A Century of the Hippest Lick Ever Laid
Abraham Lincolnm Gettysburg, 1863:Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It
is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. ...Richard, Lord Buckley, Chicago, 1953:
It is for us the swingin' to pick up the dues
of these fine studs who cut out from here
and fly it through to Endsville.
It is hipper for us to be signifyin' to the glorious gig
that we can't miss with all these bulgin' eyes,
that from all these A-stamp studs we double our love kick, too,
that righteous line for which these hard cats sounded
the last nth bone of the beat of the bell.That we here want it stuck up straight for all to dig
that these departed studs shall not have split in vain,
and that this nation under the great swingin' Lord
shall swing up a whopper of endless Mardi Gras,
and that the big law by you straights,
from you cats,
and for you kiddies,
shall not be scratched from the big race.