Note 810 — Chapter XXVIII · CONKLING AND CURTIS AT ROCHESTER 1877

"Platt and I imbibed politics with our earliest nutriment. I was on the stump the year I became a voter, and so was he. I was doing the part of a campaign orator and he was chief of the campaign glee club. The speech amounted to little in those days unless it was assisted by the glee club. In fact the glee club largely drew the audience and held it. The favorite song of that day was 'John Brown's Body,' and the very heights of ecstatic applause were reached when Brother Platt's fine tenor voice rang through the arches of the building or the trees of the woodland, carrying the refrain, 'We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, while John Brown's soul goes marching on.'"—Chauncey M. Depew, Speeches, 1896 to 1902, p. 237.