Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1916-07-07
PAST CAMP AICNS
STIRRED BY SONG
Witty Dittiss Contribute More Than
Platform Thunder to the Success
of Candidates.
NEW ONES ARE NOW PROMISED
American Voter to BE Bombarded from
All Sides in Few Weeks-Where
Are Bards of Yesterday!

HaranRued Dy stump speakers urging
the merits and dement's of Presiden
Wilson and his republican opponent
of the campaign of 1916. There viii
be ward-room rallies, sharpshooting
by cart-tail orators massing heavy ar
tillery on the platforms OF packed
halls. The harassed candidate will be
reused from uneasy slumber to ad-
dress from the Pullman platform his
| fellow-citizens bent on getting their
| moneys worth" for staying out SO
late. And there will be nights of pa
rades that send lines of kerosene
! torches zigzagging joyously the long
way to hot coffee, ham sandwiches and
mince turnovers-at once a reward
and persuasive overture to an address
of Websterian length, whatever may
be thought Of its intellectual quality.
on crying needs OF this great and
glorious country" The brass band
will blare, wherever the campaign
committee has the price. But the citi-
zen comfortably blessed with yester-
days will listen in vain for the cam
paign song.
Where are the bards of yesterday
the extollers of presidential timber
IN other years? In recent campaigns
there has been little to stir them in
the quality of issues, the personality
OF candidates, or the temper of the
American people. Perhaps the prin-
cipal reason for disappearance of the
campaign song is found in the fact
that the generation is emotionally
cramped by grinding pressure of fierce
competition to survive. And it's polit-
zeal leaders, with rare exceptions are
not men of picturesque characters,
such as would stimulate to song
To be sure, there was a notable ditty
in 1912 the "Houn' Dawg' song. But
it was not born of the year, only ap-
propriated by Speaker Clark's follow
ers of those piping days before Mr..
Bryan, by an interesting operation, re-
moved the speaker from the list Of
presidential possibilities.
[ don't care if he is a hOun'-
You got to quit kickin' my dawg
Behind the melancholy Missouri pup
stretches the arid waste of recent |
years. Who sang the praises of VIII |
liam Howard Taft or Alton B. Parker, |
or William Jennings Bryan? 1t was |
the gentle, the suave, that |
suffered the distinction of praise in |
barber shop" tunes of 1895. One re-
publican ditty of that year ran, in part
as follows:
We know of a man tried and true,
Of the people he is the first choice
When the third day of November sees
the days light
He'll sit in the presidents chair
his name is William Nc
Kinley.
With more zest democrats chanted
n 1892:
Grover Groyer1
'Our years more of Grover,
Then we'll be in clover.
How sapless these lays Of later DAYS
compared to- OutpOurings of time when
very citizen, if not a king" was in
he most personal sense a politician.
Rivalry arrived with the retirement of
Washington. A very lively jingle was
ung by Jefferson's supporters of 1900.
he federalists are down at last,
he mOnarchists completely cast
he aristocrats are stripped of power, I
forms DER the British faction lower.
Don we republicans shall see l
olum bias sons fronm bondage freeI
ord, How the federalists will stare
/ Jefferson in Adams chair!
Campaign literature was little en- [
ched by song writer's in the cam I
aigns Of James Madison and James n
Ionroe. But Andrew Jackson stimu- J
tied them to energetic verbosity. His
ilitary record was his principle DO V
teal asset at first, so they made much
it. Several stanzas celebrated his \
ctOry over Lord Pakenham at New
rleans:
ou've heard, 1 s'pose of New Orleans,
It's famed for youth and beauty; Y
here are girls Of every hue, it seems,
From snowy white to sooty, n
ow Pakenham had made his brags.
If he that day was lucky,
ed have the girls and cotton bags h
In spite of old Kentucky! &c
1T Jackson, he was wide awake q
And was not scared at trifies,
)r well he knew Kentucky boys, n
With their death-dealing rifles
2 led them down to cypress swamp
The ground was low and mucky: m
lere stood John Bull in martial pomp g.
And here stood old Kentucky
For General Benjamin Harrison. a T,
ndidate of cold manners, republican
cutters of 1888 parodied the song that A,
We his grandfather's William Henry
Lrrison, reputation more enduring u,
an any chronicle of the historian,
was the song of Tippecanoe and T,
Ter, Too, with play on Harrison's
tory over an Indian army of the y,
rophet" in the battle of Tippecanoe
er:
lat has caused the commotion, mo-
ton, motion,
r country people through?
is the ball a-rolling on, for Tippe- ira
canoe and Tyler, too, ~
We, with them we will beat Vanl rrI
n is a used-up mani fo1
them talk about hard cider, cider,
cider, II,
will only help spread the ball for
Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, An
= latch-string hangs outside the
door, door, door W.
/ il is never pulled through,
that is not the custom of old Tin 7
pecanoe and Tyler, too, ;,l-
he vested interests" and the pee m
- were not yet named, but the issue ~
Y later persOnifed was drawn. IL
pecanoe was the champion of the ci,;
imam man, Martin Van Buren,, who in
red second term, must be a soul too