{"id":7480,"date":"2021-09-08T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspaperhistory.com\/?p=7480"},"modified":"2021-09-08T01:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T05:00:00","slug":"the-grand-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/the-grand-average\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grand Average"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the <\/em>Rock Island Argus, September 8, 1913<\/em><\/a>. By Henry Howland.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They claim that men are gittin\u2019 so they don\u2019t believe in hell,
And unless they\u2019re makin\u2019 money folks don\u2019t think they\u2019re doin\u2019 well;
If all that people tell us of the human race is true
It would seem as though religion hasn\u2019t got much left to do.
Here\u2019s a book I\u2019ve jest been readin\u2019, and it says men\u2019s god today
Ain\u2019t the God our fathers worshiped in their pious, simple way.
And it\u2019s true that men are crowdin\u2019 for the money they can git
But I notice that the average is
    Quite
    Good
    Yit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember when most people thought old Nick would get \u2018em sure
If they stole or lied or cheated or lived lives that wasn\u2019t pure;
Still, in spite of thinkin\u2019 that way, men would cheat you when they could;
Fearin\u2019 that there was a devil didn\u2019t seem to keep \u2018em good.
I remember when folks used to set around, afraid, at night,
Thinkin\u2019 that the old boy\u2019d git \u2018em if they didn\u2019t do jest right.
But that didn\u2019t stop the cheatin\u2019, ner make thievin\u2019 rascals quit,
And I reckon that the average is
    Quite
    Good
    Yit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s true a few are tryin\u2019 to grasp all there is in sight,
And I know that men are cheatin\u2019, they still cheer the ones that fight;
They have legislated Satan out of bizness, and they say
That our fathers didn\u2019t worship the same God we do today;
Men are crowdin\u2019 one another, and they crush and steal and lie,
Never fearin\u2019 lakes of fire may be ready when they die,
But there\u2019s others, oh my brothers, that still follow Christ, and it
Seems to me as though the average is
    Quite
    Good
    Yit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Rock Island Argus, September 8, 1913. By Henry Howland. They claim that men are gittin\u2019 so they don\u2019t believe in hell,And unless they\u2019re makin\u2019 money folks don\u2019t think they\u2019re doin\u2019 well;If all that people tell us of the human race is trueIt would seem as though religion hasn\u2019t got much left to do.Here\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-7480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-rock-island-argus","tag-henry-howland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desperaudio.com\/newspaperpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}