interesting to me to look over any musical journal at the present time and see the names of so many enthusiastic and artistic business women, with whose musical beginnings I was associated and whom I have to thank for so much in my career. There is not a page to which I turn but I find the names of places in which I have appeared and of individuals to whom I am indebted.

Were it not for the artistic aims and the business probity of the hundreds of women's musical clubs everywhere in the United States, America could not have reached to the high level of musical attainment which characterizes it above all other new countries. To women's musical clubs, then, I desire to acknowledge my deep indebtedness, for without them my enthusiastic vision as I stood in the prow of the vessel on returning from Europe as a professional singer could never have been fulfilled. I could not otherwise have carried my message, such as it was, to more than a restricted area of the great North American continent, over which I have traveled many and many a time, until my trail on the map looks like a veritable spider's web. I am thankful that every one of these journeys was undertaken with enthusiasm and fulfilled with loyalty, and can be looked back upon, not only without regret, but as among the great pleasures of my life. Of fatigues there have been many; but what of that, when the joy of performance has been so great? There have been unpleasantnesses; but what of that, when it would have been far less pleasant not to have been engaged in the work? There have been a few disappointments, but again what of that, when no work can be undertaken without disappointment?

I have been fortunate to be in love with my profession. Happy indeed is the man who is enabled to do what he likes to do, has found an occupation he enjoys, and is successful in it! Many a time have I been reminded of Tennyson's line, "One clear call for me." Though in the poem that call is referable to the conclusion of mortal existence, I from the beginning have heard the one clear call that bade me take up a musical life and prosecute it to the end to the best of my ability.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THREE PRESIDENTS

The man who disparages music as being a luxury and a non-essential is doing the Nation an injury.- Woodrow Wilson.

THOUGH I visited the White House several times during Mr. Roosevelt's administration on private or public occasions, I sang there on January 6, 1904, at the first musicale given by President and Mrs. Roosevelt, when I was honored by being asked to give a program of American songs coupled with a group of ditties familiar to everybody. Accordingly I rendered Mendelssohn's "On Wings of Music," followed by my favorite Irish, Scotch, and English ballads, not forgetting North American Indian and Southern negro melodies.

But the principal group, used as a climax to the occasion, included the work of six living American composers, which I was glad to present before the many foreign representatives present in their official and diplomatic capacity. Again I was asked, as in Albany, by my hostess not to include the harrowing "Danny Deever"; but it was demanded by the guests. Its conclusion brought the President upstanding to his feet, and with hands outstretched he came forward, saying, "By Jove, Mr. Bispham, that was bully! With such a song as that you could lead a nation into battle!" Yet it was said of Mr. Roosevelt that he was unmusical and that he knew only two tunes, one of which was "Yankee Doodle," and the other - wasn't!

While "Teddy" was often loud of speech and hearty in his manner, full of fun and roaring with laughter in the family circle or among intimate friends, President Taft was quieter in his demeanor, a larger, slower-moving man, but one of great kindness and geniality, though I am not aware that he was particularly devoted to music. Once at a function in New York when asked to sing for him the ever popular "Danny Deever," I was all but prevented from doing so by the rush of people into the room, which was so filled in a moment that my accompanist was unable to get through the guards to the piano. As good fortune would have it a lady saw my predicament and volunteered to play from the music which I happened to carry in my hand. Strange to say, she who was thus able to leap into the gap was the one who a few seasons before had without preparation stepped from the audience on to the stage of Carnegie Hall to sing the soprano part in "The Messiah," after two prima donnas had unexpectedly been incapacitated by illness.

On the contrary, President Woodrow Wilson is devoted to music and something of a singer himself, with a tenor voice of considerable power and sweetness. During his first term of office, while I was singing in Washington, he came to hear me and I called on him at the White House the next day, a meeting I sought in order to lay before him, as head of the nation, my wish to have vocal music taught in every school, college, or university in the land to every American from early youth to manhood, not in order that they should all become professional singers, Heaven forbid! but that, through properly equipped teachers and visiting artists, they might learn to sing simple folk tunes in our own language, in each upward grade studying music more diversified and better suited to their growing comprehensions. The makers of music would thus become known to our people and the works of the great masters would become as familiar household words to every one in our rapidly growing and amazingly diversified population.

As I pointed out to the President, nearly every one can by nature not only turn a tune, but sing better than most people except their rivals think they can, and it soon becomes obvious that opportunity and even a little cultivation brings out latent talent surprisingly. The President agreed with me. He was not expected to commit himself to placing my views before the educational chiefs of the country, nor did I ask him to; yet he was alive to the value of music in private and public life, speaking with pride of the vocal attainments of his daughter, Miss Margaret Wilson, who after study had taken her place in professional ranks, though, as he admitted, he had at first considered her to possess nothing more than what he termed " an inconsiderable little pipe."

I am proud of having known Messrs. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson and look back much further with interest at having met Grant and having seen Lincoln. The sons of both of these noted Presidents I have known, having been acquainted with General Fred Grant and with Colonel Robert Lincoln, both when the latter was the American minister to Great Britain and later in our native country.

Of him and his distinguished father there comes to mind a story told me by my father soon after the Civil War, which, so far as I am aware, has never before appeared in print. "Bob" Lincoln and his brother "Tad," who died in early youth, were taken to task by President Lincoln for a noisy quarrel which disturbed