"The Popular Creed."  Lyrics: Charles P. Shiras.  First line: "Dimes and dollars! Dollars and dimes! An empty pocket's the worst of crimes!"  Circa 1852.

• Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864), according to legend, composed music for "The Popular Creed." The words, originally known as "The Popular Credo," were written by Foster's friend, abolitionist, and poet Charles Peter Shiras (1824-1854). I've never seen information about the melody anywhere in the Hutchinson Family's voluminous records. It seems likely that the Hutchinsons sang this piece to a tune written either by Joshua or Judson Hutchinson. In the 1850s, several of Judson's compositions went uncredited in print. So, Judson is a perfectly plausible candidate for the composer of this music. Joshua is another. It is not commonly known whether the melody has been preserved.
• The Hutchinsons - Jesse, Judson, and John - may have picked up "The Popular Creed" at the Akron woman's rights convention in 1851, where it was read from the platform and where they sang Jesse's and Judson's "Right Over Wrong." It would not be at all surprising if this song entered the Hutchinsons' repertoire because it was enthusiastically received by Jesse Hutchinson, Jr.
• Several Hutchinson Family songs, such as "The Popular Creed," "The Song of Labor," "The Song of the Shirt," and "There Must Be Something Wrong," were of particular interest to participants in the 19th-century labor movement. All of these, except maybe "The Song of the Shirt," appear in the publicity of Joshua Hutchinson so often that they must have been an important, regular feature in his concerts.

Alan Lewis