War songs persisted after the Civil War and were gradually intermingled with songs of a later time, picturesque, romantic, clean. These were not the product of song-factories, but the creation of individuals whose gifts were given natural expression. These individuals did not work for combines of publishers but for the satisfaction of their work, for individual artists of the music-hall stage. There were no great fortunes made out of songs, but there were many satisfactions in having pleased the public taste. The public taste, like every other taste, craves what it is given most to feed upon.
Public taste is public habit.
The public is blind to the source of that upon which it lives, and it adjusts itself to the supply. Public taste is raised or lowered as the quality of its pabulum improves or degenerates. It takes just about a quarter of a century to do the job. In other days the people sang as they do now, but not in such doped fashion nor with such bewildered continuity. They sang because they wished to, not as an uncontrolled habit.