Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-11-28
WHAT "MOTHER"
REALLY MEANS
In the Trenches One Gets the
Real Impression of the Sol
dier'S Home-Love
BY DOROTHY DIX

|
Very many years ago a man with
brain of a philosopher and the soul
OF poet said. II care not who makes
| the laws of people, If may make
their songs"
The passing of time has changed
many things, but 1t has not changed
that eternal truth. 1t is not the dry
as-dust laws that mould the character
OF people and determine their actions
at the critical moments. 1t is the songs
they sing.
1t is God Save the King" that
brings every Englishman. the world
over. to his feet. with a thrill of pride
Iof country and of race running like
wine through his veins 1t is the Mar
seillaise" that sends the Frenchman
out to glory or the grave. 1t is the
stately swing of Die Wacht am Rhine"
to which the German soldier marches
forward to lay down his life for the
| Fatherland.
And the simpler songs "The songs
that gush from the heart. like rain
from the clouds in summer, or tears
from the eyelids start" as Longfellow
| beautifully puts-who can measure
/ their power? Who knows how often
they are like the angels wing that
reaches down and stirs the dark pools
of some lost soul and turns it's waters
sweet again?
|
words of an old hymn, sung by a care
less voice in the street has stayed the
feet or wayward men and women in the
downward path? Who can even inn
agine how many wanderers have turned
back, like the prodigal of old, to their
fathers house because another wander
er wrote Home, Sweet Home?
Among our most precious possessions
are these simple songs, the songs
whose appeal Is to our hearts, and that
make us better men and women every
time we sing Them every time we hear
| them. And to this rosary of songs
new bead has Just been added in
little ballad called Mother. It's just
musical trifle with haunting tune
to 1t, and some simple words that tell
what our mothers mean to us.
Most Of us are self conscious and
shy and deadly afraid of sentiment,
and not good at putting our feelings
into words anyway, but all the same
we have our ideal of what is good and
true, and noble and beautiful, and it's
name is Mother"
! That's why we all, as well as we can.
hum. or whistle, or sing. spelling out
with the hero of the song:
M is for the million things she gave
| me,
o means only that she's growing old;
I is for the tears she shed to save me,
H is for her heart of purest gold;
e is for her eyes with lovelight shin
ing,
r means right, and right she'll always
Put them all together they spell
MOTHER, a word that means the
| world to me-
The Mother" song has taken the
town. They are singing it on the
stage; they are playing it in the cab
arets; youths and maidens are warb-
ling 1t in the parlors people are whist
ling it in the street. 1t is the hymn
of love. the hymn of gratitude and
appreciation, and no one hears Ii but
has FOR the moment at least, a little
choking remembrance of a mother and
mothers selfish love and devotion.
And somehow, when you see a song
like this sweep the country--a song
! that is pure and good, and whose ap-
peal is to what is best and tenderest
in us, 1t warns your faith to human
nature.
1t shows, after all. that the salacious-
minded are few in this country at least
and the sound-hearted many, for
thousand ribald songs will die of in
sanitation among the handful of de-
cadents who care for such unsavory
morsels, while a sweet and clean and
wholesome ballad, such as Mother" is
becomes a full l-throated chorus from
| the multitude
Publishers and theatrical managers
are always telling us that the greatest
gamble on earth is gambling on public
| taste, because no one can tell what Is
| going to hit the public fancy. Per-
haps the reason of this is because
they have not sensed the fact that the
one best bet is that the public always
likes the genuine thing. the moral
thing, the thing that teaches us good
lesson and inspires noble sentiment
1t is plays like RIP Van Winkle,"
and the "Old Homestead" and Shore
Acres" and Hazel Kirk and The
Poor Relation that people flock to
see year after year. while off f-colored
problem plays and sex dramas and
malodorous French farces are put on
the stage, fail, are taken off, and for
gotten.
And it's the Home Sweet Home songs
and the M-o-t-h-e-r songs that plumb
down into the wells of sentiment
where the living waters are" the songs
that sweep the heart strings, the songs
full of truth and tenderness that lift
us up above the sordidness of every
day life that will always be the pop
ular songs in American homes.
Well may the wise man of old have
said, 1let me write the songs of