Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/197

Rh been up to this time, with regard to attacking Washington himself, was disappearing, but it remained for Bache to assail the Father of his Country in most vitriolic fashion. He even went so far in the Aurora that when the song, "Hail, Columbia," which had just been written to the tune of "The President's March," was sung at a theater in Philadelphia, he declared it to be "the most ridiculous bombast and the vilest adulation of the Anglo-Monarchical party."

Bache's denunciation of the song "Hail, Columbia." may possibly be traced to the fact that the air had been composed as a tribute to Washington by Pfyles, the leader of the few violins and drums that passed for an orchestra at the one theater in New York, and had been played for the first time when Washington rode over Trenton Bridge on his way to New York to be inaugurated. On the frequent occasions when Washington attended the theater in New York, during the time that the seat of government was in that city, it was always played on his entrance. To the irate democrats it was too reminiscent of monarchical ceremony, and the respect, shown by the spectators' rising from their seats, irritated them.

Bache's feeling against the Federalists was not lessened by an incident which occurred in the spring of 1797. He had gone down to witness the completion of the frigate United States, the first naval vessel constructed by the government under the Constitution, and had been set upon and beaten by the son of the builder; the chastisement being, he was given to understand, a punishment for his newspaper abuse of Washington and the government in general. The assault on Bache was, to the Federalists, a source of almost equal jubilation with that caused by the