Category: Newspapers

From the Evening Star, July 12, 1913. By Walt Mason.

We all must have our evil days—that is the earthly plan; and when you’re treading rocky ways be patient as you can. For if, in brooding o’er your ills, you spend the dragging time, and if you count the weary hills you know you yet must climb, you’re pretty sure to overlook the good things on your way; the bank of flowers, the singing brook, the meadow sweet with hay. You hear the ravens croak and squawk as you pursue the trail; but if you listen as you walk, you’ll hear the nightingale. The brambles have your garments torn and multiplied your woes; but if you look, near every thorn you’ll doubtless find a rose. The clouds are banking in the west, you see the lightning’s gleam, but there’s an inn where pilgrims rest beside the fire and dream. “The night is closing cold and damp, and I am lost,” you moan; but in some window there’s a lamp that burns for you alone. And if we’re wise we all can sense the joy beyond the care; there always is a recompense for every grief we bear. So when a rough and dreary road and frowning sky we scan, let’s stand up straight beneath our load—be patient as we can!

From the Evening Star, July 7, 1913. By Walt Mason.

The country’s full of wholesome air, undoped, uncolored, undefiled; it’s blowing round us everywhere, enough for woman, man and child. And yet we box ourselves up tight the whole year round in dusty rooms; and sickness gets the foolish wight who in this way stale air consumes. And then he blows his wad for pills, and things you shake before you take, and tells long tales about his ills, describing every grievous ache. Fresh air preventive is and cure of half the ills beneath our hats, within the reach of people poor, as well as that of plutocrats. And that’s the reason why, no doubt, the fresh air cure-all doesn’t win; it’s why we keep the pure air out, and try to keep the stale air in. We can’t have faith in any dope that doesn’t cost like old Sam Hill; and so we anchor faith and hope to plaster, potion and to pill. We’ll buy the old expensive drugs until some faker sees ’twill pay to sell fresh air in gallon jugs, and then we’ll buy it every day. And, while the smiling faker thrives, in testimonials we’ll declare that fresh air saved our fading lives when all the docs were in despair. So let us wait for that glad day when fresh air’s bottled in New York; we’ll want it when we have to pay a plunk a throw, and pull a cork.

From the Evening Star, July 5, 1913. By Walt Mason.

If you build a line of railway over hills and barren lands, giving lucrative employment to about a million hands; if you cause a score of cities by your right of way to rise, where there formerly was nothing but some rattlesnakes and flies; if, when bringing kale to others you acquire a little kale, then you’ve surely robbed the peepul, and you ought to be in jail. If by planning and by toiling you have won some wealth and fame, it will make no odds how squarely you have played your little game; your success is proof sufficient that you are a public foe; you’re a soulless malefactor, to the dump you ought to go; it’s a crime for you to prosper where so many others fail; you have surely robbed the peepul and you ought to be in jail. Be a chronic politician, deal in superheated air; roast the banks and money barons—there is always safety there; but to sound the note of business is a crime so mean and base that the fellow guilty of it ought to go and hide his face; change the builder’s song triumphant for the politician’s wail, or we’ll think you’ve robbed the peepul, and we’ll pack you off to jail.