The Case for Changing the National Anthem

“‘America the Beautiful’ is the National Anthem.” Agree or disagree?

This query was just one of many on the application for the Daniels Scholarship Program, an infamous grant program within the Rocky Mountain region which provides up to $100,000 to fund an applicant’s collegiate education. I myself was a finalist for the scholarship while applying for college.

The scholarship is meant to lift up “America’s next generation of leaders.” Its assessment criteria are pretty basic — integrity, character, leadership potential, academic performance, and so on. Among them, only one stands out: patriotism.

That particular qualification isn’t, on its face, unacceptable. However, students around Colorado — myself included — took umbrage with what “patriotism” seems to mean to the Daniels Fund. Namely, we were asked questions about our support of capitalism and tuition-free public college, as well as our love of the American flag. In the eyes of the fund, it seems that patriotism is not a virtue in and of itself, but rather a proxy for finding conservative students.

I don’t think progress is incompatible with patriotism. In fact, I think the desire to make America a better place is the most patriotic of sentiments.

The national anthem is a good place to start. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is incredibly difficult to sing for the average American, spanning a whopping 19 semitones. It feels decidedly dated, and the tacit endorsement of slavery in the third (often unsung) stanza is downright unacceptable.

Moreover, I dislike the whole premise of the song, which was written after poet Francis Scott Key witnessed the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812. It upholds the United States as merely an army, glorious in battle, with the flag blazing in the night sky.

In place of this drawn-out, complex, and war-driven vision of the United States, the Daniels Fund’s scholarship application may have unwittingly offered the perfect alternative: Katharine Lee Bates’s “America the Beautiful.”

It’s a song I have a particular affinity for, as it was composed at Pikes Peak, only a few hours away from my home. Bates had traveled from Wellesley, Mass., to Colorado Springs, Colo., to teach summer English at Colorado College. At the end of the summer, she and a group of professors decided to celebrate by hiking up Pikes Peak, where Bates was inspired by the view.

“America the Beautiful” is what every good national anthem should be, an embodiment of everything beautiful about America. It starts highlighting the glorious purple Rocky Mountains, the “amber waves of grain” that span across the Midwest, and our majestic, alabaster cities. Its heroes are those who seek liberation above all else and love “mercy more than life.” That spirit is perpetually contested in America — but I believe it will slowly and surely win out.

I had been aware of the song for years, having sung it in choir class in elementary school, but the first time it really stuck with me was when I heard Ray Charles sing it.

His version still often makes me cry. Today, Charles’s rendition fits effortlessly into R&B — perhaps the most authentically American genre of music — constantly criticizing racial inequity and celebrating those who tirelessly fight for a better tomorrow.

It echoes James Baldwin when he said, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” It reminds me of Sam Cooke, and his hopeful, sorrowful cry for equality in “A Change Is Gonna Come.” The song reminds me why I love America and her children, even when I remain frustrated by her many faults.

For a long time, progressive students like me have been cast as strictly anti-American. I’m sure many of my fellow Harvard students feel similarly, given our community’s visibility in the news.

In many conservative circles, it’s become basic fact that anyone who dares criticize America’s foreign policy, decry our policing system, or demand universal healthcare must want to do away with America as a whole, and as a concept. To them, ‘elites’ like us who attend selective, private, East Coast universities — like a certain liberal arts school just outside of Boston — only exist to hate America. Under this view, progressive and patriotic might as well be antonyms.

I know there are people who go to school with me who are legitimately anti-American. However, many of us, myself included, love our country. We, like Baldwin, love our country so much that we demand the ability to criticize it.

My love for America is why I want her to continue to change, evolve, and become better. I ask everyone to understand that criticizing America does not mean we hate this country. It means we love it.

Vander O. B. Ritchie ’26, a Crimson Editorial Editor, lives in Leverett House.