Words & Music

Into President Hoover's office one day last week marched short Representative Sol Bloom of Manhattan, oldtime music publisher, theatre owner and now a director of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission. Beside him marched beaming, grey-haired George Michael Cohan, famed flagwaving actor, producer and songwriter. After presenting Mr. Cohan to the President. Congressman Bloom elaborately explained that the author of "Over There" had composed a new song to be used officially by the commission for its nation-wide celebrations next year. Declared Mr. Cohan: "The name of my song, Mr. President, is 'Father of the Land We Love.' I wrote it for the American, people. Here, Mr. President, I want you to have the very first copy."

As President Hoover, no musician, took the sheet and glanced over it, Congressman Bloom hurried on to explain that he was not trying to "plug" the song by White House publicity because "Father of the Land We Love" was not to be sold commercially but was to be distributed free throughout the land by the Federal Commission for 1932 singing. However, after leaving the President's office, Mr. Bloom stopped in the White House press room, stepped up beside a bust of George Washington, and began to sing the first verse:

Every little lad and lass

Boys and girls of every class

Here beneath the flag of Stripe and Star,

From the time they start to school

When they learn the Golden Rule

Always have been proud of what they are.

And every day with lessons done

They sing their song of Washington

A song of love that reaches near and far.

"Of course, it will be better with music," broke in Author Cohan as Singer Bloom swung into the chorus:

First in war

First in peace

First in the hearts of his countrymen*

That is the story of Washington

That is the glory of Washington

His spirit is here

His spirit is here

He's standing, commanding above.

In word and deed we follow the lead

Of the Father of the Land we love.

But last week Congressman Bloom was more concerned about an old London street song called ''The World's Turned Upside Down" than he was about Composer Cohan's "Father of the Land We Love." When Lord Cornwallis' troops surrendered to Washington's Continental Army at Yorktown, Va., Oct. 19, 1781, the British bandmaster picked that tune for the unhappy march. Next October as a prelude to the Washington bicentennial, a pageant at Yorktown will re-enact the scene that ended the Revolution. President Hoover will speak. Last month the sponsors of this local celebration, the Yorktown Sesquicentennial Association of which Dr. William Archer Rutherfoord Goodwin is president began to agitate for the elimination not only of "The World's Turned Upside Down" but also of the whole episode of the Cornwallis surrender. They argued that such a scene, such a tune, might injure the patriotic sensibilities of friendly British visitors. Against any such elimination Congressman Bloom raised his voice in vehement protest. He wanted history, including "The World's Turned Upside Down," repeated as it occurred 150 years ago. The following long-range colloquy took place between him and Virginia's Congressman Schuyler Otis Bland, secretary of the Yorktown celebration:

Mr. Bland: We are trying to depict something deeper and greater than the mere surrender of men in a single battle. We want to emphasize a truth of ideals rather than to glorify a war victory.

Mr. Bloom: The surrender scene was most dignified, most pleasant, most courteous in every respect. To run a pageant without it would be like having a motion picture without an ending.

Mr. Bland: An exact reproduction of the surrender would involve the difficult task of training several thousand regular Army men in close formation fighting.

Mr. Bloom: Nobody need go further than the Capitol to find an authentic painting of the surrender in which just 37 persons appeared and only three of them were British./- All the British soldiers had laid down their arms and passed from the picture before the actual surrender occurred. . . . General Cornwallis, being indisposed, asked his subordinate General Charles O'Hara to present the sword, denoting defeat. General Washington designated General Benjamin Lincoln to accept it. I believe Washington did not even allow his men to cheer.

The Yorktown sponsors met last week in Washington, voted to postpone formal action until the Sesquicentennial Association could be polled on the issue. Declared Dr. Goodwin afterwards: "If I were giving a birthday party to celebrate the birth of the nation, I would not have surgical instruments to accompany the cake. I do not admit, as suggested, that to omit the surrender scene would be like presenting the play Hamlet with Hamlet left out. . . . I do not think General Grant would desire to have the surrender at Appomattox repeated in a scene. He was too generous. Nor do I think George Washington would want the Yorktown surrender repeated."

*Originator of this famed tag for George Washington was Representative Henry ("Light Horse Harry") Lee of Virginia who used it during his funeral oration before the Senate and the House of Representatives. /-In the Capitol rotunda hangs Painter John Trumbull's version of the surrender, with Washington in the background, Cornwallis absent.

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