Newspaper History

Category: Newspapers

This is the parent category for all individual newspapers.

  • At the End of the Road

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, March 19, 1914. By Madison Cawein.

    This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
        Out in the wind and the rain;
    They who have nothing have little to fear—
        Nothing to lose or to gain.
    Here by the road at the end o’ the year,
    Let us sit down and drink of our beer,
    Happy-Go-Lucky and her cavalier,
        Out in the wind and the rain.

    Now we are old, hey, isn’t it fine
        Out in the wind and the rain?
    Now we have nothing, why snivel and whine?
        What would it bring us again?
    When I was young I took you like wine,
    Held you and kissed you and thought you divine—
    Happy-Go-Lucky, the habit’s still mine,
        Out in the wind and the rain.

    Oh, my old heart, what a life we have led,
        Out in the wind and the rain!
    How we have drunken and how we have fed!
        Nothing to lose or to gain.
    Cover the fire now; get we to bed.
    Long is the journey and far has it led.
    Come, let us sleep lass, sleep like the dead,
        Out in the wind and the rain.

  • The Dangers in the Dark

    From the Rock Island Argus, March 18, 1914. By Henry Howland.

    I wish that it were possible to be as good by day
    As when at night, I am alone, to foolish fear a prey,
    For then I think of righteous things that I would gladly do,
    And fashion for myself a course all blameless to pursue.

    But when the day has come again, with all its snares and cares,
    And I am face to face with men and mix in their affairs,
    Somehow the resolutions which I clung to in the dark
    Are put aside as foolish things, unworthy of remark.

    I wish that it were possible, when I am well and strong,
    To shun the habits which prevent a man from living long;
    When I am ill and toss about upon a bed of pain
    I list a score of things which I shall never eat again.

    But when my health returns and I am once more on my feet
    I cease to wisely shun the things that I should never eat;
    To ancient habits I return, and lightly cease to dread
    The dangers that appeared so great when I was sick abed.

  • Seeing the World

    From The Times Dispatch, March 17, 1914. By Thomas Lomax Hunter.

    “Come and go a-journeying and see the world,” you cry,
        “Sixty miles an hour on a flying Pullman whirled.
    See the great strange cities and their peoples as we fly.
        Would you stay forever here and never see the world?”

    Come with me a-walking on the path beside the brook;
        There are many wonders there if you will pause to see;
    Elfin things and faery, if you will stop to look.
        If you would really see the world, come and walk with me.

    Breathe the tonic odor of the darkling piney woods.
        Search beneath the needles where the first arbutus blows.
    Come on Pan a-brooding in his earliest vernal mood,
        Hidden in the rushes where the frolic streamlet flows.

    Come, and I will show you where the merry chipmunks dwell;
        Where the timid wood-birds build that do not flock with man;
    And where the hermit woodchuck has dug his secret cell,
        And all the shy Arcadians who hear the pipes of Pan.

    “Come,” you cry, “and see the world across the Seven Seas,
        The pyramids and Palestine and ancient Greece and Rome.”
    But why should I go seeking those when I have ever these
        Enchantments and adventures within a mile of home?

    Here I only have to wait, the seasons come to me;
        Flying each its colors and bugled by its birds.
    What is there more wonderful or fair across the sea
        That I should go a-hurrying with the harried tourist herds?

    While you have fled a thousand miles in a touring car,
        I have just been tramping through the hills and meadows near.
    You have seen the wonders of a fleeting world and far,
        But I have been a-walking and seen my world right here.

  • The Peacock

    From The Times Dispatch, March 16, 1914. By Thomas Lomax Hunter.

    The peacock makes the grandest show
    And shine of all the birds I know.
    The sunlight glints upon his breast
    In iridescent loveliness.
    His great tail coverts, purple-eyed,
    Are just the livery of pride.
    He is the dandy and the dude
    Of the entire barnyard brood.
    He hasn’t got a single duty
    Except to be a thing of beauty,
    And this, because of gorgeous dress,
    He does with wonderful success.
    But it is better to be plain
    Than idle, insolent and vain,
    And if to this bright bird we turn
    A useful lesson we may learn.
    The overdressed too oft possess
    But very little more than dress,
    And only sit around and brood
    On their supernal pulchritude,
    And are in all the winds and weathers
    Forever preening up their feathers.
    ’Tis not to them that we would go
    For wit or wisdom—oh, dear no!
    Nor yet for help to right our wrong,
    Nor yet for poetry or song.
    Their minds have mastered one device:
    The art of always looking nice,
    Curled, scented, tinted, creased and pressed,
    And dressed—yes, super-ultra dressed.
    It is not to these “joys forever”
    That we must look for high endeavor.
    They have no idea worth our while;
    Just dumb idolatry of style.
    And this reminds us it is time
    To point the moral of this rhyme:
    You’d think the peacock should be king
    Of birds until you hear him sing.

  • The Nearest Friend

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, March 15, 1914. By John Kendrick Bangs.

    A man I know, and yet know not at all,
    Is one who ever stands at beck and call.
    Responsive always to my slightest whim,
    No matter what the task I set for him.
    My friend he would be, yet most truly he
    Of all my foes is my worst enemy—
    A riddle past all solving—loving, warm,
    Yet daily in some way he doeth harm.

    Control him? I have tried with some success,
    Yet often he eludes me, and distress
    Incalculable follows in his train,
    And leaves me face to face with bitter pain.
    His thoughts I know, and yet within his soul
    He carries as it were a mystic scroll
    That, try how hard I may to penetrate
    Its meaning clear, I never can translate.

    Why this good deed he does, or that of ill,
    The deeds that dull all hope, or haply thrill
    My heart and soul, I cannot comprehend—
    My enemy today; tomorrow friend!
    With joy and shame, alternately, through life
    He’s filled my days with happiness and strife;
    My love and hatred form his worldly pelf,
    This man I know, yet know him not!—Myself!

  • Looking Wise

    From the Evening Star, March 14, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    My Uncle Jim, he used to speak.
        His words would make the welkin ring.
    But now his eloquence grows weak.
        He isn’t saying anything.
    The popularity he’s found
        To all his friends is a surprise
    Since he has just been sitting ‘round
        And doing nothing but look wise.

    It’s great to have a silvery tongue
        And make men listen to your voice.
    It’s great to lecture old and young
        And see them tremble or rejoice
    According to the words you choose.
        But of them all the greatest prize
    Is this strange gift that statesmen use;
        The simple art of looking wise.

  • Just a Clerk

    From the Omaha Daily Bee, March 13, 1914. By H. J. Maclean.

    Lord, I am but a little clerk
        That scratches with a pen;
    I rise and eat and toil and sleep,
        Just as all other men.

    The only colors in my life
        Are drabs and duns and grays,
    Yet on the whole I am content
        To tread the beaten ways.

    But sometimes when the midspring mist
        Floats in the scented night,
    Strange spirits whisper in my ear,
        And visions cross my sight.

    I see myself a gracious youth,
        In purple and bright steel;
    The golden spurs of knightly worth
        Are glistening on each heel.

    I ride into a world of dreams,
        And with my pennoned lance
    I pierce the mystic veil that hides
        The land of high romance.

    But as I pass through Galahad’s glades
        Adventuring on my way,
    A ghost is ever at my back,
        The ghost of every day.

    And soon or late its horrid hand
        That never yields or stays
    Will hurl me from my land of dreams,
        Back to its beaten ways.

    Oh, Lord, some pray to Thee for gold,
        Some for a woman’s smile;
    But all I ask is a breath of life
        Once for a little while.

    Grant me, before I pass beyond,
        One chance to play a part,
    To drop the guise of the little clerk
        And show the man at heart.

  • Amoris Dementia

    From The Sun, March 12, 1914. By George B. Morewood.

    I’m sick all through, from top to toes
    The way my pulses ebb and flow
    Would seem to indicate, alack,
    That my complaint is cardiac;
    But I have lost all taste for food,
    So gastric ills I must include;
    Again, though far indeed from death,
    At times a catch comes in my breath;
    My bosom heaves till ‘twould appear
    That pulmonary trouble’s near.
    Next there’s a tingling of the nerves
    That diagnosis well deserves,
    Since of all ills by which man’s cursed
    The neuropathic are the worst.
    I met a lady fair last week
    To whom I found it hard to speak.
    My vocal cords must be amiss.
    Else, whence came their paralysis?
    Cerebric lesions, too, I fear,
    Because my mind was far from clear.
    But I’ve one symptom stranger yet,
    Though thus completely I’m upset.
    Life seems more joyous, strange to tell,
    Than e’er it did when I was well.
    What’s wrought me up to such a pitch?
    I am the victim of a witch!
    I feel her spell is o’er me thrown,
    ’Tis she can cure and she alone!

  • Incorrigible

    From the Evening Star, March 11, 1914. By Philander Johnson.

    The winter season soon must fly
        And Spring resume its glory;
    Yet snow and frost may still draw nigh
        To contradict the story.
    Astronomers observe with care
        The planets and their stations.
    The climate does not seem to care
        For learned calculations.

  • In Her Old Dreams There

    From The Birmingham Age Herald, March 10, 1914.

    There’s a bloom upon her beauty
        In her old dreams there,
    In the corner by the window
        In her old arm chair.
    There is snow upon the ringlets
        That were golden in a day
    Ere the dreams were like the roses
        That the years blow away.

    There’s a glow of something lovely
        In her person as of old,
    And the tune her lips are crooning
        Is as bright as virgin gold.
    There’s a twinkle in her eyes yet,
        And upon her lips a gleam,
    As she sits beside the window,
        In her old, old dream.

    Ah, little snowy lady,
        Would that time might never know
    A moment you must vanish
        As the dust the breezes blow.
    For it’s such a gift of beauty
        To behold you sitting there,
    In the old dreams by the window
        In your old arm chair.