Newspaper History

Category: The Sun

  • The Father of Mischief

    From The Sun, March 14, 1915. By Alfred J. Hough.

    Men don’t believe in a devil now as their fathers used to do;
    They’ve forced the door of the broadest creed to let his Majesty through.
    There is not a print of his cloven foot, of a fiery dart from his bow
    To be found in earth or air today, for the world has voted so.
    But who is it mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain,
    And loads the bier of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain?
    Who blights the bloom of the land today with the fiery breath of hell
    If the devil isn’t and never was? Won’t somebody rise and tell?

    Who dogs the steps of the toiling saint and digs the pits for his feet?
    Who sows the tares in the field, wherever God sows His wheat?
    The devil is voted not to be, and of course, the thing is true;
    But who is doing the kind of work the devil alone should do?
    We are told he does not go about as a roaring lion now;
    But whom shall we hold responsible for the everlasting row
    To be heard in Home, in Church and State to the earth’s remotest bound,
    If the devil by a unanimous vote is nowhere to be found?

    Won’t somebody step to the front forthwith and make his bow and show
    How the frauds and the crimes of a single day spring up? We want to know.
    The devil was fairly voted out, and of course, the devil’s gone;
    But simple people would like to know who carries his business on.

  • The Man the Desert Got

    From The Sun, March 7, 1915. By Arthur Chapman.

    He rests, half buried in the drift
        Of waterless and silent strands;
    His fingers clutch a mocking gift—
        The worthless, wind blown desert sands;
    He thought to close his hand upon
        A heavier and yellow prize
    But now his lusts for gold have gone,
        Shriveled beneath those blazing skies.

    The lizard flits about his form,
        The buzzards circle in the height;
    If there be mercy in yon storm
        May he be covered deep ere night;
    And may the rippling sands smooth o’er
        Upon the desert’s face the spot
    Where ends his quest forevermore,
        The quest of him the desert got.

    The trails to distant water holes
        His plodding feet shall ne’er retrace,
    For unto still more distant goals
        The prospector has turned his face;
    These shifting sand hills lose their glow,
        The breeze no more is furnace hot,
    And when the storm ends none shall know
        Where rests the man the desert got.

  • In the Newspaper Room at the Public Library

    From The Sun, January 29, 1915. By H. S. Haskins.

    With travel stained feet
        Stands the lonesome youth
    One hour long
        In the library booth.
    Bending, homesick,
        All the while
    Over a blessed
        Newspaper file.
    Homely old paper,
        Looks to me;
    Banal and trite,
        It seems to be,
    But watch his eyes scan it
        Up and down,
    Blessed old paper
        From the blessed home town.

    Type is shabby
        And ink is poor.
    Has a colored supplement
        For a lure;
    Gives advice to girls
        And hints on dress,
    Steers new married couples
        To happiness;
    Yet in the trite sheet
        A vista lies
    Of the Somewhere Else
        To those homesick eyes,
    Of the Somewhere Else
        With its memories sweet
    To the lonesome youth
        With the travel stained feet.

  • Children of the Dead

    From The Sun, January 26, 1915. By H. S. Haskins.

    Gone are the hearts that bore them,
        Gone with the dead and missed.
    Lost are the hands which soothed them,
        Still are the lips that kissed.
    Silenced the songs which lulled them,
        Sweet at the close of day,
    Oh, for the angel mothers
        So far, so far away!

    Who is to plan their future?
        Who is to teach them games?
    Who is to answer questions?
        Who is to give them names?
    Where winds the path tomorrow?
        Where runs the road next year?
    Who is to guide their footsteps
        Up through the hills from here?

  • The True Trail

    From The Sun, January 17, 1915.

    There’s a trail that’s rough and rocky,
        And it stretches to the sun,
    Through the heart of mart and jungle,
        Where earth’s valiant deeds are done.

    ’Tis the trail of true endeavor,
        Which the men of ages trod,
    And it runs beyond the sunset
        To the golden throne of God.

  • The Old Piano

    From The Sun, January 10, 1915. By H. S. Haskins.

    And now, at last, you’ve got to go,
        I’ve come to say good-by.
    Forgive an old man’s weakness and
        The tears which fill my eyes.
    For five-and-twenty years I’ve played
        Upon your friendly keys,
    Which, yellowed ‘neath their tuneful tasks
        Are rich in memories.
    My little children, all of them,
        Have learned to play on you;
    One key was cracked by Johnny’s tooth,
        One scratched by Baby Sue.
    And one note never has regained
        Its old sonorous tone
    Since Tom, to stop his “practice,” went
        And hit it with a stone.
    I lift your lid, the rusty strings
        With ghostly echoes start
    To quiver with the long farewell
        That’s bursting from my heart.
    Your sounding board, melodic in
        The long, long yesterday,
    Vibrates with Tosti’s sweet “Good Night”
        My wife so loved to play.
    Like sad handshake a final chord
        Is lovingly caressed.
    May your career now ended be,
        And this your last long rest!
    I cannot bear the thought of you
        By fond use made divine,
    Responding to the ruthless touch
        Of other hands than mine;
    I cannot think of cheap dance hall,
        All smoke and heat and beer,
    With drunken fingers banging at
        The keys I hold so dear;
    But rather may you stand, forgot,
        So harmonies may fill
    The twilight of your life, safe in
        A warehouse, cool and still.

  • The Ballad Automobilious

    From The Sun, January 8, 1915.

    The gas tank’s full of gasoline
        The crank case full of oil;
    From top to tire, the whole machine
        Springs eager to its toil.

    The top and windshield both are down,
        In rush the sun and wind;
    They smooth away my furrowed frown
        And drive care from my mind.

    The engine’s purr, the hum of gears
        All blend and make me feel
    A newer music of the spheres,
        A symphony of steel.

    Before me lies the broad highway
        Through village, wood and farm;
    It lures me on, and I obey
        Its overwhelming charm.

    No more I sigh, like Mercury,
        To fly on winged heel,
    For Vulcan with new sorcery
        Has forged me wings of steel!

  • The Battle Christmas

    From The Sun, December 27, 1914. By McLandburgh Wilson.

    There are columns to be riven
        In the very face of hell,
    And the wild dumb beasts are driven
        To their doom of shot and shell.
    But above the shriek of battle
        And the chargers’ dying woe
    Sounds the lowing of the cattle
        In a manger long ago.

    There is midnight on the nations,
        There is hate instead of love.
    And the guns’ reverberations
        Shake the vaulted skies above.
    But beyond the thunders ringing
        As the foe replies to foe
    We can hear the angels singing
        On a midnight long ago.

  • The Magic Mulligan

    From The Sun, December 13, 1914. By Arthur Chapman.

    A rider from the Two-Bar come with news from off the range:
    He said he’d seen a dust cloud that looked almighty strange,
    So he rode his bronco over, and there, as bold as brass,
    He seen a sheepman feedin’ his flock upon our grass.
    The rider turned home, pronto, and he got the boys aroused,
    And then they started, whoopin’, for where them woolies browsed.
    But I met ’em joggin’ homeward, and I heard the hull bunch groan
    When I said: “Now, turn back, fellers, I must play this hand alone.”

    I was mad clear to my gizzard when I started for the camp,
    And I thought of how I’d punish this vile, sheep-herdin’ scamp;
    I’d escort him to the deadline, where he’d run his sheep across,
    And in case I had to kill him, why, it wouldn’t be much loss;
    And with such thoughts churnin’ in me when I spied his wagon-top
    I rode up to the herder as he watched his wooly crop.
    But he simply grinned up at me, and he said: “Now, pardner, say,
    Let’s set down and have some dinner ‘fore we start to scrap to-day.”

    He had a stew jest ready and he dished a plateful out,
    And I set and et that plateful and I heard far angels shout;
    I could hear gold harps a-twangin’ and my rough thoughts seemed to melt
    As he dished another plateful and I loosened up my belt.
    Then I laid aside my six-guns while the herder dished more stew,
    And at last my foreman rode up, as I knowed that he would do,
    And he set cross-legged with me, and he et, and more hands come,
    And afore that sheepman’s cookin’ quite the loudest was struck dumb.

    It was mulligan he’d made there, all alone out on the hills,
    This here cook whose magic humbled all my fightin’ Toms and Bills;
    You kin talk of hotel dishes, made by chefs from furrin lands,
    But I’ll back this sheepman’s cookin’ ‘gainst all European brands.
    So I says, when we had finished: “You kin make yourself to home,
    You kin pick the choicest grazin’ and allow your sheep to roam;
    We will drive our cattle elsewhere—you kin have whate’er you seek—
    If you let us come to dinner, say about three times a week!”

  • The Lost Wad

    From The Sun, November 15, 1914.

    The bells was ringing 8 o’clock, when to the store came Kate.
    She should have come at 7, but the girl did sleep too late;
    She was a weary salesgirl, and as she seemed real glum,
    She felt beneath the counter for her working wad of gum.

    The gum was gone. “Great Hevings!” cried the girl, “Oh, Mag! Oh Maud!
    Some of youse girls came early and has beat me to my wad.”
    The girls denied that they had took the gum and walked away,
    But they did hang their heads in shame when Kate she then did say:

    “I may be but a working girl, but working girls has rights,
    And to preserve that wad of gum I kept it here at nights.
    And no girl ain’t no lady, and a crook she has become
    Who’d steal from any working girl her only wad of gum.”