God Bless America Guthrie criticized the song, and in 1940 he wrote "This Land Is Your Land," originally titled "God Blessed America For Me," as a response. Anti-Semitic groups such as the Ku Klux Klan also protested against the song due to its authorship by a Jewish immigrant. In 1943, Smith's rendition was featured in the patriotic musical "This is the Army" along with other Berlin songs. The manuscripts in the Library of Congress reveal the evolution of the song from victory to peace. Berlin gave the royalties of the song to The God Bless America Fund for redistribution to Boy Scouts and
God Bless America The live version, on "America: A Tribute to Heroes", is from the telethon event of the same name that took place on September 21, 2001. The studio version is on the "God Bless America" album, a patriotic songs CD. It was recorded on September 20, 2001, the day before the American telethon. It was meant to be a replacement for the performance in the event something happened and Dion could not appear. The song was recorded by New York City's "singing cop," Daniel Rodríguez, and charted for one week at No. 99 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 as a single.