The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1946-03-05
Fair Enough
BY wEsTBRooK PEGLER

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
For some time I have wondered idly whether
it is true that all cowboys. or, anyway. most
of them, sing sad songs through their noses
and play the guitar as the radio programs
would have us believe and if so why. Factory
workers do not sing, except occasionally and
on their own time, newspaper people almost
never sing over their work about their dear
departed mothers or gals who went down to
the tavern and drank numerous cans of beer
with ornate strangers and lawyer who should
plunk a few bars Of Red River Valley and
start bowling plaintively to the jury would be
severely reprimanded by the judge.
Early in my sport-writing days we had
quartette Of baseball writers with the big
Yankee club under Miller Higgins who often
sang Down by the Old Mill Stream. and
Don't sock your Mothers, It's Mean" with
comical gestures, but these performances took
place on the trains and in hotel rooms, after
work, and singing was not identified with the
trade Some of the best didn't sing at all.
But cowboys, by tradition are singers and
believe that in actual practice they do sing
and carry on sentmentally and reveal a
strangely mournful nature that seems to be
an occupational trait A young cowhand who
was injured quite badly in a rodeo near Buc-
son recently had mandolin on the bed beside
him when I called the other afternoon and a
because he had applied for job on Duke
ranch which offered superior pay and social
opportunities but had been turned down be-
cause, although he could sing well enough,
ne couldn't play his own accompaniment.
my inquiries led to general discussion o.
occupanonal singing in the course of which
II was recalled that sailors used to sing chant
eys Tor unison at certain duties and that the
Negro roustabouts on the Mississippi and
Nc14 IL
Parenthetically, I may saw that our COM
munists have taken sly advantage of this
pecuharlty and, in a very nice rendition of
an old song called 1.-THE Santa Fe Trail" re-
leased for the juke trade, of which COWBOYS
form considerable part in the Southwest.
have needed in stanza in which the down
trodden cowhand is exhorted to tell the fore
man to 60 to hell and to strike for higher
wages, vacations with pay, course dinners in
stead OF chuck and nice cottages around the
ranch-house for their wives and children. This
is heresy for the original lyrics. in any of the
many versions, gave no thought to such re-
flnements which obviously would rob the call
ing OF its old. picturesque ruggedness.
My authorities, who had never studied the
subject before, recalled on examination. that
the git-along and hi-yippee motives in the cow
boy song books are more or less formalized
versions OF the words and sounds that the
SoWOOy QiCSScS W Tic kline as ne arrives
them over the desert, raising his voice in
high singsong which has been set to music
1t seems probable that some cattlemen come
to New York to tear up money after a good
year during prohibition, let Nv genuine
whoopee in the late Texas Guinan's speakeasy
and gave US the heart cry of the era of won
derful nonsense now identified with social life
in the expensive saloons rather than with the
rough drinking halls of the Arizona frontier.
My authorities thinking upon 1t, are inclined
to believe, too, that the sad songs about cow
boys mothers and faithless little wantons who
promised true and everlasting love and then
ran off with various gamblers, actors and
travelling statesmen, were composed informal
ly in the lonely hours as the cowboys sang
to the stock to soothe them against mysteri-
GUS alarms of the night. They probably were
lonesome and expressing their melancholy re-
grets at having drunk fiery potions contrary
to their mothers teachings or their longing to
be back counting with mandolin music,
1t would be false to deny that cowboys are
picturesque, even in their own country and
among themselves. They do strut, whether in
faded Lewis, their overalls Of peculiar cut and
tight. skinny fit which are practically the
regulation working uniform of their trade So
called because they are manufactured by the
firm OF Levi Strauss and very hard to get
these last few years Of shortage, or in their
SdllSIl uIeSS eIIeCtS WORN IN the rOQeOS ana On
high social evenings. Most of them are good
riders, proud Of specially that awes others
and Of their daring which lays up many
one and lays some of them low every year
in competitions for prize-money For that mat
ter, the circus or rodeo phase of cowboy
Workmanship has become serious embar-
rassment to the rancher because with the
dude-ranch business, it draws so many of the
best hands away from the cattle business. My
friend who was thrown. stomped and injured
was not an unusual case and there are general
ly dozen patients in the Tucson hospitals in
jured in horse accidents, although most of
them are dudes, including women, who can't
ride well or get careless
We had our rodeo festival in Tucson recent
" with the first big street parade since Pearl
Harbor and it was beautiful sight. The little,
struttng school girls in their high white boots
and shorts, flourishing batons, the floats, the
amateur bands, and the caparisoned cowboys
combined in a spectacle preceding the con-
test o. champions for the prize money may
not have excelled the beauty of some ficstas
of other lands but this was the pure American
scene. The war was over and here was Ameri-
ca again, led by band playing that strange,
graceful little dance Of the southwest, 'Put
Yo11r Little Foof