476 State Papers and Addresses

STAR SPANGLED BANNER REGATTA
Maryland Yacht Club', September 12, 1941

Radio Station WCAO
Baltimore

IT is a pleasure, indeed, to have the opportunity to address the radio audience
this evening preliminary to the opening of the Maryland Yacht Club's
Annual Star Spangled Banner Regatta.

Over a period of years, the Maryland Yacht Club has been instrumental
in staging many important regattas, and the program for the ensuing days
would indicate that the water sports to be provided will measure up in splendid
fashion to the best events of previous years.

Baltimore, of course, has ever been a center of water activities, and the
Maryland Yacht Club a Mecca for all who are interested in the varied types
of recreation the waterfront affords. While always most important from the
sportsman's angle, the activities of the club members take on additional im-
portance in a time of national crisis like this. Yachting today has the very
definite function of helping to keep in readiness, and thoroughly prepared,
many hundreds of men interested in various types of water craft, who thus
will be instantly available for duty in conjunction with the State Guard, the
Coast Guard, or the Navy, when and if it is felt necessary to assemble and
organize additional harbor and coast protective forces.

One of the largest organizations of its kind in the Country, the Maryland
Yacht Club for more than a quarter of a century has been a leading factor in
promoting the sport of motor-boating and yachting on the waters of the Chesa-
peake and its tributaries. Its membership includes persons from all walks of
life and from many parts of the State, as well as Baltimore City. The one
essential requisite for membership is a true sporting interest in boating.

Naturally, the members are proud of the fact that their organization ranks
fourth among the Yacht Clubs of the Nation in membership, and second in
the number of vessels in its fleet, which includes practically every type of boat
from fast runabouts to the larger sea-going vessels. The club basin ranks
well up among the finest boasted by any club in the Country.

This regatta, with its closing spectacle of the bombardment of Fort
McHenry, serves as a forceful reminder that, one hundred and twenty-seven
years ago tonight, the people of Baltimore faced the gravest crisis, with which
they ever have been confronted in the several centuries of the existence of
this great city.

How well they met and overcame that threat, the annals of our State well
record. The story is familiar to every Marylander.

It is quite fitting to have recalled vividly to us, however, through the
medium of this State holiday, and through the ceremonies held in connection