The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-09

evergreen, and is perhaps, the most nouE
ishing food for cattle upon EARTH And IL
for cattle. why not for buffalo? and we
know that there were buffalo in the valley
in large numbers in Governor st. Glars
time.
Another song, born Of the agitation in
favor of the annexation Of Texas, told how
a Tilted lover was going to
Take his knapsack on his back,
His gun upon his shoulder,
And hurry down to the Texas ground
To view that country over;
Where coffee grows on white oak trees
And the rivers run with brandy,
And every little tree and bush
Is hung with sugar-stick candy"
The song of THE Jerseys Blue" gave the
Hoosier boys quite a shady reputation:
You Hoosier boys. you beat the dell;
You ofttimeS cause our pigs for to Squeal,
Steal our chickens turkeys, too,
Then fly to the arms of the Jerseys blue
This might well have been reserved for
those Hoosiers who were so prominent and
efficient in the ranks of Sherman's pictur-
esque bummers as they marched through
Georgia"
The typical folk-song note Of wailing
sorrow prevailed in the airs of number of
even the most trifiing of these songs, and
always in those that related to war and
parting. Through one of these there ran a
mournful refrain of
"A mourningl a mourning. and this shall
My true loves gone and left and surely
shall die"
And another charged the young hero ere he
set out for the war to
Stop for to hear sweet Belinda mourn"
These play songs bore, at the least, this
relationship to the true folksong: That they
appealed to the affections and imaginations
IF
preston to their loves and hopes, forebod-
ings and sorrows. at time when the COM
mon people were much nearer law unto
themselves than they are now The truest
American folksongs WERE beyond doubt, the
plantation melodies of the Southern negroes.
They sprang almost wholly out of the
needs, sorrows and joys of the enslaved
and ignorant soul. Mr.. George W. Cable
and others have given us delighted glimpses
into that half-savage wonder world Of
melody that obeyed no canons of art except
those taught by the voices of nature and
their own underlined aspirations and cruel
experiences. Mr.. Cables papers upon the
songs and music Of the French-speaking
negroes of Louisiana are especially in
structive and delightful. One can fairly
hear the mournful music of ''the quilts"
accenting the paragraphs as he reads
Out of these volumes of early song sprang
the political campaign songs and glees that
in 1910 bore "Tippecanoe and Tyler too
into the White House upon a high tide"
of popular melody and hard cider, and that
have been repeated, with less effect in
every presidential campaign since, until
now, that they have so largely become the
songs of the music composers rather than
of the people, they serve little other pur-
pose than to amuse the audiences between
harangues.
The art of song, like all other arts that
have to deal with the marvellous soul of
man." voice Its sorrows. hopes and afsec-
lions and supply its needs for that which is
more than food or rament." must go
back forever TO the soil. to the people whose
tolls uphold the national and social fabrics
for it's truest and surest inspirations. 1t
needs not to be crude and ungrammatical.
as were many of the songs of the pioneers,
and if it may be so filled and permeated
with the spirit of poesy that it might APP
peal to gods as well as men, so much the
surer will be it's hold upon the popular I'M
derstanding But it must always be direct
and simple, for the folksong was and Is the
primary voice Of awakened love and quick
ened conscience thrilling and moving the
body of thought toward nobler aspirations
and better purposes. II Is. with all It's
trivkalties. one of the forces of evolution.
those mills OF the gods that are slowly pre-
pairing the world of man for that human
brotherhood which has been the dream OK
the ages. BENJAMIN 5. PARKER.