The itching to get into print does not guarantee
that the itcher has anything worth printing.
Some of the best reminiscences have been pried out of range
men. In 1914 the Wyoming Stock Growers Association resolved a
Historical Commission into existence. A committee was
appointed and, naturally, one man did the work. In 1923 a
fifty-five-page pamphlet entitled _Letters from Old Friends
and Members of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association_ was
printed at Cheyenne. It is made up of unusually informing and
pungent recollections by intelligent cowmen.
_22_
Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads
{illust. Lyrics =
Kind friends, if you will listen, A story I will tell A-
bout a final bust-up, That happened down in Dell.}
COWBOY SONGS and ballads are generally ranked alongside Negro
spirituals as being the most important of America's
contributions to folk song. As compared with the old English
and Scottish ballads, the cowboy and all other ballads of the
American frontiers generally sound cheap and shoddy. Since
John A. Lomax brought out his collection in 1910, cowboy songs
have found their way into scores of songbooks, have been
recorded on hundreds of records, and have been popularized,
often--and naturally--without any semblance to cowboy style,
by thousands of radio singers.
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