A classic of civic boosterism, from the sheet music at Indiana University:


I LOVE YOU MY NEW ORLEANS
Words and music by N. J. Clesi
New Orleans: N. J. Clesi, ©1914.

1. Right here, we have the town that's in the game
And soon we'll make things hum!
They cannot stop us in our fight for fame.
You bet! We're going some!
The Panama Canal will pave the way.
Gee whiz! What busy scenes!
Let's get together, then and shout hooray!
Let's boost for New Orleans!

CHORUS: I love you, my New Orleans, my dear old town,
The grandest and most fair.
I love ev'ry breath of perfume in the air
From flowers ev'rywhere!
I feel so inspiréd when I hear your name!
The world to me it means!
I'll fight for you! I'll die for you!
I love you, my New Orleans!

2. The wonder city of the U. S. A.,
The home of the big ideas—
These very words you'll hear the people say
All through the coming years.
Our men are famous for their spirit strong;
Our women, lovely queens;
So all the world must join us in the song:
All hail! to New Orleans.

* * *
Mention of the Panama Canal got me curious, so I found this, in Bienville's Dilemma, by Richard Campanella:

"Much of New Orleans' meteoric rise in the early nineteenth century can be traced to the dramatically increasing population and agricultural productivity of the trans-Appalachian West, which had little choice but to ship downriver to New Orleans to deliver its commodities to market. But even as these shipments increased in absolute numbers, an emerging network of eastern and Midwestern canals, railroads, and roads gave New Orleans unwanted new competition for Mississippi Valley trade. The city's relative share of the market, once at over 99 percent, declined to about 50 percent by the eve of the Civil War. New Orleans' population would continue to grow for a century to come, but its rank among American cities would steadily sink after peaking as the third-largest in the nation in 1840."

It sank to 15th by 1910, 31st by 2000, and 67th right after Katrina. Apparently the Panama Canal had no effect. WWI was more significant.