An anthem from the Confederacy

Time to chuck out

Maryland's ugly state song

The murders of nine people in a historic African-American church in Charleston, S.C., brought quick demands across the nation to bring down that state's official flag -- a Confederate banner symbolizing for many its history of slavery and racism.

But surprisingly, there seems to have been no new call in Maryland to bring down its state song, "Maryland, My Maryland" -- an anthem steeped in that same ugly history.

((UPDATE JULY 10: The Frederick News Post reported this week that state Delegate Karen Lewis Young, a Democrat from Frederick County's District 3A, has submitted a bill to at least change the lyrics -- replacing them with a poem by the same title written in 1894 by John T. White, a Frederick County native.

“His poem celebrates the beauty of Maryland. The beautiful shores, the majestic mountains,” Young was quoted by the newspaper. “It is in no way controversial, and I think we want to have a song that endures over time and something that just celebrates the state beauty, is unifying and enduring, and not controversial and divisive.”)

 I took note of the song's history in The Real Muck four years ago, as Baltimore marked the 150th anniversary of its "Pratt Street Riot" when federal troops -- summoned by President Abraham Lincoln to defend Washington in the wake of the fall of Fort Sumter in South Carolina -- were attacked.

No one died in the Confederate conquest of Fort Sumter, but as the troops marched through Baltimore from the end of one rail line at President Street to another, at Camden Station close to a mile away, a southern-sympathizing mob began throwing rocks and bottles. Then came gunfire, and at least 16 deaths... the first casualties of what became a four-year war.

The riot inspired an incendiary poem by James Ryder Randall, "Maryland, My Maryland!," which was subsequently set to music (as in "O Tannenbaum") and became the official state song.

You hear the sanitary, short rendition performed by the U.S. Naval Academy chorus at the annual running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course. But there's a lot more of the song that's never sung, such verses as:

The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland!

Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain,
Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland!
She meets her sisters on the plain-
“Sic semper!” 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back again,
Arise in majesty again,
Maryland! My Maryland!

I hear the distant thunder-hum,
Maryland!
The Old Line’s bugle, fife, and drum,
Maryland!
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb-
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!
Maryland! My Maryland!

Interestingly, assassin and Maryland-born actor John Wilkes Booth shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis!" after shooting Lincoln on April 14, 1865, five days short of the Pratt Street Riot's fourth anniversary.

There are some nine verses to Randall's poem; the song we hear on Preakness Day is just the third verse, to wit:

 

Thou wilt not cower in the dust,

Maryland!

Thy gleaming sword shall never rust,

Maryland!

Remember Carroll's sacred trust,

Remember Howard's warlike thrust,-

And all thy slumberers with the just,

Maryland! My Maryland!

 
Huh?

 
The question is whether Maryland could do better.

I suggest a competition inviting Maryland's many talented songwriters to propose a better anthem, with original music -- one that sings to a brighter future rather than an ugly past.

It's about time.

Politically Impaled

Sheer Torture

Impaled: It was my favorite word in 40 years as a journalist.

It’s a word so evocative of horror, yet one that could rarely be used. There was the police department horse that fell down a hill onto a spiked fence, or that truly horrible motorcycle accident best left to the imagination. Impaled just didn’t happen very often.

But now, there’s a new word for what’s happening to Americans: Impal(in)ed.

Politically, it’s sheer torment.

For Democrats like me, it’s the fear that Sarah Palin could become vice president, and as for John McCain – well, that melanoma keeps coming back. Look at all the makeup hiding his face in TV appearances, his pained expression and the way he holds himself so stiffly.

For Republicans, there’s also some fear – that Sarah Palin will continue to be an embarrassment every time she opens her mouth.

I have a hard time imagining a Republican victory.

Eight years of Republican administration have produced one disaster after another – chief among then a failed war premised on false warnings and outright lies, and the collapse of the United States as a moral and economic compass for the world.

I wonder at what difference McCain might have made had he defeated George Bush in the Republican primary elections eight years ago, and gone on to claim the presidency. But he didn’t – and that failure at a crucial time in American history does not make him worthy of the presidency now.

McCain’s choice of running-mate belies his own campaign slogan of “America First,” proving that he will go to any length to appeal to the party’s right-wing even if it means putting America at risk of being Impal(in)ed.

Do Americans care?

We’ll find out Thursday night, when the TV ratings show how many people watched the Biden-Palin debate.

Pushing the Right Button


I wore my Obama button today – a big red, white and blue oval that some clever soul was marketing two months ago. It boldly reads: “I like Barack Obama but is America ready for a President with a brain?

And I noticed that people were looking at it, a few smiling, others with bland expressions that suggested they didn’t quite understand the message or didn’t like it. But while I was checking out bargains in a newly-opened Goodwill secondhand thrift store (yes, sometimes dead men’s clothes aren’t bad), an African-American employee walked up to me and said rather hopefully: “Do you think he really has a chance?”


Flag Hunt

The main goal of my shopping trip was finding a small American flag. Amazing how many stores don’t carry them. I tried a couple of “dollar” stores, places selling party goods, even the Goodwill store, figuring that a little American flag would be a popular item. The best I could find was a tiny 15-cent paper flag, poorly printed in faded ink.

At a party “super store,” a clerk said the flag is in stock only around Independence Day – and when the flag isn’t in demand at other times (even for the Veterans Day observance coming in about six weeks), it’s not available.

But the clerk suggested I try a nearby Kmart store.

Clerks there remembered seeing them.

One suggested the sporting goods section, where there was enough camouflage gear, bright orange hunter vestments, fishing rods and gun oils to supply three towns the size of Wasilla, Alaska, but no flag.

Another clerk recalled seeing them in the garden section a few months ago, and sure enough – there they were, on a high shelf, in several sizes. I picked out a wrapped pack of two small flags, about the size that adorn graves in veterans’ cemeteries, but with Old Glory stapled to cheap wooden sticks topped by plastic points.

They were labeled as made in America – an increasingly rare phenomenon in 21st Century retailing – and there was no sales tax on the $2.99 price.

Except for the wrinkles of the cheap thin polyester-and-cotton fabric that need a little ironing, the flags were just what my wife wanted as a backdrop for some planned stock photography images of Iraqi and Afghan currency.

When she’s done, maybe I can find a patriotic use for them.

I love my country, after all – and retain an optimism that its people are not going to be fooled again.