The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-11-07
CELEBRATED RHYMES
OF NOTED CAMPAIGNS
Songs That Have Very Materially As
sisted the SpeIlbinders.
LYRICS THAT OUR FATHERS SANG
Horny Clay the First Victim Of the
Doggerel Warblers, but There Have
IN the Course Of the Past Half Cen.
tury Been Numerous Others.
From the Times-Herald.
Oh, poor Cooney Clay!
Oh, poor Cooney Clay!
You never can be President,
For Polk Is In the way.


Thus sang in the year of grace 1874
and of the republic the sixty eighth
some million odd voters. BY their bal
lots these songsters and sooth- -sayers
made good their prophecy. Campaign
songs have offended the ears of music
ally cultivated and fired the partisan
heart since politics began. None of the
lyrics has endured. Your campaign
poet is not usually a high class genius.
and generally a parOdist. a maker of
the weakest and most sinful form of
verse. his efforts die of weariness and
inanition almost before their echoes
have ceased. For these reasons 1t Is
difficult to find examples of campaign
melodies Of a past day. An old man
may sometimes be found who can
work off in cracked voice a stanZa or
two celebrating Harrison the elder, ia
miliarly known as "Old Tippecanoe,
and execrating Martin Van Buren,.
Here's to our fathers and mothers.
Likewise to Ould Ireland, too;
Down with Martin Van Buren
And up with Old Tlppecano.
That was a favorite more than fifty
years ago. 1t Is model of its kind.
Where can you find another four-line
selection which teaches reverence for
the parents, love of the motherland, de-
spite Of the opposition and honor for
the party candidate, combining all with
bid for the gravel train vote? The
song was written as far back as 1910,
and yet there are men who say our for
bears We're clumsy and awkward In the
art of politics.
Prior to 1910 the voice Of the cam
paign melodies was not loud In the
land. There were campaign poets true
enough, but fortunately their produc-
tions were not set to music, or were not
adapted to tunes already written. The
only political song generally known
was the still familiar Yankee Doodle" 4"
written to ridicule the colonists, but
adopted by them in lieu Of national
hymn. Hail Columbia" Star Span
gled Banner and Columbia" do not
seem to answer the description. The
country has been unfortunate in its
patriotic singers. Even Julia Ward
Howe's famous Battle Hymn Of the
Republic" beginning Mine eyes have
seen the glory of the coming of the
Lord" has been criticised for its inco-
herence.
In the fragrance of the lilies,
Christ was born across the sea,
sounds sweetly, says the analysist. but
what does it mean? Other propositions
contained in this widely celebrated
production are likened unto bits from
Browning for. their incomprehensibil-
ity. And what can be said for the ap-
probation of the masses? "John
Browns Body" goes easily to the same
music that carries the sublime battle
hymn. Nine hundred persons of every
1000 of American birth of the age of II
years and upward can give the metri-
cal tale of John Browns body, what
befell John Browns lambs, and the
dire treat to JEFF Davis in connection
with a sour apple tree; they can give
the serial and give it correctly in all
its forty parts with the glory hallelujah
chorus between each, and be glad of
the chance. Is 1t safe assertion that
two persons of 1000, with the same
conditions as to age and nativity,
could repeat the first stanza of Mrs.
Howe's poems? Probably not But
this is a shade wide of the mark. al
though perhaps both Battle Hymn
and John Browns Body" might be
properly catalogued as campaign
songs.
To return to earlier days. 1t was in
the presidential struggle of 1S40 that
the poet found his strength. 1t was a
campaign of a phrase and of a song.
The inspiration came from the enemy,
as usual. When General William
Henry Harrison was nominated by
the wings the Van Buren, courters and
the administration organs elevated
their aristocratic noses in contempt
for the homely North Bend farmer $
poverty. A New York paper-T-they get
cerning the candidate: Give him q
barrel of hard cider, and settle a pen
sion of $1,000 a year on him, and, our
word for it. he will sit the remainder
of his days content in log cabin"
This attack upon the hero of the
western country vastly stirred the
common people and the opposition
newspapers. They returned cOntumely
for reproach and the light of the sun
was obscured by the mud cast al
king Van." "Matty, the Aristocrat,'
or whatever they chose to miscall the
President and candidate for renomina-
tiOn. Political speeches of this genera
tion are as breath of weather from
Medicine Hat on June day when read
in comparison with the tropical utter
ances Of our grandfathers. And they
did not find basis for a libel suit in a
political circular at that. Their diff
ferences were talked out on the stump
or voted of at the polls or shot off In
the crowd. This particular paragraph
quoted from the New York paper had
much bearing on the result. The whigs
made it the text of their speeches and
editorial uproar. They did worse; they
set it to music and sang it. In a month
there was not a whig who could SC
much as achieve the scale but was
distending lung and uplifting voice
thus:
They say that he lived in a cabin
And lived on old hard cider. too;
Well. what II he did? I'm certain
Here's the hero Of Tippecanoe.
This ballad contained some score OF
verses and was so constructed that II
could be sung to the tune Of "Old Rosin
the Bow" This melody had much
vogue in the first half of the century
Everyone knew it and the greater mum
ber of political ballads were built on Its
lines.
Il
They sang it so wisely and so well
that Harrison received a popular ex-
preston of 1.275,O0O votes to 1,l2S, 900 for
Van Buren. In the electoral college the
man from the Ohio valley had 234 votes
against Van Buren's 60. One of the
popular songs OF the campaign. and one
which may be heard yet in the remote
rural districts of Ohio, was entitled
where Is Your Log Cabin Built ~
Ohio was then, as now, great figure In
national politics. 1t was the home state
of the candidates. The Ohioan has an
instinct for pipe-laying and combining
which results in bringing many rich
gifts of national Office to the buckeye
men. In the Harrison campaign a log
cabin was erected at every Ohio cross
road. and barrel of "stone fence" BY
which stalwart name aged cider is
known in the state. was on tap for all
corners. 1t was a season of barbecuine
and hurrahing. and this was the song
they sang:
oh. where, tell me. where was your log
cabin made?
oh, where, tell me. where was your los
cabin made?
Twas built among the merry boys that
WELD the plow and spade,
Where the log cabins stand. in the bon.
ME buckeye shade.
The writers of the song shrewdly