Evening star., 1935-09-29

. got InllllOH Vi tEl-"eil'
anyway, a thousand! He's
secured attics and cellars,
L L storerooms and junkshops.
bought. sold and traded for 'em.
He's ransacked the files of music
stores from coast to coast for 'em, dug
for 'em in dustbins. dickered with
secondhand men and old bookshop
proprietors.
He is Luther Corwin Steward. presi-
dent of the National Federation of
Federal Employees. The objects OF Mr.
Stewards frantic search have been
first edition copies, as far as they are
procurable, of early American sheet
music. Principally, he has confined
his searches to the tear-jerkers and
sentimental ballads of the barber
shop quartet" era to wit. the So
called mauve decade of the 1905.
Was Contest Judge.
Steward returned this week from
New York, where he had served as one
of three judges in Manhattan'S widely
publicized American Ballad Contest.
In a Statewide tournament to deter
mine who should be the final winners
of the quartet of silver shaving-mug
prizes offered, four young men from
Brooklyn swung into There's a Tav-
ern in the Town" in the Central Park
bandstand and walked off with the
mugs and title of Americas Best Bar
bershop Quartet. AS co-judges, Stew
ard had ex-Gov. Al Smith and
DR.. Sigmund Spaeth, radios famous
Tune Detective"
Prompted by a question, Steward
modestly admitted that he thought
probably he had been asked to serve
because. II suppose I qualify as a nut
on that stuff"
He does, rather.
1t all began back in 1928. Or per-
haps in 1891.
In 1891 there was an organization
in Washington known as the Nor
ton Cadets. Its history has been
chronicled elswhere many times.
Briefly, it became the crack military
drill company of the United States,
having grown from a seed planted
by a group of boys who attended pub
lie schools in the Dennison Building,
S street, between Thirteenth and
Fourteenth streets. These boys formed
themselves into a company, armed
with wooden guns, with w. 1vanhoe
Jochum as captain. A bit w1lted, the
Towering company was revived by G.
Fred Cook, now librarian for The Eve
ming Star, who became its captain in
the Spring of 1892.
Songs Cement Friendship.
There were 48 boys in the Morton
Cadets. They were friends. Before
they had even pitched tent on some
of the many trips they used to take,
they used to round up a piano-and
sing. Their singing was a cement
more strong than they knew. 1t held
them together for 81 years.
In 1928 Steward and others of the
original company, who found them
selves after all those years still in
Washington, decided they would try
a reunion.
Forty of the original 48 were pres
ent at a memorable banquet on jan
uary 7 Of that year.
Juicy" Steward hadn't forgotten
the Cadets had been great singers.
He undertook to gather a few Of the
songs.
And that's when he began his hobby
when he discovered actually how
scarce were copies of the songs that
had been four-part- t-harmonied by
the Cadets.
The festival of the old-timers was
a great success. Far into the night
the figurative "rafters" Of the presi-
Dental suite of the Willard Hotel rang
with harmonies dragged out of for
gotten hiding places after four decades
of dust and obscurity.
They led of with that reminiscent
tidbit, you've Been Good Old
Wagon, But You've Done Broke
Down." then sailed into the first bars
of that interrogative tune, How'd You
Like to Be the Iceman?" Tears flowed
when they chanted the sad refrain,
"In the Baggage Car Ahead" but
ceased to fall with zone of His Legs Is
Longer Than 1t Really Ought to Be-"
Bird in a Gilded Cage"
Their voices demanded that Those
Wedding Bells Shall Not Ring Out"
then sang of "The Warmest Baby in
the Bunch" ending with the doleful
story of "The Bird in a Gilded Cage"
They informed the world that I'm
the Man That Wrote Ia Ra Ra Boom
Te Aye" and "The Man That Broke
the Bank at Monte Carlo"
An impromptu quartet rendered that
ditty of the proud Mother Was
Lady" then spiked the sentiment with
verses from Down Went N'Ginty in
His Best Suit of Clothes"
1t brought back ''the old days = ."
The days of Bert williams, Gus Ed
wards. May Irwin, Billy johnson,
Charles K. Harris, Paul Dresser and
the late De Wolf Hopper, who doomed
out Wang" in that other day.
What began as q frantic search
ended in systematic campaign to
collect all the extant balladry-"folk
songs" if you will-of that decade be-
fore the turn of the century.
For seven years Steward has been
ransacking. The results are bound
permanently in fine blue-vellum COW
ers. mementoes Of q past tenuous
and brittle in memory as many Of the
covers of the old songs therein.
But there they are. Any one may
pop into Stewards office at 10 Inde-
pendence avenue southwest and have