Category: Rock Island Argus

From the Rock Island Argus, June 5, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 Finance is something that appears
     To be away beyond my ken;
 I’ve studied it for years and years,
     In common with my fellow men;
 But there are things about it which
     Are deeply mystifying yet;
 How is it that some men are rich
     And at the same time far in debt?
 
 My place in life is rather low,
     And I may never cease to strive;
 I’m poor, although I do not owe
     A cent to any man alive;
 The luxuries that come to me
     Are very few and very small;
 Things may be as they ought to be,
     But I can’t understand at all.
 
 They say that old man Billingsworth
     Owes money almost everywhere;
 His people travel o’er the earth,
     And never seem to have a care;
 With eighty thousand dollars less
     Than nothing he is living high,
 And looks with splendid haughtiness
     Down on such humble ones as I.
 
 He has a long, low, rakish car
     In which he proudly rides about;
 He smokes a large and good cigar
     And always has his chest pushed out;
 The house in which he dwells is grand,
     His wife wears gems that cost a pile;
 His son has never turned a hand,
     His daughters dress in queenly style.
 
 He does not labor day by day,
     As I and those around me do;
 He’s very deep in debt, they say,
     And always sinking deeper, too;
 Yet, worse than merely penniless,
     He shines where I would have no chance;
 The simple truth must be, I guess,
     That I can’t understand finance.

From the Rock Island Argus, June 2, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 “Just to be a child again,” sighed the millionaire,
 “Knowing not what woe exists, free from every care;
 Just to be a child again, filled with boyish glee,
 Free from all the ills I bear and from sorrows free.”
 
 ‘Round the corner lay a boy, fretting in his bed.
 “Gee, I wisht I was a man,” dismally he said.
 “Every season seems to bring some disease, somehow.
 Had the scarlet fever last - got the measles now.
 
 “Yes, I’ve had the chicken-pox and the jaundice, too;
 ‘Spose I’ll have the mumps the next - always something new;
 When you’re sick there ain’t no fun, ‘cause you feel so bad;
 When you’re well you go to school - gee, but life is sad!”
 
 “Just to be a boy,” the man murmured with a sigh,
 “Free to frolic as I pleased, all things yet to try;
 Ah, how small men’s triumphs are, what a price we pay
 For the little that we get as we scheme away.”

From the Rock Island Argus, May 30, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 Ah, poor young man! He has no chance to show his worth;
 No undiscovered continents are left on earth;
 Columbus, had it been his fate to live today
 Might serve beneath some section boss for little pay.
 
 Oh, poor young man! He cannot use his gifts, alack!
 No Austerlitz remains to lose, no Rome to sack.
 The past has both Thermopylae and Waterloo—
 What is there that the poor young man may hope to do?
 
 Newton, Galileo, Morse, have lived and wrought;
 Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Burns and Scott!
 Ah, if they had not written all there was to write
 He might take up his pen and give the world delight.
 
 Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt—how with paint and brush
 May be expected to be supreme? Huge vessels rush
 From hemisphere to hemisphere, the winds defying
 Because a Fulton had a plan he thought worth trying.
 
 Oh, poor young man! He sits downcast, no chance remains
 For him to nobly free a race from galling chains.
 The great things have been done, alas! By craft or stealth
 The magnates have become possessed of all the wealth.
 
 The world has ceased to need men who were born to lead;
 He may not join the splendid few. ’Tis sad indeed!
 He came too late to win renown or claim applause;
 He has no chance to be supreme in any cause.
 
 Ah, poor young man! How sad his fate, how drear his lot.
 To have no hope of being great!—And yet, why not?
 At Homer many, many a man stuck out his tongue
 And told him that the greatest songs had all been sung.

From the Rock Island Argus, May 28, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 Pa is feeling rather chipper; every day he wears a smile
 Though he has no public office and keeps working all the while;
 They have not increased his wages, and they never will, I guess,
 But his look is always cheerful and he’s full of hopefulness.
 
 His overcoat is seedy and his pants bag at the knees;
 We are not among the people who can travel overseas;
 The price of living’s higher than it ought to be, ’tis true,
 But pa’s clinging to his courage and he takes a hopeful view.
 
 The folks next door have lately had to cut expenses down;
 It seems they’ve been unlucky—it’s the talk all over town;
 They have sold their new electric—ma pretends it was too bad—
 So it seems pa needn’t buy one, and it makes him mighty glad.

From the Rock Island Argus, May 17, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 My pa is not a millionaire,
     He’s never been elected yet
 To any office anywhere,
     There’s lots of things that we can’t get;
 Ma often wishes we could buy
     The costly things the neighbors do;
 The price of livin’ is so high
     We have to skimp and worry through.
 
 I guess my pa was never meant
     To be a leader in the strife;
 Ma says he’ll not be president
     Nor get ahead much in this life.
 But he can make a whistle, though
     Just from a piece of willow tree;
 I wish that you could see the bow
     And arrow that he fixed for me.
 
 My pa gets paid so much a week
     Because he doesn’t own a store;
 Ma says if he was not so meek
     And mild he might be drawin’ more.
 We have no car nor runabout
     And nearly always have to save;
 Ma’s heart is often full of doubt,
     But pa keeps hopin’ and is brave.
 
 Sometimes I help him in the yard
     When he comes home on Saturdays;
 I’m sorry he must work so hard
     And wish that he could get a raise;
 Most all the time ma needs a lot
     Of things we can’t afford, and which
 The neighbors nearly all have got
     Because they managed to get rich.
 
 My pa sometimes takes me away
     Out in the country for fresh air;
 We build dams in the streams and play
     That both of us are boys, out there;
 Ma says that pa, long, long ago
     Just got to be a mere machine;
 I wouldn’t want to trade him, though
     For any pa I’ve ever seen.

From the Rock Island Argus, May 16, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 We speak in accents kind and fair
     Concerning those who have departed;
 We praise the ones who travel where
     The shoreless seas are all uncharted.
 Oh, it is well that we should raise
     Our voices in a grand, sweet chorus
 And passing o’er their foibles, praise
     The worth of them that go before us.
 
 But would it not be better still
     If men might sometimes gladly hear us
 Give forth expressions of goodwill
     And kindness while they lingered near us?
 ’Tis well to praise the dead, to be
     Respectful to them and forgiving;
 But would it not be good if we
     More often spoke well of the living?

From the Rock Island Argus, May 12, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 The little boy whom you forget
     To play with when the days are fair
 The child whose hopes are sinless yet
     Who kneels to lisp his evening prayer
 Will soon leave off his childish ways
     And learn the things that men must learn;
 Why do you waste the precious days
     That never, never can return?
 
 You never lead him by the hand
     Nor make his little joys your own
 Ambition sends you her command
     And he is left to play alone;
 He never climbs upon your knee
     Delighted at the long day’s end
 To find that you have time to be
     His fond and sympathetic friend.
 
 You never can afford to waste
     A precious hour arousing him
 The prizes after which you haste
     Are always far away and dim;
 You must be ever pressing on
     Forgetting, while you strive and plan
 How soon his childhood will be gone
     How quickly he will be a man.
 
 You never pause with him to hear
     The breeze that sings among the reeds
 You have no time to give the dear
     Sweet sympathy for which he pleads;
 You never rush with him in wild
     Pursuit of fairies through the glen
 Yourself again a careless child
     Freed from the cares that worry men.
 
 Have you no treasured memories
     Of one who gladly played with you
 Before you had been robbed of ease
     And when your cares were small and few?
 Ah, will you rob him of the joy
     Of looking back along the years
 When he has ceased to be a boy
     And Duty’s call rings in his ears?
 
 The little boy whom you forget
     To play with when the days are fair
 The child whose thoughts are sinless yet
     Who kneels to lisp his evening prayer
 Will soon leave off his childish ways
     And you will sit somewhere alone
 Regretting precious wasted days
     And joys that might have been your own.

From the Rock Island Argus, May 1, 1913. 
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 He sighed because it was his fate
     To earn the blessings he received;
 Because he was compelled to wait
     For opportunities he grieved.
 
 He mourned because he could not claim
     A certain lady for his own;
 He sadly sighed because his name
     In many quarters was unknown.
 
 He thought his fate was hard to bear
     Because he seldom got a rest;
 When he began to lose his hair
     A bitter sadness filled his breast.
 
 But when he lost his appetite
     And when good health was his no more
 He sadly wondered day and night
     Why he had ever grieved before.

From the Rock Island Argus, April 28, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 This glad world was not made for me,
     The brook would sing upon its way,
 The fragrant blossoms grace the tree,
     The squirrels in the branches play,
 If I should sink to nothingness,
     And never know again or care;
 But being here, I may possess
     All that is good and sweet and fair.
 
 I may be gladdened by the song
     With which the lark begins the day;
 To me the woodland joys belong,
     The blossoms that bestrew my way;
 The beauty of the towering cliff
     I may behold with ecstasy;
 I see and hear—what matter if
     This fair world was not made for me?

From the Rock Island Argus, April 24, 1913.
 By S. E. Kiser.
 

 Sim Watson’s stock of wit was small,
 But he let on he knew it all;
     He held his head up mighty high;
     The word he spoke the most was “I;”
 He had a large amount of gall,
     And never let a chance go by
 Whenever he was in a crowd
 To make his conversation loud.
 
 You’d hear his voice above the rest
 He’d strut and he’d stick out his chest
     He never “guessed,” he always KNEW;
     Or, leastwise, he pretended to;
 He always seemed to worry lest
     He might be hidden from the view;
 When taller men than Sim were there
 You’d see him standin’ on a chair.
 
 We all knew his talk was guff,
 That he was puttin’ up a bluff,
     And yet, somehow, we kind of got
     To thinkin’ that he knew a lot;
 The jokes he told were old and tough—
     Most of them tales that we’d forgot—
 But still we’d laugh at what he said,
 And so his reputation spread.
 
 Well, as I see the case today,
 Sim taught a lesson, anyway;
     Your stock of knowledge may be small,
     But don’t stand back against the wall
 And listen to what others say.
     Speak up and claim to know it all;
 Most people will believe you do—
 The wiser ones are mighty few.