Tune Req: Vote it right along (Hutchinsons)

Subject: Tune Req: Vote it right along (Hutchinsons)
From: chico
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 12:10 AM

Have words but no music or midi. By hutchinson family singers.

  Who votes for woman suffrage now
  Will add new laurels to his brow;
  His children's children, with holy fire,
  Will chant in praise their patriot sire.
  No warrior's wreath of glory shed
  A brighter lustre o'er the head
  Than he who battles selfish pride,
  And votes with woman side by side.
  
  This shall unfold his better part,
  Delight the spirit and warm his heart.
  No jealous thought shall haunt his brain,
  And Eden's peace he shall regain;
  For an equal partner shall be his bride,
  No holy joy shall be denied,
  As Equal Rights their motto'll be,
  Together journeying o'er life's sea.
  
  Their first great vote to close shall be
  Those gilded haunts of infamy:
   
  The poor, besotted wretch shall know
  That woman has shut the gate of woe.
  The light of truth shall shine again,
  And temperance on earth shall reign;
  The night of darkness shall disappear,
  The millennial sun shine bright and clear.
  
  Then let us all unite in love,
  To emulate the hosts above.
  Be just, and kind, and brave, and true,
  Doing to others as they'd to you.
  Build high humanity's sacred cause,
  Obeying conscience and its laws.
  We reach at last the ethereal sphere,
  Know God, and all His works revere,
  Behold the heavenly angels near.
  
  Chorus.
  We'll do nothing wrong, but sing you this song,
  The good time for woman is coming right along,
  We'll sing you this song - the chorus loud prolong
  The good time is coming, boys, vote it right along!
  

[Written in 1867. Published again in John Hutchinson's book (1897?) about his

family, the Hutchinson Family Singers, based on songs they had sung in the

late 1860's during the suffragette movement's beginnings.

" Sunday, the 15th, I spent in Decorah, Iowa, and there composed a song which

was of so much value in the woman-suffrage campaign that followed, "Vote it

Right Along."

We had sung our way up to this place, and had given a concert on Saturday

night. As has before been stated, I had sent abroad for songs appropriate to

the coming woman-suffrage campaign, but at this time had received no

response. This dilemma suggested the thought, "Why not go to your room, and

see if the muse will not come to you?" Acting on the suggestion, as soon as

the door of the room was closed, an inspiration seemed to take possession of

me. Placing my instrument in the centre of the room, and striking a chord

upon it, words and melody embodying a new thought seemed to spring into

life. Every line and every verse carried a hope that we might be able to sing a spirit of liberty and justice into the hearts of the people of Kansas. When the war was concluded it seemed clear that here was one song that would do for the campaign. In due course of time Henry came in and sang the song, expressing his satisfaction with it, and we then went on with new hopes and aspirations toward our western home. The song was this.

The campaigners for suffrage distributed a pamphlet that said:

Men and Women of Kansas: - With the love of God and man in our hearts, we come to cheer the desponding and elevate the hopes of the most sanguine. Awake then, brothers and sisters of the West! Let your light shine forth. Lay hold on the great weapon of the true Republic, the ballot, to ameliorate the condition of common humanity. Let not the glory won by your sons in the early struggles to establish constitutional freedom, be dimmed by any weariness in well-doing. May the history of the past, fraught with strenuous efforts, and so successfully triumphant in the glorious cause of human freedom, serve as a beacon light to encourage you onward and upward, in the radical work of equal rights, equal suffrage, woman's suffrage and the brotherhood of man, until the light of truth shall burst forth with radiant splendor and the millennial day begin to dawn.

Turn not back upon your worthy stand taken as leader in this glorious conflict. As the eyes of the world were upon you in the days of the past, when John Brown led forth his little band, conquering and to conquer - so to-day they watch with earnest solicitude your public acts and efforts; trusting, as in the conflict of arms you outrode the storms of secession, treason, war and slavery, so in the peaceful revolution of your political future you will stand foremost in the galaxy of States - the first to adopt equal suffrage. Let the voice of woman plead its own cause; let the sympathizing heart, true to the instincts of her own nature, beat for the right, that the vote on this all-absorbing question may roll up such majorities for woman suffrage as to shame the few opponents.

Come, then, ye young and fair maidens, whisper a kind word of advice in the ear of your betrothed. With the conditions of plighted vows mingle a promise to vote for woman's redemption, and Kansas, the Queen of the West, shall truly guide and guard our Ship of State to the haven of peace and progress.

After one of their performances, the Ottowa Home Journal published this review:

This celebrated family of singers gave an entertainment at Pickrell Hall on Monday evening, which was largely attended, although the tickets of admission were fifty cents each. They are traveling under an engagement with the advocates of female

suffrage, and are striving to sing the people of Kansas into an acceptance of the 'pernicious proposition.' Futile as their efforts will evidently be in this direction, they furnish a delightful evening's entertainment. They must be sacrificing many profitable engagements in large eastern towns in their zeal for this heresy, and much as we regret to see such talent so misdirected, we are thankful that such sweet singers can be heard upon these prairies.

They were apparently hard driven to find poetry the sentiment of which could be made to sustain a proposition so hostile to poetic feeling as is female suffrage, and so their songs upon this subject were original. But an agreeable variety of sentimental, patriotic, temperance and comic songs, all rendered with that delightful harmony and soul-inspiring fervor which has made them famous all around the world, gave to the occasion an agreeable variety. The party consisted of John Hutchinson, and a son and daughter.]

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Vote it right along (Hutchinsons)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 09:33 AM

Found at The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music:

Title: Vote it right along! Song and Chorus.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words & Music by John W. Hutchinson. Arranged by Mrs. E.H. Jackson.
Mrs. E. H. Jackson Publication: Cleveland: S. Brainard's Sons, 1869.
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice (solo and satb chorus)
First Line: Who votes for woman's suffrage now, Will add new laurels to his brow
First Line of Chorus: We'll do nothing wrong, but sing you this song
Performer: Sung by the Hutchinson Family at their Concerts
Dedicatee: Dedicated to the Universal Suffrage and Equal Rights Association of Illinois