Ohio History Journal

RICHARD THEODORE BOEHM

Tod B. Galloway:

Buckeye Jongleur, Composer of

"The Whiffenpoof Song"

How did the music for Yale's famous "Whiffenpoof Song" come to be composed by

an Amherst College grad in Central Ohio? And how did the Columbus tune come

to be matched to a New Haven college verse, thence grow to become a part of the

common heritage of the world of American music?

The answers emerge from a varied skein, starting with homesick British soldiers

serving in Victoria's India, tracing to Central Ohio and the pastime talents of a col-

orful Columbus judge-musician-entertainer, thence on to Connecticut through the

musical lives of five Yale University students. Throughout the tangle, the mark of a

popular Buckeye musician is indelible. The threads all came together in Colum-

bus: the time was New Years Night, 1908; the place, the Columbus Club.

The concert that evening by the Yale Glee, Banjo and Mandolin Clubs was "the

best ever given here by a college club," reported the Ohio State Journal. The per-

formance at the Board of Trade auditorium was an enthusiastic success enjoyed by

a "large and fashionable audience. . ." which included "the social element in large

numbers." The Journal methodically set out a roster of thirty-seven "patronesses,"

alphabetically arranged; the list was studded with family names from the upper

strata of Columbus society, many of them with Yale connections.

The third number on the club program was Tod Galloway's popular "Gypsy

Trail," composed more than ten years earlier. It was sung by Yale's soloist, Phillip

Hamilton Collins, a senior from Cleveland, who, the critic adjudged, had a "smooth

baritone voice of splendid quality, and he was most successful with this song. It

was very well received, and Judge Galloway, who was in the audience, must have

been very happy over its reception." 1

After the concert, the glee clubbers moved a couple of blocks east on Broad Street

to the Columbus Club (still today a fashionable uppercrust club), where "a delight-

ful smoker" was sponsored by the Yale alumni for the twenty-three choristers. Gal-

1. Ohio State Journal (Columbus), January 2, 1908. See also Columbus Evening Dispatch, January 2,

1908; Yale Daily News, December 13, 1907. Galloway applied to himself the term "jongleur," which, he

said, was a medieval French word used in France and Norman England. A jongleur was a minstrel who

traveled 'from place to place, singing songs, often of his own composition and usually to his own accom-

paniment.' "The Trail of a Jongleur," The Etude (February 1929), 95.

Mr. Boehm, a Columbus lawyer, certified public accountant, and lecturer in law, has been a contrib-

utor to more than a dozen leading technical journals.

Tod Galloway                                                               261

feet on him as a blooming youngster. Born in Cincinnati, Joan Wallin (1821-1892)

was educated there at Stoughton's Young Ladies Seminary. As a student, she ex-

celled in music and French. Shortly after graduation, she served as a teacher in Dr.

Sanis' School for Young Ladies in Hillsboro. One time when Samuel came to Hills-

boro to visit his sisters, in attendance at the school, he met Miss Wallin. Her future

husband was ten years her senior; they were married when she was eighteen.⁷

In his last years, Tod wrote with evident pride about his mother's broad culture,

her fund of humor, her brilliance in conversation, her fine French language and mu-

sical ability. Galloway's latter day letter was also an apt description of their lovely

Italianate house and their way of life:

A large, square house with an ample ell. A home of high ceilings, broad hallways and spa-

cious rooms, of big windows with old-fashioned outside shutters and a broad winding stair-

way leading to an attic which covered the entire third story. An attic where were numerous

bound volumes of old newpapers which contained a rare delight-advertisements of Van

Amberg's Wonderful Show, Jenny Lind and Tom Thumb, Smithsonian Reports, Perry's Ex-

pedition to Japan and the Exploration of the Amazon River. Another place of delight was

the big, cool cellar with rafters hung with strings of onions, peppers and all things so placed

for drying.

Around the walls were barrels of apples, potatoes, molasses, vinegar, and cider; while a

generous swinging shelf held hams, tongue and fresh vegetables from the farm. In one part

was a sunken place in the floor lined with stone slabs where with fresh water, the milk and

cream could be kept cool and sweet. Ice packed in sawdust was always kept in an icehouse.

This plenteous supply of provender was indicative of the open-handed hospitality of the

home through which passed a constant stream of guests-one day, the most distinguished;

the next, plain and humble. A United States senator, often; and often visiting politicians, a

stump speaker or a county chairman....

Spacious grounds surrounded the house filled with all kinds of trees, cedar, maple, silver

leaf poplar, fruit trees of all kinds, including six apricots-a rare tree in central Ohio...

Then there was the generous barn or stable near which stood the ash barrels where the soft

soap for the laundry was made. The cow-barn-for no one depended upon dairies-and the

chicken yard were near by, for then families had to be independent of butchers and bakers

and candle-stick-makers....

Columbus in the 60's and 70's was a charming little city emerging from the Civil War. Its

broad trees, unpaved streets and cobblestone gutters, its stone hitching posts and carriage

steps and its general air of hospitality and manners made it seem quite Southern in charac-

ter. One evidence of this was the way many of the ladies did their shopping. It was called

"carriage shopping." A lady would drive in her carriage to the stores she frequented and

obliging clerks would bring out bolts of silk, muslin, or whatever articles she wished to in-

spect-she not leaving her vehicle....

Sunday newspapers had not appeared but religious papers such as the Herald and the

Presbyter and the Christian Union (later the Outlook) were reserved for Sunday perusal.

There were always family prayers .... My mother was broadly cultured with a fund of hu-

mor, brilliant in conversation on all subjects, a fine French scholar and accomplished musi-

cian. I can well remember her hand-copied books of thorough bass. When Oscar Wilde

was in this country in the late 80's he remarked that next to Lady Stanley, my mother was the

most brilliant conversationalist he had met.⁸

Tod Galloway was the youngest of ten children, all Columbus bred, only five of

whom survived to reach adulthood. He was born when his accomplished father

7. Gladden, "Samuel Galloway"; see also Ruth Young White, ed., We Too Built Columbus (Columbus,

1936), 101-102.

8. Ibid.

Tod Galloway                                                                  265

by his mother; she sought to have him committed to a reformatory, one of her particular rea-

sons being that his conduct interfered with her daughter's matrimonial prospects.

Ikey was an old offender in the Children's Court, yet each time, when it came to the mo-

ment of sentence, the old woman would weaken and beg him off. But one day, after a par-

ticularly harrowing plea to have him "sent up," the Judge told the mother firmly that this

time Ikey must feel the full rigor of the law. To this Mrs. Einstein readily agreed. So sen-

tence fell upon the boy's head; he was lectured soundly by the Court and ordered to serve a

term in the Reformatory. The fat old woman threw herself on her knees, to the astonish-

ment of the Judge, her body swaying back and forth, and with outstretched hands, she cried

distractedly, "Oh, Ikey, Ikey! get down on your knees and maybe you can soften the hard

heart of the Judge!"

This story particularly appealed to the humor of Clyde Fitch, and he wrote to Judge Gal-

loway: "I have put you and your Court into a play." But the central plot dealt with a klepto-

maniac mother of the "girl," the Judge being the hero.13

A major new period in Galloway's life began in 1904 when, in January, he left the

courthouse and moved upstreet to the Statehouse as personal secretary to Ohio's

Governor Myron T. Herrick, during a two year term (1904-1906). From the first

week, Galloway was immersed in a staggering volume of the governor's correspond-

ence, much of it merely trivial. Patronage problems came soon and often; convicts

sought relief and were told to follow normal channels; churches and charities seek-

ing handouts needed to be turned away; and explanations were sent to excuse the

governor's inability to appear for speeches. Galloway handled several dozen rail-

road passes for the governor's use in those days before legal prohibitions stopped

this practice and rescued the carriers from widespread patterns of shakedowns by

politicians. The secretary soon came to feel secure enough to criticize Amherst Col-

lege, his alma mater, for failing to recognize Clyde Fitch, and for being "entirely too

local in its recognition of her sons .... Here in Central Ohio, we hardly ever hear her

name any more ... [but I am] devoted to Amherst and its interests...."14

Three weeks after he moved into the new job, Galloway received from Delevan,

Wisconsin, a letter from a lady soliciting help for her father, a resident of Colum-

bus:

When I was quite a child one day, after interpreting for my mother at the Court House, you

took me on your lap and said something about my being a sweet child, then added, "If you

ever ask a man to marry you and he refuses, come and ask me." Now, being satisfied with

teaching... I have not found any use for what you said; but cannot it be turned in another

way? My father-a deaf man-wants a position .... Wont you help? ... if you will just get in

a few words, Father will have the position [as extra clerk] and I shall not have to take advan-

tage of your promise even if it is leap year.¹⁵

The governor's secretary often covered for his boss, making numerous speeches,

including appearances at the opening of historical sites. Galloway also participated

extensively in the election campaign of 1905. One of his campaign arrangements

13. William Clyde Fitch (1865-1909) was said to be "America's most successful playwright." Mon-

trose J. Moses and Virginia Gerson, Clyde Fitch and His Letters (Boston, 1924), v, 207-208. On numer-

ous occasions, he had several hits running at the same time. See also Dictionary of American Biography

(1958), III, 428-429; Montrose J. Moses, The American Dramatist (Boston, 1925), 309. The Weber and

Fields parody was mentioned in Felix Isman, Weber and Fields (New York, 1924), 280-284.

14. Galloway to Henry E. Whitcomb, January 19, 1904, Box 14, Herrick Letterbook, p. 221, Herrick

Papers.

15. Letter to Galloway, January 20, 1904, Box 1, folder 3, ibid.

270                                                            OHIO HISTORY

Presser's leading music house. They were released together as Seven Memory

Songs, characterized a half-century later by critic-historian Sigmund Spaeth as "a

charming set." 22

"Gypsy Trail" (1897), one of the seven, was based on Rudyard Kipling's classic

ballad. The song became a widespread favorite, was acclaimed by Etude as "a

great success" along with the "pronounced success" of other songs which came later.

Etude trumpeted Galloway's "extraordinary melodic gifts." "Trail" became Law-

rence Tibbet's classic; the tune was also used as a North Carolina college class song,

and in 1969 it was newly republished and acclaimed as one of the Songs That

Changed the World.²³

Galloway's second group of seven, called Friendship Songs, were published in

1907 by Theodore Presser. Included in this were "O Heart of Mine" (1905), based

on a verse by James Whitcomb Riley, and "The Twenty-third Psalm" (1905), one of

the few plainly religious titles in his known repertoire. His music was coming off

the presses for many years to follow. Fifty published numbers have been identi-

fied; in his obituary he is credited with twice that many. (See the end of this article

for an alphabetical listing of Galloway's published tunes.)

We know that Galloway's departure was Columbus' loss, but we cannot establish

that his presence was necessarily a distinct gain for New York City. The available

evidence does not tell us what happened to him in Manhattan in the decade of the

'teens. There is a strong trace of his presence in Philadelphia in 1912. Several mu-

sical compositions date from the period, and his Amherst College vita inconclusively

says that he was practicing law in New York and Columbus and that he served on a

draft board in World War I. Little other proof of his whereabouts can be found ex-

cept the vague summary that he was engaged in editorial work at the Macmillan

publishing house. What that means, we do not know. But whatever, Tod had not

lost his personal touch; 1918 brought another signal epoch.

America's entry into the World War in 1917 found Galloway in New York, fifty-

five years old, hardly a prime specimen for enlistment as a combat trooper. After a

term on a draft board, he got himself an assignment as a YMCA entertainer and

shipped overseas to the war zone, not quite sure what his role was to be "over

there." He reached Brest early in 1918, traveled a bit and bubbled enthusiastically

about France in his letters to sister, Lucy Black. Soon he reverted to type. A one-

man entertainment team, he talked, sang, and played to soldiers everywhere-to

small groups in the trenches of Champagne and Lorraine, to larger groups in the

rear areas, to crowds of men in make-shift auditoriums-along a route two hundred

miles long, from the Channel to the Vosges. Galloway's sentimental nature showed

up time and again in his songs and even more in his letters to Lucy. His writings

show an explicit unabashed patriotism, and a love affair with the American soldier:

"true American Knights of Democracy," he called them. He puffed his pride in

them, his fellow countrymen, although he had a somewhat curdled view of the

American officers: the soldiers "are vastly more responsive and much more inter-

esting...." His letters told Lucy that the doughboys got along well with the French

22. This summary has been drawn from Galloway's own account: "The Romance of a Famous Song:

Judge Galloway's 'The Gypsy Trail,'" The Etude (April 1920), 226; and Sigmund Spaeth, A History of

Popular Music in America (New York, 1948), 573.

23. North Carolina State Normal College Song Book (Greensboro, 1917), 20-21; Wanda Willson Whit-

man, ed., Songs That Changed the World (New York, 1969), 94, 95. Kipling's poem, "The Gypsy Trail"

was published in the Inclusive Edition of his works (1885-1932) (New York, 1938), 207-208.

272                                                                  OHIO HISTORY

folded, was no larger than a good-sized suit case. This instrument, strapped on the

side of a faithful Ford, was put to use, close to the trenches, whenever his soldier au-

diences could safely assemble, free of the risk of enemy shelling.

His travels extended across the Western Front, from Flanders and Piccardy to the

Alsatian Vosges, and back. He wrote Lucy that the Commandant at the French

fortress at Verdun, scene of history's longest, bloodiest battle, just two years earlier,

had given him a silver medal. His travels were extensive: "Having been all along

the front," he said, "I am as familiar with it as I am with High Street from Colum-

bus to Worthington." He was disappointed because he did not get to perform for

the Ohio troops; one scheduled show at the front lines during the crucial Argonne

campaign was spoiled because the unit was suddenly moved off on a combat assign-

ment. And he marveled how the doughboys could fight in the rough, tough country

of the Argonne forest. (This latter day tourist, having recently retraced the area,

likewise marveled at the difficulty of military maneuvers in the rugged countryside

at the Argonne front.)

French was not a language barrier. He bragged to Lucy about his lingual ability

and was proud that the French soldiers asked him to play and sing for them. Post-

ers in red and blue printing advertised his coming: "Good morning Judge! Todd

[sic] B. Galloway of Ohio in a series of interesting tales and talks. American

YMCA: The Best in Entertainment." He also instructed the men in American his-

tory and translated some of his tunes. He reported that converting into French his

two American Negro dialect songs, "My Brown Rose" and "Pickaninny Lullaby"

for French audiences was a lost effort, partially salvaged by their enthusiasm and re-

sponsiveness.²⁴

During the 1918 show season, Tod played at the front on the same program with

Elsie Janis, Columbus' own Elsie Bierbower, the greatest favorite of them all, the

"sweetheart of the AEF."      And he was pleased to report that noted Homer

Rodeheaver, the "musical missionary" associated with Evangelist Billy Sunday, had

learned Galloway's "O Heart of Mine," had added it to his own repertoire, and fre-

quently used it in appearances with the troops.25 "Judge" (as the soldiers called

Galloway) asked Lucy to look out for syndicated news material about his efforts,

written by newsman Maximillian Foster in August 1918.26 Le Jongleur showed

pride repeatedly in the applause and approval of his audiences. He was pleased

that an officer had told him to sing until he was hoarse, and was proud when the

troops demanded encores. His life with the men was counted as "a priceless privi-

lege." With only a few days off, he resented organization foul-ups which prevented

his daily performance for the troops, his favorite people. His effusion of August 5,

24. This extensive paraphrase of Galloway's activities in the front lines was drawn primarily from Gal-

loway's letters to his sister, Lucy Galloway Black (1856-1942), married in 1880 to William Francis Black

(1851-1929). Galloway Papers. See also Galloway, "Trail of a Jongleur."

25. Homer Alvan Rodeheaver (1880-1955), "the musical missionary," born at Union Furnace (Hock-

ing County), Ohio, grew up in Jellico, Tennessee, attended Ohio Wesleyan University. Famed as a con-

ductor of enormous groups of singers, including choruses of 250,000, 150,000, 85,000, and 62,000, he be-

came a YMCA entertainer in France during World War I and was associated with evangelist Billy

Sunday from 1909-1931. New York Times, December 29, 1955; John Jasker Howard, Our American

Music (New York, 1965), 606, 611-612; National Cyclopedia of American Biography (1962), XLV, 250.

26. Maximilian Foster (1872-1943), a journalist, an author who later wrote for the Saturday Evening

Post. As official correspondent with the American expeditionary force, he accompanied Woodrow Wil-

son during much of the President's post-war sojourn abroad, leading up to the Treaty of Versailles. He

served as a reporter and writer on New York newspapers, wrote ten novels, several plays and scenarios

for motion pictures. New York Times, September 22, 1943.

Tod Galloway                                                               273

1918, would be a patriotic speech in any language:

I cannot tell you with what joy I welcome my going back tomorrow to be with the troops.

They are so wonderful. It seems as though these things which the founders of our Republic

foresaw with prophetic views were coming to pass.

And it is not because I am intensely patriotic and American and therefore liable to over-

state and overestimate, but there is no doubt about it that the fruits of this crop, grown by

those who had the Faith, are being ripened right here in this awful war. You may recall that

early in March soon after I landed here I wrote about the annealing we Americans must un-

dergo. They are undergoing it and all the dross and sham is being burned away, and we as a

nation will be so much greater & grander than we ever were before-& Our natural blow-

hardedness (if there is such a word) being tempered by its contact with England and France

who have done such incomparable things, will be sweetened and broadened and we will be

saner and more stable than we have ever been before-& As to the development of our

Americanism along the lines as they should be, I could write volumes. It is the daily in-

timate touch that I get that gives me this absolute knowledge....27

This extravagant-perhaps unnoticed-mix of metaphors and the absolutism of his

emotional judgments can be easily embraced. Obviously Galloway's love affair

with the American soldier was only the outward manifestation of much deeper emo-

tions which occasionally surfaced to permanent visibility.

Life was quieter for Galloway after the Armistice in November 1918. He stayed

a few months longer in France, entertaining groups of transient men who were itch-

ing to get away, to get back home. He managed to visit Morlaix, a tiny town in

Brittany, and wrote a lighthearted travel article weighted with historical data about

the visit by Mary, Queen of Scots, to the same place, 370 years earlier.²⁸

The Galloway letter collection ends in mid 1919, when the Judge presumably

went back to New York. We do not know how far his performing talents extended

past his career in France. By the mid-twenties, something caused a significant

change in his life style. The cause might have been economic. By then Galloway

had passed sixty. We see no sign of affluence. In the summer of 1925, he pur-

chased a new suit and paid for it by a charge against his royalty account with Theo-

dore Presser, his publisher.29  The large royalties earned by "Whiffenpoof Song"

would not begin for another ten years, after his death. But he was back at his edito-

rial job with the Macmillan house and this was the beginning of a prolific period of

writing on music history. He produced several articles a year for the next decade

for the Etude, "The Journal of the Musical Home Everywhere," published by Theo-

dore Presser. Several articles reached print after his death.³⁰ Besides his literary

work, two songs were published as late as 1929, and several others earlier in the

decade.

Galloway's writing has a simple quality that is akin to storytelling. His vocabu-

lary is adequate but not heavy, and the language is supple and free flowing. His

work shows extensive research and suggests also capacious classical reading and a

27. Galloway to Lucy Galloway Black, August 5, 1918, Galloway Papers.

28. Tod B. Galloway, "When Mary and I Went to Morlaix," Catholic World (July 1920), 494-502.

29. On June 9, 1925, Galloway signed a request, addressed to Presser, to pay $50 to Frank E. Whitman,

his bosom friend of college days. For the Union-Buffalo Mills Company, Whitman, treasurer and a high

ranking director of the company, submitted the request for payment by a letter dated September 1, 1925.

Files, Theo. Presser & Co., Bryn Mawr, Pa., copies in Galloway Papers.

30. One posthumous article was about Heinrich Heine, "Great Poet as Music Critic," The Etude (Octo-

ber 1936), 626; another was a re-publication of "Church Music Before Palestrina," ibid. (February

1938), 116.

274                                                                    OHIO HISTORY

retentive memory. He essayed nontechnical articles about the technical part of mu-

sic: he wrote about the work of the percussion drummer in the symphony and about

the family of woodwind instruments. He enthusiastically acclaimed the work of the

conductor by way of an epigram: "Temperament ... cannot be acquired by educa-

tion, hard work or favor. It is an inborn free gift of nature. It is an endorsement of

the heart, not of the understanding." 31

Or again, Galloway wrote about types of music, about gypsy music, which was to

him, it is easy to detect, a subject of some emotional interest. He described with

evident joy the music of the circus, noting that he had fond memories of the tanbark

ring from his childhood, seen in the company of his eldest sister. The ballet and the

waltz were the subjects of separate articles, and he was fascinated by the evolution

of church music and its reformation under Palestrina, the "Prince of Music." But

most often he wrote about musicians, royal and common, ancient and recent, from

Old Testament days to nineteenth century opera stars: about Beethoven, Men-

delssohn, Purcell, Rossini, Friederich von Flotow, Offenbach, Allesandro Scarlatti, a

score of others, some unknown today.³²

His historical writings were mostly matter-of-fact, flavored all the while by his un-

quenchable love of music. In one effusion, bachelor Galloway expressed a thought

about the special qualities of women: "How very colorful, ever varied, never ending,

all embracing is the theme of the inspiration to mankind of women.... Music is the

universal language. It begins life with a cradle song; it ends life with a requiem.

What greater work can claim women's attention? She always has been and always

will be, as long as human affections exist, its [music's] inspiration ... she will be [its]

greatest interpreter."³³

From his younger days on, he did well with yet other types of literary efforts. As

a young lawyer, he was a banquet speaker for the annual meeting of the Ohio His-

torical Society, his subject, "Ohio's Congressmen During the [Civil] War." An even

more serious presentation was a full-fledged article about the Ohio-Michigan

boundary dispute, not realizing that one small remnant would persist, to be decided

by the Supreme Court in 1973. He edited some of the papers of Columbusite John

Greiner who had been the first governor of New Mexico Territory, but this minor

effort only indicated another direction of his interest. During the Great War, he fo-

cused on Elizabethan history in the article about his visit to Moraix, in Normandy.

Galloway's historical writings show industry and ability, but they were only diver-

sions, pastimes for an active mind. In the 1930's he broke into the toney world of

New England letters literate with an article about a child prodigy who did not de-

velop into maturity. Two other articles documented numerous endowments by

31. Galloway, The Etude: "Keep Your Eye on the Drummer" (December 1930), 859, 906-907; "A Leg-

acy from Pan" (January 1932), 15-16, 57; "Why a Conductor?" (December 1928), 915-916.

32. Galloway, The Etude: "The Irresistable Lure of Gypsy Music" (April 1926), 259, "The Music of the

Tanbark Ring" (August 1932), 547-548; "The Story of the Ballet and Its Music" (October 1928), 745-746;

"The Music of the Waltz and Its Creators" (August 1930), 541-542; "Church Music Before Palestrina"

(February 1938), 116-117; "Palestrina, The Prince of Music" (May 1935), 261-262; "The Stabat Mater

and Its Illustrious Composers" (October 1934), 577-578; "Music in the Bible" (March 1929), 185-186;

"Music Makers in the Day of Good Queen Bess" (June 1932), 401-402; "Royal Musicians" (October

1931), 703-704, 745, 752, 757; "Beethoven's Life Tragedy" (January 1928), 23-24; "The Romance of

Mendelssohn" (August 1934), 459-460, 444; "The Divine Purcell" (May 1934), 288, 319; "The Romance

of Alessandro Stradella" (July 1931), 475-476; "The Curious Story of Jacques Offenbach, The King of

Opera Bouffe" (July 1930), 469-470; "What Music Owes to Allesandra Scarlatti" (April 1931), 245-246,

300.

33. Galloway, "Noted Women in Musical History," The Etude (November 1929), 809-810, 855.

276                                                                    OHIO HISTORY

eral court suit in Manhattan over the copyright. In 1935, the copyright had been

assigned to Miller Music, Inc. by Meade Minnigerode, George S. Pomeroy, and by

Tod Galloway's executor. The Vallee version was challenged by G. Schirmer, Inc.,

who correctly stated that they had published a "Whiffenpoof Song" in The New

Yale Song-Book in 1918. Based on this, Schirmer urged that earlier publication,

standing alone, gave them rights superior to the Miller Music copyright of 1935.

Miller, however, seemed to have the better of the argument, based on their 1935 as-

signment of a formal copyright derived from the legal grants from Galloway, the

composer, and from Minnigerode, and Pomeroy, authors of the verse. The lawsuit

dragged on with little progress. Lawyers went away on active military duty during

World War II. A fat file of depositions about "Whiffenpoof Song," reported by

knowing people, was assembled and is still available in the court records. After a

half-dozen years, the claim was finally dismissed without trial, with Miller Music

still in command of the copyrights. Concluded in 1945 by settlement, there was no

explicit court decision on the merits of the conflicting priority arguments advanced

by the two publishers. The dismissal order effectively validated the Miller copy-

right claims, and, in reliance, thousands of dollars in royalties have since been paid.

The significance of the court proceeding as to Galloway lies not in the determina-

tion of the copyright priority, which was the precise legal issue between the two pub-

lishers, but primarily in the sworn testimony of the origin of the music supplied by

the three living original Whiffenpoofs. Detailed, signed, sworn depositions establish

that from the very beginning, they all credited Judge Galloway as the composer of

the music of "Whiffenpoof Song." 36

As if to challenge whether the original Whiffenpoofs really knew, during the

1940's emerged a johnny-come-lately claim that "Whiffenpoof Song" was not Gal-

loway's composition at all, along with a charge that the Yale tune had been earlier

written and sung at Harvard, of all places! But this version was at best a stale, un-

documented claim, unheard-of for thirty years.³⁷ Those three who knew best, they

who were in Columbus, had publicly sworn that credit for the composition belonged

to Galloway. The thick record in the New York Federal court establishes beyond

doubt-with nary a hint of difference-by positive, detailed, contemporary court de-

positions from Minnigerode, Pomeroy and Howard, supplemented by a published

essay by Lohmann, the fourth member, that the tune had come from Galloway in

1908.

36. Three of the original five Whiffenpoof founders of 1909, under oath in litigation, recognized Gallo-

way as the composer. "The words of the last five lines of the song came from a poem by Rudyard Kipl-

ing and the music was composed by Tod Galloway." Deposition of George S. Pomeroy (December

1944) (one of two authors of the words of "Whiffenpoof"), p. 2. He also said that Meade Minnigerode

was the co-author of the words. Minnigerode joined the other two in affirming Galloway's composition.

Deposition to Cross Interrogatories, p. 1, line 20, December 20, 1944. The testimony of James M. How-

ard was cumulative. Deposition, December 20, 1944, pp. 3-4. A fourth Whiffenpoof founder, Carl Al-

bert Lohmann, though not on oath, wrote the same thing in the club's thirtieth anniversary pamphlet of

1939. Thus, by the end of 1944, all the four living original Whiffenpoofs (Fowler had died in 1910) had

united in affirming Galloway's composition. Miller Music, Inc. v. G. Schirmer, Inc., Equity Case

E85-227, U. S. Dist. Ct., S.D.N.Y. (Copies of the key court documents and the depositions are on file in

the Galloway Papers.) N.B. Large royalties have been paid to Galloway's heirs, undoubtedly in reliance

upon the legal effect of the court proceedings.

37. The challenging claim to Galloway's composition is based on the allegation by Carl B. Spitzer

(1877-1962) (Yale, 1899), Toledo financier, that the Whiffenpoof tune was written by Guy H. Scull (Har-

vard, 1898), and used at Cambridge. This late claim could never override the legal effect of the copy-

right, the credibility of the affidavits on file in the court case, and the quieting effect of the court pro-

ceedings. Indeed, could such allegations ever be credited, thirty-five years later, to offset the founders'

current (1909) knowledge to the contrary? Carl Lohmann, "The Whiffenpoofs," 8.

Tod Galloway                                                                277

These were the four living witnesses who had been members of the Yale Glee

Club and had performed in Columbus that New Years Night; it was they who

adapted their own New Haven words to his old tune and altered Kipling's verse. It

was they who formed the now-famous Whiffenpoof Club and tied it to the cele-

brated tune by their unchangeable constitution. At no point in the long lawsuit was

there the slightest suggestion which impugned the fact of Galloway's composition.

Whether Galloway may have elsewhere picked up the idea for the melody (few

ideas are totally exclusive and original) cannot be said or gainsaid. Whatever the

latter-day claims of others, they cannot overcome the legal ownership of the music

based upon the testimony of the original witnesses that it was Galloway who taught

the tune to the Yale men and, from the first, was publicly credited with the composi-

tion.³⁸

The composition of "Whiffenpoof Song" is made up of three major evolutionary

elements. Galloway first took the words from Kipling's "Gentlemen-Rankers," a

poem reflecting the predicament of middle class English soldiers serving in Vic-

toria's India. This was just the first step; and Kipling's "baa-baa" chorus is the only

original part still extant in the song.³⁹ Galloway's music for the British verse was

the second element carried into today's content; this was the memorable tune

brought back to New Haven from the pleasant smoker at the Columbus Club. The

third ingredient came out of the Yale-centered inspirations of Minnigerode and

Pomeroy, perpetuated in their own colorful college verse:

THE Whiffenpoof SONG

To the tables down at Mory's

To the place where Louie dwells,

To the dear old Temple Bar we love so well,

Sing the Whiffenpoofs assembled with their

glasses raised on high,

And the magic of their singing casts its spell.

Yes, the magic of their singing of the songs

we love so well,

"Shall I wasting, "and "Mavourneen,"

and the rest.

We will serenade our Louie

While life and voice shall last,

Then we'll pass and be forgotten with

the rest.

We're poor little lambs who have lost our

way: Baa! Baa! Baa!

We're little black sheep who have gone

astray: Baa! Baa! Baa!

Gentlemen songsters off on a spree,

Doomedfrom here to eternity,

Lord have mercy on such as we,

Baa! Baa! Baa!

38. A knowledgeable official of a large music publishing house told me in 1973, viva voce, that many a

favorite popular song produces claims of conflicting origin. In this, he said the "Whiffenpoof" challenge

278                                                                    OHIO HISTORY

But the words need interpretation, replete as they are with arcane references.

The nonsense title was lifted from a Victor Herbert musical, "Little Nemo," then

running on Broadway, in which Joe Cawthorne, a Broadway comedian, popularized

the Whiffenpoof, a mythical fish-like creature of which no reliable anatomical de-

scription has been located. Three unique references import meanings not in-

telligible except to the initiate. Generations of Yale students have hung around an

eating club called "Dear Old Temple Bar," named after the New Haven street on

which it was located. The place had acquired a nickname, "Mory's," a contraction

of the Moriarity family name, its early proprietors who had started the eatery a

dozen years before the Civil War. And the special serenade in the verse was to

Louis Linder (1866-1913), who had come as an immigrant from Wurtemberg at age

fourteen and had been the properietor of Mory's Tavern from 1898 until his death.

Louis had encouraged and applauded the songsters in their efforts and so earned

their affection--and their patronage--that he was named and still lives on as the

first honorary Whiffenpoof.40

Despite the esoteric content of the verse, "Whiffenpoof Song" became a national

favorite, a well-known standard on radio. In 1943 Moss Hart used it in Winged

Victory, the Army Air Force show, "a big and deserving hit upon the [Broadway]

stage." The next year it was moved into a "stunning production" movie of the

same name, by Twentieth Century Fox, featuring Edmund O'Brien, Jeanne Crain,

and the Andrews Sisters. The tune has been recorded at least thirty-five times by

an impressive collection of two generations of America's musical greats. Bing

Crosby and Fred Waring collaborated in one version which sold a million copies.

Louis Armstrong, Perry Como, the Norman Luboff Choir, Les Brown, Montavani,

Lawrence Welk, Count Basie, the Mills Brothers, Edie Adams, Jaye P. Morgan, and

Cal Tjader grace a long list of distinguished performers.

The artistry of younger generations has added new joys to the music; a sensuous

"triple-slide," a three-part harmonic glissando in the best barbershop tradition, or-

naments the Martin Alexander (jazz musician of Canton, Ohio) arrangement sung

by the Ohio State University Glee Club and by the Columbus Maennerchor. A

five-part glissando by gifted, inspiring Lowell F. Riley, adorns his delightful eight-

part arrangement for mixed voices for the justly famous Vaudvillities chorus of Co-

lumbus, Ohio.

was not unusual. Infringement suits are common to many successful songs; the claims are not neces-

sarily spurious, but are occasionally arguable. Challenges to copyrights and their usual lack of founda-

tion is a ordinary event in the industry. Only about one in ten has a reasonable claim to merit. He

guessed that these claims are the inevitable result of widespread talent and interest in music. This crea-

tivity, he says, occasionally produces compositions which have at least arguable claims of superficial

similarity.

39. The "baa-baa" chorus, obviously drawn from Kipling's "Gentlemen Rankers," might well have

been the basis for a challenge by the Kipling interests. Johnny Jones quoted Helen Joyce (Galloway's

niece) that the Kipling estate had brought suit because the song was taken from the poem. Columbus

Dispatch, December 5, 1948. No other confirmation of this litigation has come to notice. Information

attributed by Jones to Mrs. Joyce reflects minor confusion in the history.

40. Carl A. Lohmann, "The Whiffenpoofs." One non-Yale reference in the text of the new verse was

to the song, "Shall I Wasting in Despair?" These words were suggested by lines from a "classic of Eng-

lish literature ...," written in the middle 1600's. The special barbershop qualities of the melody were

explained by Sigmund Speath, Barber Shop Ballads and How to Sing Them (New York, 1940), 77-79.

Mory's as a club has since been incorporated. Its male exclusiveness was shattered by court orders to

accept female patrons and the club gave up its three years fight to exclude women. New York Times,

March 30, 1974. It has since elected four women to its Board of Governors. UPI dispatch, Columbus

Citizen-Journal, July 18, 1974.

Tod Galloway                                                                    279

Far from being parochial, "Whiffenpoof Song" has gained international fame;

the words have been translated into French and German, and royalties were said to

have been paid from Norway and Sweden.⁴1 The tune has earned a fortune in roy-

alties, which are still averaging a thousand dollars a month. Until her death in

1959, Helen Galloway Joyce, Galloway's favorite niece, was still receiving thou-

sands of dollars in royalties from her uncle's song. Her descendants still receive siz-

able remittance checks.⁴²

Galloway returned home to Columbus in 1933, retired from his job at Macmillan

publishing house. His sister, Lucy Black, widowed since 1929, lived in the old

neighborhood with her daughter, Helen, who had been married in 1904 to William

J. Joyce, of the socially prominent Columbus merchant family. Tod boarded

nearby with a family on Washington Avenue. In July of 1935, he was injured in a

fall. After that, his health failed rapidly, and by November, his nervous condition

had reduced his bold, shapely handscript to a pitiable scribble. John M. Taylor,

who had been his accompanist in the old days, was acting as his "agent in all per-

sonal and financial matters." Taylor observed that Tod's signature was "almost il-

legible, owing to his extreme nervous condition.... His condition is desperate and

I, as an old friend, am trying to smooth the path, and to make him as comfortable as

possible." Taylor reported that Galloway was pleased to give the Presser pub-

lishing house permission to use his compositions in forthcoming publications, and to

see another of his articles in the pages of Etude.⁴³

Death came a few weeks later, on December 12, 1935, to the "eminent lawyer,

musicologist, composer and writer," one of the most colorful characters that Colum-

bus has known in the last half-century." Judge Galloway lies interred at Green

Lawn Cemetery in the family lot, alongside his brilliant parents and near the graves

of a group of historic Columbus families. His beloved sister, Lucy Black, lies

nearby, with her husband.

Galloway himself wrote our final lines. The words of "Whiffenpoof," notwith-

standing, the magic of his singing is not forgotten with the rest. His name shows up

in a sizeable number of periodical index entries. His reputation is current, fre-

quently refreshed by his latter-day admirer, Colubmus Citizen-Journal columnist

Ben Hayes. The most important part of the Tod Galloway story cannot be printed:

it will be heard--and felt--where people assemble, sing and listen. When the fi-

nal type has been set, it will be Galloway's music that we shall recall, even after the

composer's name has escaped our memory:

Forgotten are the creators of the music, workers with their struggles and triumphs. Their

works alone are remembered and cherished--and will so continue--for music is

deathless.⁴⁴

41. New York Times, December 21, 1944. In the movie version, at a Christmas party, three soldiers

burlesqued the singing of the Andrews Sisters. They mimic voicelessly as the Sisters' voices were dubbed

in by a phonograph record.

42. Miller Music, Inc. to author, July 23, 1973, copy on file, Galloway Papers; Ben Hayes, Columbus

Citizen, December 28, 1958; telephone conversation with William J. Joyce, Jr., St. Clair Shores, Mich-

igan, grandnephew of Tod B. G lloway; August 1973.

43. John Myers Taylor to Theodore Presser Co., November 5, 1935, copy in Galloway Papers. Taylor

occasionally acted as Galloway's accompanist. His wife was Elizabeth Campbell, the "socially gifted"

daughter of James E. Campbell, governor of Ohio (1889-1891), three-term congressman, former Middle-

town lawyer, veteran of the Union Navy during the Civil War.

44. Obituary, The Etude (February 1936), 66; Columbus Dispatch, December 13, 1935; Galloway, "A

Queen and a Quarrel about Musicians," The Etude (July 1928), 517-518, 553.