"I'd rather be a lobster than a wise guy. I'd rather be a ‘good thing' than a sport. The ‘lob' may be a joke but still he's never broke, the wise guy is the one who's always short" sings the chorus of a 1907 tune by composer Theodore Morse and lyricist Edward Madden. Apparently the late Rep. John J. Rooney (D-N.Y.) grew up listening to this song. In an effort to wax nostalgic, he enlisted the aid of the Library of Congress to search its collections for the words to what he called "The Lobster is the Wise Guy After All."

During a budget hearing early in his career, then-Librarian of Congress L. Quincy Mumford (1954-1974) had to report that Rooney's beloved song was nowhere to be found—causing the congressman to admonish the head bibliophile.

An article in the June 3, 1957 of issue Time Magazine reported that after "setting lobster pots all about the capital, a reading-room worker made the catch, vindicated Mumford. Rooney had got the title wrong."

In fact, Rooney ("face red as a lobster") was quoting the last line in the piece: "And the more of life I see, It really seems to me, that the lobster is the wise guy after all."

Searching the Library's Performing Arts Encyclopedia for either Theodore Morse or Edward Madden reveals more than 20 song sheets the two worked on, including "It Takes the Irish to Beat the Dutch," and "Up in the Coconut Tree."

The vaudeville presentation in the American Memory Collection features an act and monologue named after the crustaceous tune. In the monologue, the speaker waxes poetic about all sorts of things, from his father to "his girl" to a show named "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to his next-door neighbor.