'What a Man!'

When the wrinkly little infant who was to be named George Michael Cohan let out his first faint caw, firecrackers were popping in Providence, R. I. Bands were playing. It was July 4, 1878,* a birthday worthy of one who was to be famed as the greatest and most successful flag-waver in the U. S. show business. This week George M. Cohan is to wave a flag in Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to introduce a song called "What a Man!" in honor of President Roosevelt's 52nd birthday. The Manhattan celebration will be one of 5,000 throughout the land to raise funds for the President's Warm Springs Foundation for infantile paralytics.

Music was George Cohan's specialty before he took up acting and playwriting. When he was 8, his parents went touring in a melodrama called Daniel Boone on the Trail. "Georgie" was taken along to sell songs in intermission, play second fiddle in the orchestra. "Why Did Nellie Leave Her Home?" was his first song published. He was then 15. Not long after, when he was looking for a job in New York he met a man with a street telescope who gave him a free peek at the stars, told him Venus ruled the show business. Cohan went home, wrote "Venus, My Shining Star," sold it for $25. He still thinks it is his best song, not excepting "Harrigan" (1907), "Mary's a Grand Old Name" (1905), "Give My Regards to Broadway" (1904), "You're a Grand Old Flag" (1907), "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1904).

The day the U. S. entered the War George Cohan started writing topical songs. He sat down at the piano, fumbled around with the F sharp chords/- and in no time "Over There" was ready for Nora Bayes to sing and 4,000,000 soldiers to march to. "Over There" sold 3,000,000 copies, became musical history. Woodrow Wilson sent Cohan an autographed photograph while his secretary, Joseph Patrick Tumulty, wrote a letter: "The President considers your War song a genuine inspiration to all American manhood."

Presidents held a new interest for Cohan after that. For the George Washington Bicentennial he wrote "Father of the Land We Love," went to the White House and presented Herbert Hoover with the first copy (TIME, Aug. 10, 1931). Three years ago he wrote for the Edison Golden Jubilee a song that was never published. Called "Thomas A. Edison, Miracle Man," it starts:

What a fame, what a fame, what an aim

What an aim to live for mankind. . . . Chorus:

Oh say can you see--By the light that he gives you and

me--What a man he is, what a grand old

"WIZ" Moping groping in the dark, without

him we would be.

There's a light tonight that's shining--It's his light so bright that's shining--O'er the land of the free, And the lands o'er the sea, Oh he lights the way--Mister Thomas A.--Edison miracle man.

Composer Cohan, who is now acting in Eugene O'Neill's Ah Wilderness!, calls his Roosevelt birthday song just a "howdy" to the President. Its chorus:

What a man!

He's the man of men!

A reg'lar M.A.N.

What a lucky day--Was his first birthday.

What a lucky day for the U.S.A.

What a man! How he leads the way.

What a heart, what a mind, what a

plan.

What a birthday celebration, What a day of inspiration!

What a blessing to the nation, what a

man!

* On that day the late Calvin Coolidge was celebrating his sixth birthday.

/-Cohan like Irving Berlin plays the piano badly and in only one key. When he wants to get the effect of another key he turns a crank on the other side of the piano, shifts the keyboard.

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