the management team later said that Major Higginson, the BSO's chairman, was "pugnacious" while Ellis, the manager, was "rather nervous" as they joined the orchestra on the trip. Higginson took measures to protect Muck in case of serious trouble. On October 30, 1917, the day of the concert, the Providence Journal published an editorial that said "Professor Muck is a man of notoriously pro-German affiliations and the programme as announced is almost entirely German in character." It called for the BSO to perform the National Anthem that night "to put Professor Muck to the test." About to leave Boston for Providence, Higginson and Ellis received two requests, one from a local patriotic organization and another from the heads of local music clubs, asking the BSO to play the anthem. Muck never saw the request, but Higginson and others viewed it as the work of John R. Rathom, editor and publisher of the Providence Journal, whose motto was "Raise hell and sell newspapers." They dismissed the request without much consideration and the concert went off without incident. Muck only learned of the petition on the orchestra's train ride back to Boston that same night. Shocked and somewhat fearful, he said he did not object to playing the anthem, that it was fitting for him as a guest to accommodate the wishes of his hosts. Now that the BSO had failed to play the anthem, Rathom created the false story that Muck had refused to perform it, accused Muck of treason and called him a spy and a hater of all things American. The story had a life of its own, however. As the orchestra publicity manager wrote years later of Muck, "his fate, so far as America was concerned, was settled that night in Providence because of the short-sighted stubbornness of Henry L. Higginson and Charles A. Ellis." The American Defense Society called for Muck's internment. The Orchestra found its November Baltimore engagement canceled, with even Cardinal Gibbons adding his voice to denunciations of Muck. Theodore Roosevelt denounced the maestro. A rival conductor, Walter Damrosch, Music Director of the New York Symphony Society (later the New York Philharmonic), said that Muck's "cynical disregard of the sanctity of our national air" showed disrespect for the emotions of his audience and led to a disrespect for the great heritage of German music. Major Higginson claimed responsibility for the BSO's initial failure to play