Theodore A. Metz

Composer of the rousing ragtime classic "A Hot Time in the Old Town", which became the theme song of the Spanish-American War in 1898. (Theodore Roosevelt once conducted the tune and commented that he was "proud to shake the hand of the man who wrote the song that stirred a nation.") Metz maintained a desk at the Marks Music Corporation offices in New York and, with his frock coat and flowing tie, dressed like an "oldtime German music master" as Time Magazine described him in 1935.