“Why on earth do they persist in singing those beautiful words to that abominable tune?”
Many earnest efforts have been made to set the “Battle Hymn” to other music, but I believe this to be a hopeless task. The words were inspired by the music and are inseparable from it. When we remember that the same air is sung to the words of the English “God Save the King”, to the German National Hymn, and to our own “America”, may we not hope that in the future the bitter memories connected with the air will be forgotten, and that every section of our country will accept both air and music?
After the Art Association moved to its larger quarters, my husband took the old Hunt studio, and when war was declared, turned it over to the use of the Surgical Dressings Committee, which under the leadership of Miss Renée Cortazzo, did such magnificent work, and to the British and Italian War Relief societies. Among the memories of that time are certain joyous quilting parties. An ancient quilting frame was unearthed from the lumber room where it had long slept, and groups of gay young girls gathered around the old frame to make warm wadded quilts for the soldiers. Another pleasant memory picture of the old studio is of an exhibition and sale of fine Belgian laces brought to this country by a pair of patriotic Belgians, M. and Mme. Dethoor, who by their efforts managed to support the families of many Belgian lace makers during the war.
The most haunting and touching of all the war memories that center about the old studio is the exhibition of portrait drawings, by my husband, of certain young American soldiers who, before we entered the conflict, gave their lives for the great cause. Two of these young men, both members of the Lafayette Escadrille, were of our kindred, Victor Chapman, the stepson of our cousin, Elizabeth Chanler, and Norman Prince, whose grandfather, Mayor Frederick Prince of Boston, called my mother “cousin.” Others, like Quentin Roosevelt, Hamilton Coolidge, and Marquand Ward, were the sons of intimate friends. The names of these heroic youths will never be forgotten, for they were the first fruits of the harvest of sacrifice, and, by their example, led the way to all that followed.
On the sixth day of January, 1919, the mail brought me a letter from Mrs. Roosevelt, written in answer to one from me to her husband, who “was not feeling quite equal to write himself.” A few hours before the newspaper had brought the news of the passing of our great leader in the night. The following Sunday I called the first of the many Roosevelt Memorial Meetings. It was held at the Strand Theatre in Newport. The meeting opened with a prayer by Dr. Roderick Terry, and closed with a resolution prepared and offered by me:
RESOLUTION
The standard bearer has fallen, but his colors still lead us on. Having met together to express our sense of a common loss in the death of that great American, Theodore Roosevelt, we pledge ourselves anew to the service of the country he so greatly served and so deeply loved. Thankful for his life, we are thankful for the manner of his death that seems as a reward for his great service, coming painlessly while he slept; He giveth his beloved sleep. While sorrowing for our lost leader, we know that his dearest wish would be that instead of wasting ourselves in vain lamentations for his death, we should gird ourselves anew to fight the good fight with all the strength that is in us, and show our sense of his loss by the added impetus for good in our lives gained from his high example. I move that this resolution be adopted as an expression of the feeling of this meeting and a copy thereof be sent to Mrs. Roosevelt.
One of the miracles of the World War was the way in which all manner of institutions, factories, plants of every kind were transformed from their original purpose to meet the needs of the hour. There never was a more striking exhibition of American genius than the Protean changes that all sorts and kinds of institutions underwent. In Rhode Island, Brown University, like Harvard, became a training school for reservists, our famous jewelry factories were turned into munition plants, and so we were only doing what every other sort of institution was doing, when we transformed the Art Association from a purely cultural æsthetic institution, into a live patriotic nerve center. Every Sunday afternoon and every holiday during the war, and while the large number of reservists and enlisted men remained in Newport after the war, the Art Association kept open house for the soldiers and sailors. We found among the reservists many high-grade professional musicians. One of the best features of our Sunday afternoons was that they gave these men the opportunity to practice the art they had perforce laid down for the time of their service. Among the performers were several artists of great talent, pianists, violinists, ’cellists, and singers. To these men the opportunity of expressing themselves in their own calling, was life saving. A group of our members got together and bought a Steinway piano for these artists. I shall never forget the face of a certain pianist who, after six days of hard manual labor, stretched his fingers for the first time over the keyboard of our Steinway.
“Nothing is too good for our boys”,—that was the word for the hour. It is as true now as it was then, let us remember. Besides those blessed Sunday afternoons, when the Art Association coffee made a name for itself that is known from Maine to California—we opened classes in mechanical drawing for the enlisted men, and included in the regular classes of our art school all such reservists as were able to profit by the opportunity. Meanwhile the other functions of the Art Association were maintained, and the building was a humming hive of workers every day in the week, Sundays and holidays included. Those Sunday afternoon festivities always closed with the boys singing the popular war songs,—“There’s a Long Long Trail”—“Pack up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag”—“Tipperary”, the whole company joining in the chorus with a right good will. There are certain of those songs I can never hear without a vision of the shining faces of our boys as they sat cheek by jowl with our dainty belles, our grave social workers and clergymen, our plain workaday folk, and our summer plutocrats. The light that never was on land or sea glowed in those faces, young and old, familiar and foreign, for many nations were represented in those gatherings, as well as all classes,—Jews and Gentiles, Scandinavians, Teutons, Celts, Latins, and Slavs. One common feeling bound them all together, the love of our country, the hope of the world.
If, sometimes in these post-war days, I feel a moment of doubt or fear for the future of America, to find comfort I have but to call to mind the memory of those Sunday afternoon gatherings and to listen in fancy to the strong young voices singing the familiar words: