Secretary of Labor Davis has come out in favor of a federal bureau to develop music in the United States, and he says he favors the small town band. He says, and many Reidsville people will agree with him, that no one can estimate the worth of a brass band to a small town. But the sorry fact remains that these musical organizations are neglected, and that many towns possessing a band do not lend the cooperation they should. The men who make up a town band are martyrs to a noble cause.
If every town had a band it could call its own, on whose maintenance it was liberal in spending money and in the perpetuation of which it took an alert interest, one of the most necessary needs of American life could be met. We have no means of knowing just how Secretary Davis would distribute federal money for maintain small town bands, even if he should succeed in getting an appropriation of this kind, congress would probably scoff at such a proposition—and go on pouring millions into the improvement of rivers that will never boast a steamboat, or spending on other schemes that will never do the taxpayers any good. But if we could have our way, we’d turn over a sufficient fund to keep a live band going in every town in the country. For if there is anything that gives the people of a community more enjoyment, or that is a better ad for a town, we haven’t yet found out what it is.
From the editorial page of the Reidsville Review, Friday, Aug. 4, 1922
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