Newspaper History

Category: Newspapers

This is the parent category for all individual newspapers.

  • Bagman Wind

    From The Topeka State Journal, November 5, 1914. By Grif Alexander.

    Bagman Wind has things to sell, rings to sell, swings to sell!
        Bagman Wind has kings to sell! Every one a bargain!
    Scent of sea and scent of flowers; Scent of garden after showers!
        Perfumes faint of passing hours! Every one a bargain!

    Come, who’ll buy? Ye simple folk, who pretend to love a joke,
        Here are dainty rings of smoke—every one a bargain!
    Only cost a puff or two! Purse your mouth and they’ll skidoo!
        Lover’s rings enough for two! And every one a bargain!

    Swings? Why, bless your heart, just these: Clothes on lines and leaves on trees,
        Hammocks, ribbons, ships on seas—every one a bargain!
    (When these high grade goods he shows, how his voice’s ringing blows
        Puffs his wares! But then he knows every one’s a bargain!)

    Kings? Why, lots! Here’s cheerfulness and (for the baby) King Caress,
        And kisses crowned for Kate and Bess—every one a bargain!
    Health and strength he brings to you, cures you when you’re feeling blue!
        He can whisper secrets, too! Every one a bargain!

  • A Love Song

    From The Topeka State Journal, November 4, 1914. By Harriet Monroe.

    Your love is like a blue, blue wave
        The little rainbows play in.
    Your love is like a mountain cave
        Cool shadows darkly stay in.

    It thrills me like great gales at war,
        It soothes like softest singing.
    It bears me, where clear rivers are
        With reeds and rushes swinging;
    Or out to pearly shores afar
        Where temple bells are ringing.

  • The Ancient Spell

    From the Harrisburg Telegraph, November 3, 1914. By Berton Braley.

    When a ship puts out to sea
        Swinging slowly from the quay,
    Somehow warm enchantment gleams
        From each mast and stack and spar
    As she takes the trail o’ dreams
        Where all brave adventures are.
    Life seems big and blithe and free
        When a ship puts out to sea.

    Slaves of time and circumstance,
        Humdrum folk and dull are we,
    Yet we sense the old romance
        When a ship puts out to sea,
    And we watch her flag unfurled
        To the wind that sweeps the world,
    Watch her dim and fade and then
        Sighing, turn to toil again.

    Yet, although we may not be
        With her on the deeps that call,
    We can feel the mystery
        And the glamour of it all—
    When a ship puts out to sea.

  • Under Harvest Moon

    From The Times Dispatch, November 2, 1914.

    Last year the harvest moon looked down
        On bounteous fields of grain,
    A peaceful scene where lovers strolled
        Along the shady lane.

    In happy homes the mothers sang
        Their evening lullaby,
    And little children had no fear
        Of danger lurking nigh.

    But now the demon war is loosed
        And terrors fill the night,
    The dangers of the burning home,
        The dangers of the fight.

    Mothers and children hide and wait,
        They listen, fear, and pray,
    While shells are bursting all around
        And armies pass their way.

    Tonight upon the harvest field,
        The moon is shining bright,
    Where soldier forms lie mute and still
        With faces ghastly white.

    Oh, what a reaping! Oh, what loss!
        The flowers of earth cut down—
    The voice of mourning in the field
        And by the ruined town!

  • Prayer for Home Land

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, November 1, 1914. By E. A. Guest.

    God bless the old United States,
        God keep her people strong;
    God guard the peace within her gates
        And fill her land with song.
    Teach us who dwell beneath her flag
        To cherish peaceful ways;
    To cease of cannon’s strength to brag
        And uniforms to praise.

    God bless the old United States,
        Where Freedom’s banner flies,
    Where joyously the mother waits
        With bright and smiling eyes,
    The father, coming home at night,
        His day of toiling done,
    And where to meet him with delight
        His happy children run.

    Here all the tears are honest tears
        And pain is honest pain,
    And here, secure throughout the years
        The toilers’ homes remain.
    Here firesides are not desolate
        By needless shot and shell,
    But honor and reward await
        The men who labor well.

    God bless the old United States,
        God bless her people, too;
    God keep forever at her gates
        The old red, white and blue.
    And may its beauties never die,
        But every year increase;
    God grant that flag shall ever fly
        Above a land at peace.

  • In and Out

    From the Newark Evening Star, October 31, 1914.

    “I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls!”
        He sang the old refrain,
    The man on whom the public calls
        To toil with might and main.
    He stepped into his palace grand,
        And then he heard a shout,
    In accents of succinct command,
        The warning, “This way out!”

    The statesman or the warrior bold
        Strives on from year to year,
    Until before his eyes unfold
        The scenes of pomp and cheer.
    And when he seeks the sweet repose
        He earned, beyond a doubt,
    Fate all his dreaming overthrows,
        And hollers, “This way out!”

  • A Michigan Lament

    From the Newark Evening Star, October 30, 1914.

    Let the flowers die by the wayside,
        For why should they live while I
    Am dying of love unrequited
        With a tear in my hazel eye?
    As I laid my fair head on his bosom,
        And put my small hand in his hand,
    I detected the odor of perfume—
        I knew it was Natalie’s brand.

    O, the birdies are resting in treetops,
        The insects are wooing in flowers,
    Girls are dreaming behind counters in city shops,
        While grief, bitter grief, fills my hours.

    O, Natalie, Natalie, Natalie,
        How could you treat me so?
    That little spray of perfumery
        Has ruined a young life with woe.
    And soon the black Kalamazoo river,
        With the stars shining brightly above,
    Will be the white shroud of a maiden
        Who could not live without love.

  • The Wasters

    From The Times Dispatch, October 29, 1914. By D’Orsay Allen Poor.

    There’s plenty of men who cannot sing,
        There’s plenty who cannot draw,
    That we can spare, with never a care,
        To the terrible god of war.

    There’s plenty of men who cannot paint,
        There’s plenty who cannot write,
    To be sent to the front of the battles’ brunt
        To give up their lives in the fight.

    There’s plenty of men we can easily spare
        The toilers and lowly ones,
    Whose battle in life is a long, long strife—
        Let us feed such as these to the guns.

    For it seems such a pity to waste a voice
        That adds to society’s joys;
    So guard them well from the storms of hell
        And send on the working boys.

    So gather your men from factory and farm,
        And hasten them into the strife,
    So when they leave there is none to grieve
        Except mother and children and wife.

  • The Traitor

    From The Topeka State Journal, October 28, 1914. By Helen Hay Whitney.

    They lit for me no torches
        When I came home to die,
    For I had sinned against the land
        Where soon I low must lie.

    Black darkness hung about me;
        The dark woods knew my shame;
    The little lovely leaves drew back
        And shivered as I came.

    I, who had laughed and loved them,
        Who solved their secret streams,
    Forgetting honor, grasped for gain
        In barter with my dreams.

    From man I ask no quarter,
        No pardon for my birth;
    But O deep heart, betrayed and wronged,
        Forgive me, Mother Earth.

  • Edelweiss

    From the New York Tribune, October 27, 1914. By Giovanni.

    A rose I brought from Fancy’s bowers;
        She waved my offering away,
    And said, “The vows of youth are flowers,
        And wither like them in a day.”
    Unheeded now her way she goes—
        My passion faded like the rose.

    I trod the mountain-peak of years;
        Time’s snowflakes mingled with my hair;
    My heart was free from hopes and fears—
        Then Fate unveiled a maiden fair.
    I sought the flower that will not fade,
        And brought a blossom to the maid.

    Its fadeless bloom no message told;
        Flung under foot the blossom lay.
    She said, “It grows in Winter’s cold,
        And youth must have the buds of May.
    Your flower and you are of the snows—
        Today my lover brought a rose!”