Just to show that the Pledge is hardly on a scale with the Ten Commandments when it comes to age and inviolability …
1892: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The pledge is printed in “The Youth’s Companion” in Boston. Likely written by Baptist minister and socialist Francis Bellamy, it was to commemorate the quadricentannial of Columbus Day in the public schools nationwide.
1924: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. A flag conference (!) by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution changes (over Bellamy’s objections) the description of the flag.
1954: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The Knights of Columbus convinces Congress to fight godless Communism by demonstrating that we’re a “Nation under God.”
So a poem by a socialist Baptist minister to celebrate Columbus Day, further modified by the DAR and the American Legion, and then by a Catholic service organization, has suddenly become an inviolate totem, a profound (but secular) prayer, an eternal tradition, a touchstone of our descent into godlessness?
Feh.
Thank you again, sir.
Thank you.
On an NPR article this afternoon, the author of a history of the Pledge noted that Bellamy’s objection to the 1923 changes was that he’d crafted (and used) the pledge for citizens of all republics (as opposed to tyrannies and autocracies) — hence my flag and the republic for which it stands.
Wow, good info. It puts a whole new spin on things.