Sunday, September 24, 2017

The Hornet Aims to 'Sting' Republicans, 1908

The Hornet, Bixby, N.C., Sept. 30, 1908, “Hottest Democratic Paper in All America”, W. Henry Davis, editor. All the articles in this four-page newspaper were political; it contained no news about local people.

Splendid Praise

All these long days we have been making The Hornet as hot as fire, to singe bristles off the old fogy rusty-necked Radicals and tame them to their eternal fate; we have been assuming The Hornet to be a National affair, exposing Republican wrongs and stinging the perpetrators. We have been doing all these things and nothing, save the rattle of thousands of quarters and 30 cents have we received to tell us that our doctrine is meeting with approval anywhere. But it has come at last, and it has rolled in from the sweltering perfumes of the stinchingest Republican quarters in the whole political cow lot—Pennsylvania. It is the best piece of home-made praise and poetical juice we have seen or heard since we started out political cat-fight five years ago. It is the honey; it certainly is funny; it’s better than any money. A Pennsylvania poet is evidently the fellow to strow it, so everybody may know it. Here’s the thing that’s made us happy, now we’ll not be called “sappy”; it’s even better than being called “pappy.”

W. Henry D.

Say, W. Henry D., you’re just the stuff
   Your Hornet is certainly a ringer,
You tell the truth and never bluff
   Your pen’s indeed a stinger.
The Rads can “cus,” it ain’t no use
   The Hornet has double triggers
You’re never scared with cheap abuse
   Of Republicans and their “niggers.”
When Democracy again reigns, and the people get free,
   And your life here below is ended
A monument will be built for the world to see
   On which your life will be commended.
On there it will say “Here lies his clay
   His politics was big and strong,
He done his damdest every day
   To help Democracy along.”

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