Radio: Badgered Ballad

On her first full-hour show of the season last week, Kate Smith had a chat with Raymond J. Kelly, National Commander of the American Legion, who advised her that at their annual convention in Boston this week the Legionnaires would all be warbling God Bless America. Pleased, the chanteuse announced that her evening’s rendition of the song would be dedicated to American Legionnaires everywhere. With Legionnaires singing it, Boy Scouts profiting from it. Democrats & Republicans using it as a theme song, God Bless America last week showed no signs of weakening after two years of pretty hard usage.

Almost as well known as the genesis of The Star-Spangled Banner is the history of God Bless America—how Kate Smith’s Manager & Partner Ted Collins asked Irving Berlin to whip up a patriotic ballad for the diva’s Armistice Eve program in 1938; how Songwriter Berlin sat down at a piano, pecked out a variation of a ballad he had written in 1917; how Kate Smith relentlessly plugged the song. Not so well known are the many commercial and artistic complications through which God Bless America has recently staggered.

When Berlin first presented the song to Kate Smith, Manager Collins had the tune set to a martial rhythm, advised Plugger Smith to give it the works. Soon, God Bless America began to go to town, was widely heralded as a new national anthem. Forthwith it was suggested that the song be rendered as a hymn. After Collins had tried it out to a pious beat, he hastily returned to the original arrangement when complaints poured in.

From the time he composed God Bless America, Berlin was determined not to make money on the song. To Kate Smith, for her exclusive use on the radio, he gave his number gratis. When his music publishing house brought out the song, he paid himself the unheard of royalty of 8^ on every sheet, announced that his profits would go to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America. Meantime, many a Kate Smith listener, under the delusion she owned the song, addressed to her peremptory demands for cash to start gasoline stations and the like.

Chief headache that God Bless America has brought on is a wave of snide anti-Semitism directed at Composer Berlin. Frequent are the letters to Collins berating him as an Irishman for swelling Jewish coffers. Not much more subtle have been the cracks of journalistic small fry such as W. Livingston Larned of the White Plains (N. Y.) Reporter, who recently bawled: “Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light the Tin-Pan Alley tune mechanics and melody mongers.. . . ‘Suppose we put a feller wavin’ an American flag on the cover,’ suggests Ike. . . . And Moe, turning from the practice piano, answers, ‘You got something there. Big Boy.’ ” Comparatively restrained in his disapproval was Manhattan Minister Dr. Edgar Franklin Romig, who recently described the song as “mawkish,” was promptly taken to task by the Jackson (Miss.) News. Said the News:

“If Dr. Romig doesn’t care for God Bless America he will not be compelled to sing it. … Almost every veterans’ outfit and Minute Men organization in the land open their meetings with it. … Portland (Ore.) used it for the floral theme of its annual Rose Festival. … It is played at all Brooklyn Dodgers home games, at the midget auto races at Castle Hill Stadium in The Bronx, at bingo games, and it was a standout feature of the President’s birthday balls…. At Sheboygan, Wis., a local ordinance makes it a must at all band concerts along with America, The Stars and Stripes Forever, and The Star-Spangled Banner.”

No desire has Berlin to see God Bless America become a national anthem. But he is anxious to keep it out of hotspots. To date he hasn’t been very successful in this regard. Blatant Harry Richman has used it at Ben Marden’s Riviera on the Hudson, many another has crooned it in similar clubs. He has also been unsuccessful in preventing translators from rendering it in alien tongues. A chapter of the Bund attempted unsuccessfully to adopt it as its official tune, but last month in Rochester, Wis. 40,000 U. S.-loving German-Americans celebrated German Day, singing:

Herr, schütz’ Amerika!

Land meiner Treu’;

Will bekennen meine Liebe

Zu dem Land meiner Wahl stets aufs Neu.

Von den Bergen, Wald und Auen

Zu dem schaeumend’ Meeresstrand:

Herr, schütz’ Amerika!

Mein Heim, mein Land.