In Sandburg's The American Songbag (1927) the song "Alice B." appears on pages 28-29. The words are posted here at Mudcat http://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=186 but Sandburg's notes are absent.

Joe pointed out to me that "Alice B." and "Ella Speed" sound almost the same (say them out loud), and the content describes a similar murder of an octaroon prostitute. Sandburg's notes show that this version has travelled and changed in the process. Alice B.'s murder takes place 1,100 miles west in El Paso instead of Ella's New Orleans.

ALICE B.
This is arranged from the ballad as sung by Arthur Sutherland and the buccaneers of the Eclectic Club of Wesleyan University. Sutherland, who is the son of a lawyer in Rochester, New York, first heard of Alice B. when he was with the American Relief Expedition in Armenia, riding on top of a box car to Constantinople with a friend who came from New Orleans, Louisiana, and who in that gulf port one day paid $1.50 to a hobo to sing Alice B. as he, the hobo, had just heard it a few days previously in Memphis from a negro just arriving from Galveston, Texas. This is as far back as we have to date traced the Alice B. ballad. Though the verses have wicked and violent events for a theme, they point a moral and adorn a tale in their conclusion. In a sense it is propaganda in favor of the Volstead Act.
Arr. A. G. W.

I also refer to the front matter in Songbag to include some of his information about A.G.W. On page xvi Sandburg notes that this is Alfred George Wathall, "Composer, violinist, pianist, organist, conductor; Chicago, Illinois. Born Bulwell, near Nottingham, England. Came to America with parents in 1890. Studied under Franz Esser, William Middleschulte, Peter Christian Lutkin' and in London, England, under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Frederick Bridge. . . . As master-arranger and composer for WGN, the Chicago Tribune radio station, 1926 and 1927. . ."

Sandburg's reference to the Volstead Act (Prohibition - 1920-1933) was timely and topical, but I can't make the case for it one way or another at this distance from those years.

SRS