The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-11-07


cabins fate?
Oh what. tell me what. is to be your
Well wheel it to the capital and place it
For a token or a sign Of the bonnie buck
The composite concluded with the fol-
By whom. tell me whom. will the battle
By whom. tell me whom. will the battle
The spoilsmen and leg treasurers will
soon begin to run.
| And the log cabin candidate will march
to Washington.
Another effective ballad of the cam
paign was a parody Of "The Swiss
| Roy." 1t also appealed to state love.
Come, arouse ye, arouse ye, my brave
| buckeye boys,
| Take the AK and to labor away!
The sun Is up with ruddy beam,
The buckeye blooms beside the stream;
Then arouse ye, arouse ye. my bold buck
eye boys.
The necessity for converting the en-
ergy of enthusiasm into the power of
the ballot is impressed in the conclud-
ing lines:
To the polls. to the polls. then my brave
| buckeye boys.
| To the rescue then haste ye away,
| The cup We fll--the hard cider pass,
| In friendship round until the last;
With shout with shout, go the brave
With Old Tip to the White House away
The true dignity Of labor and the re-
ward which Invariably attends upon
modest patriotic merit was voiced in
song beginning
In a cabin made of logs by the river side.
There the honest farmer lives.
| Free from sloth and pride.
! To the gorgeous palace turn,
/ And his rival
In his robes OF regal state and tinseled
! fnery.
1t was evident that commercial and
industrial depression was not unknown
in coon skin days. nor did the voters
| hesitate to affix the blame for drought
poor crops and overproduction upon
whom it belonged-the head of the ad-
ministratiOn. To the joyous strains of
"Malbrook," more familiarly known as
| We Won't Go Home Till Morning..
was sung this:
The times are bad and want curing;
They are getting past all enduring;
Let us turn out Martin Van Buren,
And put in old Tippecano.
| The best thing we can do,
Is to put in Old TippecanOe.
| It's u business we all can take part IN,
| SO let us give notice to Martin,
| That he must get ready for starting.
The song goes on to tell that We've
had of their humbugs a plenty, we've a
dollar now where we had twenty; their
roguery can't be defended, and it's time
their reign be ended we shall never see
things mended" until old Tippecanoe
goes to the White House.
This Harrison presidential canvass
marked an epoch i'm the history of politi.
cal campaigning. Heretofore votes had
, been beguiled by speechmaking, by ar
gument; candidates had been vilfied or
lauded in prose principally. Thereafter
glee clubs and bands had their part and
large one, in shaping opinion. The
close of the campaign of 1910 with Har-
rison's triumph was marked by the in
spration of a New England singer,
| whose words will outlast the republic.
OF the state of Maine he said:
She went hell bent,
For Governor Kent.
For Tippecanoc and Tyler, too.
The Clay campaign four years later.
when James X. Polk defeated The
Millboy of the Slashes," was the season
of another epidemic of song. less pro-
nounced than the first outbreak, but
widespread 1t was in honor of Clay,
whose history was more picturesque
than his antagonists, that most of the
songs were written. The Polk ballad
mongers, instead of telling their hero's
ueeuS, invented lnetilcal dtlacNS on Gay
and prophecies on the result. The
quatrain which heads this article filed
the air in the Polk districts. For the
| tariff party there was THE Clay Song
ster" to draw from, and single leaf
impression of THAT Same Old Koon
Roarer" had a circulation larger even
than that claimed by the New York
| World of today.
Four years later, when Zachary Tay-
lor, Cass and Van Buren, made the can
vass. the "Cass and Butler Song Book"
THE Free Soil Minstrel and THE
Rough and Ready Melodlst" contained
the lyrics. None of the songs outlived
the occasion, and they are to be found
only occasionally in garrets of farm
houses or infrequently explored library
regions.
There was q Scott songster printed in
1852 hut Franklin Pierce, although he
| gained the election. does not seem to
have inspired the minstrel to any eX-
tent. When Fillmore, Fremont and
buchanan took the field in 1856, II one
We're to have prejudged the result by
the noise, ii would have been Fremont $
| victory. The Rocky Mountain Songs
ter" contained yards of verse lauda-
tory of the pathfinder. and the woods
| and country roads were full of singers.
Fillmore had a poet or two under pay,
but the muse did not work in Buchan-
ans behalf. Yet King Buck" gained
the election.
THE Bob o. Link Minstrel" 1.-THE
Lincoln and Hamlin SOngster" and
Honest Abe of the West" sufficiently
indicate the time of their publication
by their titles. There was a Little
Giant SongbOok," filled with the lays
Of the Douglass minstrel, but all the
productions We're uniformly bad.
Then came the four years Of the war.
We'll Rally Round the Flag
"Tramp! Tramp! Tramp" Marching
Body and some others born in these
times of pain and distress live yet. in
great measure because the music is
stirring and the words are readily
parodied. OF the songs of the southern
cause two lived longer than the war.
Maryland" and THE Bonny Blue
Fag" are poems. The name of the au-
thor of the latter has been mislald
somewhere in the last third Of the cen
tury. Maryland" was written by
James r. Randall, who Is now the
Washington correspondent of the
Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.
In the presidential year of 1864 war
songs had the ear, and the campaign
lays generally found basis and topic In
the rebellion. THE Little Mac Songs
ter and THE Lincoln and johnson
Campaign Songbook'' contain all that
was written.
In 1868 the Grant and Colfax Songs
ter" and THE Seymour Campaign
Songbook" We're filed with the paro-
dies of martial songs. Myles Reillys
Come fill your glasses. fellows" is
perhaps the best of the efforts Of the
day. 1t went thus:
So boys a final bumper
While we all in chorus chant,
ts.'n
our own Ulysses Grant.
And If asked what state he halls from.