The catch is that most of it is still under copyright. (Maybe all? I don't know of any pre 1923 hobby publications)
I'm not sure how newspapers .com does things, but they probably had permission from the newspapers in return for some small amount from the paywall fees.
This would be a good project for an collectors organization. The national stamp group I'm in has gotten the rights to many classic books that have very little commercial value, but are the best references despite being in some cases more than 50 years old. Most of those are online free to members, and in some cases for everyone. (Being a member I'm not sure exactly which are which.)
If someone could get the rights, and a good run of physical copies it wouldn't be hard. Scans are just time consuming.
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