"This Ponderous Piece"

Of all papers, Captain Joseph Patterson's huge New York Daily News had unkind words to say last week about the U.S. national anthem. The reasons the Daily News advanced for retiring The Star-Spangled Banner were, however, characteristically ambiguous:

" The Star-Spangled Banner . . . this ponderous piece . . . was written in celebration of a minor engagement in an inconsequential war--and a war, moreover, against our present allies, the British. From the looks of things, we are going to be fighting on the British side in future wars--far oftener, at any rate, than on the anti-British side. Surely we ought to be able to round up a song which better voices the 20th-century mood of the American people."

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