Newspaper History

Tag: Berton Braley

  • If They All Did It

    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!

  • Necessary Evils

    From The Seattle Star, December 16, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    In the days of old Rameses, when he ruled along the Nile,
    There were human sacrifices of a rather gory style.
    And if tender-hearted people at this sort of thing demurred,
    “It’s a Necessary Evil,” they were told, when it occurred.
    “For the mighty gods require it, and we mustn’t tell them ‘No,’
    Or the crops would cease to prosper and the Nile would cease to flow!”
    Yet in time this custom perished, ‘spite of priest and king and thrall,
    For a Necessary Evil’s no necessity at all!

    In the time of Mr. Nero, who was emperor of Rome,
    There were Necessary Evils which were very much at home.
    There were gladiators’ battles and a lot of other games,
    Such as feeding Christian martyrs to the lions or the flames.
    But the reign of Nero ended and he had his little day,
    And those Necessary Evils were completely swept away—
    Swept away like little sandhills in a sudden windy squall—
    For a Necessary Evil’s no necessity at all!

    There were good and kindly people who defended slavery
    As a Necessary Evil which was simply bound to be.
    Yet it’s washed away forever by the blood of noble men;
    It’s a Necessary Evil which will not come back again!
    So the Barroom and the Brothel, which are ever talked about
    As two Necessary Evils which we cannot do without—
    They shall go like those before them, they shall crumble to their fall—
    For a Necessary Evil’s no necessity at all!

  • The High Trail

    From The Seattle Star, December 10, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    I’m sick of your mobs and machinery,
        I’m weary of second-hand thrills;
    I’m tired of your two-by-four scenery,
        Your nice little valleys and hills;
    I want to see peaks that are bare again
        And ragged and rugged and high;
    To know the old tang in the air again,
        And the blue of the clear Western sky!

    Once more in each fiber and fold of me
        I feel the old wonderment brew;
    And again has the spell taken hold of me,
        The spell of the mountains I knew;
    So the city means nothing but slavery,
        And my heart is a load in my breast,
    And life will be stale and unsavory
        Till I stand on the hills of the West.

    Let the homebodies “hobo” and “rover” me;
        Poor plodders, they never can know
    How the fret for the hills has come over me
        And the fever that bids me to go
    Away from traditions gone moldering,
        Away from the paths overtired,
    To the place where the mountains are shouldering
        Right up to the Archways of God!

  • The Old Magic

    From The Topeka State Journal, December 6, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    I left the sea behind, that I might dwell
        ‘Mid streets where millions hurry to and fro,
    Where surging crowds and roaring traffic swell
        The city’s vast enchantment that I know;
        But still the vagrant breezes whisper low
    Of rolling deeps and spaces wide and free,
        Of reef and shoal and derelict and floe,
    To mightier magic of the surging sea!

    I love the city and I love it well,
        Its gold and want, its happiness and woe;
    Sometimes it seems no glamour may excel
        The city’s vast enchantment that I know;
        But memory will never have it so—
    She brings again the days “that used to be.”
        Once more I feel, as in the long ago,
    The mightier magic of the surging sea.

    The city streets—what stories they could tell!
        Touched with the wonder of the passing show,
    The seething life, the loves and hates that spell
        The city’s vast enchantment that I know;
        The noise and haste, the myriad lights aglow,
    The plots and schemes, the mirth and mystery.
        And yet I hear, in all the winds that blow,
    The mightier magic of the surging sea.

    What thrill it gives, what dreams it can bestow
    The city’s vast enchantment that I know!
    But I must follow, when this calls to me,
    The mightier magic of the surging sea.

  • The Farmer

    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!

  • Today’s Girl

    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!

  • Taboo

    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!

  • The Days of Old

    From The Seattle Star, November 28, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    Sometimes I long for the days of old
        When men were quick with a trusty blade;
    When dandies strutted in silk and gold
        And women rustled in stiff brocade;
    When life was filled with the old Romance,
        With courtly manners and stately ways,
    And brave Adventure had half a chance
        ‘Neath the smiling skies of the Good Old Days.
    And yet—and yet—this thought keeps coming,
        They had no plumbing!

    There’s a wondrous thrill in the good old time
        When gallants fought for a gallant king,
    And all went gay as a lilting rhyme
        And life was a rollicking, joyous thing;
    When Milord rode forth in a scarlet coat,
        With spotless lace at his neck and wrist,
    And a faithful squire at his side to note
        The deeds he did—and the maids he kissed!
    Yet, for all his deeds, and dear, he held ‘em,
        He bathed but seldom!

    I sometimes long for the days of old
        And sigh to climb from the modern rut;
    Then I think of the castles, dim and cold,
        And I think of the poor man’s airless hut;
    I think of the candles they used for light,
        The lumbering stage they rode upon;
    I think of the Might that passed for Right,
        And I’m glad the good old days have gone!
    They were pleasant days for the hero dapper,
        But—I’m no scrapper!

  • Youth

    From The Detroit Times, November 25, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    We Old Men try to fight them back
        With all our craft and all our skill,
    With every trick and every knack
        Of brain and heart and soul and Will.
        But oh, the Young Men follow still;
    They ask and will not be denied.
        And though they never mean us ill,
    We feel them thrusting us aside!

    Upon our olden gods we call
        And to our ancient shrines we cling
    But still without our castled wall
        The Young Men’s voices clearly ring.
        Upon their heads our wrath we fling,
    Our cannon-shot upon them rain.
        Our strategy and wiles we bring
    Against their ranks—but all in vain!

    Behind our barriers we stand
        (Experience and Age and Power),
    But Youth lays siege on every hand
        And crowds us closer every hour;
    The young men shell our moated tower,
        They batter down each wall and gate,
    And though we glare and though we glower,
        At last we must capitulate.

  • The Revolver

    From The Detroit Times, November 12, 1913. By Berton Braley.

    It once was weapon of the strong,
        The daring and the bold,
    Who left the dull and toiling throng
        To seek the land of gold;
    It made all men of equal height
        In realms beyond the law;
    It spoke in many a fair-fought fight
        Where life is rough and raw.

    It rendered justice as was mete
        ‘Twixt Ghibbeline or Guelph,
    Where each man stood upon his feet
        And made his law himself;
    It had some glory at its best,
        Some glamor of romance
    Amid those winners of the West
        Who dared to take a chance.

    It once was weapon of the brave,
        But in this later time
    The coward and the slinking knave
        Have made it black with crime;
    It is the weapon of the pack
        That stalks, by night, its prey,
    Then shoots the victim in the back
        And loots—and runs away!

    It is the comrade and the mate
        Of those who beat and slug,
    Of murderers degenerate,
        The gangster and the thug!