Newspaper History

Category: Newspapers

This is the parent category for all individual newspapers.

  • The Lawless Heart

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, November 25, 1914. By Berton Braley.

    Dull trade hath bound me in its grip,
        And never shall I be free,
    Yet I dream of the decks of a pirate ship
        In the roll of the open sea;
    I dream of the pennant dread and black
        That flies at the mast alway,
    As we swoop along on a merchant’s track
        In the sting of the flying spray!

    Oh, I am a law-abiding chap,
        Yet deep in my heart I’d be
    A buccaneer with a scarlet cap
        And a Terror of the Sea;
    As lawless and ruthless a bandit brute
        As history ever knew,
    Roaming the seas in search of loot
        At the head of an evil crew!

    Oh, here at home I am meek and mild,
        A man with a family,
    Yet I dream of deeds that are dark and wild
        And of red, red fights at sea;
    And under my breath I softly hum
        A stave from a pirate song,
    And my throat grows parched for pirate rum,
        For I have been dry so long!

    My life is ordered and shaped and bound
        And kept to its rule and line,
    But my thoughts can wander the whole world round
        And my dreams—my dreams are mine!
        And I hungrily long to be
    A pirate chief on a low, black ship
        In the roll of the open sea!

  • Money

    From the Newark Evening Star, November 24, 1914. By Edgar A. Guest.

    I would like to have money and all it will buy,
        But I never will lie to obtain it;
    For wealth I am eager and ready to try,
        But there’s much that I won’t do to gain it.
    I won’t spend my life in a money-mad chase,
        And I’ll never work children to win it;
    I won’t interfere with another man’s race,
        Though millions, perhaps, may be in it.

    There are prosperous things that are crusted with shame
        That I vow I will never engage in.
    There is many a crooked and dishonest game
        With a large and a glittering wage in,
    But I want to walk out with my head held erect,
        Nor bow it and sneakingly turn it;
    Above all your money I place self-respect;
        I’m eager for gold—but I’ll earn it.

  • The Blessings of Hard Times

    From The Topeka State Journal, November 23, 1914. By James J. Montague.

    When Farmer Jones’ Berkshire hog was living on the farm
    His personality was gross, his manner had no charm;
    He daily wallowed in the mud, he guzzled from his trough,
    And grew a mass of embonpoint which nothing could take off.
    And while his body waxed so great that he could hardly crawl,
    His brains became so dull and thick he couldn’t think at all.

    But when one day the farm burned down, the Berkshire hog got loose,
    And had to put his thickening brains to very active use.
    Nobody came to feed him now; he had to hustle ‘round,
    And use his nerve and judgement to provide his daily found.
    And soon new muscles thewed his flanks instead of flabby fat,
    And his once soggy countenance became worth looking at.

    There is no startling moral to this tale of Jones’s swine,
    Except that when one has to work before one sits to dine,
    And has to keep expenses down, the life he learns to lead
    Is pretty sure to keep his brains from running all to seed.
    And though no doubt it will surprise a lot of soft-raised men,
    A little pinch of poverty won’t hurt them—now and then.

  • Father Coyote

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 22, 1914. By George Sterling.

    At twilight time, when the lamps are lit,
    Father Coyote comes to sit
    At the chaparral’s edge, on the mountain side—
    Comes to listen and to deride
    The rancher’s hound and the rancher’s son,
    The passerby and everyone.
    And we pause at milking time to hear
    His reckless caroling, shrill and clear—
    His terse and swift and valorous troll,
    Ribald, rollicking, scornful, droll,
    As one might sing in coyotedom:
    “Yo! ho! ho! and a bottle of rum!”

    Yet well I wot there is little ease
    Where the turkeys roost in the piñon trees,
    But mute forebodings, canny and grim,
    As they shift and shiver along the limb,
    And the dog flings back an answer brief
    (Curse o’ the honest man on the thief),
    And the cat, till now intent to rove,
    Stalks to her lair by the kitchen stove;
    Not that SHE fears the rogue on the hill;
    But—no mice remain, and—the night is chill.

    And now, like a watchman of the skies,
    Whose glance to a thousand valleys flies,
    The moon glares over the granite ledge—
    Pared a slice on its upper edge.
    And Father Coyote waits no more,
    Knowing that down on the valley floor,
    In a sandy nook, all cool and white,
    The rabbits play and the rabbits fight,
    Flopping, nimble, scurrying,
    Careless now with the surge of spring—
    Furry lover, alack! alas!
    Skims your fate o’er the mountain grass!

  • Requiescas in Pace!

    From the New York Tribune, November 21, 1914. By Irwin.

    When you are dead and buried, friend,
        There’s nothing to delight or grieve you;
    You live, you die, and that’s the end,
        Let no religious myth deceive you.

    Your goodly wife no more will meet
        You as you wave the evening paper;
    Once dead you’ll read no sporting sheet,
        You’ll cut no latest fox-trot caper.

    For death destroys your petty “I,”
        You do not know that you’ve existed;
    Though folks may pity you, and cry,
        They’ve got their metaphysics twisted.

    They weep for you and mourn your fate,
        And prate of all the joys you’re losing;
    You’re happy (this they never state),
        In one eternal, dreamless snoozing.

    They moan, dissolved in salty tears,
        Their wailing is a mournful riot;
    The fools! They quake with noisy fears,
        At least you rest in peace and quiet.

  • War

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 20, 1914. By Bennett Chapple.

    Gone is the vaunted banner that proclaimed the world for peace,
    The mask is torn asunder and all Hell has seen release.
    The heat of age-old anger now has cracked the thin veneer,
    Ten million men are targets—and all Europe is a bier.
    The mighty guns are booming in their terrifying voice,
    They cut the field like reapers—and the soldiers have no choice.
    They face the rain of bullets, and with manhood’s stalwart zeal
    They march with very souls aflame through jaws of glistening steel.

    Theirs but to fall in windrows deep, cut down by scythes of lead,
    Till truce piles high the harvest there in gory stacks of dead.
    Napoleon took two million lives before he drank his dregs;
    “To make an omelet,” he said, “you have to break some eggs.”
    Ten million men now face the guns—an omelet, in truth—
    Ten million sturdy warriors so full of strength and youth,
    Ten million in uniform, stirred to heroic deeds,
    Ten million men in league with death while Christ in pity pleads.

    The proud world hangs its heartsick head at such a gruesome sight;
    The grim old skeleton of war once more has come to light,
    And savagery has brushed aside all civilizing creed,
    Turned back the clock a hundred years to let the nations bleed.
    What is this pride of nations that will pay such awful price?
    What is this commerce of the world that asks such sacrifice?
    Oh, is it worth the candle that the sombre altars light
    When men—perhaps a million men—are victims of the fight?

  • Expectations

    From the Perth Amboy Evening News, November 19, 1914. By James J. Montague.

    The kid that lives next door to me
        Is talkin’ mighty queer.
    He says that Santa Claus won’t be
        A-comin’ round this year.
    He says we’re poorer than we was
        An’ that’s why he is sure
    That Santa Claus won’t come, because
        He doesn’t like the poor.

    I guess I know we’re poor, all right.
        My dad ain’t got no job,
    An’ all my mother does at night
        Is lay awake an’ sob.
    But I should think old Santa’d know
        That ‘count o’ this here war
    Us kids that’s boosted for him so
        Would need him all the more.

    He must be rich as rich can be,
        For every Christmas day
    The papers tells about how he
        Gives loads o’ toys away.
    I ain’t expectin’ him to bring
        A very awful lot,
    But gee! I’d like some little thing
        To show he ain’t forgot!

  • Baby Mine

    From The Detroit Times, November 18, 1914. By Earl T. Henry.

    My little girlie is six years old, with eyes of velvet brown,
        And she thinks her daddy a wondrous man—a king without renown;
    But her dad knows well his countless scars, and the sins his thoughts confine;
        Oh, she makes a nervous man o’ me when her brown eyes seek mine.

    The sweetheart fair, with sunny hair, dreams day-dreams full of joy;
        God grant that she may never be a mere man’s golden toy!
    For toys will break, and baby hearts are found in women fine;
        Let no rude hand e’er tear that heart which sends such joy through mine.

    If after years when she has grown to glorious womanhood,
        And learned the many, many things that every woman should,
    My baby fair with silken hair, will learn her daddy fine
        Was but a man—how nervous I, when her soft eyes seek mine.

    Methinks it is a plan divine to send such patterns rare;
        Sweet children with their hearts of gold to occupy our care;
    No man full blown from nature’s field could spur us on to shine
        Like one pure look from little eyes that beam on yours and mine.

    Let her find out, as soon she must, her daddy-king is clay—
        Her little lessons must be learned, they hurt but for a day—
    With all my sins and all my scars, I drink to “Baby Mine,”
        For I’m a purer man, you see, when her brown eyes seek mine.

  • Leaves

    From the Grand Forks Daily Herald, November 17, 1914. By Vina Sheard.

    Summer is past for the little leaves,
        So the wind by night and day
    Gathers them close, while he sighs and grieves,
        And carries them all away.

    Leaves that are yellow and beaten gold,
        Leaves of a passionate red,
    Leaves that are broken and brown and old,
        Leaves that are withered and dead.

    Some he will blow to the mad sea waves,
        And in the ebb and flow,
    They will reach the green forgotten graves
        Of the drowned that lie below.

    Some he will drift to the place of sleep,
        The great brown Mother of rest,
    And to Slumber, dreamless, sweet and deep,
        She will hush them on her breast.

    For the fleeting days of blue and gold
        They will fret no more or sigh—
    They will not know it grows dark and cold,
        Or stir when the rain sweeps by.

    And none shall unfold the mystery
        Of the things that come and go,
    Save only He who holdeth the sea,
        And maketh the winds to blow.

  • Testament

    From the Albuquerque Morning Journal, November 16, 1914. By Sara Teasdale.

    I said, “I will take my life
        And throw it away;
    I who was fire and song
        Will turn to clay.

    “I will lie no more in the night
        With shaken breath.
    I will toss my heart in the air
        To be caught by Death.”

    But out of the night I heard,
        Like the inland sound of the sea,
    The hushed and terrible sob
        Of all humanity.

    Then I said, “Oh, who am I
        To scorn God to His face?
    I will bow my head and stay
        And suffer with my race.”