Every American schoolkid can retell the Pledge of Allegiance by warmheartedness , even if they have no idea what " indivisible " means or they consider the whole affair is a tribute to some guy named " Richard Stans . "
The writer of the Pledge , which was originally written as part of apatriotic marketingcampaign , would in all likelihood be astounded that his 22 - word statement — which did not admit " under God " — remain a schoolroom basic more than 125 years after its creation .
The Pledge of Allegiance was write in the late 1800s , a time of tremendous social turmoil in the United States . Industrialization draw masses of hoi polloi away from farms and into crowded cities while an unprecedented wave of immigrant , most of them penniless and uneducated , rain buckets in from Europe . Like today , politicians and public opinion were split on the terror immigration posed towhat it mean to be " American . "
In 1892 , aformer Baptist pastor named Francis Bellamywas working as an adjunct editor program at a magazine publisher called the Youth ’s Companion , a home publication for small fry and their parent . Bellamy was also a Christian Socialist , a group striving to create a more just and just society through Christian values . Bellamy believe that one of the honorable room to " Americanize " and peacefully incorporate these waves of immigrants was through loyal computer program in the public schools .
The very idea ofpublic schoolshardly exist in America before the Civil War , says Charles Dorn , a professor of education at Bowdoin College in Brunswick , Maine and carbon monoxide - author , with Randall Curren , of " Patriotic Education in a Global Age . "
" The 1870s and 1880s were really the first time that people began think of public schools as a place where you’re able to do things to make a better society , " says Dorn . " For model , you may create more loyal Americans if you get them when they ’re young and you start learn them to be firm to the United States . "
Even though Bellamy was a fan of nationalism in public school , he did n’t spell the Pledge of Allegiance with the notion that it would be recited daily by every school kid in America . His most urgent fear was selling magazines .
The Marketing of the Pledge of Allegiance
The magazine also resolve to impress a patriotic platform that schools could recite on Oct. 21 , 1892 , the interior Columbian Celebration , and they tasked Bellamy with writing it . A Pledge of Allegiance was only one component of the program , which included parade , patriotic call and tributes to Civil War veterans .
The magazine could have published an exist pledge of allegiance written in 1885 for the first Flag Day ( June 14 ) celebration . That assurance , indite by George T. Balch , was already being tell in some schools , and show : " I give my substance and my mitt to my country — one rural area , one voice communication , one flag . "
According toDorn ’s leger , Bellamy cogitate Balch ’s pledge was " pretty but childish " and decided to write something with more historical heftiness . Bellamy ’s original poesy went like this :
Reflecting years lateron his word selection , Bellamy order that the flag in his toast represented the Republic , and Republic was a " concise political word for the land , " a land proven " indivisible " by the triumph of Lincoln and the Union cause in the Civil War . He was tempted to end the pledge with the slogan of the French Revolution : " Liberty , equality , fraternity , " but decided it was " too fanciful . "
" But we as a nation do stand square on the philosophical system of liberty and justice for all , " said Bellamy , fit in to The New York Times . " That ’s all any one nation can handle . So those words seemed the only roundup of preceding , present , and future . ''
The Companion ’s selling campaign was a roar success . During the 1892 national Columbian Celebration , tens of thousands of public school studentsin New York , Chicago and Washington , D.C. recited Bellamy ’s Pledge of Allegiance in unison . Afterward , school circuit card in towns across the nation begin incorporate the Pledge into their break of day iris - raise ceremonies .
Along with reciting the Pledge , Bellamy instructed students to salute the flag using ahand gesture that New reader would find flat - out scandalous . The " Bellamy Salute , " as it was get laid , directed that " the right hand is extended gracefully , palm upwardly , toward the Flag . " In practice , the salute look strikingly like the one favour decades later by Adolph Hitler . More on that in a instant .
Dorn says that in the ten after its publication , Bellamy ’s Pledge of Allegiance became wrapped up in nationalistic sentiment . It ’s no co-occurrence , for example , that New York became the first commonwealth to mandate the practice session of the Pledge in 1898 exactly one day after the U.S. declared warfare against Spain . More nation laws requiring the Pledge in school were passed when America entered World War I.
“Under God” and Other Revisions
The Pledge of Allegiance underwent its first major rescript in 1923 , when delegates at the National Flag Conference , organized by the American Legion and the girl of the American Revolution , decided that " my fleur-de-lis " was too vague and could be misinterpreted by immigrant as the flag of their home body politic . First , they changed it to " the flag of the United States , " and then a year later tack on " of America " to clear up any and all discombobulation .
In 1942 , Congress formally adopted the Pledge of Allegiance as part of the Federal Flag Code . Later that same twelvemonth , Congress miss the national socialist - esque Bellamy Salute and replace it with didactics to localise the right hired man over the center .
Finally , in 1954 , after buttonhole from the Catholic Knights of Columbus ( and other chemical group ) Congress added the words " under God " to the Pledge . The Cold War - era logic , Dorn says , was that U.S. schools were under the scourge of infiltration by " godless Communists . " sign the change into legal philosophy on Flag Day , 1954 , President Dwight Eisenhowersaid this inclusionwould " strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our state ’s most powerful resourcefulness in peace treaty or war . "
At the time , there was no big objection to adding " under God . " But in subsequent ten , there have been suit concerning whether this amounted to a government " establishment of faith , " violating the Constitution ’s First Amendment . So far , thecourts have disagreed .
