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Show For A National Anthem The lady who recently offered $6000 for a new national anthem which would be better than the "Star Spangled Banner" Ban-ner" has our best wishes, but the odds are about 5000 to one that, after she gets get her prize song, the country won't adopt it. National anthems aren't written in cold blood, so to speak. When they are really any good they spring up in times of trouble. They have to have a baptism in fire such a baptism as the French hymn, "The Marseillaise," received, for instance. They have to have profoundly touching and moving associations interwoven in them as "Dixie" had in the south. They just naturally aren't produced by prize contests. Our present national song could be improved upon. But, after all, it has been hallowed by a good many years of use. If it is ever replaced by a now one,the new one will spring into being during some great national crisis. It won't be written by someone trying to earn an easy $6000. |