Star-Spangler

Wall Street is used to soap-box Reds whose favorite place for haranguing the public is the curb eater-corner from J. P. Morgan & Co. Once a year Wall Street's echoes are purged of Redness by a voice whose patriotism is matched only by its volume--the voice of one Roberta Keene Tubman, leading America's Good-Will Union* in "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the steps of the Sub-Treasury where George Washington took his inaugural oath April 30, 146 years ago.

Few hours before this year's celebration. Father Washington's statue gleamed in a soft rain. City workers telephoned Mrs. Tubman, suggested that it would be useless to set up their public address system. Chided Mrs. Tubman: "No. go ahead, God has always taken care of us!"

By noon the sun was shining and the 60-piece 16th Infantry Band from Governor's Island was tootling a patriotic concert, including "American Medley" and "Under the Double Eagle." Then portly Mrs. Tubman, who looks something like old Marc Schumann-Heink and boasts that she "can sing with or without a 60-piece band," mounted the stone platform in front of Washington's statue, launched into "The Star-Spangled Banner" while the band blared mightily and the crowd of 1,000 looked on. munching their lunches.

Two years ago, bound for a meeting. Mrs. Tubman was sitting in a Manhattan subway train when a group of Communists got on, lustily sang the "Internationale." Patriot Tubman flushed red, white & blue, burst into "The Star-Spangled Banner." As the angry Communists sang louder, she pitched her voice higher & higher. More Communists got on. Finally Mrs. Tubman had to get off to attend her meeting.

Not only in subways does Mrs. Tubman sing the National Anthem. She has sung it in an Army blimp 3,000 ft. in the air, in a submarine, a coal mine, on ships at sea, in jails, insane asylums, "on the highest mountains in Switzerland," over the radio, in schools, churches and homes. Says she: "I'm always the first to sing it. I never let anyone get ahead of me."

* Avowed purpose of the Good-Will Union, founded twelve years ago by Rev. Edward Lawrence Hunt, a onetime Presbyterian minister and "100% American," is ''To form a more perfect union." Widow of a Manhattan realtor, Mrs. Tubman met Widower Hunt four years ago, now collaborates with him in patrioteering. Boast they: "There never is an occasion we don't celebrate."

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