Category: The Tacoma Times

From The Tacoma Times, January 30, 1914. By Berton Braley.

Oh, Master of the World of men
    And Ruler of Eternity,
Neither with voice nor flowing pen
    Have I asked many things from Thee;
I have not begged for wealth or fame
    With selfish prayers of little worth,
Nor have I called upon Thy name
    To smite my enemies to earth.

Yet now to Thee I raise my eyes
    And lift my voice for Thee to hear;
No rich and sordid gift I prize,
    No plethora of gold and gear;
Only this single boon I pray,
    That in a busy world and wide,
Whether my life be grave or gay,
    I may not grow self-satisfied.

So, till my final hour is spent,
    Until my work and play are through,
Lord, let me never be content
    With what I am or what I do;
Deliver me from smug conceit
    Which clogs the heart and mind in action—
This is the prayer which I repeat,
    “Lord, guard me from self-satisfaction!”

From The Tacoma Times, January 15, 1914. By Berton Braley.

I care not what your place may be,
    A job that’s most laborious
With mighty little salary,
    Or one that’s fat and glorious,
But, be your labor great or small,
    Of this you must be sensible—
Some other guy can do it all,
    No man is indispensable!

When you begin to swell with pride
    And cater to the gallery
And put on lots of “dog” and “side”
    Because they’ve raised your salary,
Why, then’s the time you’ll tumble quick;
    Such ways are indefensible;
Some other guy can do your trick;
    No man is indispensable!

It’s well enough to know your worth
    And know just what to do with it,
But don’t imagine that the earth
    Will quit when you are through with it;
No, it will roll upon its way
    And—what seems reprehensible—
Some other guy will draw your pay;
    No man is indispensable!

From The Tacoma Times, January 14, 1914. By Berton Braley.

Girlie, I’ve noticed the flashy guy,
    The one who’s chasing around with you;
Believe me sister, he don’t get by;
    You want to chuck him—and sudden, too;
He may look grand and he may talk great,
    But take my warning and cut him out,
For the guy who’s honest and true and straight
    Don’t court his girl by the high-ball route!

Them friends of his that you’ve had to meet
    Ain’t just the kind that you ought to choose,
For how kin a decent girl keep sweet
    In a crowd that’s given to paint and booze?
There’s too much glitter and flash and glare;
    That duck’s too much of a “good old scout;”
Believe me sister, the guy who’s square
    Don’t court his girl by the high-ball route!

You get some feller that thinks you’re queen
    And tries to keep you from any wrong;
This present party is far too keen
    On leadin’ you off with the giddy throng;
The true-blue feller will treat you white,
    But not where the spigots fizz and spout;
Believe me, sister, the guy who’s right
    Don’t court his girl by the high-ball route!

From The Tacoma Times, January 13, 1914. By Berton Braley.

I serve the Lords of Laughter,
    I serve the gods of mirth,
I make the world a dafter
    And yet a gladder earth;
When woes grow thick and thicker
    And life seems inky black,
By magic of a snicker
    I drive the sorrows back.

I serve the Lords of Laughter
    And oh, I love to wake
The roar that shakes the rafter
    And makes the midriff quake;
I care not for the flouting
    Of bards who sneer at me
If I can hear the shouting
    Of great and gorgeous glee!

Oh, may the songs I sing you
    Lift every heavy cloud,
And may I always bring you
    Clean laughter, long and loud!
So when I pass hereafter
    This truth the world may tell,
“He served the Lords of Laughter
    And always served them well!”

From The Tacoma Times, December 27, 1913. By Berton Braley.

“Alas,” the struggling painter cried,
“My artist soul is sorely tried,
The crass commercial side of life,
The constant toil, the constant strife,
Give me no chance to do my best,
But keep me working without rest
At making pictures which will sell,
A thing at which I would rebel
If I had money so I could.”

Fortune to that young man was god,
An uncle died and left his roll
To him who had the “artist soul.”
No longer was there need to do
The pictures he’d objected to,
And “Art for Art’s sake” he was free
To follow long and faithfully.

But when his money came to him
Somehow ambition lost its vim;
Without the struggle and the fight,
The game had lost its old delight;
At first the work he did was small;
At last he didn’t paint at all!

The moral is that too much pelf—
Oh, make the moral for yourself!

From The Tacoma Times, December 25, 1913. By Berton Braley.

The Congressmen are singing in the chorus of a show,
The Speaker’s booked in Vaudeville at a house in Buffalo,
The Senators have organized a minstrel troupe of skill,
And wherever they are playing they are features of the bill;
The august, able Judges of the Nation’s Court Supreme
Are clowning in the circus and their antics are a scream;
The Cabinet is scattered many places near and far—
The Labor Secretary is a comic opera star,
And those of War and Navy are just “Turning ‘em away”
With some very fancy shooting at a lively cabaret.
And some are at Chautauquas where the voice of duty calls,
And some are doing dances in the London music halls,
And the head of all the Nation, whom we call our President,
Is at present giving lectures which will help to pay his rent;
There’s a drowsy air of languor over Washington, D. C.,
And the place is hushed and silent as a city well could be;
There are cobwebs on the buildings, there is fungus on the doors,
And the watchman sits and dozes and the janitor he snores;
There is dust upon the papers and the desks are buried deep,
For the theaters have opened and the capitol’s asleep.
Of course, the Nation’s business is neglected quite a spell,
But the Vaudeville-lecture business pays particularly well!

From The Tacoma Times, December 4, 1913. By Berton Braley.

My hands are gnarled and horny,
    My face is seamed with sun,
My path is sometimes thorny,
    My living grimly won
By labor unremitting
    And hard and bitter toil;
Forever I am pitting
    My strength against the soil.

The city’s lights and glamor
    Are not for me to know,
But neither is its clamor,
    Its squalor and its woe,
Not mine its pleasure places,
    But mine the good brown loam,
The air, the open spaces,
    The quiet peace of Home!

And, though by all my labor,
    I win no mighty prize,
I still can face my neighbor
    And look him in the eyes;
I am no speculator
    Within the wheat-pit hurled;
I am the wealth-creator
    Who helps to feed the world.

One with the Empire-makers
    Who bring a better day,
I till my thrifty acres
    And bow to no man’s sway;
My gold might leap up faster
    Were I to crook the knee,
But no man is my master
    And I am strong—and free!

From The Tacoma Times, December 2, 1913. By Berton Braley.

We knock and criticize her,
We scold, apostrophize her,
We wish that she were wiser,
    More capable and kind;
Her path we’re always stalking
To criticize her talking,
Her clothes, her way of walking,
    Her manners and her mind.

We say, “Oh, highty-tighty!
She’s frivolous and flighty
And all her ways are mighty
    Undignified to see;
She dances and she chatters,
Our olden rules she shatters
And laughs at serious matters
    With unabated glee.”

We chide and we correct her,
We shadow and detect her,
We study and dissect her
    With all her smiles and tears;
And find, on looking o’er her
(And learning to adore her),
She’s just like girls before her
    For twenty thousand years!

From The Tacoma Times, December 1, 1913. By Berton Braley.

You mustn’t make fun of the Irish,
    You mustn’t get fresh with the Jew,
There’s always a fuss if you jest at the Russ,
    And to jape at the Dutch is taboo.
You must’t play jokes on the English,
    For they are a haughty clan—
But here is a mutt who’s a good-natured butt,
    The Patient Amer-i-can!

Hands off the polyglot races;
    You mustn’t offend them at all,
For they fly in a rage when burlesqued on the stage
    And threaten to burn down the hall.
So dare not to laugh at the German,
    The Swede or I-tal-i-an,
But laugh all you like at this good-natured Ike,
    The Patient Amer-i-can!

He doesn’t get choked up with choler,
    But cheerfully shells out his pelf
To pay for some play where they prove him a jay
    And bid him to laugh at himself.
He’d joke at his grave if fate let him,
    And yet—if you’re needing a man—
A regular friend who will stick to the end,
    You try the Amer-i-can!

From The Tacoma Times, November 8, 1913. By Berton Braley.

“All is well”—the word is said
    By the blind men to the blind,
And the Tory nods his head
    Quite contented in his mind;

“All is well”—men starve and die
    In the midst of plenty’s store,
Babies weep and mothers cry,
    Famine lingers at the door,

Children toil in roaring mills,
    Robbed of all their hours of play,
Doing work that stunts and kills—
    “All is well,” the Tories cry.

Women take the wage of shame,
    Driven by the scourge of want;
Still the slogan is the same,
    “All is well,” resounds the vaunt.

Law is trampled under foot,
    Right is sunken in the mire
And the thug, the vicious brute,
    Beats and slugs and kills—for hire.

Men who dare to speak the truth
    Pace within a prison cell;
Power rules that knows no ruth,
    Yet men murmur, “All is well!”

Fetid street and filthy slum—
    Toil that makes men’s lives a hell,
Want and woe and vice and rum—
    Let’s be thankful “All is well!”