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

  • 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.