| "There's nothing in the paper" is a very common
phase; Perhaps it may have come to us from pre-diluvian days. No doubt when Noah and his sons were fitting up the ark, The folks who read the Daily Squawk would sit around and bark And wonder why the editor devoted gobs of space To a cranky preacher-carpenter with whiskers on his face. "There's nothing in the paper," the sad subscriber groans, "Except that Mrs. Isaac Smith is calling on Miss Jones, Or Jinks has roofed his hen house or cut his crop of weeds, Or that Schnickelfritz, the grocer, sells farm and garden seeds." When there has been a holocaust, a murder or a fight, The reader takes an interest, you see his features light; He yells unto his neighbor who lives across the way: "Why don't they give us news like that to read about each day ?" He does not seem to realize that when the paper lacks The headlines, red and screaming, with their toll of grewsome facts, That everything is lovely with neighbor, friend and foe And the town is jogging onward in the way it ought to go. So when you find no rank detail of some revolting caper Just fold it up and thank the Lord "There's nothing in the paper." |
Verdigris Valley Verse
Albert Stroud
(Coffeyville, Kansas: The Journal Press. 1917)
Pages 116-117
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