunt proudly in the breeze,
    And hears the shouts of the soldiers
        Ringing in all the trees.
    He sees the opposing enemy
        Retire from the field in defeat,
    And a thrill runs through his body
        From his head to the sole of his feet.

    The scene is removed in a moment
        To another battle field,
    Where the fight has raged for hours,
        And neither side will yield.
    Again the vision takes him
        To a field that’s farther away,
    Where the men in blue are victorious,
        And slowly retreat the gray.

    Very true and vivid
        Do all those battles seem.
    But, alas! he wakes to find
        That he’s only had a dream.
    A little maid before him,
        Her head a mass of gold,
    Whispers softly, “Grandfather dear,
        Your tea is getting cold.”

  • The Violet

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, May 18, 1915. By Jane Taylor.

    Down in a green and shady bed
        A modest violet grew;
    Its stalk was bent, it hung its head,
        As if to hide from view.

    And yet it was a lovely flower,
        Its colors bright and fair;
    It might have graced a rosy bower,
        Instead of hiding there.

    Yet there it was content to bloom,
        In modest tints arrayed;
    And there it spreads its sweet perfume
        Within the silent shade.

    Then let me to the valley go,
        This pretty flower to see;
    That I may also learn to grow
        In sweet humility.

  • Dreams

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, May 17, 1915. By Rosamond L. McNaught.

    A humble woman stands at her tubs
        The whole of a summer day;
    With splashes and shakes, and wrings and rubs,
        She washes and washes away.
    And think you the duty an ugly thing?
        A stupid grind it seems,
    And the worker does not smile or sing
        But—over the tubs she dreams her dreams.

    Above her sewing a woman bends,
        And cuts and bastes and fits;
    And over mistakes that she sometimes mends
        Perplexed brow she knits.
    Then at her machine, past the set of sun,
        She stitches the long, long seams;
    And though her task is a homely one,
        ’Tis illumed with the flame of a woman’s dreams.

    With a “rock-a-by-by” a woman swings
        Her babe in a rocking chair;
    And she lays her hand, while she sings
        On the darling’s silken hair.
    Both maid and nurse, she is tired to death,
        But her face with glory beams!
    For, quickened by balm of the babe’s soft breath,
        She strings in the dusk a chaplet of dreams.

  • The Dog

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, May 16, 1915.

    I’ve never known a dog to wag
        His tail in glee he didn’t feel,
    Nor quit his old-time friend to tag
        At some more influential heel.
    The yellowest cur I ever knew
    Was to the boy who loved him true.

    I’ve never known a dog to show
        Half-way devotion to his friend,
    To seek a kinder man to know
        Or richer, but unto the end
    The humblest dog I ever knew
    Was, to the man that loved him, true.

    I’ve never known a dog to fake
        Affection for a present gain,
    A false display of love to make,
        Some little favor to attain.
    I’ve never known a Prince or Spot
    That seemed to be what he was not.

    But I have known a dog to fight
        With all his strength to shield a friend
    And, whether wrong or whether right,
        To stick with him until the end.
    And I have known a dog to lick
    The hand of him that men would kick.

    And I have known a dog to bear
        Starvation’s pangs from day to day
    With him who had been glad to share
        His bread and meat along the way.
    No dog, however mean or rude,
    Is guilty of ingratitude.

    The dog is listed with the dumb,
        No voice has he to speak his creed,
    His messages to humans come
        By faithful conduct and by deed.
    He shows, as seldom mortals do,
    A high ideal of being true.

  • Real Joy

    From the Richmond Times Dispatch, May 15, 1915.

    There are lots of simple pleasures,
        Caught in nature’s ebb and flow,
    That will multiply life’s treasures,
        If your heart’s attuned to know;
    There is one joymaker granted
        Quite the sweetest ever found—
    When the green things you have planted
        Show their heads above the ground.

    There are sunsets, limned with glories
        By the Master Artist’s brush,
    And at morn the soft love stories
        Of the mocking bird and thrush.
    There are streams that seem enchanted,
        There are beauties all around—
    And just now the hopes you’ve planted
        Spring in rapture from the ground.

  • The Arrow and the Song

    From the Evening Public Ledger, May 14, 1915. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

    I shot an arrow into the air,
    It fell to earth, I know not where;
    For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
    Could not follow it in its flight.

    I breathed a song into the air,
    It fell to earth, I know not where;
    For who has sight so keen and strong
    That it can follow the flight of song?

    Long, long afterward, in an oak
    I found the arrow, still unbroke;
    And the song, from beginning to end,
    I found again in the heart of a friend.

  • Spring Rain

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, May 13, 1915. By Robert Loveman.

    It isn’t raining rain to me,
        It’s raining daffodils.
    In every dimpled drop I see
        Wild flowers on the hills.
    The clouds of gray engulf the day
        And overwhelm the town—
    It isn’t raining rain for me
        It’s raining roses down.
    It isn’t raining rain to me,
        But fields of clover bloom
    Where any buccaneering bee
        May find a bed and room.
    A health unto the happy
        A fig for him who frets—
    It isn’t raining rain to me
        It’s raining violets.

  • The Night and I

    From the Evening Public Ledger, May 12, 1915. By James Stephens.

    The night was creeping on the ground,
    She crept along without a sound
    Until she reached the tree, and then
    She covered it, and stole again
    Along the grass up to the wall.

    I heard the rustle of her shawl
    Inside the room where I was hid;
    But no matter what she did
    To everything that was without,
    She could not put my candle out.

    So I peeped at the night, and she
    Stared back solemnly at me.