"...And the Cabots talk only to God" (awaiting digitized Boston Globe)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 22:21:23 -0500, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>SIDEWALKS OF AMERICA
>edited by B. A. Botkin
>Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.
>1954
>Pg. ? (cut off--sorry - ed.)From _The Proper Bostonians_, by Cleveland
>Amory, pp. 13-14, 35. Copyright, 1947, by Cleveland Amory. New York: E.
>P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
>
>One small poem which had its genesis in the social aspirations of just
>two Boston Families has become what is probably the closest thing to a
>social "folk song" any city ever had. Originally patterned on a toast
>delivered by an anonymous "Western man" at a Harvard alumni dinner in
>1905, it was refined in 1910 by Dr. John Collins Bossidy of Holy Cross
>to be recited, apparently for all time, as follows:
>
>And this is good old Boston,
>The home of the bean and the cod,
>Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots,
>And the Cabots talk only to God.
>
>What does Fred Shapiro have?
>
>Why don't I find an early citation on Newspaperarchive?

The earliest I can find on Proquest is from Feb. 1915, with "speak"
instead of "talk" (and with the Cabots and Lowells reversed):

-----
Yale Beats Boston Boast In Matching Toasts at Banquet
Washington Post, Feb 14, 1915, p. E8

Waterbury, Conn., Feb. 13 -- College men who attended a Yale alumni dinner
here last Friday evening decided today the "hit" of the evening. It was
made by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Bushnell, who quoted this toast, which he said
he had heard recently in Boston:

"I'm from good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Cabots speak only to the Lowells,
And the Lowells speak only with God."

The speaker said he sent a copy of the toast to Dean Jones and got back
the following:

"Here's to the town of New Haven,
The home of the Truth and the Light.
Where God talks to Jones
In the very same tones
That he uses with Hadley and Dwight."
-----

The same story about Bushnell and Jones is repeated in _The Bookman_ of
April 1915 (p. 113), with a few adjustments to Bushnell's toast:

-----
I come from good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where Cabots speak only to Lowells,
And the Lowells speak only to God.
-----

The May issue of _The Bookman_ (p. 225) has this variant:

-----
...good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where Cabots speak only to Lowells,
And the Lowells walk with God.
-----

And this appears in the September issue (p. 80):

-----
A correspondent from Bronxville, New York ... offers this as the authentic
version of the lines read by Dr. Bushnell:

I am from Massachesetts,
The land of the sacred cod,
Where the Adams's snub the Abbotts
And the Cabots walk with God.
-----

This "authentic version" is similar to one given in a 1923 New York Times
article:

-----
AN IMMORTAL POEM.
New York Times, Jul 6, 1923, p. 12

We are indebted to our acute contemporary, The Hartford Courant, for
vivifying light on the origin and progress of a great New England lyric.
The Rev. Dr. Bushnell, an illustrious and venerable name, searches and
finds the beginnings and developments of a stanza that has run over
continents. According to him, "at the twenty-fifth anniversary dinner of
the Harvard Class of 1880 a man from the West recited:

"Here's to old Massachusetts,
The home of the sacred cod,
Where the Adamses vote for Douglas
And the Cabots walk with God."

Dr. John C. Bossidy was touched by these beautiful lines. He pondered
them; and "recited at the annual midwinter dinner of the alumni of the
Holy Cross College:

"And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod.
Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots
And the Cabots talk only to God."
-----

A July 10, 1927 Los Angeles Times article ("Boston Quatrains") casts
further light on the history of the verse, based on the research of Kate
Louise Roberts, compiler of _Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical
Quotations_.  Roberts retells the story of the 1905 quatrain, with the
added explanation that the unnamed Westerner's toast was "inspired by the
fact that Charles Francis Adams had supported Mr. Douglas, the shoe
manufacturer, for Governor."  Bossidy's revision was later relayed to
Bushnell, who then used it at the 1915 Yale alumni dinner.  Roberts'
information is based on a letter she received from Bossidy himself.


--Ben Zimmer