AUSTRIA: Poet President

Not long ago President Michael Hainisch of Austria sat himself down before his polished desk and penned a poem of eight stanzas, entitled “My Country,” extolling the beauties of Lower Austria, where he was born and where he rears pedigree cows that supply Vienna with an abundance of milk.

Now a professor Keldorfer has set the verse to music and the poem was sung last week for the first time, amid great enthusiasm, at the Music Societies’ concert in Vienna.

Onetime Farmer Hainisch smiled under his ample white beard and bushy mustachios, for he had conspicuously brought himself to the notice of the Viennese, who are so hazy about their Chief Executive that many are alleged not to know his name. Still more gratifying was the news that Lower Austria (a province) may adopt the poem as its official anthem, not having had a song of its own since the fall of the monarchy in 1918.*

*The Melody of the oldtime Austrian anthem has been used as Alma Mater by at least one U.S. university: Wisconsin.