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Show "From Halls of Montezuma," Marines' Fighting Song, Dates to Mexican War The" United States marines have completed an investigation into the origin of their famous song "From the Halls of Montezuma," which they have made famous in almost every part of the world. The results of the Investigation, reports a San Francisco, Calif., United Press correspondent, show that the song had its origin at the time of the invasion of Mexico City in September, 1847, near the close of the Mexican war. Elated with victory of American arms over the Mexicans, an officer sat down in the Aztec club and scribbled the first verse of the popular pop-ular sea-soldier ballad. It is thus that the marines account ac-count for the beginning of the sprightly ballad which has since become be-come a bulwark of their esprit de corps. Later the song grew by leaps and bounds, verse after verse being be-ing added by some more or less inspired in-spired "leatherneck." The investigation of the origui of the song also developed the fact that the music came from an old French opera, "Genevieve de Brabant." Bra-bant." Eventually, nowever, the number of verses became so long that the corps set in for a deliberate pruning of everything that was not in accordance ac-cordance with the traditions of the corps. As the song now stands it consists of only three stanzas which begin with "Halls of Montezuma," Monte-zuma," the place of origin and end with the assurance that the marines will be found guarding the streets of heaven. The song has been the battle cry of marines in the Civil war, the Spanish-American war, the World war and in the scores of other international in-ternational operations in which the marines have participated. |