Tobacco Funds and Popular Music
The print media played a major role in persuading young men to enlist and in motivating Americans at home to contribute to the war effort. Popular music was used to boost contributions to tobacco funds. This song by Harry Von Tilzer, composer of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” encouraged listeners to send the “Makin’s of the USA” (Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco) to the boys “over there.”
A Plea in Song for Tobacco for the Boys Over There
Lyrics:
The boys in Yankee regiments have sox on every leg
But they have no tobacco nor tobacco can they beg.
The other allied soldiers are as cunning as a fox
They’ve always got tobacco in their old tobacco box.
Soldier cannot smoke a pair of sox.
So help fill the old tobacco box.
If you are not a slacker get a sack of good tobacco
And send it to your Yankee soldier right away.
Send on the old Bull Durham and he’ll know you’re for him
because it is the makin’s of the U.S.A.
Italian smokes are strong enough to cause a mule to sneeze
The smokes they capture from the Huns are like Limburger cheese.
You have to wear a gas mask using smokes made by the French.
And English cigarettes will clean out any German trench.
Soldier cannot smoke smoke a powder rag
He’d rather have the makin’s in a bag.
If you are not a slacker get a sack of good tobacco
And send it to your Yankee soldier right away.
Send on the old Bull Durham and he’ll know you’re for him
because it is the makin’s of the U.S.A.
“The Makin’s of the U.S.A. A Plea in Song for Tobacco for the Boys Over There”
Sheet music
Words by Vincent Bryan and music by Harry Von Tilzer
New York, NY. Harry Von Tilzer Music Publishing Co.
1918
A Plea in Song for Tobacco for the Boys Over There
Popular songs of the era were used to raise funds for a variety of causes including tobacco funds. “Your Lips Are No Man’s Land But Mine” pledged, “Every dollar that Guy Empey earns from the sale of his numbers is donated” to the “N.Y. Sun Smoke Fund” and the “Our Boys in France Tobacco Fund”, two of the largest tobacco funds in America.
“Your Lips Are No Man’s Land But Mine”
Sheet music
Words by Arthur Guy Empey and music by
Charles R. McCarron and Carey Morgan
Joseph W. Stern & Co.
New York, NY:
1918
