The West first kicked up its heels in a national campaign in the contest of 1840, when William Henry Harrison, a native of Virginia who had won renown as a soldier in the Ohio Valley and served as governor of the Northwest Territory, was the Whig candidate. The campaign was flavored with hard cider and keyed to the melody of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” The log cabin, with a raccoon on the roof or with a pelt of the species nailed to the outer wall, and a cider-barrel seductively displayed in the foreground, were popular party symbols. The rollicking campaign songs of 1840 reflect not only the cheery pioneer spirit but the bitterness of the contest between Van Buren and Harrison. One of the most popular ballads was a buckeye-cabin song sung to the tune of “The Blue Bells of Scotland”: “Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go? Oh, how, tell me how does your buckeye cabin go? It goes against the spoilsman, for well its builders know It was Harrison who fought for the cabins long ago. Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who? Oh, who fell before him in battle, tell me who? He drove the savage legions and British armies, too, At the Rapids and the Thames and old Tippecanoe. Oh, what, tell me what will little Martin do? Oh, what, then, what will little Martin do? He’ll follow the footsteps of Price and Swartout, too, While the log cabins ring again with Tippecanoe!” The spirit of the ’40’s pervaded Western politics for many years after that strenuous campaign. Men who had voted for “Tippecanoe” Harrison were pointed out as citizens of unusual worth and dignity in my youth; and organizations of these veterans were still in existence and attentive to politics when Harrison’s grandson was a candidate for the Presidency.