Page:The International Jew - Volume 3.djvu/82

 76 THE INTERNATIONAL JEW

did not work for publishers but for the satisfaction of their work. There were no great fortunes made out of songs, but there were many satisfactions in having pleased the public taste.

The public taste, like every other taste, craves what is given it most to feed upon. Public taste is public habit. The public is blind to the source of that upon which it lives, and it adjusts itself to the supply. Public taste is raised or lowered as the quality of its pabulum improves or degenerates. In a quarter of a century, given all the avenues of publicity like theater, movie, popular song, saloon and newspaper in the meantime having thrown the mantle of contempt over all counteractive moral agencies you can turn out nearly the kind of public you want. It takes just about a quarter of a century to do a good job.

In other days the people sang as they do now, but not in such doped fashion nor with such bewildering continuity. They sang songs nonsensical, sentimental and heroic, but the "shady" songs were outlawed. If sung at all, the "shady" songs were kept far from the society of decent people. Like the styles of the demimonde that formerly were seen only in the abandoned sections of cities, the songs of smut had their geographical confinement, but like the fashions of the demimonde they broke out of their confines to spread among polite society.

The old songs come readily back to memory. Though years have intervened since they were the fashion, yet their quality was such that they do not die. The popular song of last month who knows its name? But there are songs of long ago whose titles are familiar even to those who have not sung them.

Recall their names-"Listen to the Mocking Bird" -what song today has been boosted to general acceptance on such a simple theme ? The only "birds" the people are encouraged to sing about today are "flappers" and "chickens."

And there were "Ben Bolt"; "Nellie Gray"; "Juanita"; "The Old Folks at Home"; "The Hazel