Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1907-07-10

propriate environment. As regards its
English origin, President Lincoln's words
about Dixie hold good here also: I'VE
have fairly captured it, and may consider
1t our own by right Of conquest"
The story of 1.-The Star Spangled Ban
ner' is as romantic as its words are thrill
ing. 1t was born In the battles stress
and storm, out of a patriots proud heart.
1t breathes the martial spirit of liberty,
the confident hope in the triumph Of right.
OF all the worlds national airs, Ghere are
three that never fail to stir the pulse and
warm the blood-the "Marseillaise." the
Watch on the Rhine" and THE Star
Spangled Banner" all three are chants
Of defiance TO tyranny and oppression, Il
were written in the hour Of the nations
peril THE Star-Spangled Banner" was
composed during the war of 1912, and that
war would have been worth while had 1t
gained for US nothing but this sonorous
poem.
When the British invaders had burn
the capitol st Washington. they turned
Their eyes toward Baltimore. General
Ross boosted that he would MAJ. that
rich city his winter quarters. and he
didn't care II It ralned militia" mus
ket hsM from one of the despised militia
put an end to the vainglorious generals
life few days later. Meantime the Brit
ish feet under Admiral Cochrane had
blocked the Patapsco, an arm of the
Chesapeake, but could not get past Fort
McHenry to shell the city. So 1t was de-
cided to reduce the fort, and a lombard
ment began which lasted all day and far
into the night of September IL, 1914
Conceived In the Hour of Battle.
Francis Scott Key, young lawyer of
Georgetown, had rowed out to the British
fleet, before the bombardment began, to
secure the parole of friend who was a
prisoner of war. The British kept Key on
board one of their ships all night while
the bombardment was going on. Anxious
~ he watched the banner Of the fort, lit
by 1.-The rockets red glare, and bombs
bursting In air." and when with the
dawn he saw that "the flag was still
there" he wrote his triumphal poem on
the back of an old letter as the discom-
flied Britons set sail for home.
The poem was first printed in The
Maryland Journal, now the Baltimore
American, on September IS. under the
1IlP, DeIeuSe VI MChSuiS. IL
was sung for the first time by Ferdi-
nand Durang, standing on cane-bottomed
chair In a tavern near the Holiday Street
Theater. In Baltimore. Though 1t is the
only poem OF the collection published in
1851 fourteen years after his death, which
is remembered today, 1t will make Keys
name endure even longer than the monu-
ment In Golden Gate Park, for which
James Lick gave 100000, and which VIII
liam Wetmore Story hewed out Of the
same material used for the Colosseum and
st. Peters at Rome.
Richard Grant White, that captious
critic who was the Harry Thurston Peck
of q generation ago, found fault with THE
StarSpangle1 Banner" because 1t is a
descriptive ,'o6m. Mr.. White was hard to
please, like nat National Hymn Commit
tee which. at the beginning of the civil
war, offered prize of $500 for a suitable
patriotic sag, but failed to find one In
1900 that were submitted. The committee
had FIVE wash baskets full of rejected
manuscripts.
HopIxfnson's "HaiI Columbia"
There have been fully FIVE wash baskets
FULL of patriotic songs written since our
h2ti0n was born The Oldest of those
which still enjoy favor is HAL Column
bia," written by Joseph hopkinson, a