On November 3, 1929 — just a week after the stock market crash — Ripley made a shameless statement in his first Sunday panel for Randolph Hearst: “America Has No National Anthem.” The sensitive, writhing public went catatonic as Ripley correctly asserted that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was nothing more than an unofficial anthem, with the melody lifted from an old English drinking song. But it took a little more than a year for Congress to pass a one-sentence bill, and on March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed into law “The Star-Spangled Banner” as America’s national anthem — all thanks to Mr. Ripley.