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Home : Quarterly Archives : Volume 30 |
Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society |
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Source: October 1992 Volume 30 Number 4, Pages 133–152 Come Let Us Sing of the Hero Bold
Come on, my boys, come one, come all,
Behold yon manufacturer,
To right these wrongs, the people must
Then hats off, hoys, be steady - now These verses, sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle", are from one of the SONGS COMPOSED FOR THE OCCASION, in the collection of the Chester County Historical Society. The "occasion" was the 1840 presidential election. "We were drunk down and sung down," Martin Van Buren, the unsuccessful Democrat candidate, is alleged to have complained after William Henry Harrison's victory. And the campaign song, introduced by the hundreds in this campaign, was for the next half century or so to become a widely used means of electioneering and a feature of political rallies and torchlight parades that is almost completely forgot today. Collections of them, known as "songsters" and ranging in size from just a few pages to paper-bound volumes of 180 pages or. more, first appeared in this campaign, distributed by dozens of different printers and publishers from Massachusetts to Ohio. As we shall see, these lyrics by the anonymous Chester County poet were neither particularly better nor particularly worse than most of them. The next song is from the campaign of 1844, four years later. It's called the "Banner Song", and was included in THE KENTUCKY MINSTREL AND JERSEY WARBLER, published by Robertson & Peterson in Philadelphia. You will note that it is not only a tribute to Henry Clay, the Whig candidate, but also to the needlework of "the West Chester Ladies". It was sung to the tune of "Rosin the Bow".
Ye true hearted Whigs of West Chester,
The ladies present us a Banner,
Perched on top sits our National Eagle, There then follow seven more stanzas, describing the banner and the significance of its decorations, ending
Then thanks, our best thanks to the Ladies,
Then rise, gallant Whigs, of West Chester, Considerably less elegant is "A Whig Song", written "by request for the Union Clay Clubs of East and West Goshen", by W. S. It is from the same songster, and these are three of its seven verses, sung to the tune of "Old Dan Tucker". (During the campaign the "coon" or raccoon was used as a symbol for Clay and his followers; "old Kentuck" is similarly a reference to Clay, and "Jersey blue" to Theodore Frelinghuysen, his running mate.)
The blush of day was nearly gone,
The Locos hate us bad as "pizen, "
He put his thumb up to his nose,
The Locos hate us bad as "pizen,"
It's old Kentuck and Jersey blue,
The Locos hate us bad as "pizen," With the Whig ticket of Clay and Frelinghuysen in 1844, an early end for the campaign song was predicted by some: nothing, it was pointed out, rhymes with Frelinghuysen. But there's no "surmisin1", and as sure as "pizen", the number of rhymes was truly "surprisin'". And there were at least a half dozen others, too! Other Chester Countians were also represented in THE KENTUCKY MINSTREL AND JERSEY WARBLER. Dr. William Darlington contributed a song called "The Mill Boy of the Slashes" in support of Henry Clay, and "Our Glorious Constitution", by Townsend Haines, was included not only in this songster but also in THE LINCOLN AND HAMLIN SONGSTER or THE CONTINENTAL MELODIST sixteen years later. But generally the songs were published anonymously, or over pseudonyms such as "True Blue" or "Demo1" or "R. E. Publican", with little literary merit claimed for them. As it was so frankly observed in a note to the HAYES AND WHEELER CAMPAIGN CAROLS, a songster published for the 1876 campaign, "... Generally, political songs are very poor trash; it is not claimed that these 'Campaign Carols' have high literary merit -- their chief claim is their timeliness and the ease with which they may be sung to popular airs. Songs of the sort are better for their simplicity and freedom from any great literary labor." As this note indicates, these campaign songs were written to familiar and popular airs or tunes, tunes as "Yankee Doodle", "Rosin the Bow", or "Old Dan Tucker", as already noted. They were songs to be sung. To list the well-known ballads and tunes adapted for campaign songs would be to make a compendium of the popular music of the period. And as new songs became popular, their music too was stolen for campaign songs: the minstrel songs of the late 1840s and early 1850s, the Civil War ballads in the 1860s, the sentimental songs of the 1870s, the music hall favorites of the 1880s and Gay Nineties. When the operettas of W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan became so very popular in the late 1870s and 1880s, their tunes too were adapted for election campaigning purposes. Patriotic tunes were borrowed. Even hymns were used! Whatever songs were liked and sung were used as the music to sing campaign songs to too. The lyrics were almost as broad in scope. There were songs of praise for the party's candidate; there were songs of criticism for his opponent. There were songs of satire and irony. There were ballads. Occasionally, the issues of the campaign were even discussed in verse, as in the first song from the 1840 campaign, for example, but more often the personal characteristics of a candidate became the "issues" in the campaign song. Here, then, is a short "treasury" of political campaign songs from the nineteenth century. There were songs of praise. Some of them were nothing but vague campaign platitudes, as in these two verses, of three, from "Champions of Liberty", included in the BLAINE AND LOGAN SONGSTER from the 1844 campaign and also in the HARRISON AND MORTON SONGSTER in the next election four years later, sung to "America".
Champions of Liberty!
Honor, integrity, But not all songs of praise were this general. In all but three of the elections from 1840 to the end of the century, for example, at least one of the candidates had a military background, and their military exploits were sung about. These verses, of five altogether, of "Old Tip", sung to "The Old Oaken Bucket", included in THE LOG CABIN SONGSTER, in HARRISON MELODIES, and in several other Harrison songsters in the 1840 campaign, are an example.
When dark was the tempest, and hovering o'er us
The iron-armed soldier, the true-hearted soldier,
When the cannons were pealing and brave men were reeling
The iron-armed soldier, the true-hearted soldier, After the build-up of Harrison as "the iron-armed soldier, the true-hearted soldier, the gallant old soldier of Tippecanoe", the nomination of Henry Clay in 1844 made it necessary for the Whigs to point to other virtues of their candidate four years later. Here is "The Heroes of Mind", sung to "The Star-Spangled Banner", from WHIG SONGS FOR 1844, published by Greeley & McElrath in New-York. Biographers of Horace Greeley, incidentally, have given him the credit for the idea of the wide-spread use in the 1840s of the campaign song, and have suggested that he wrote, anonymously, many of those used in the 1840 and 1844 Whig campaigns.
Let bards unto fame on the lyre proclaim For many years, beginning with Andrew Jackson and enhanced by the "log cabin" campaign of William Henry Harrison, a humble background was considered a political asset for a presidential candidate. This homespun approach is reflected in these verses, of four, of "Old Abe", from THE LINCOLN AND HAMLIN SONGSTER in the 1860 campaign, sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne". In the last verse there is also a reference to the slavery issue, and an interesting commentary on governmental ethics.
Old Abe [he] was a pioneer,
Old Abe [he] is a working-man, Songs were also sung of a candidate's ancestry to praise him. Here are two of six verses from "0u Standard Bearer", in THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN SONGSTER, in suppf. rt of Winfield Scott Hancock, from neighboring Montgomery County, in the 1880 campaign. It too was sung to "America".
O, hero brave and true,
Son of our early stock, And, of course, when Benjamin Harrison was a candidate in 1888 and 1892 he was hailed as "Young Tippecanoe" and compared with "Old Tippecanoe", his grandfather. These are the first two verses, of four, of "When Grover Steps Down and Out", from TRUE BLUE REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN SONGS FOR 1888, sung to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
In eighteen hundred and forty oh,
Ben is a chip of the old good block, Or you could sing about the opposition. In contrast to William Henry Harrison, a military hero and "the farmer of North Bend", for example, the Whigs sang of his opponent, Martin Van Buren, as afraid of battle and a perfumed dandy, living extravagantly in the White House with liveried servants, fine coaches, and French champagne. Typical of these songs is "Little Vanny", from the TIPPECANOE SONG BOOK, sung to the tune "Rosin the Bow". These are among its six verses.
You can't make a song to Van Buren,
He never was seen in a battle,
But snug in his pretty silk stockings,
And now with his gold spoons and dishes, These songs sometimes pointed to virtually every aspect of the rival candidate. In "Obituary", for example, from the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN GRANT AND WILSON CAMPAIGN SONG-BOOK in 1872, Ulysses Grant's backers sang about Horace Greeley's dress, his background, his opinions -- all in the past tense because a collapse of his party's platform allegedly causes his death. Ironically, just three weeks after the election Greeley in fact did die, deeply hurt by the abuse he had suffered during the campaign and his defeat. Here are nine of its thirteen verses, sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne".
Old Greeley is dead, that good old man,
Upon his head an old white hat,
A pair of massive spectacles,
He was a great newspaper man,
Inconstant, fickle, changeable,
For farming, too, he had a taste,
In politics he fared far worse,
And though the Cincinnati men
Their platform was too weak to hold, Occasionally these comments about the opposing candidate were sung as though by the candidate himself, in the first person. These verses are among seven of "Now I Am the Leader of the Democracee", from the GARFIELD AND ARTHUR CAMPAIGN SONG BOOK in 1880, with Sir Arthur Sullivan's "When I Was a Lad" from Pinafore used for the music. In them Winfield Scott is presented as setting forth these qualifications for the presidency.
When I was a lad I went to school,
In right-about-face I made such a mark,
My political ignorance became so great
Now, Americans all, wherever you may be, Even the height or personal appearance of the candidate could be made into an "issue" of the campaign and sung about. Thus, in the 1860 campaign, for example, that Stephen Douglas was only five feet one inch tall, in contrast to Abraham Lincoln's height of six feet four inches, became an "issue" and was sung about in these two verses, of four, from "Stevy Dug" in THE LINCOLN AND HAMLIN CAMPAIGN SONGSTER, to the air of "Uncle Ned".
Dere was a little man, and his name was Stevy Dug,
So it ain't no use for to blow --
His legs dey was short, but his speeches dey was long,
So it ain't no use for to blow - At the same time Douglas' cohorts chanted about the physical appearance of his opponent too. In "Lincoln's Picture", from DOUGLAS AND JOHNSON MELODIES, they sang of Lincoln, who by his own admission was far from handsome, in this fashion.
Tell us of his fight with Douglas
Tell us he's a second Webster,
Say he's capable and honest,
Tell again about the cord-wood,
Any lie you tell we'll swallow, In the midst of the conflict over the extension of slavery to the territories and other issues, in the 1856 campaign the supporters of John Fremont sang of the fact that his opponent, Pennsylvania's James Buchanan, had never taken a wife! These two verses are from "The Bachelor Candidate", included in the FREMONT SONGS FOR THE PEOPLE songster, sung to "The Campbells are Coming".
It's time to be doing, the play has begun,
With pride we can point to our own candidate,
Come on, boys; we won't go for Coelebs - that's flat; Here's a song from the 1888 campaign. It seems that Grover Cleveland went fishing on Decoration Day, and in several songs this was cited as a reason not to vote for his re-election. This is "Memorial Day Fishing" from CAMPAIGN SONGS FOR 1888, sung to "A Little More Cider".
While on the thirtieth of May, o'er heroes brave and true,
Rememb'ring still our noble dead, the nation turns to weep, (In another song on this subject it was pointed out that "the loyal fish refused to bite, or with his bait to play" for "they knew that fishing isn't right on Decoration Day".) Another "issue" from the same campaign was the fact that Cleveland had hired a substitute for his military service during the Civil War, as permitted by the draft laws at that time. The Harrison songsters had several songs on this theme; these verses are among eight altogether of "A Valiant Substitute", also from CAMPAIGN SONGS FOR 1888, sung to "Yankee Doodle".
A valiant candidate they have, as all the people know, sir,
Yankee doodle, doodle doo,
On fields of gore no blood he'd pour, to this he was a stranger;
Though valiant deeds by heroes done resound the country over
For truly doth his valor now, without a bit of slander
Yankee doodle, doodle doo In fact, for the next half dozen elections following tho Civil War, the conflict between the North and South was a campaign issue reflected in campaign songs, as the Republicans allied themselves with the "Boys in Blue" and attempted to associate the Democrats with the secessionists and sympathizers with the Confederate cause. An example of these songs is "Once More, Ye True Republicans", from the HAYES AND WHEELER SONG BOOK in the1876 campaign, urging the "Boys in Blue" to continue their battle for the right with the ballot rather than the bullet. These are three of its seven verses, sung to "John Brown's Body".
Once more, ye true Republicans; Columbia calls for you,
Hurrah! hurrah for Hayes and Wheeler!
Let the lovers of true liberty throughout the land unite,
Hurrah! hurrah for Hayes and Wheeler!
With our comrades who have fallen, we have battled side by side,
Hurrah! hurrah for Hayes and Wheeler! Despite the Democrats' accusations of "waving the bloody shirt" and protestations that "Democrats as true stood, and for the Union spilt their gore", twenty-three years after Appomatox the Republicans in 1888 still sang of "The Grey-Haired Boys in Blue" and Cleveland's war record. Occasionally campaign songs even dealt with some of the more basic issues of the campaign and the party platform planks. The references to the fiscal policies of the Van Buren administration, the depression and hard times following the Panic of 1837 and the need for protctive tariffs in our first song are an example of this category of campaign songs. This issue was sung about in several campaigns, and particularly in the 1880s and 1890s. Here is an example of the many songs on the subject in the 1888 campaign; it is called "The Battle Cry, Protection", sung to the "Battle Cry of Freedom" and from THE HARRISON LOG CABIN SONG BOOK OF 1840 REVISED FOR THE CAMPAIGN OF 1888.
For America and freedom we take the field again,
America forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Free trade and English wages we never can endure,
America forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
For Harrison and Morton we'll rally round the flag,
America forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah! Another issue frequently reflected in campaign songs, again starting in 1840, was that of alleged corruption or fraud in the government and the need for reform. With the scandals of the Grant administration, it was a major issue in the 1876 campaign. These verses are among thirteen of "Hold the Fort for Tilden" in THE TILDEN ILLUSTRATED CAMPAIGN SONG & JOKE BOOK, to the tune of "Hold the Fort".
Ho! Reformers, see the signal
See corruption boldly stalking,
"Hold the fort, for we are coming,"
See the rings, the combinations,
Ho! ye voters, pure and honest,
"Hold the fort, for we are coming," To ridicule the issue, the Republicans sang "Tilden's Battle Song", to the tune of "The Governor's Own", satirizing the Democrats' reform issue by suggesting that those crying "reform" the loudest were the thieves, the gamblers, the jail birds, and members of Tammany. Included in THE HAYES ILLUSTRATED CAMPAIGN SONG & JOKE BOOK, these are among its seven verses.
There's not a thief in all the land
From Blackwell Island's crowded halls,
"Republicans too long have held The slavery issue at mid-century was also reflected in campaign songs. These verses are among nine of "The Black Banner", from THE PRIZE REPUBLICAN SONGSTER in the 1856 campaign, the first in which the newly-formed Republican party had a presidential candidate, and were sung to "Yankee Doodle".
On Kansas' distant blood-stained plains
And though Buchanan has unfurled
The human bondage we'll confine
And though Buchanan has unfurled
Then here 's for freedom of the press,
And though Buchanan has unfurled The selection of John C. Fremont as the Republican party's first presidential nominee, incidentally, gave an opportunity for alliteration not frequently found, his supporters singing of "free speech, free press,free soil, free men, Fre-mont and Victory!". Taxes were a quadrennial issue. In these verses from a song entitled simply "Campaign Song", in the LITTLE MAC CAMPAIGN SONGSTER for the 1864 campaign, the Democrats sang this still-familiar lament, again to the tune of "Yankee Doodle".
Attend, while we unite and sing
Let young and old - let every one
We're taxed for every bit we eat,
Our coffee and our tea are taxed,
Let young and old - let every one
The plows, the harrows, and the hoes,
And when our friends shall mark the spot
Let young and old - let every one The reference to "Abe Lin-king" suggests the puns that were on several occasions found in campaign songs: the many uses of "Clay" by farmers, brickmakers, potters, and other artisans, and a dislike for "Polk" weed or "Polk" tea, both froni the 1844 campaign; references to "Useless S. Grant" in 1872; or that the Republicans would "Hayes" their opponents in the 1876 election. In some ways, the most interesting campaign songs are perhaps the ballads. Here is an example from the 1840 campaign. It is called "Van and the Farmer", and was included in HARRISON MELODIES and other Tippecanoe songsters. Its eleven verses describe an imaginary call at the White House by William Henry Harrison prior to the election, and the reception he was given by President Van Buren and his "kitchen cabinet". Its melody was "The King and the Country Man", but "Sweet Betsy from Pike" also fits it quite well.
A farmer there was, who lived at North Bend,
His tidy log cabin he left with regret,
The farmer walked on, and arrived at the door,
Mister Van thought the rap was the sound of a flail,
"Run, John, and run Levi, - run Joel and Jim,"
They were all growing merry, and taking champaign,
Says Tip, "My fine fellows get out of my way,
Then Amos, who listened, spoke up, "Mister Van,
"Oh! pray, Mister Farmer, just walk up this way,
"I tell you what, Amos, I guess what you're at,
Then Amos and Van searched the table all round,
The farmer was off, but 'twas easy to see (This song was also adapted to the 1860 campaign when Republicans sang of "Old Abe's Preliminary Visit to the White House". In this version it was not a mug of hard cider that was requested, however: "all that I ask is a glass of cold water".) Here is ballad from the 1884 campaign. It is called "I am a Roaring Repeater", and the tale that it tells is, in its way, a rather sad one. It was included in the BLAINE AND LOGAN SONGSTER.
My name is Mike Dolan. I'm one of the boys,
I'm called a repeater, but that is my trade,
I'm a roaring repeater of Democrat fame,
I voted for Tilden from morning to night,
Four years after that we had Hancock to lead,
I'm a roaring repeater of Democrat fame, Another pathetic picture is that presented in "H. G.'s Inquiry", in the NATIONAL REPUBLICAN GRANT AND WILSON CAMPAIGN SONG BOOK, sung to the tune of "Tell me, ye Winged Winds" in opposition to Horace Greeley in 1872. The prophecies of the wind and stars in these verses, of four, proved to be correct when the ballots were counted.
Tell me, ye winged winds,
And those bright twinkling stars
Will not all Liberal men old coats and white hats wear, Campaign songs are still sung occasionally: some of you may remember "Hello, Lyndon", sung to the tune of "Hello, Dolly", back in 1964. But since the turn of the century they have not been an important electioneering technique. How effective were they during the middle and latter part of the last century? In his preface to THE REPUBLICAN SONGSTER FOR 1860 William E. Burleigh, the editor, observed that "For twenty years past, in each of the quadrennial elections, the SONG has been recognized as a legitimate political power, scarcely secondary in its influence to that of SPEECH itself, giving an impulse and a glow to the masses of men, and relieving the tedium almost necessarily consequent upon protracted attention to the orator, however cogent his argument, or however polished his rhetoric. ... Ever since then [1840] ... the political song has exerted a marked influence in our Presidential contests. ..." In fact, so effective was the campaign song and the free-wheeling, singing, torch-light parading "log cabin and hard cider" campaign of the Whigs in 1840 that in 1844 the Democrats included in their platform a plank resolving "that the American Democracy place their trust, not in factitious symbols, not in displays and appeals insulting to the judgment and subversive to the intellect of the people, but in clear reliance upon the intelligence, patriotism, and the discriminating justice of the American people". But they sang too! As early as in 1912 observers speculated about the decline of the campaign song. It was suggested that "the crowd no longer knows how to sing". Or that the political issues of the campaign had become too complex to lend themselves to song. Or that ragtime and other innovations in the popular music of the period were not adaptable to campaign lyrics. Or perhaps other means of communication replaced the song and the political rally as a means of disseminating viewpoints. Whatever the reason, the campaign song today is largely a souvenir and a symbol of yesteryear's elections, when partisans sang in praise of their candidates and in derision of their opponents, when they used satire and irony to sing of personal characteristics, which became the "issues" of the campaign, when they sometimes even sang of the real issues of the campaign. They are a symbol of a period of real personal participation in election campaigns, of campaigns that could be violent in their abuse and opinion. But when the election was over and all the votes had been counted, the campaigners could also sing, to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne", these verses from "Inauguration", from THE GRANT CAMPAIGN SONGSTER OF 1868.
All hail! Unfurl the stars and stripes!
Our ruler boasts no titled rank,
And now, before the weighty pile
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