A Newspaper Is a Collection of Half-injustices
by Stephen Crane
A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile,
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful and sneering men,
While families cuddle the joys of the fireside
When spurred by tale of dire lone agony.
A newspaper is a court
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells its freedom
And melons are crowned by the crowd.
A newspaper is a game
Where his error scores the player victory
While another's skill wins death.
A newspaper is a symbol;
It is feckless life's chronicle,
A collection of loud tales
Concentrating eternal stupidities,
That in remote ages lived unhaltered,
Roaming through a fenceless world.
Stephen Crane (1871–1900) was an American writer whose vivid realism helped develop literary Naturalism. He was born in Newark, New Jersey. He worked as a journalist before gaining fame with The Red Badge of Courage (1895), a psychologically intense Civil War novel. He also wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, influential short stories such as “The Open Boat,” and the poetry collection The Black Riders. Crane died of tuberculosis at age 28. This poem is in the public domain.
