Bard Burns Investigative Report

"Farewell To The Mountains" by David Stern Crockett (1786-1836)
Farewell to the mountains whose mazes to me
Were more beautiful far than Eden could be;
No fruit was forbidden, but Nature had spread
Her bountiful board, and her children were fed.
The hills were our garners--our herds wildly grew
And Nature was shepherd and husbandman too.
I felt like a monarch, yet thought like a man,
As I thanked the Great Giver, and worshipped his plan.

The home I forsake where my offspring arose;
The graves I forsake where my children repose;
The home I redeemed from the savage and wild;
The home I have loved as a father his child;
The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared,
The flocks that I raised, and the cabin reared;
The wife of my bosom--Farewell to ye all!
In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.

Farewell to my country! I fought for thee well,
When the savage rushed forth like the demons from hell,
In peace or in war I have stood by thy side--
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son--
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen--despised--will again go ahead

"I told the people of my district that I would serve them faithful as I had done; but if not...you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." In 1834 David Stern Crockett lost his re election to the U.S. House of Representatives, heading off to Texas not long after, where he died at the Battle of the Alamo.

David Stern Crockett is also noted for his "Not Yours To Give" speech to the U.S. House of Representatives, which he used to explain why he voted against appropriating money for a war veteran. In this speech he describes the lesson he learned from a man working his plow in the field, a local wise man named Horatio Bunce.

"If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other" (Crockett quoting Bunce)

"Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose" (Bunce)

"Money with them [wealthy politicians] is nothing but trash when is is come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it" (Crockett)

Now, why didn't Walt Disney show us the real David Crockett? Why did they choose this particular individual to turn into a coon-headed, mountain man with a limited vocabulary? He was a poet, a politician, and an educated man. Hmm. Another Walt Disney plot to sap the greater story--making heroes into flimsy fairytales and fairytales into sugar and water.

Now, I wonder what the true story of Bambi and his band of rodents is...oops, I gave it away!