Louis Albert Banks

“ As Doctor Matthews well says, there is often a feeling afloat in the minds of men, undefined and vague for want of one to give it form, and held in solution, as it were, until a chance word dropped in the ear of a poet suddenly crystallizes this feeling into song, in which all may see clearly and sharply reflected what in their own thought was shapeless and hazy. It was young Randall’s fortune to be the instrument through which the South spoke, and, by a natural reaction, his burning lines helped “fire the Southern heart.” ”

“ For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
’Tis the fire of the flint each American warms:
Let Rome’s haughty victors beware of collision;
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms,
We’re a world by ourselves, and disdain a provision.
While with patriot pride
To our laws we’re allied,
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide;
For ne’er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. ”

“ As the years have gone on, and every Memorial Day the Southern soldiers have been more and more wont to cover the graves of their dead foemen with wreaths of Southern flowers, and again and again gray-haired veterans from both the “Blue and the Gray” have met beside the Hudson to do honor to the great commander who at Appomattox said, “Let us have peace,” the coldness of suspicion and distrust have blown away, until, now that the boys from the South as well as from the North have marched together again under the old flag to fight a foreign foe, we see eye to eye. ”

“ Perhaps this martial song was never sung under more splendid circumstances than at the unveiling of the great National Monument inaugurated in 1883 to commemorate the victories in the Franco-Prussian war and the foundation of the new German Empire in 1870-’71. This magnificent monument stands on the bank of the Rhine opposite the beautiful town of Bingen, famous in history and story, on a wooded hill nearly a thousand feet above the sea level, and flanked with glorious vineyards. No national monument is a more perfect expression of the spirit of a great people. ”

“ There has perhaps been no time since the Revolutionary War when Americans have listened to Rule Britannia with as sympathetic ears as since the beginning of our war with Spain. The almost universal sympathy expressed for us by all classes in England has served to bring the two nations closer together than a hundred years of ordinary intercourse. Whether or no it brings about the Anglo-American alliance so widely discussed, it has made Rule Britannia a grateful song to patriotic Americans. ”

“ On the left is a symbolical figure of Peace, smiling benignantly, and holding in her arms the emblems of industry. These figures seem to say to the world, and especially to France, “War, terrible and destructive, if we must; but Peace, if you will.”
In the hearts of the thousands of Germans gathered to unveil this great monument, there must have been a thrill of electric energy as they sang the popular song which it incarnated, for it stands as the crystallized representative of The Watch on the Rhine. ”

“ Work’s famous war songs, none have captured so wide an audience, or held their own so well since the war, as Marching through Georgia. I think it is the foraging idea, so happily expressed, that, more than anything else except the contagious music which starts the most rheumatic foot to keeping time, has given this song its popular sway. There was something so reckless and romantic in Sherman’s cutting loose from his base of supplies and depending on the country through which he marched for food for his army, that the song which expressed this seized the imagination of the people. ”

“ It is perhaps the most popular of all the darkey songs which deal directly with the question of the freedom of the slaves. It set the whole world laughing, but there was about it a vein of political wisdom as well as of poetic justice that commended it to strong men. The music is full of life and is as popular as the words. It became the song of the newsboys of the home towns and cities as well as of the soldiers in the camp and on the march. ”

“ George Horr, one of our brightest editors, has clearly set forth, Kipling, both as novelist and poet, has always portrayed the manly, strenuous side of life. He does not falter at putting before us ugly representations of vice, but beneath all the roughness and viciousness of men whom he describes, he reveals to us the real bedrock of genuine manliness. He never seeks to make us admire a cheat, a sneak, or a mountebank of any kind. ”

“ The sequel to it, Just After the Battle, was equally as popular and retains its popularity though a generation has passed away since it was written. It, too, has the vein of optimism in it which runs through all of Doctor Root’s work. Perhaps that is one of the secrets of his great power over the human heart. While he makes us weep with the tenderness of the sentiment, there is always a rainbow on his cloud, a rainbow with promises of a brighter to-morrow. Just After the Battle has that rainbow in it, in the hope expressed by the singer that he shall still see his mother again in the old home ”

“ Throughout the war it has been above all others, in camp or on the battlefield, the song that has aroused the highest enthusiasm. During the bombardment of Manila the band on a British cruiser, lying near the American fleet, played The Star-Spangled Banner, thus showing in an unmistakable way their sympathy with the American cause. In the trenches before Santiago it was sung again and again by our soldiers and helped, more than anything else, to inspire them to deeds of heroic valor. ”

“ Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
Thee, haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,—
But work their woe and thy renown.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
To thee belongs the rural reign,
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore encircles thine.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves. ”

“ Root was in Chicago, and from that Western center of patriotic fire and enthusiasm he sent forth scores of songs that thrilled the heart of the country. While the Battle Cry of Freedom was perhaps his most famous song, there are a number of others that keep, even to this day, close company with it in popularity. The old veterans who still linger on the scene, as well as those who were but boys and girls in those days, well remember the martial enthusiasm that was evoked by his prison song, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp! ”

“ His most famous song, however, and one which he hoped would rival Home, Sweet Home,—a song of which the soldiers amid the loneliness and homesickness of camp never grew weary—was The Old Folks at Home. For the time it has been before the public, it is probably the best known song in the world. Four hundred thousand copies of it were sold the first few years after it was written. The tune has crossed all oceans and become a favorite with martial bands of music in every region of the earth. ”

“ Although it was thirty years old in 1870, it then struck its first great popularity and became by all odds the most popular war song in Germany.
Schneckenburger, like many another hymn writer, owes his entire reputation to a single song. He was an obscure Swabian merchant, quiet and unassuming, who never did anything in his life to attract public attention except to write this hymn. But it might well be said that in order to make a man’s name immortal he need not do anything else than write one song that voices the soul’s ambition or the heart’s longing of a great people. ”

“ The eye of a poet is always seeing the poetic possibilities in current incidents, and when Mr. Finch saw this news item in his favorite daily paper, he not only saw the romance and pathos of the situation, but thought that such an exhibition of generosity should be at once met and welcomed in the same temper. It was out of that impulse that The Blue and the Gray grew into being. ”

“ On last Memorial Sunday, May 29, the Recessional was sung to De Koven’s music by church choirs in every large town and city in the United States. Surely nothing could be more appropriate for Americans to sing at the present time than the Recessional. It is a time when it is important that the citizens of our proud Republic shall remember that not in her vast territory, or inexhaustible wealth, or in mighty navy or splendid army, but in the blessing of Almighty God lies the real strength of a nation. Kipling’s august prayer and refrain is as appropriate for us as for Great Britain ”

“ This inspiring rallying song was written by George F. Root, to whom we are indebted for so many songs of camp and field. Mr. Root also composed the music. Perhaps no hymn of battle in America has been sung under so many interesting circumstances as this. It was written in 1861, on President Lincoln’s second call for troops, and was first sung at a popular meeting in Chicago and next at a great mass meeting in Union Square, New York, where those famous singers, the Hutchinson Family, sounded it forth like a trump of jubilee to the ears of thousands of loyal listeners. ”

“ The principal figure is a noble female form, thirty-three feet in height, Germania, wearing an imperial crown, and holding a sword wreathed with laurel as an emblem of the unity and strength of the empire. The figure is the embodiment of self-conscious dignity and strength. As a recent American traveler philosophizes, there is nothing vain or conceited about it, but the pride and confidence of one that knows and feels his power. ”

“ America never produced a more daring and benevolent man than Doctor Howe.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic had its birth-throes amid the storms of war. In December, 1861, Mrs. Howe, in company with her husband, Governor and Mrs. John A. Andrew, Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, and other friends, made a journey to Washington. They arrived in the night. As their train sped on through the darkness, they saw in vivid contrast the camp fires of the pickets set to guard the line of the railroad. The troops lay encamped around the Capital City, their lines extending to a considerable distance. ”

“ On the right hand of the central figure, but far beneath its feet, is a symbolical figure of War, winged, with a helmet on its head, and a trumpet at its mouth, expressive of Titanic energy, as if a single blast of the trumpet would bring a million men in arms to the front. ”

“ So they represented the march through Georgia. They rolled along with an easy, swinging gait, chatting, laughing, occasionally imitating some animal, giving a bark, or a howl, or a screech, yet every man a soldier and keeping step to the music and in line. ”

“ Work’s most renowned war song, his Song of a Thousand Years has about it a rise and swell, and a sublimity both in expression and melody, that surpasses anything else that he has written. The chorus is peculiarly fine both in words and music.
Work’s songs brought him a considerable fortune. After the close of the war he made an extended tour through Europe, and while on the sea wrote a song which became very famous, entitled The Ship that Never Returned. During the later years of his life he wrote Come Home, Father, and King Bibbler’s Army—both famous temperance songs. ”

“ But under the breath of a moral issue the smouldering fire has leaped into flame. The poet who elicits this temper, interprets it to itself, and gives it form and voice, renders a service to the higher interests of the race that can hardly be computed. ”

“ The form erect and standing boldly forth as if before the face of the whole world, the head gracefully poised—thrown a little back, not haughtily nor disdainfully, but with steadfast and self-reliant courage—seems to say, “Behold in me the symbol of a great and mighty people!” ”

“ General Sherman himself was never enthusiastic over the song that has immortalized his famous march. I have been unable to find in his Memoirs a single reference to it; but he quotes there in full a fine song by Adjutant S. H. M. Byers which he evidently would have been very glad to have had replace the simpler lines of Mr. Work. But Work had the key to the people’s heart, and his song will live as long as the American flag. Mr. Byers’ song, however, is a splendid piece of work and well worth repeating here. ”

“ Hopkinson was still a young man, only twenty-eight years of age, when he wrote the song which will make his name honored as long as American liberty is remembered. It was in the summer of 1798, when a war with France was thought to be inevitable. Congress was in session in Philadelphia, discussing the advisability of a declaration of war, and many acts of hostility had actually occurred. England and France were at war already, and the people of the United States were divided into factions for the one side or the other. ”

“ In the summer before they had all been decorated by wreaths of flowers and little flags, all of which were faded, but which seemed to the tender-hearted woman to be a mute evidence of the devotion and gratitude of those people to the men who had lost their lives to their cause. ”