Newspaper History presents media sourced from a United States newspaper dating back 108 years.

  • Ambition

    From The Topeka State Journal, February 11, 1914. By Roy K. Moulton.

    When he made just three plunks a week
        He thought if he made five
    He’d surely be the happiest
        Young business man alive.
    He finally got five a week,
        But wasn’t happy then.
    He never would be satisfied
        Until he pulled down ten.
    When he got ten a week he thought
        His compensation mean;
    He knew he’d reach his heart’s desire
        If he could get fifteen.
    He got his fifteen, then he knew
        A person could not thrive
    In this expensive day and age
        On less than twenty five.
    He finally got twenty five,
        The sum he’d thought so nifty,
    But found he couldn’t be content
        And live on less than fifty.
    He got his fifty one fine day,
        And then he found out that
    He never could be happy quite
        Without one hundred flat.
    He made some wise deals after that
        And gathered in a million.
    But was he happy? No, indeed,
        He had to have a billion.
    And it is safe to say that if
        He really got his billion,
    Old age could find him fighting to
        Accumulate a trillion.