The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-18
HANATHA AND CRIME
Ev1DENCEe THAT MEN AnE DRIVEN TO DEATH BY WIDE
 IT POPULAR SONG.
Heard Now | Billion Timss-com. poser Waited Two Years to Find an Acsomplics-Had a Lonr
 Wrsstls With the Meter.

nscnsss .h tntcago it IS the most p0uuIar piece of rag-time that has been turned out upon the American public. says The
 It is three years ago that Nell Moret. q Detroit. Mich, first nut the strains of thers n .posle.on upon paper. They staid ter small houso in Detroit bought the music for a.ooo. printed 1t. and pushed tne sale of 1t. "Hiawatha" became a h,t at once in the West( and at the present time Looo.eoo copies of 1t have been soid m sneet form, to say nothing of the tens or thousands of copies that have been cut for the piano players libraries.
 Heard Billion Times. .
 At low estimate these i no naa or sheet music represent s.ooo fsne ,,.>r,,s wno must have heard the piece nj iea.t
 lxty-nve times each: is0oo,eoo who have nearo It twenty times; while any one vho nas not nesfo It often enough to be sick ahd ured ot It will please stand up and Soun.su. not necessarily for publication, of all things Gabriel will be exnact.a s = blow his trumpet three or four tIrss more than he is paid for doing.
 Looking over the list of aoridert.
 naiues, suicides and separations from the loved ones at home, all because of .tyia- watna. 1t is safe to say that Chicago at last has found something worse than ths street band that announces ..Wben yohn- ny Comes Marching Home." Not since
 Silver Threads Among the Gold'' was set To the national ear has anything an proached the rnurderous, suicidal home neeing popularity of this piece of music. and It Is the general sentiment that when James O 'Dea set the words to if and thus put 1t into everybody's mouth. he simply riveted another rag-time shackis upon the American public For the long time 1t was considered that words could not be written to the air. It ves thought to be beyond words. In A certain raggy portion of the piece 1t had become . popular diversion to accompany the music of 1t with the words: Q. Let the women do the work--do the work do the work,
 While the men make the money, o. Meter is Finally Solved.
 Mir. Opea thought he could beat this dosgersI. at least. and he set about find- ing out just what was the true spirit ex- isting between Hiawatha and Minnehaha the daughter of old Nokomis. The result was . first line that ought to hold a tar pom of 45e pounds anywhere off the Flor ida coast It reads:
 10, the moon is all agieam on the stream
 where I dream Here of you. my pretty Indian maid.
 With three rhyning words in the first four anapestic feet of this line of verse, followed by about two and a quarter feet of some other meter that is beyond scan ming according to any law of versi6catlon. the effect ought to be suggestive of the music witch they are to fit. And with words and music stalking abroad hand in hand 10 the extent of 100000 copies a year one is led to question why 1t was that Longfeiiow put into the mouth of all the wild things of the forest. DO not shoot me, Hiawatha." Rather 1t seems to the sufferers from the song that they might have said in chorus: Say. there's Hiawatha; let's beat his head off!
 Chicago bore the first brunt of, lila watha." It was q Chicago man. i.deed. who set the deadly words to the music.
 ''About two weeks after o'Dea did it. I saw him in New York;" said Frank Bchm talking to 6 little group in Lyon & Healy's. "It was about 3 o'clock in the morning. I said to him, You don't look we'll. O'Dea.' He turned around slowly and with a good deal of precision. How did you expect me to look? he asked as if he meant 1t. o. I don't know, said, trying to crawl out again. I repeat he said, how did you expect me to lookT Then I went to pieces. When l recov" cred he was standing over me with an ln- dex finger in my face and repeating, IT you ever get that - - - ar Into your nut as have had to get u there and then are able to appear In pub lie aA , o'clock in the morning looking half as well as I do-welL you will be a peach. I'll tell you. -
 And I am just beginning to get the o'Dea point of view" declared MT. Bohm
 Concerning the music of 'Hiawatha, 1t is considered that the first man who should have killed himself over 1t Is the composer. To have sold the rights or a piece of music going into its second mil- lion copies at a retail price of 50 cents copy should be enough to send any man of worldly ideas into unconsecrateo ground. Still. as he lost that nrst oppor- tunity and cause, the strains Oi the soHS may yet do the work for him.
 Cause of Much Crime.
 Certainly. they started August Garfield of Evanston away from home on dog trot and the indications were at the last xvr,tln1 that he would not return until all the nisuo iyories in his house had been extracted. Mrs. Garfield had been toucn- inS the piece up a little when August csS,s Ic at the front door a good deal warmer than his front name and told her to amputate 1t right there while ne LOOK a years sneak
 Tn New York, which just now Is in the .hroo. o, the air and words, hurdy- s,'-I,, ,ha other day was grinding out the S.-. aod slaves and rests and sharps ana date heIonxinR to the original compost ttor and a group of school children were So,,,o. tts two-step movements on the nowamert when a well dressed man. t',r,r,r., into the thoroughfare. stopped for a ,.oyoert nut a phial to his lips, and In . ,,or,art sank to the ground. lifeless. when he was picked up by the police It ,,,as d,scovered that he had a revolver. fully loaded. in his pocket.
 Put he hadn't shot the musician!
 Nerve Packing Grows Steadily.
 rrnousa nds and thousands of people hV- ,ns, in flats had not meant to move this TaI They had figured that three moves were equal to one Ali fire. and they were rneanino to stay 1t out fin the old fiat If 1t toolr all winter. But there Is to be big crop of moving in spite of the weather. and the fire feature of the act. The au- tornatic piano player and roll of paper perforated to the tune Of "Hiawatha' IS the almost universal cause.
 To me unfamiliar with the musical idea au if aonetiroes shoots the beginning of "EJIswstha" in It's first rendition Is not at ali startling. It moves on the piano kevhoard as if 1t were in barrel and the had had heen driven in. But 1t gets out in . vninute or two and becomes about as 1iddv a sw'rI of sound as could get per ,ntt In Chicago streets behind brass