Newspaper History

Category: The Topeka State Journal

  • All the Time

    From The Topeka State Journal, June 21, 1915.

    The statesmen can get busy, wave the old flag and orate,
        But the cost of living rises just the same.
    They may call the money barons and they may investigate,
        But the cost of living rises just the same.
    They may threaten, they may bluster, they may scream and paw the air;
    They may plead and they may grovel and in madness tear their hair;
    They can tell of real conditions and the awful truth lay bare,
        But the cost of living rises just the same.

  • Rosemary—For Remembrance

    From The Topeka State Journal, June 19, 1915. By Willard Wattler.

    When I would go a-walking
    In springtime on the green
    As other hearty lads may do
    With loves to look and lean,
    There is a hand, a wasted hand
    That slips our hands between.

    And when I bend above you
    And lean to touch your lips,
    Another face is lifted
    As the white heron dips,
    When all the sailor lads come home
    Who man the lonely ships.

    And were we two together
    Too close to breathe or stir,
    With stars our wakeful candles
    Upon strewn boughs of fir,
    I could not lie beside you
    And not remember her.

  • Yes, It Surely Does

    From The Topeka State Journal, June 8, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    Why did those old Egyptian kings
    Build pyramids and other things?
    Why did they proudly carve or paint
    An obelisk with figures quaint?
    Why did some Roman monarch raise
    A circus in those good old days?
    Or keep a poet under hire
    To sound a complimentary lyre?
    Why did old Caesar late at night
    Sit up describing every fight?
    Or Alexander make that bluff
    And say, “The world’s not big enough?”
    To us who view the modern game
    And see how wealth is wrung from fame,
    The answer need not cause surprise:
    It always pays to advertise.

  • The Soldier’s Easter Song

    From The Topeka State Journal, June 4, 1915. By Minna Irving.

    Back from gory battle came a soldier Easter Day,
    The streets were full of people in their Easter garments gay;
    Silver bells were ringing in the steeples overhead,
    The soldier he was wounded, and this is what he said:
    “It’s a long way to glory, it’s a long way to go
    From the dim and quiet churches where the Easter lilies blow.
    Good-by to home and comfort, farewell to sweethearts dear,
    It’s a long, long way to glory, and my heart’s right here.”

    When the soldier joined the colors he was full of thoughts of Fame,
    But he found among the trenches that they never spoke her name.
    Coming home upon a furlough with his right arm in a sling,
    He was strong for peace eternal when the chimes began to ring:
    “It’s a long way to glory, it’s a long way to go,
    The route is marked in crimson with the blood of friend and foe.
    There’s a girl I want to marry, we have waited ‘most a year,
    It’s a long, long way to glory when my heart is here.

    “I would rather have a cottage, and a garden and a cow,
    Than a V. C. on my bosom, and a laurel on my brow.
    War has led me through his shambles till my soul is worn to rags;
    Give us peace the wide world over, fold away the battle-flags;
    It’s a long way to glory, it’s a long way to go,
    It’s a long way to glory and the hardest road I know.
    From the snowy Easter lilies may the dove of peace appear,
    It’s a long, long way to glory, for my heart’s right here.”

  • Once Again

    From The Topeka State Journal, June 3, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    Quite soon the world must hesitate
    And listen to the graduate
        And soak in good advice
    That’s given by the wise young men
    And women o’er and o’er again
        Without the slightest price.

    They’ve got a lot of it to give.
    They’ll tell the whole world how to live
        And how to win the strife.
    They’ll tell the old folk as of yore,
    In fancy and high-sounding lore
        How to succeed in life.

    It’s safe to say they will solve all
    Of Wilson’s problems, great and small,
        And questions of the day.
    The world, of course, will be polite
    And listen on commencement night
        And then go on its way.

  • Mr. Taft’s Advice

    From The Topeka State Journal, April 6, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    “Don’t marry scrubs,” says Mr. Taft, and makes a subtle pause,
    So all the rapt and listening maids can ripple their applause.
    Indeed, ’tis sage and sound advice, for once a wedded wife,
    A girl who’s married to a scrub will lead an awful life.
    A scrub will loaf, a scrub will booze, he’ll gamble if it please him;
    But how, pray tell us, is a girl to know one when she sees him?
    A chesty fellow comes along, with manners like John Drew;
    A knitted tie and green silk socks and eyes of lovely blue.
    He looks the goods from heel to hair—a regular high life swell;
    He might well be a Claude Melnotte, but how’s a girl to tell?
    It means an awful lot to her, for if she is mistaken
    She’ll be the one to suffer when he can’t bring home the bacon.
    Another knock-kneed, seedy guy, who drives a grocery cart
    May have beneath his battered vest a fourteen-karat heart.

  • Song of the Fisherman

    From The Topeka State Journal, March 18, 1915. By E. B. Widger.

    There’s a sound that rings in my ears today
        And echoes in vague refrain;
    The ripple of water o’er smooth-washed clay
    Where the wall-eyed pike and the black bass play,
    That makes me yearn in a quiet way
        For the old home haunts again.

        Back to the old home haunts again,
            Back where the clear lake lies,
        Back through the wood where the blackbirds brood,
            Back to my rod and flies.

    I wish I could paddle my boat today
        Through water-logged grass and reeds
    Where the muskrat swims and the cattails sway
    And the air is cool and the mist is gray
    And the ripples dance in the same old way
        Under the tangled weeds.

        Back on the old oak log again
            Back by the crystal brook,
        Back to the bait and the silent wait,
            Back to my line and hook.

    I wish I could wade by the water’s edge
        Where the falling leaves drift by,
    Just to see in the shadow of the ledge
    Where dark forms glide like a woodman’s wedge
    Through drifted piles of dark marsh sedge,
        And hear the bittern cry.

        Back where the tadpoles shift and shirk,
            Back where bullfrogs sob,
        Back just to float in my leaky boat,
            Back to my dripping bob.

    Oh, it’s just like this on each rainy day;
        Always the same old pain
    That struggles and pulls in the same old way
    To take me off for a little stay
    By the water’s edge in the sticky clay,
        To the fish in the falling rain.

        Back to my long, black rubber boots,
            Back to my old patched coat,
        Back to my rod and breath of God,
            Home, and my leaky boat.

  • The Way It Goes

    From The Topeka State Journal, March 9, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    She ransacked every novel
        And the dictionary, too,
    But nothing ever printed
        For her baby’s name would do;
    She hunted appellations
        From the present and the past,
    And this is what she named him
        When they christened him at last:

    Julian Harold Egbert
        Ulysses Victor Paul
    Algernon Marcus Cecil
        Sylvester George McFall.
    But after all the trouble
        She’d taken for his sake,
    His father called him Fatty,
        And his schoolmates called him Jake.

  • Mysteries

    From The Topeka State Journal, February 10, 1915. By Edmund Vance Cooke.

    Twenty bad men in the bar one night,
        Each one shoving his foot on the rail;
    None of them sober and most of them tight,
    Every one cussing to kick up a fight,
        Each one a devil and swinging his tail;
    Most of them dead when the scrap was done—
    Nobody knew how the row had begun!

    A squally day and a celluloid boat,
        Launched on a river of gasoline;
    “As freaky a craft as was ever afloat,”
    The captain swore in his husky throat,
        “With her firebox next to her magazine.”
    He lighted his pipe and tossed his match—
    Now how could the conflagration catch?

    Generals, admirals, emperors, kings,
        And babes from the cradle trained to kill;
    Davids swinging Goliath slings,
    Navies filled with eagle wings,
        Nations of armies, life a drill.
    Courtiers cunning in wild excuse—
    What a surprise when the war broke loose!

  • Paying the Fiddler

    From The Topeka State Journal, January 27, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    I remember way back in ’84,
    The folks was madder’n ever before,
    When they noticed first the increased expense,
    And they have been hollerin’ ever sence.
    They holler till they’re sick and sore and lame,
    But they keep on payin’ just the same.
    They holler till they’re sick and sore and shout
    There ain’t one thing they will do without.
    For every family in this broad land
    Is as good as the next one. Understand?
    They caterwaller and they wipe their eyes,
    But they don’t seem willing to economize.
    When one feller gits some jimcrack new,
    The next feller’s got to have one, too.
    They all keep digging down in their jeans
    And tryin’ to live beyond their means.
    If this goes on to the end of time,
    The cost of living is going to climb,
    Fer when you put on new-fangled frills,
    You surely have got to pay the bills.