Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)

Subject: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: and e
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 12:10 PM

From: fretless
Date: 26 Sep 08 - 03:10 PM

Wonderful thread, puts me in mind of that other fine piece of
Arkansas lore, supposedly from the state legislature during
the 1800s in response to a suggested name change for the state:

Gentlemen, you may tear down the honored pictures from the halls
of the United States Senate, desecrate the grave of George
Washington, haul down the Stars and Stripes, curse the Goddess
of Liberty, and knock down the tomb of U.S. Grant, but your
crime would in no wise compare in enormity with what you propose
to do when you would change the name of Arkansas! Change the
name of Arkansas? Hell-fire, NO! Compare the lily of the valley
to the gorgeous sunrise; the discordant croak of the bullfrog
to the melodious tones of a nightingale; the classic strains
of Mozart to the bray of a Mexican mule; the puny arm of a
Peruvian prince to the muscles of a Roman gladiator -
but never will you change the name of Arkansas! Hell, NO!

Hear me, gentlemen - The man who would CHANGE THE NAME OF
ARKANSAS is the original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied
corpse-maker from the wilds of the Ozarks! Sired by a hurricane,
dammed by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly
related to the small-pox on his mother's side, he is the man
they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! He takes nineteen
alligators and a barrel of whiskey for breakfast, when he is in
robust health; and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when
he is ailing. He splits the everlasting rocks with his glance,
and quenches the thunder when he speaks!

Change the name of Arkansas? Hell, NO! Stand back and give him
room according to his strength. Blood's his natural drink!
And the wails of the dying music to his ears! Cast your eyes
on the gentleman, and lay low and hold your breath, for he's
'bout to turn himself loose! He's the bloodiest son of a
wild-cat that lives, who would change the name of Arkansas!
Hold him down to earth, for he is a child of sin! Don't attempt
to look at him with your naked eye, gentlemen; use smoked glass.
The man who would change the name of Arkansas, by gosh, would
use the meridians of longitude and the parallels of latitude
for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! He would
scratch himself awake with the lightning, and purr himself to
sleep with the thunder! When he's cold, he would "bile" the
Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it! When he's hot, he would fan
himself with an equinoctial storm! When he's thirsty, he would
reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge! When he's hungry,
famine follows in his wake! You may put your hand on the sun's
face, and make it night on earth; bite a piece out of the moon,
and hurry the seasons; shake yourself and rumble the mountains;
but, sir, you will never change the name of Arkansas! Hell, NO!

The man who would change the name of Arkansas, would massacre
isolated communities as a pastime. He would destroy nationalities
as a serious business! He would use the boundless vastness of
the Great American Desert for his private grave-yard! He would
attempt to extract sunshine from cucumbers! Hide the stars in
a nail-keg, put the sky to soak in a gourd, hang the Arkansas River
from a clothesline; unbuckle the belly-band of Time, and turn the
sun and moon out to pasture; but you will never change the name
of Arkansas! The world will again pause and wonder at the audacity
of the lop-eared, lantern-jawed, half-breed, half-born,
whiskey-soaked hyena who has proposed to change the name of Arkansas!

He's just starting to climb the political banister, and wants to
knock the hay-seed out of his hair, pull the splinters out of
his feet, and push on and up to the governorship. But change
the name of Arkansas? HELL, NO!

Posted by fretless 28 Sep 2008 to mudcat here:

https://mudcat.org/detail_pf.cfm?messages__Message_ID=2451079

Variants and references to follow.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: and e
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 12:14 PM

"Change the Name of Arkansas"
by Cassisus M. Johnson. [During the discussion
of a bill introduced in the Arkansas Legislature
to change...

Page 108, Address to the Jury by Col. John Hallum in Self Defense in the Case of the State of Texas Against Him by John Hallum (Col.), 1897.

See here:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Address_to_the_Jury_by_Col_John_Hallum_i/F3sjAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22change+the+name+of+arkansas%22&dq=%22change+the+name+of+arkansas%22&printsec=frontcover

Snippet view only.

Does anyone have full access to this document ?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 02:19 PM

I've ordered the book through interlibrary loan. Will report back.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: GUEST,and e (no cookie)
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 02:55 PM

Worldcat lists eBooks scans of the 1897 book here:


https://worldcat.org/title/988635780


Of course, you have to an actively associated with a college or university that subscribes.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 03:04 PM

The pronunciation (not the name) of Arkansas was settled by the state's General Assembly in 1881. Though often unofficially spelled "Arkansaw," the anglicized pronunciation "Ar-KANZ-us" was also in use.

Daily Nebraska Press (June 16, 1873):

"When Mr. [Millard] Fillmore was President of the Senate, he varied the pronunciation of Arkansas according to circumstances. [Arkansas] Senator [Ambrose H.] Sevier said Ar-KAN-sas; Senator [Chester] Ashley said ArkanSAW. Mr. Fillmore used to recognize Mr. Sevier as the 'Senator from ArKANsas,' and Ashley as the 'senator [sic] from ArkanSAW.'"

Nice story, but Fillmore didn't become Vice President (and President of the U.S. Senate) until 1849, some months after the death of Ashley and the resignation of Sevier.

The Arkansas river is pronounced Arkansaw in Arkansas, but in Kansas it's Arkanzis.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 04:25 PM

As a matter of fact, the scan is here:


https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d01368792z&view=1up&seq=112

Much of it is plagiarized or directly adapted from the speech of a raftsman in Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" (1883). That, in turn, was inspired by a fictitious speech of Representative David Crockett in 1883, written in the style of Col. Nimrod Wildfire, protagonist of the stage hit "The Lion of the West" (1831), by James K. Paulding.

None of the above texts are remotely bawdy. The 1897 version appears to be reprinted from some untraced source.

"State Sen. Cassius M. Johnson" is entirely fictitious. This note, however, from Law Notes (Northport, L.I.) (Apr. 1908) is apposite:

"George Washington Williams, one of the most prominent members of the Arkansas bar, died in Little Rock on February 29, at the age of fifty-one. In 1891, while he was a member of the State legislature, he achieved wide fame by reason of a speech on a bill proposing to change the name of Arkansas."

Also of interest:

The Farmer and Mechanic (Raleigh, N.C.) (June 28, 1904):

"To the Editor:--The resolution introduced at the meeting of the United Confederate Veterans to revise and modernize Dixie, calls to mind an incident said to have taken place in Congress several years ago. Some member introduced a bill to change the name of Arkansas, as it was sometimes called Arkansas and sometimes Arkansaw. A big double-jointed member from Arkansas arose and with uplifted hand and a voice vibrating with intense emotion said, 'Change the name of Arkansaw, God Almighty damn!' When I hear people speak of modernizing Dixie, I feel like exclaiming with this gentleman from Arkansas.

"[Signed] James Dempsey Bullock, Wilson, N.C., June 25."

And earlier still, if only as a one-liner:

"Knoxville Daily Tribune" (May 3, 1891), p. 2: “Change the name of Arkansaw? Blankety-blank!”

"The Headlight" (Pittsburg, Kans.) (Aug. 11, 1887): “In the language of the gentleman who was asked to vote for the proposition to change the name of Arkansas, Never!!”

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 04:31 PM

The 1897 text is rather incoherent. Twain's "corpse-maker" line, for example, is a brag, not an indictment.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 05:08 PM

Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie wrote that "in 1919 in officers’ barracks at Bordeaux, France, I heard a lusty individual recite" an unexpurgated version of "this notorious speech."

Anearlier record of a possibly bawdy version appears in the 1908 "Lucky Bag" of the U.S. Naval Academy :

“Here Welshimer took the floor and delivered a thirty-minute speech against the advisability of changing the name of Arkansas. We regret that we are unable to reproduce this speech in full.”

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: and e
Date: 03 Jun 23 - 07:17 PM

Well, of course, this actually happened.
In the reconstruction days of the South it
got to be pretty serious when the carpet-baggers
came down and started running the whole show
down here. And things were especially rough
up in the state of Arkansas when it was
very seriously proposed to change the name
of the state. And this is taken down on the
Legislative rolls which can now be found,
I think, under the date of July the 23rd,
1867. And this is what the hometown boy
had to say. I think first he, he pulled
out his horse-pistol and laid it across
his desk so he wouldn't be interrupted.

Mr. Speaker, god-damn your soul, for more
than thirty minutes I've been trying to
get your attention but every time I caught
your eye you squirmed like a damn dog with
a flea in his ass.

I guess you know who I am Sir. My name is
Cassius M. Johnson from Jackson County,
Arkansas where a man can't stick his ass
out the window and shit without it getting
riddled with bullets. Why Sir, I was
fourteen years old before I had my first
pair of pants and they was of buckskin.
But at the age of seventeen Mr. Speaker,
I had a jock on me the size of a roasting
ear and it was the pride of Jackson County.
And you propose to change the name of Arkansas.
Never, by God Sir, never!

I'm out of order? How can I be out of order
when I can piss clear across the Mississippi
River?

Where was Andrew Jackson when the battle of
New Orleans was fit? He was right thar Sir,
up to his ass in blood. And you change the
name of Arkansas? Never, when I can defend her.

You may shit on the grave of George Washington.
Piss on the monument of Thomas Jefferson.
You may desecrate the sacred remains of the
immortal General Robert E. Lee. You may rape
the Goddess of Liberty and wipe your ass on
the Stars and Stripes. And your crime, your
crime Sir will no more compare to this hellish
design than the glow of a lightning-bug's ass
to the glare of the noon day sun. And you
propose to change the name of Arkansas.
Never, by God Sir, never!

You may compare the lily of the valley to
the glorious sunflower. Or the sun-kissed
peaks of the highest mountains to the smokin'
turd of a dunghill. Or the classic strains of
Mozart to the fart of a Mexican burrow. You
may compare the puny penis of a Peruvian prince
to the ponderous buttocks of the Roman gladiator.
But change the name of Arkansas? Never, by
God Sir, never!

Transcribed from the LP, Unepurgated Folk Songs of Men.
The performer is, reportedly, John Lomax, Jr.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 04 Jun 23 - 11:03 AM

Concerning George Washington Williams:

Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock) (May 5, 1901) in news of proceedings of the Arkansas House of Representatives:

"Mr. Williams, of Pulaski, addressing the house, felt that he had cause to be grateful in that his fellow members had rallied 'round him and had defeated the attempt to change the name of Arkansas. (Laughter and cheers.)"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 04:01 PM

Saturday Review of Literature (Sept. 6, 1924):

"Several Easterners, says the Reader's Guide, have come to the rescue of the reader who asked if anyone ever did try to 'change the name of Arkansas.' They are all hazy as to details, but seem to agree that the phrase comes from a smoking-room story in which the State Legislature in session is addressed by a 'city feller' who proposes to introduce a bill to change the pronunciation from ArkanSAW to ArKANsas...whereupon, says one correspondent, 'a lanky member from the backwoods rises and begins his famous speech in rhyme [sic], 'What! Change the Name of Arkansas?' no one sends the words, one explaining that it is 'quite too profane for print, though full of crude wit and humor.'"

The 1897 text of the "speech," of course, is not at all profane.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 05 Jun 23 - 09:32 PM

The University of Virginia reproduces online a poem by Emory Pottle about the death in combat of his friend James R. McConnell of the Lafayette Escadrille in 1917. The poem, entitled "Mac," was apparently written shortly after McConnell was killed. It includes the following lines:

Good old Mac at a party!
A party to us was something
to drink,
A fire, and no work;
Mac reciting:
"Change the name of Arkansaw?
By God, sir--"

It's been conjectured that the author of the bawdy version was Mark Twain.

Twain did write a couple of bawdy pieces, but there seems to be no documentation to credit him with "Change the Name of Arkansas?" - the lines lifted from "Life on the Mississippi" notwithstanding.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Jun 23 - 08:24 PM

If you have access to a research library or interlibrary loan you can read William F. Thompson's article on "Frontier Tall Talk" in the journal American Speech (Oct., 1934), pp. 187-199.

Thompson serves up examples of frontier bombast and braggadocio of the Mark Twain variety going back to the early nineteenth century.

None are bawdy, possibly because all are "literary" constructions designed for print.

The movie "Lone Survivor" features an even more extravagant current recitation that considerably exceeds the limits of the uncensored "Change the Name?"

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: and e
Date: 07 Jun 23 - 09:45 PM

"Mr. President---Mr. President---You low-down son-of-
a-bitch". For the last half houah I have been attempting to
gain recognition, and eve'y time I catch youah eye you
shrink and cringe like a dog with a flea up his ass.

Compayah the puny penis of a Peruvian prince with the
ponderous bollocks of a Roman Senator; compayah the faint
scintilations of the lightning-bug's ass-hole with the
glashing effulgence of the noonday sun!

Pg 266, The Canfield Collection, [c1927].

See online here:

https://archive.org/details/1926canfieldcollection/page/n265/mode/2up

Subject: RE: Folklore: Change the Name of Arkansas (bawdy)
From: cnd
Date: 08 Jun 23 - 08:26 AM

On the topic of frontier braggadociousness, see: Davy Crocket by Hermes Nye. The bombast of that version can be largely found in "Uncle Sam's Folklore" by Julia Cooley Altrocchi, in College English, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Dec., 1945), pp. 135-142 (8 pages)