Newspaper History

Category: Newspapers

This is the parent category for all individual newspapers.

  • The Joys of the Road

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, March 25, 1915. By Bliss Carman.

    Now the joys of the road are chiefly these,
    A crimson touch on the hardwood trees;

    A vagrant morning wide and blue,
    In early fall, when the wind walks, too;

    A shadowy highway cool and brown,
    Alluring up and enticing down;

    From ripply water to dappled swamp,
    From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

    The outward eye, the quiet will,
    And the striding heart from hill to hill.

    An idle moon, a bubbling spring,
    The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;

    A scrap of gossip at the ferry,
    A comrade neither glum nor merry;

    Asking nothing, revealing naught,
    But minting the words from a fund of thought.

    These are the joys of the open road,
    For him who travels without a load.

  • Zeke Perkins’ New Machine

    From the Rock Island Argus, March 24, 1915.

    Old Zeke Perkins sold his hogs the other day,
    And the gosh-durned fool threw his money right away.
    Rode into town sitting right on a board,
    And he came ridin’ home in a darned little Ford.
    When he came to the house and got to the gate,
    He shut down the throttle and he put on the brake,
    He grabbed for the reins, got the throttle instead,
    And the gol darned Ford kept a chugging ahead.

    Old Zeke Perkins bought an automobile,
    Old Zeke Perkins’ whiskers were red.
    Old Zeke Perkins lost the combination
    And the darn little Ford kept chugging right ahead.

    Zeke jerked on the levers and he turned off the gas,
    He kicked at the pedals and he broke out the glass,
    He cut all the wires, and he pulled off the top,
    But the gosh darned Ford it just wouldn’t stop.
    He pulled out his knife and he smiled so serene,
    Cut a hole in the tank, drained out the gasoline.
    He pulled out his gun, shot the tires full of lead,
    But the gol darned Ford kept chugging right ahead.

    Went right through the fence and up through the lane;
    Mirandy saw him coming and she like to went insane,
    She ran out ahead, then she stopped to see,
    And the Ford struck her squarely where the bustle ought to be.
    She reached out her arm as she went in the air,
    Just as Zeke went by she grabbed him by the hair;
    She bounced on the seat, landed down in the bed,
    And the gol darned Ford kept chugging right ahead.

    He steered for the shed, but just missed the hole,
    Struck an old pig and you ought to see it roll,
    Out through the yard then they landed in a heap,
    In a big muddy pool ‘bout six feet deep.
    Zeke grabbed Mirandy and waded for the shore;
    He was glad that it stopped and wouldn’t go no more.
    He pricked up his ears then he looked back and said,
    “Why, the gol darned Ford is chugging right ahead.”

  • Sweet Timothy; or Saved by the Secretary

    From The Sun, March 23, 1915. By Arthur Guiterman.

    A BALLAD OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY

    If I were a young middy in love with a girl, I would marry her if it broke up the whole navy. I would let nothing like that stand between me and the girl I loved.
    —Secretary Josephus Daniels

    It was just eight bells or about half past,
        And our tea was in the process of solution,
    When they piped all hands to the maintopmast
        For to solemnize a naval execution.

    An’ we heard the horns of the Horse Marines
        An’ their boots drumming hollow on the planking
    As they marched up a youth in his early teens
        With manacles an’ fetter locks a-clanking.

    Oh, they dragged him up, and I felt real bad
        When I saw ’twas little Timothy the ensign,
    An’ I knew that they meant for to hang the lad,
        A proceeding what there wasn’t any sense in.

    And our captain stern to the prisoner said,
        “You will shortly be suspended from a gibbet,
    For you’ve gone an’ went and a gal you’ve wed,
        Which the articles especially prohibit!”

    Oh, his gal runs up, so pale an’ sweet
        (And she was a ravin’, tearin’ beauty!)
    An’ she swooned for grief at the captain’s feet,
        But he only muttered, “Seamen, do your duty!”

    Oh, I wept big tears till my blouse was soaked,
        For they tied a halter round the middy’s wishbone,
    An’ the poor boy gulped, an’ the poor boy choked
        As he might have been a-swallerin’ a fishbone.

    Now we heard a shout an’ a whistle toot,
        And orders come to anchor an’ to reef us;
    An’ a man come aboard in a broadcloth suit
        Which I seen was the eminent Josephus.

    Oh, he stepped right up to the boy (poor chap!)
        And sez he, “You’re a credit to the nation!
    An’ you shan’t be hanged by no gold lace cap
        For the breakin’ of a stupid regulation!

    “For if I loved a gal an’ the gal loved me
        I’d marry her in Afriky or Siam
    If it wrecked every ship in the hull navee—
        For that’s the sort of prairie chicken I am!

    “An’ you shall cruise with your bride, you shall
        Afar on the ocean wavy,
    For I’ll make you a Lord High Admiral
        If there’s any such position in the navy!”

  • Where is the Flag of England?

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, March 22, 1915. By James E. Coyle.

    Let the winds of the world make answer!
        North, south, and east and west;
    “Wherever there’s wealth to covet,
        Or land that can be possessed;
    Wherever are savage races
        To cozen, coerce and scare,
    Ye shall find the vaunted ensign:
        For the English flag is there!

    Aye, it waves o’er the blazing hovels
        Whence African victims fly,
    To be shot by explosive bullets,
        Or to wretchedly starve and die;
    And where the beachcomber harries
        The isles of the Southern sea,
    At the peak of his hellish vessels,
        ’Tis the English flag flies free.

    The Maori full oft have cursed it
        With his bitterest dying breath;
    And the Arab has hissed his hatred
        As he spits at its folds in death.
    The hapless fellah has feared it
        On Tel-el-Kebir’s parched plain,
    And the Zulu’s blood has stained it
        With a deep indelible stain.

    It has floated o’er scenes of pillage
        And has flaunted o’er deeds of shame;
    It has waved o’er the fell marauder
        As he ravished with sword and flame;
    It has looked upon ruthless slaughter,
        And massacres dire and grim;
    It has heard the shrieks of the victims
        Drown even the Jingo hymn.

    Where is the flag of England?
        Seek the lands where the natives rot;
    Where decay and assured extinction
        Must soon be the peoples’ lot.
    Go, search for the once glad islands,
        Where diseases and death are rife,
    And the greed of a callous commerce
        Now fattens on human life!

    Where is the flag of England?
        Go, sail where rich galleons come
    With shoddy and “loaded” cottons,
        And beer, and Bibles and rum!
    Go too, where brute force has triumphed,
        And hypocrisy makes its lair;
    And your question will find its answer,
        For the flag of England is there.

  • In Partibus

    From The Sun, March 21, 1915. By Rudyard Kipling.

    The buses run to Battersea,
        The buses run to Bow
    The buses run to Westbourne Grove
        And Notting Hill also;
    But I am sick of London town
        From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.

    I see the smut upon my cuff
        And feel him on my nose;
    I cannot leave my window wide
        When gentle zephyr blows,
    Because he brings disgusting things
        And drops ’em on my clothes.

    The sky, a greasy soup-toureen,
        Shuts down atop my brow.
    Yes, I have sighed for London town
        And I have got it now:
    And half of it is fog and filth,
        And half is fog and row.

    And when I take my nightly prowl
        ’Tis passing good to meet
    The pious Briton lugging home
        His wife and daughter sweet,
    Through four packed miles of seething vice
        Thrust out upon the street.

    Earth holds no horror like to this
        In any land displayed,
    From Suez unto Sandy Hook,
        From Calais to Port Said;
    And ’twas to hide their heathendom
        The beastly fog was made.

    I cannot tell when dawn is near,
        Or when the day is done,
    Because I always see the gas
        And never see the sun,
    And now, methinks, I do not care
        A cuss for either one.

    But stay, there was an orange, or
        An aged egg its yolk;
    It might have been a Pears’ balloon
        Or Barnum’s latest joke;
    I took it for the sun and wept
        To watch it through the smoke.

    It’s oh to see the morn ablaze
        Above the mango-tope,
    When homeward through the dewy cane
        The little jackals lope,
    And half Bengal heaves into view,
        New washed—with sunlight soap.

    It’s oh for one deep whisky peg
        When Christmas winds are blowing,
    When all the men you ever knew,
        And all you’ve ceased from knowing,
    Are “entered for the Tournament,
        And everything that’s going.”

    But I consort with long-haired things
        In velvet collar-rolls,
    Who talk about the Aims of Art,
        And “theories” and “goals,”
    And moo and coo with women-folk
        About their blessed souls.

    But that they call “psychology”
        Is lack of liver pill,
    And all that blights their tender souls
        Is eating till they’re ill,
    And their chief way of winning goals
        Consists of sitting still.

    It’s oh to meet an Army man,
        Set up and trimmed and taut,
    Who does not spout hashed libraries
        Or think the next man’s thought,
    And walks as though he owned himself,
        And hogs his bristles short.

    Hear now, a voice across the seas
        To kin beyond my ken,
    If ye have ever filled an hour
        With stories from my pen,
    For pity’s sake send some one here
        To bring me news of men!

    The buses run to Islington,
        To Highgate and Soho,
    To Hammersmith and Kew therewith
        And Camberwell also,
    But I can only murmur “Bus!”
        From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.

  • The Word of the Dust

    From the Rock Island Argus, March 20, 1915. By W. D. Nesbit.

    Bother to man, and to beast, and bird,
        Bother to grass and trees—
    This is my saying; this is my word;
        I have been all of these.
    Out of me, back of me, year by year,
        Journey the maids and men;
    Treading me, tossing me there and here—
        Then to my arms again.

    Look at me, laugh at me! Yet I hold
        Red of the rose’s heart,
    Red of the laughing lips, that, bold
        Smile with a maiden’s art.
    Helpless and void of a sign of life
        Here on the king’s highway—
    Still, I have babbled of love and strife;
        I was a king one day!

    Gray in the twilight, and white at dawn—
        Walk on me—me, a thing!
    What have I been in the days agone?
        Beggar, and priest, and king!
    I have been a flower, and brute, and bird,
        I have been maids and men.
    Spurn me, and—brother, you have my word—
        We shall change place again!

  • Her Gifts

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, March 19, 1915. By L. M. Montgomery.

    She gave not out of her golden store,
        For no golden store had she,
    And faithful love was her only wealth
        For a gracious ministry.
    But royal gifts to the world she gave
        With every quiet day,
    And many a heart was richer far
        Because she had passed that way.

    She gave of her truest sympathy
        To those who were worn and sad;
    She gave a song in a darksome place
        That made the listener glad.
    She gave a loving and tender word
        To a tired, discouraged soul,
    And lo, it rose in a newfound strength
        To win the wished for goal.

    She gave not out of her golden store,
        For no golden store had she.
    And never the voice of fame was heard
        To herald her ministry.
    But she gave the oil of joy for tears
        And sunshine to banish gloom,
    And beauty and sweetness beneath her steps
        Sprang rainbow-like to bloom.

  • Song of the Fisherman

    From The Topeka State Journal, March 18, 1915. By E. B. Widger.

    There’s a sound that rings in my ears today
        And echoes in vague refrain;
    The ripple of water o’er smooth-washed clay
    Where the wall-eyed pike and the black bass play,
    That makes me yearn in a quiet way
        For the old home haunts again.

        Back to the old home haunts again,
            Back where the clear lake lies,
        Back through the wood where the blackbirds brood,
            Back to my rod and flies.

    I wish I could paddle my boat today
        Through water-logged grass and reeds
    Where the muskrat swims and the cattails sway
    And the air is cool and the mist is gray
    And the ripples dance in the same old way
        Under the tangled weeds.

        Back on the old oak log again
            Back by the crystal brook,
        Back to the bait and the silent wait,
            Back to my line and hook.

    I wish I could wade by the water’s edge
        Where the falling leaves drift by,
    Just to see in the shadow of the ledge
    Where dark forms glide like a woodman’s wedge
    Through drifted piles of dark marsh sedge,
        And hear the bittern cry.

        Back where the tadpoles shift and shirk,
            Back where bullfrogs sob,
        Back just to float in my leaky boat,
            Back to my dripping bob.

    Oh, it’s just like this on each rainy day;
        Always the same old pain
    That struggles and pulls in the same old way
    To take me off for a little stay
    By the water’s edge in the sticky clay,
        To the fish in the falling rain.

        Back to my long, black rubber boots,
            Back to my old patched coat,
        Back to my rod and breath of God,
            Home, and my leaky boat.

  • St. Patrick’s Day Without Shamrocks

    From The Sun, March 17, 1915.

    We sought them ‘neath the snowflakes
        And o’er all the frosty ground,
    But no leaflet like the shamrock
        On St. Patrick’s Day we found.
    And our hearts went back to Erin,
        To her dewy vales and hills,
    Where the shamrock twines and clusters
        O’er the fields and by the rills.

    Oh, no more, no more my country
        Shall thy loving daughter lay
    Her head upon thy bosom
        While she weeps her tears away;
    There the primrose and the daisy
        Bloom as in the days of old,
    And the violet comes in purple
        And the buttercup in gold.

    Kildare’s broad fields are fragrant
        With the shamrock’s breath today.
    Shamrocks bloom from Clare to Antrim,
        From Killarney to Lough Neagh;
    And they speak of Patrick’s preaching
        With a quiet, voiceless lore,
    And they breathe of faith and heaven
        All the trefoiled island o’er.

    Wandering listless by the Liffey,
        Stoop and pluck the shamrock green;
    What an emblem plain and simple
        Of the one true faith is seen;
    Of the Father and the Spirit
        Speaks the mystic triune leaf,
    Of the Son in anguish dying
        On the Cross in love and grief.

    Well humility may choose it
        For an emblem fair and meet,
    Close beside the poorest cabin
        It is pouring fragrance sweet.
    Modest is our darling shamrock,
        Useful, charitable, kind,
    Clothing mean, deserted places
        With its green leaves intertwined.

    Many a lesson thus it teaches,
        Many a wholesome thought recalls,
    Many a teardrop all unbidden
        To its cherished memory falls;
    Nor the green of Erin’s banner
        Still must stir the Irish heart,
    Which in Erin’s many sorrows
        Ever, ever must have part.

    Oh be true, be true to Erin,
        True to faith and true to God,
    To St. Patrick, His apostle,
        Who redeemed our native sod.
    Never more her mystic emblem
        In green Erin may you see,
    Let the faith it symbolizes
        Be the dearer unto thee.

  • Regret

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, March 16, 1915. By Henry Waldorf Francis.

    I am the brooding Ghost of words that should have been unspoken;
    I am the scourge of hearts that have the hearts of others broken;
    I am the lash of Conscience hurt by things past all undoing,
    Over the grave of other days bitter memories strewing!

    I am the biting aftermath of love and good neglected,
    I am the everlasting sting of better things rejected;
    I am the sharp, consuming grief unthought of in the breeding,
    Avenging wrath of all who give to Mercy’s voice no heeding!

    I am the Guest who comes unbid with voice forever chiding,
    Deep in the secret heart of man I am the long abiding;
    Would you avoid the pain of me, the mocking, cutting laughter,
    Pause ere you speak or act to ask if I may come thereafter!