The New York herald., 1921-05-18
The Star Spangled Banner.
British Soldiers We're Not Shocked
by IL During the War.

! TO TIE NEW YORK HERALD L. Doug
/ las Wise would not be so much con-
oerned with the British reaction to The
Star Spangled Banner If he had been
in any British training area about the
Fourth of July. 1918. A few days be-
| fore ! had tea in an aerodrome near Ca
lais with the finest lot Of English boys l
have ever seen.
I We attempted to reconstruct the his
tory of our latest unpleasantness, the
war of 1912. from imperfect knowledge
Finally we agreed that the United States
had scored at sea and the British on
land. SO that 1t might be called an even
break. We ended amid shouts Of laugh
ter with burlesque history of the whole
thing. Why attempt 10 ignore what We
all know?
We agreed that We had all feared
there would be just enough foolish men
in one outfit or the other to create fric-
tion and we were pleased as Punch that
nothing of that sort happened or seemed
likely to happen, though American d.
visions were going through the area al
most in a procession. Later on the
Fourth of July we had as many high
British officers at mess as we could get
hold Of with the band outside playing all
three national anthems. We chaffed
each other about it, having regard for
our relative ranks but none whatever
for the national susceptibility of the
other fellow Men fight for various rea-
sons but hardly over the words of a
song.
When you come down to the associa-
80 ,Ia, Of
particular desirability OF saving the
King or the ambitions Of the "enfants
de la patrie" there is Of course. theoret-
ically at least. every chance of rue
tion. The Star Spansled Banner" was
written during a British bombardment.
the "Marseillase" was the product or a
revolutionary France which fought Eng
land for twenty years. The air of God
Save the King" is supposed to be taken
from an old German choral
Blucher fought with wellington at
Waterloo against the French. and
Americans. British and French were in
1918 engaged in fighting Blucher's Prus-
sia. Did we review and resent all OF
past history as the band played in the
garden of the chateau at Chelers? We
did not.
OF course In these days when we all
hope for an abiding peace 1T might be
possible for all the Allies to appoint
commissions to write sterilized and de-
natured anthems with no references to
past unpleasantnesses. ! doubt II 1t
would add noticeably TO International
friendships 1t would certainly produce
some fearful lyrical duds That sort of
thing has been tried before.
The air OF THE Star Spangled Bap-
rcr'' is. they tell us. taken from "Anac-
reon in Heaven" II is OF course q
question whether Anacreon's idea OF
heaven is consistent with the ideals OF
some of our citizens, but the air has sug-
gested to none of us a bacchanalian
revel | have little patience with the
critics who want something more mod
ern. Let us admit that our anthem Is
difficult to sing but agree that 1t is en-
tirely suited to military band.
Mr. Wise forgets that four or five
million men have heard "The Star
Spangled Banner" played at retreat from
san Francisco to Coblenz and that our
national anthem is associated with that
ard not with Francis Scott Key or Anac-
reon. AMERlcANCs.
ALBANY. May II.