Sigma Alpha Iota

A PRESIDENTIAL MYSTERY his Concerto in E-minor for Violin with Max Bendix, violin and he played the piano accompaniment; and, December 6, 1915 played two works by Rafael Joseffy, the main founding father of the organization. One other New York Times article on April 13, 1914 highlighted a "high society musicale" given by Mrs. Samuel Untermeyer at the Untermeyer estate in Greystone-on-Hudson. "A special train leaving Grand Central Station conveyed the guests to and from Greystone and motors and buses took them from the railway station to the house and back." The performing musicians were Carl Flesch, violin; Willem Willeke, cello; and, Paolo Gallico, piano, playing a program of Beethoven, Pugnani and Schubert. Certainly, the winning of this $5,000 award and the performance of his massive oratorio The Apocalypse must have been the highlight of Paolo Gallico's already significant musical career. Questions remain However, to go back to Woodrow Wilson's Papers and the presence of this libretto in the midst of "Musical Compositions" compiled in 1918 and 1919, many questions remained. A theory began to emerge to connect Wilson with The Apocalypse libretto, albeit without hard evidence. It builds on three phenomena eligible for further inquiry. First, on Saturday, May 18, 1918 Woodrow Wilson came to New York City to review and unexpectedly march in a parade down Fifth Avenue that honored the American Red Cross. In the Wilson scrapbooks filed among his papers, were many articles and photographs showing him marching in the parade, exuberant and smiling. In the evening he attended an American Red Cross meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House, where he gave a stirring speech before an audience composed largely of volunteer workers for the Red Cross; most of them had made special donations to the organization in return for their tickets. Pierre Monteux led the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in a brief program of musical selections and in the national anthems of France, Great Britain, Italy, and the United States. Second, it is highly possible that Pauline Arnoux MacArthur, president of the National Federation of Music Clubs and co-author of The Apocalypse libretto, would have had an interest in seeing the President in New York and attending the musical program where he spoke. Pauline and her husband, John appeared in the 1916 New York City Social Register as residing on 84th Street (they also had three children).An important women's activist in New York, president of a number of organizations, musical and political, she was described by Deborah Freeman A copy of The Apocalypse, 90 minutes long and over a 160 pages of a vocal/piano musical score, from the Libary of Congress. of National Federation of Music Clubs, Pauline MacArthur was very active in the Woman Suffrage Movement. The New York Times ran one of her Letters to the Editor on June 7, 1918, which gives some indication of her social activism: "Kindly permit me by this public means to thank you for the generous notices your paper has given of the work of this association and its appeal for prayer on Mothers' Day, and also gratefully to acknowledge in your columns the MYSTERY continued on page 18 sai-national.org WINTER 2012 PAN PIPES 17

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