Music: Marine Band v. A. F. of M.

When the Continental Congress established the U. S. Marine Corps in 1775, sharp-eyed Benjamin Franklin marked on the drums of the recruiting officers a rattlesnake with the inscription “Don’t Tread On Me.” The Marine Corps drums still bear that motto. In the act of 1798 which confirmed the Marines’ organization, there was provision for a Drum Major, Fife Major, and 32 drums & fifes. In 1799 a band was formed at the Marine encampment in Philadelphia, then the U. S. capital. When the Marines moved to Washington, Drum Major William Farr began to give open air concerts near Georgetown, play for balls and routs, and in 1801 at a White House reception given by President Thomas Jefferson.* In 1809, at President John Madison’s inaugural ball, the Marine Band played a special “Madison’s March.” Since then it has played a new march at every inaugural. The Marine Band was General La Fayette’s bodyguard when he visited Yorktown and Mount Vernon in 1824. Andrew Jackson had the band in to play for the first Easter Egg Rolling and White House Children’s Party. Abraham Lincoln asked the band to Gettysburg when he made his famed address; in his time it was by Act of Congress expanded to “one Drum Major, one Principal Musician, 30 musicians for the band, 60 drummers and 60 fifers.”

The Marine Band played dirges at the funerals of Harrison, Taylor and Lincoln; accompanied Garfield’s body to Cleveland; played “Lead Kindly Light” and “Nearer My God To Thee” at McKinley’s funeral, and “Lead Kindly Light” again at Harding’s.

Three weeks ago, when President Hoover accepted the Republican nomination for the Presidency, few people were surprised or shocked to see the Marine Band on hand as usual. But the American Federation of Musicians waxed wroth. Citing Section 35 of the National Defense Act which forbids devoting any part of the Army or Navy to private uses, the A. F. of M.’s president Joseph Nicholas Weber wrote to Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams protesting against the band’s accompanying Herbert Hoover to a purely political meeting. Previous Presidents had drawn “sharp distinctions between the official and unofficial appearances. . . . You seem to be in danger of introducing in our Government the doctrine that attaches prerogative to the royal person. . . . Under you the practice has been maintained of letting the bands play not only for the President and every kind of official but for the balls, dinners, amusements, horse shows and every conceivable kind of private entertainment . . . furnishing free music to the very wealthy . . . thus taking from poverty-stricken civilian musicians a means of livelihood.”

Replied Secretary Adams: “It has always been held that it was the duty of this band to play whenever the President was present, whether or not the occasion was official. I know of no word of law or of opinion of Congress which limits the Marine Band to play only when the President is officially present, as you contend. . . .”

By tradition and custom, the Marine Band has come to be called the “President’s Own.” Its most notable advance was from 1880 to 1892, when the late John Philip Sousa was its leader and an intimate of Presidents Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison. Present leader is Taylor Branson, composer of such marches as “Tell It to the Marines,” “Marines of Belleau Woods,” “The President’s Own.” The Marine Band is more than a band; its personnel (65) includes players of stringed instruments. The Band rehearses every morning, marches out afterwards to play for a Flag Ceremony which attracts many a tourist. Some of the members are professionals, others plain “leathernecks” who have worked their way up from various bands at Marine posts throughout the land. All must be able to play at least two instruments, to handle the large repertoire which includes symphonic music, patriotic songs, ballroom music as well as military tunes. Best soloist is Cornetist Arthur S. Whitcomb, second leader, who once served in the British Army, is supposed to have sounded taps over the grave of Edward VII. In Ottawa last week, at the base of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, the Marine Band honored Canada’s War dead with the ritual dirge and hymns which it lately played before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery. The program ended with taps by Cornetist Whitcomb.

Radio Fees Upped

The deadlock in which Radio and Tin Pan Alley have stalled since April was broken last week. Prime source of income for composers of popular music is radio fees. After long negotiations the National Association of Broadcasters agreed to pay considerably more fees than they have paid under the contract with the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers which expires Sept. 1 (TIME, Aug. 8). The new contract is as follows:

A “sustaining fee” is to be continued, equivalent to the present flat fee of $933,000 a year which is prorated among the composers according to their popularity. In addition there will be a percentage fee, not the 5% of gross receipts which the A. S. C. A. & P. first demanded, but a percentage of net receipts rising from 3% the first year to 4% the second and 5% the third. Under the new contract, 310 stations will pay a lower fee than before, 100 stations a higher one. The sustaining fee is based upon station power, radio population and service area. On network programs the tax will be paid by the key stations.

Radio has not abandoned what it calls its “efforts against extortionate copyright fees.” Nor has it signed any single contract with the composers; there still remain adjustments to be made with every individual station. To handle these the broadcasters appointed a “tsar” in place of the committees which had carried on negotiations: Oswald Francis Schuette of Chicago, who in 1927 formed the Radio Protective Association of Chicago, representing small independent stations successfully against the large ones which then loomed as the “Radio Trust.”

*Marines are still called “leathernecks” because of the leather stocks they wore in Jefferson’s time.