There was not a story so wild that it did not gain credence, but it was not so strange that many of these preposterous rumors should centre around Doctor Muck. His attitude toward us had become more and more supercilious. That he should sympathize with his own country was perhaps natural, but that he should use some tact and reticence in this respect was equally to be expected. He might have taken example from Fritz Kreisler who, as an Austrian citizen, served at the beginning of the war in the Austrian army, but was retired and returned to this country before we entered the conflict. From then on he acted with such dignity and tact, giving up all playing in public during that critical period, that he retained the personal respect and affection of all right-thinking Americans. As the war situation became more and more serious, Doctor Muck seemed to become more and more supercilious. In response to a perfectly natural impulse, the public demanded that our orchestras begin or end their concerts with the playing of the national anthem. This had become the symbol of our patriotism, and as millions of our young men began to gather in the camps and to be sent abroad in the transports, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was beginning to awaken in every heart emotions that were hardly known to our generation before the war. Doctor Muck refused to play the anthem. Not from Boston nor New York, alas, but from Providence, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh angry mutterings began to be heard. These cities insisted that an orchestra which in time of war was not willing to play our national anthem should not be permitted to play at all. Doctor Muck’s answer to this, in a newspaper interview, was that he conducted an artistic institution, that “The Star-Spangled Banner” is not a work of art, and therefore “only fit to be played by ballroom orchestras and military bands.” Up till then I had upheld Doctor Muck in so far as it seemed just as bad taste for him, as a German, to conduct our national hymn in time of war with his country as it was for our public to insist that a German should do so. He could have said: “I am a German; my country is at war with yours. I am your guest because in 1915 Major Higginson insisted that I should return to America as he thought that the orchestra could not exist without me. I am now in an unfortunate position. Let me retire from conducting here during the war, or at least let your national anthem be conducted by the concert master.”