Music: Good Morning

When she was 25 Patty Smith Hill was running a model kindergarten in Louisville, Ky. Grover Cleveland was President and Lillian Russell was the talk of Broadway. One day, Patty Hill's sister, Mildred, wrote a jingling little tune to which Patty fitted words. They published the song, copyrighted it, and sometimes Patty Hill would sing thus to her kindergarten children:

Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.

From Louisville the ditty and the tune spread far and wide throughout the land. By a process of corruption it became a schoolroom classic which moppets sang as follows:

Good morning, dear teacher
Good morning to you!

When she was 66, Patty Smith Hill was professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia, a recognized authority on child education. Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House and As Thousands Cheer, starring Marilyn Miller (later, Dorothy Stone) and Clifton Webb, had Broadway by the ears. In one of this revue's most popular skits Clifton Webb appears as John D. Rockefeller Sr. while his children and grandchildren dance about him offering him a birthday cake and Rockefeller Center as a birthday present. They sing:

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear grandpa
Happy birthday to you.

Because the tune of "Happy Birthday to You" sounds precisely like the tune of "Good Morning to All," Sam H. Harris, producer of As Thousands Cheer, last week found himself the defendant in a Federal plagiarism suit asking payment of $250 for each and every performance of the song. If As Thousands Cheer closes on schedule the first week in September the grand total demanded will be $100,750 for 403 performances. Lyricist Patty Hill, who will share in the damages, if any, had no complaint to make on the use of the words because she long ago resigned herself to the fact that her ditty had become common property of the nation.

Fox Film Corp. used the same song in Shirley Temple's Baby, Take a Bow and in a newsreel shot of President Roosevelt's last birthday. For permission to use it Fox paid a total of $250.