Et Tu Bruce

DESCRIPTION: Each verse begins "Hushaby Benjamin" and each verse includes references to Rhode Island politics and advice to Benjamin.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1847 (source: Frank-JollySailorsBold)
KEYWORDS: warning humorous parody political
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 130, "Et Tu Bruce" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #50450
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rock-A-Bye-Baby" (tune)
NOTES [135 words]: Frank has a decoding reference for this song attributed to Professor Stanley Lemons of Rhode Island College. Benjamin is "probably Benjamin B Thurston ... who was Lieutenant Governor [of Rhode Island], 1837-1838, then ran (and lost) ... in 1843 ... elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for 1847-1849 ...." (Frank-JollySailorsBold p. 274) - BS
The only reference I can find to Thurston is in Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War, Oxford, 1999, p. 919. At the time the Whig party was dying, he was "a popular anti-Nebraska Democratic incumbent... whom the Whigs dared not oppose" and was re-elected to Congress as part of a Know-Nothing takeover of the state. Even my histories of Rhode Island and of New England omit him. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.0
File: FJSB130

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