Maud Ludington Cain was a resident of Marshalltown, Iowa. She died in 1965, and I’m guessing she’d be as surprised as anyone to learn one of her poems is being published today in the Chico Enterprise-Record.
I give full credit to a friend of hers who is a loyal reader of our newspaper — along with the still-amazing power of the old-fashioned press to connect people throughout the generations, even from 1,800 miles away.
I’ll get to the poem in a minute. First, I want to tell the story of how it ended up in my hands.
As I never get tired of saying, the Enterprise-Record is blessed to have an incredibly loyal legion of subscribers — not just to our ever-growing online version, but our print edition. too. I speak with people every week who tell me they’ll never stop reading their printed newspaper, and the loyalty of these subscribers would be the envy of any publication.
One of our subscribers is a woman named Ruth Jessen. She’s 92 and lives in Chico. She sent an email to me earlier this week, and it started like this: “This is a poem written by Maud Ludington Cain in 1958. She was a friend who lived in Marshalltown, Iowa.”
Before I get to the poem, I think a few words about the poet are in order.
Ruth obviously hung out with a good crowd, because a little research shows Cain — born in 1886 — was a very highly regarded person in that part of the country. A Facebook post from a local history group a couple of years ago said this about her: “Maude Ludington Cain was a widely published prize-winning poet and was recognized for her work throughout the U.S. She also was a member and leader of many organizations, including the American Pen Women, American Poetry League and many more.”
Now let’s get to that poem. It was written in 1958 and it was about — you guessed it — newspapers.
THE TIRELESS VOICE
I am the voice every man can hear,
The voice every man has heard,
Sometimes but a whisper in the ear,
Sometimes like great thunders stirred.
I send my minions to every land,
I honor the good and the great,
Let none forget that he owes a debt
To the voice of the fourth estate.
I tell of industry, trade and mart,
I plead for an open mind.
I spread the tidings of science, art
And freedom to all mankind.
I speak for government, home, and health,
Community, church and school.
For justice to workers and men of wealth,
For brotherhood’s Golden Rule.
I urge men on in the search for truth,
I trumpet them forth to duty,
I aid the jobless, I counsel youth,
I speak closed eyes to beauty.
I am raucous and loud in times of stress,
Yet gentle when need is sore:
I am the tireless voice of the press –
The newspaper at your door.
Wow.
Those words were written a long time before anyone called us “an enemy of the people” or even “nattering nabobs of negativism.” And I doubt Cain ever envisioned a day when so many journalism outlets would lose readers to places that only reported the news the way they wanted to hear it.
I can’t help but wonder what spurred her to write that poem. I’m sure it wasn’t any one story or single edition; my guess it was from a lifelong habit of reading the most comprehensive news source available in her lifetime.
Even all these years later, after TV and the internet literally stopped the presses in too many cities, it’s beyond humbling that I hear from so many readers who remain equally passionate about the printed product. To me, an ink-stained wretch if ever one existed, Cain’s words reverberate just as powerfully as when she first wrote them 67 years ago.
All of which brings me to my favorite part of that email: Ruth’s final lines.
“As a senior citizen, I find the daily newspaper expensive. But I continue my subscription, not only for the reasons mentioned by Maud Cain, but because the newspaper helps assure that public servants adhere to the right paths. Kudos to your newspaper, and may it continue to show up every morning at my doorstep.”
You’ve got our word. We minions plan to remain “tireless” for a good long time to come.
Mike Wolcott is the editor of the Enterprise-Record. He can be reached at [email protected].
