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

  • Yes, It Surely Does

    From The Topeka State Journal, June 8, 1915. By Roy K. Moulton.

    Why did those old Egyptian kings
    Build pyramids and other things?
    Why did they proudly carve or paint
    An obelisk with figures quaint?
    Why did some Roman monarch raise
    A circus in those good old days?
    Or keep a poet under hire
    To sound a complimentary lyre?
    Why did old Caesar late at night
    Sit up describing every fight?
    Or Alexander make that bluff
    And say, “The world’s not big enough?”
    To us who view the modern game
    And see how wealth is wrung from fame,
    The answer need not cause surprise:
    It always pays to advertise.