The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-04-20
FAMOUSSONG HIS |
ONLY MONUMENT!
No Public Memorial Elk
lists To Author Of
America

America is sung on patriotic occa-
sions all over the land, and in other
Glands where Americans abide and lin
ger says the Washington Star. 1t has
been sung for early a hundred years.
DIR. Oliver Holme once said to Sam
uel Francis Smith, author of the song,
Your name and fame will live when
my works are forgotten. You have
made yourself immortal in your poems"
DR.. Smith does live in the hearts and
voices of the American people, young
and old regardless of sect, party, cul-
ture or condition-that is they keep
alive the song, but forget the singer.
How little is really known of DR..
Smith
Born in Boston. October Il, 1908. it
was there the poet died, November 16,
1S95-unexpectedly, in the railway sta
ton, on the way to a suburban church
to preach.
Best Known As Hymn Writer
Though he was, during his long life,
editor, teacher, traveller, etc, DIR. Smith
was known best as a hymn writer, hav-
ing produced more than six hundred
sacred and patriotic songs-"America
and THE Morning Light is Breaking
being the best known.
He was graduated from Harvard. and
Andover seminary was professor of
modern languages at Colby; twice edi-
tor and for many years secretary Of the
American Baptist Missionary union.
He travelled extensively, inspecting the
missions in foreign lands. While thus
engaged he, for time, managed to serve
the Baptist church at Newton Center,
Mass, as pastor, and he established ms
home at Newton Center, where he con-
tinued his residence until the time OF
his death.
DIR. Smith was a linguist. He could
speak and write fifteen languages. He
began writing while in college, and his
work covered period of almost seventy
wears. He is described as having had
an intense appreciation of nature and OF
country. Dozens of hi shymns are still
spirituality, qualities which imbued his
writings with sympathy for his fellow
man.
His Heart With Youth
Besides America" DIR. Smith wrote
some sixty other patriotic hymns or
odes, and that his heart was ever with
the youth of the land is shown in many
of these, especially in Patriotic sons
of Patriotic Sires" and in "A Song for
Young America which he composed on
Washington's birthday in 1891. My
Native Land he wrote under the spell
of intense patriotic emotion upon land
ing in the United States from two
years travel abroad.
America was the Towering OF
deep and mature passion for home and
country. DOZENS of his hymns are still
sung in the churches of the land, such
as '.Rlest Be the Tie That Binds,
Morn of lions Glory" The Prince of
Salvation in Triumph Is Riding, Sis
ter, Thou Vast Mild and Lovely, To-
day the Savior Calls and Morning
Light is Breaking
The authors home became an Ameri-
can mecca, so to speak, and was visited
by enthusiastic pilgrims from all sec
lions of the land to pay civic homage to
their prophet of patriotism.
A Japanese Translation
Close friends, like Holmes and John
Greenleaf Whittier, came to call MIN
Familiarity. Country 'Tis-of-The
Smith," but this was an admiration and
affection, not ridicule. When friend
wrote of the translation of America
into Japanese, in 1885, he related the
case of a visit of two American women,
who had been isolated for eight years at
an interior Indian mission, to an Ameri-
can man-of-war in the Orient, when one
wept for joy as the band played Amer
lea" and the other tainted. Then Dr:
Smith sat down and wrote, Echoes OF
America" =, -,
In his autobiography, DIR. Smith
speaks of himself as 'one who courted
the muse partly for personal satisfac-
ton, but chiefly from an earnest desire
to promote patriotic sentiment and
Christian living as he had opportunity.
On A Scrap OF Paper
On April 8 1892 81 I great t e n%%s9
lea" in Music Hall, Boston. He stated
he had not purposed creating any. such
thing as national hymn NV, when MI. in his his
room at Andover, sixty-three years DC,
fore, he caught the inspiration and
wrote the ode hastily on a scrap OF
paper. .,,.
b;s SONG None will deny that a public
memorial is due him.