Once, hundreds of newspapers had marches. Why and how they disappeared
Jim BeckermanHappy 250th birthday, USA!
In honor of which, consider two specimens of Americana.
One: the newsboy. The kid in knee pants and cloth cap, calling “Extry! Extry!” He did exist, once.
The other: the bandstand. The gazebo in the town square — where folks would gather on a summer evening to hear local musicians blaring out “Bicycle Built for Two" or “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”
And now, consider the American institution that tunefully combines them both. The Newspaper March.
That’s right — once newspapers had marches.
Hundreds of newspapers had a march
Not just a few newspapers. A lot of newspapers. Between 500 and 600, says musicologist George C. Foreman, who has made them his special study.
"I have complete band arrangements for between 125 and 150 of them, side by side with approximately 400 piano scores," said Foreman, director emeritus of the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center.
And now there's a new one. "The USA TODAY March," by longtime Record reporter Jim Beckerman — yours truly — will have its world premiere Friday May 15 at the West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, played by the 60-piece New Jersey Wind Symphony. Their program begins at 7:30 p.m.
It will be heard again July 4, in Overpeck Park, Bergen County, with the composer — me — conducting. The concert starts at 2 p.m.
"The USA TODAY March," named after The Record's parent company, is a new nod to an old tradition. Once, every newspaper had its own high-stepping theme song.
Sousa's "Washington Post March" is, second to "Stars and Stripes Forever," the most famous march in the world. You've heard it a thousand times — even if you never knew it had anything to do with newspapers. "People say, 'Oh, I always thought that was about a fort or something," Foreman said.
But even such relatively obscure compositions as "The Newark Sunday Call March," "The Boston Globe March," "The Philadelphia Record March," "The Joplin Globe March," and "The Providence Journal March" had eager interpreters.
Newspaper marches were a craze
And it wasn't just the town band that played them. Dance instructors, mandolin players, kids giving piano recitals — they all got into the act. Sometimes, even newsboys played them.
"The Milwaukee Journal had a newsboy band," Foreman said. Whether or not this band played for John Philip Sousa when he visited Milwaukee on November 8, 1924, two days after his 70th birthday, is not known. We do know that the Marquette University Band played, as part of a gala celebration for The March King's arrival.
"When he got off the train they had a birthday cake and I think the band played, and he was just so impressed that he got a piece of paper and sat down to write," Foreman said.
In a few minutes, he had sketched out the opening strains of a "Milwaukee Journal March." He even wrote some rudimentary lyrics: "The Journal! The Journal! Milwaukee gets the News, From Midnight to dawn, And Early in the Morn..."
Some of USA TODAY network papers have marches
Today, that piece of paper hangs, framed, near the office of Greg Borowski, executive editor of what is now the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
"It hangs right outside my office, and is a frequent stop when we have newsroom visitors and tours," Borowski said. "If it's a student group, I often ask if they have heard of Sousa. It tends to suss out the band members in any group."
Sousa, it seems, never finished that march. But we've finished ours. "The USA TODAY March" was written to honor the 250th birthday of American democracy, and the historic role that newspapers — "the fourth estate" — have played in preserving it. At least, so far.
"You're in a rather select group," Foreman said. "People are still writing 'em, but not many."
Both The Record, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel are published by the USA TODAY company.
In fact, some 40 papers affiliated with the USA TODAY group, nationwide, have marches (some belonged to papers, now defunct, that merged with the existing publication). The Florida Times-Union, The Courier Journal of Louisville, The Detroit Free Press, The Lansing State Journal, The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, and The Columbus Dispatch are just a few of them.
As for the parent paper, USA TODAY, founded in 1982 — it's a little young to have had a march of its own. But America's semiquincentennial seemed the right time to address this glaring oversight.
A marches was a collaboration of cultural giants
Why would newspapers and brass bands join forces? What could they have in common?
Start with the fact that they were both — once — very, very popular.
"You have to remember the high esteem in which people held newspapers at that time," Foreman said. "It was a different time. Newspapers were the main source of information and news for people."
And if Americans loved newspapers, they loved marches even more. The march-happy residents of River City Iowa, in the show "The Music Man," were drawn from life.
"You had a whole culture of town bands," Foreman said. "Almost every town had a band."
What a backbeat is to the rock-and-roll generation, so march time was to their great-great-grandparents. As the cheerful lowbrow in a 1904 George M. Cohan song put it: "I want to hear a Yankee Doodle tune, Played by a military band, I want to hear a Yankee Doodle tune, The only music I can understand..."
Marches often had themes. There were marches dedicated to the great hotels. There were Bicycle Marches — the bicycle was new then.
But the newspaper march was a thing unto itself. The very word had a newsy feel. A march! Like the march of world events — the passing parade that newspapers brought day after day to their readers. As late as the 1930s, the best-known of all newsreels was "The March of Time."
Who was writing these newspaper marches?
A few of these newspaper marches were the work of important band composers like Sousa, Frederick N. Innes, or Arthur Pryor (Asbury Park's biggest music star until Springsteen). More often, they were the work of a local bandleader or music teacher, who might dedicate a march to their town paper in exchange for a nod or two in print.
"Some of the papers actually ended up publishing the piano arrangement," Foreman said. "They would just print the music on a page of the newspaper. Or they would be played at the town band concert."
"The USA TODAY March" is, as far as is known, the first newspaper march to be written by an actual newspaper reporter.
But there was one written by an editor. "Ye Country Editor" was a 1906 "march and two-step" by Ryan Rapp, then editor of Pennsylvania's Riegelsville News. Apparently he was a part-time musician.
"In my files, I have copies of what other newspapers wrote about it," Foreman said. "Sometimes humorously, but always complimentary. There was a camaraderie among newspaper people."
Newspaper marches were being written as early as the 1840s. In the 1880s, Foreman said, there were 46. By the 1890s, it exploded — 270 of them were written in that decade alone.
What happened? "The Washington Post March" happened.
Newspaper march boom began with The Washington Post
It had been an afterthought. Part of a circulation stunt, born of desperation.
In 1889, the struggling 12-year-old newspaper sponsored a children's essay contest. The winning entries were to be read aloud on the Smithsonian grounds. The U.S. Marine Band, conducted by Sousa, was to provide the music. Then, according to legend, Sousa happened to run into one of the paper's publishers, Frank Hatton, on the street.
"They just bumped into each other," Foreman said. "And since the Marine Band was already scheduled to play for the event, in the course of the chat, he said, 'Why don't you write a march?' "
"The Washington Post March" was a hit that day. The band had to play it twice. Yet it might not have gone much further but for an event that happened four years later.
Designed for the two-step, the latest craze
In those days, there was no "Soul Train" to teach kids the latest steps. Dancing masters taught them to the children of the well-to-do. In 1893, the newest sensation was the two-step. And it turned out "The Washington Post March" was the perfect music for it.
At an 1893 dancing master's convention, Sousa's march seems to have been used to demonstrate the dance novelty. The instructors brought it back with them to teach their pupils. And it went viral. "It just skyrocketed," Foreman said.
Everywhere, bands played the "Washington Post March." People banged it out on pianos. The sheet music sold and sold. In Europe, the crowds clamored for it. "Play der Washington Poost!" German audiences called out to to Sousa.
In England, all two-steps came to be called "Washington Posts." In America, meanwhile, almost all marches were marketed as "march and two-step." And of course, every other newspaper had to have a march. "It caught on really quickly," Foreman said.
Discovering the newspaper march
Foreman, a Lexington, Kentucky, resident who has spent 40 years researching this curious musical niche, came to it almost by accident.
The local newspaper, the Danville Advocate-Messenger, had asked him to put together a band to play the national anthem at a 1987 political rally. He threw in a few additional numbers, culled from some old band arrangements. And so The Advocate Band, a so-called "golden age" brass band ensemble, was born.
Three years later, to celebrate its 125th anniversary, the paper commissioned a new "Advocate Messenger March" from Leonard B. Smith (it cleverly incorporates snatches of "My Old Kentucky Home"). And the floodgates opened.
Before long, Foreman and his Advocate Brass Band had recorded four full CDs of newspaper marches for Gazebo Records. "We ended up recording 75 marches," he said.
Meanwhile Foreman, a former managing director of the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College (he has a Ph.D in musicology from the University of Kansas), has — with the help of his wife, Lisa — kept an eye out for undiscovered newspaper marches during his global research work. Much of this material has ended up at University of Michigan's newly-established Center for American Band History Research. He's also working on in a book.
"I'm still working on chasing down all the newspaper march stuff," he said.
Marching into the sunset
Not surprisingly, the trail grows colder as our era draws closer. The newspaper march fad didn't last forever.
By the first decade of the 1900s, the number of newspaper marches had already declined to 80. And it dropped off from there.
"If you want to look at the whole 20th century, I've got 172," Foreman said. "And in the 2000's, I think I have 8.
"Plus you is 9."
Go...
"The USA TODAY March" will get its world premiere as part of the "To Shout for the Joy of Life" program by the New Jersey Wind Symphony, 7:30 p.m. May 15, West Side Presbyterian Church, 6 S. Monroe St, Ridgewood. $30; $25 for seniors 62+, $5 for students. njwindsymphony.org
Bergen County’s Star-Spangled Spectacular. 2 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. July 4. Amphitheater at Overpeck County Park. The New Jersey Wind Symphony performs 2 p.m.; Jim Beckerman will conduct his march. Rain date July 5. bergencountynj.gov/bergen-county-star-spangled-spectacular