The President's Waltz

Everywhere Franklin Roosevelt went, a well-meaning band was apt to burst into Home on the Range, thinking it his favorite song.

Last week Harry Truman found himself saddled with a theme song, too. When he stepped from his plane at San Francisco, the band wobbled through The Missouri Waltz. When he went to Independence, The Missouri Waltz (which was originally composed by an lowan, John Valentine Eppel) followed him. The Chicago publishers had to fill a rush order for scores from Missouri when the President got back home.

President Truman admits to liking The Missouri Waltz, sometimes picks it out on the piano at parties. But he is just as likely to come up with something else of the same dreamy kind, like the almost forgotten Black Hawk Waltz which he played in the rotunda of Washington's State Capitol (TIME, July 2).

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