Newspaper History

Month: July 2023

  • Improved Facilities

    From the Evening Star, July 31, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    Inventive genius undertook
        To make our labors lighter.
    The oldtime way mankind forsook
        For methods much politer.
    With speech and print we made in vain
        Our protests and predictions,
    So now a cannon’s mouth we train
        To utter our convictions.

    Unto the future of the race
        We turned with deep reflection,
    And bade eugenics take the place
        Of natural selection.
    Such problems are dismissed offhand
        With confident elation.
    You simply press a button and
        Exterminate a nation.

  • Every Mother’s Duty

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, July 30, 1915. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

    When God had formed the Universe He thought
    Of all the marvels therein to be wrought,
    And to his aid then Motherhood was brought.

    “My lesser self, the feminine of Me,
    She will go forth throughout all time,” quoth He,
    “And make my world what I would have it be,

    “For I am weary, having labored so,
    And for a cycle of repose would go
    Into that silence which but God may know.

    “Therefore I leave the rounding of my plan
    To Motherhood, and that which I began
    Let woman finish in perfecting man.

    “She is the soil, the human Mother Earth;
    She is the sun that calls the seed to earth;
    She is the gardener who knows its worth.

    “From Me all seed of any kind must spring.
    Divine the growth such seed and soil will bring.
    For all is Me, and I am everything.”

    Thus having spoken to Himself aloud,
    His glorious face upon His breast He bowed,
    And sought repose behind a wall of cloud.

    Come forth, O God! Though great Thy thought and good
    In shaping woman for true Motherhood,
    Lord, speak again; she has not understood.

    The centuries pass; the cycles roll along—
    The earth is peopled with a mighty throng;
    Yet men are fighting and the world goes wrong.

    Lord, speak again, ere yet it be too late—
    Unloved, unwanted souls come through earth’s gate;
    The unborn child is given a dower of hate.

    Thy world progresses in all ways save one.
    In Motherhood, for which it was begun,
    Lord, Lord, behold how little has been done.

    True Motherhood is not alone to breed
    The human race; it Is to know and heed
    Its holiest purpose and its highest need.

    Lord, speak again, so woman shall be inspired
    With the full meaning of that mighty word—
    True Motherhood. She has not rightly heard.

  • Propinquity

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, July 29, 1915. By David.

    I’d love to be sweet sleep, were you a dream;
    I’d gladly be the milk, were you the cream;
    I’d wish to be an oak, were you a vine;
    Were you a lemon, I would be the rind;
    Dark sorrow would I be, were you a sigh;
    Were you the ointment, then me for the fly;
    I’d be a waiter if you were the tips;
    Were you a kiss, then mine should be the lips;
    Were you the ocean, I would be its roar;
    I’d be an apple, if you were the core;
    Were you a pen, I then would be the ink;
    I’d be a parching thirst, were you a drink;
    Were you a needle, I would be the thread;
    I’d be the butter if you were the bread;
    Me Simple Simon, if you were the pie;
    Were you a diamond, I would be the dye;
    Or I would be a muff, were you the fur;
    Were you a chestnut, I would be the burr;
    If you were Wall Street, I would be New York;
    I’d turn into a knife, were you a fork;
    Were you the sunshine, I would be a flower;
    H2O for mine, were you a shower;
    Were you a drummer, I would be the drum;
    And so it goes ad infinitum.
    So all through life we’d never need to part,
    But journey hand in hand, and heart to heart,
    Though of all varied forms we find in life,
    I’d rather be myself, were you my wife.

  • The Two Mysteries

    From The Detroit Times, July 28, 1915. By Mary Mapes Dodge.

    We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still;
    The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill;
    The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call;
    The strange, white solitude of peace that settles over all.

    We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart pain;
    This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again;
    We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go,
    Nor why we’re left to wonder still, nor why we do not know.

    But this we know: our loved and dead, if they should come this day—
    Should come and ask us, “What is life?” not one of us could say.
    Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be;
    Yet, oh, how dear it is to us, this life we live and see!

    Then might they say—these vanished ones—and blessed is the thought:
    “So death is sweet to us, beloved; though we may show you naught;
    We may not to the quick reveal the mystery of death.
    Ye can not tell us, if ye would, the mystery of breath.”

    The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
    So all who enter death must go as little children sent.
    Nothing is known. But nearing God, what has the soul to dread?
    And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.

  • The Ultimate Consumer

    From the Evening Public Ledger, July 27, 1915.

    Light, in ballast, a thousand ships
        Come streaming through our harbor gate;
    Then, laden down at busy slips,
        Go out again with stores of freight
        Bound over sea to the buyer great,
    Who always calls for more and more,
        Whose greed not all the world may sate,
    The ultimate consumer—War.

    Ships that come from the Seven Seas,
        Some that move with stately gait;
    Some that loiter in any breeze,
        Lured by Wartime’s double rate.
        Mocking all at the hand of fate,
    Seeking share in the wondrous store,
        They come to serve, let who berate,
    The ultimate consumer—War.

    Battered hulks once forced aside
        By vessels of a later date;
    Proud and scornful of wind and tide
        And foes that under the ocean wait,
        Again they pass, but sans the state
    That marked their going in days of yore;
        Servants now of the king of hate,
    The ultimate consumer—War.

    Captain, the risk of the trip is great
        And none may tell when a gun will roar;
    But you are serving, despite the strait
        The ultimate consumer—War.

  • Vintage

    From the New York Tribune, July 26, 1915. By Amy Lowell.

    I will mix me a drink of stars—
    Large stars with polychrome needles,
    Small stars jetting maroon and crimson,
    Cool, quiet, green stars.
    I will tear them out of the sky,
    And squeeze them over an old silver cup,
    And I will pour the cold scorn of my Beloved into it,
    So that my drink shall be bubbled with ice.

    It will leap and scratch
    As I swallow it down;
    And I shall feel it as a serpent of fire,
    Coiling and twisting in my belly.
    His snortings will rise to my head,
    And I shall be hot, and laugh,
    Forgetting that I have ever known a woman.

  • Friends

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, July 25, 1915. By Allen Griffin Johnson.

    Old friend, we’ve journeyed far and wide.
        O’er rugged hills and hollows;
    With yearning hearts, at eventide,
        We’ve watched the homing swallows;
    We’ve known that bitter grief and dole
        That cry unheard to heaven,
    Like some poor, hell-bound, tortured soul,
        Condemned and unforgiven.

    Through Sin’s fair vale, near Sorrow’s mart,
        We’ve wandered free and joyous,
    Where, hidden by the Tempter’s art,
        Death waited to destroy us;
    We’ve drunk life’s bitter and its sweet,
        Have seen our castles tumbled
    In ruins at our weary feet,
        Yet smiled, nor even grumbled.

    Our blood has sanguined many a field,
        Though courage ne’er departed,
    Nor foeman forced us yet to yield,
        Nor either grown faint hearted;
    We’ve known the peace of eventide,
        When day’s hard fight had ended,
    And sunset’s crimson glory died,
        As earth and sky were blended.

    Then, too, the bliss of sweet repose,
        When real cares and seeming;
    Depart, and life’s stream gently flows
        To slumber’s land of Dreaming;
    We’ve felt the fury of the blasts,
        And known the calm succeeding,
    Far sweeter for the storm that’s past—
        A lesson worth the heeding.

    We’ve known the warmth of Summer’s sun,
        The blight of Winter’s weather,
    And when, at last, our race is run,
        We’ll leave the track—together;
    Aye, hand and hand, as in the past,
        We’ll journey o’er the river;
    Together e’en unto the last—
        Friends now and friends forever.

  • The Quest

    From the Evening Star, July 24, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    The Dove of Peace exclaimed one day:
    “Conditions fill me with dismay,
    I will disguise myself and seek
    The quiet dear to one so meek.”

    On land she hoped, afar from strife,
    To lead a simple barnyard life,
    But shuddered with incessant dread
    As cannon rattled overhead.

    She trimmed new plumage and in state
    The eagle sought to imitate,
    Until an airship hurried by
    And sent her trembling from the sky.

    Then as a sea gull forth she flew
    Where waves were still and skies were blue
    Until a shock disturbed the scene
    Caused by a reckless submarine.

    And so she turns on weary wing,
    Still hopeful that her wandering
    On land or in the sky or sea
    May find some spot from terror free.

  • Coronach

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, July 23, 1915. By Walter Scott.

    He is gone on the mountain,
        He is lost to the forest,
    Like a summer dried fountain,
        When our need was the sorest.
    The font reappearing
        From the raindrops shall borrow
    But to us comes no cheering,
        To Duncan no morrow!

    The hand of the reaper
        Takes the ears that are hoary,
    But the voice of the weeper
        Wails manhood in glory.
    The autumn winds rushing
        Waft the leaves that are serest.
    But our flower was flushing
        When the blighting was nearest.

    Fleet foot on the correi,
        Sage counsel in cumber,
    Red hand in the foray,
        How sound is thy slumber!
    Like the dew on the mountain,
        Like the foam on the river,
    Like the bubble on the fountain,
        Thou art gone, and forever!

  • A Retrogression

    From the Evening Star, July 22, 1915. By Philander Johnson.

    One time we had an uplift down to Pohick on the Crick.
    The talk of art an’ culture came a-flyin’ very thick.
    We bought a lot of handsome books whose covers plainly showed
    That when their authors talked of art, they talked of what they knowed.
    We felt that we had found the way unto a life refined,
    Whose object would be beauty an’ a disposition kind.
    We were strong for classic painting an’ for sculpture so sublime,
    An’ architecture that defied the ravages of time.

    Then from a mighty shock the world stood trembling and afraid.
    It came from the headquarters where the classic art was made.
    The painter dropped his brushes and the sculptor left his clay
    An’ the singers marched in silence to the fierce, incessant fray.
    We learned how works of beauty that were built through patient years
    Were swept into destruction in a storm of rage and tears—
    So maybe it’s the old-time way to which we’d better stick
    An’ jes’ live plain an’ humble down to Pohick on the Crick.