Strange Origins of the Pledge of Allegiance

Every class day over 60 million public and parochial school teachers and students in the US recite the Pledge of Allegiance along with thousands of Americans at official meetings of the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Elks, Masons, American Legion, and others. During the televised bicentennial celebration of the US Constitution for the school children on September 17, 1987, the children as a group did not recite any part of the Constitution. However, President Reagan did lead the nation's school children in reciting the Pledge. Yet probably not one of them knows the history or original meaning of the Pledge.

In the presidential campaign of 1988, George Bush successfully used the Pledge in his campaign against Mike Dukakis. Ironically, Bush did not seem to know the words of the Pledge until his campaign manager told him to memorize it. The teachers and students in the New England private schools he attended, Greenwich Country Day School and Phillips Andover Academy, did not recite the pledge. By contrast, Dukakis and his mother, a public school teacher, recited the Pledge in the public schools. Yet Bush criticized Dukakis for vetoing a bill in Massachusetts requiring public school teachers but not private school teachers to recite the Pledge. Dukakis vetoed the bill on grounds that it violated the constitutional right of free speech.

[[Actually, the case Dukakis cited (and was subsequently attacked by Bush for it) was a religious freedom case (!); see the file with the speech by ACLU director Ira Glasser which, like this article, contains a lot of information you don't hear much about in the mainstream press. It also happens to be among the best speeches I've ever heard, and demonstrates devastatingly what many of us already knew; what a bad job Dukakis did responding to Bush's attacks about being "liberal" and (God forbid) and being a member of the ACLU. -- HB]]

How did this Pledge of Allegiance to a flag replace the US Constitution and Bill of Rights in the affections of many Americans? Among the nations in the world, only the USA and the Philippines, imitating the USA, have a pledge to their flag. Who institutionalized the Pledge as the cornerstone of American patriotic programs and indoctrination in the public and parochial schools?

In 1892, a socialist named Francis Bellamy created the Pledge of Allegiance for *Youth's* *Companion*, a national family magazine for youth published in Boston. The magazine had the largest national circulation of its day with a circulation around 500 thousand. Two liberal businessmen, Daniel Ford and James Upham, his nephew, owned *Youth's* *Companion*.

One hundred years ago the American flag was rarely seen in the classroom or in front of the school Upham changed that. In 1888, the magazine began a campaign to sell American flags to the public schools. By 1892, his magazine had sold American flags to about 26 thousands schools(1).

In 1891, Upham had the idea of using the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America to promote the use of the flag in the public schools. The same year, the magazine hired Daniel Ford's radical young friend, Baptist minister, Nationalist, and Christian Socialist leader, Francis Bellamy, to help Upham in his public relations work. Bellamy was the first cousin of the famous American socialist, Edward Bellamy. Edward Bellamy's futuristic novel, *Looking* *Backward*, published in 1888, described a utopian Boston in the year 2000. The book spawned an elitist socialist movement in Boston known as "Nationalism," whose members wanted the federal government to national most of the American economy. Francis Bellamy was a member of this movement and a vice president of its auxiliary group, the Society of Christian Socialists(2). He was a baptist minister and he lectured and preached on the virtues of socialism and the evils of capitalism. He gave a speech on "Jesus the Socialist" and a series of sermons on "The Socialism of the Primitive Church." In 1891, he was forced to resign from his Boston church, the Bethany Baptist church, because of his socialist activities. He then joined the staff of the *Youth's* *Companion*(3).

By February 1892, Francis Bellamy and Upham had lined up the National Education Association to support the *Youth's* *Companion* as a sponsor of the national public schools' observance of Columbus Day along with the use of the American flag. By June 29, Bellamy and Upham had arranged for Congress and President Benjamin Harrison to announce a national proclamation making the public school flag ceremony the center of the national Columbus Day celebrations for 1892(4).

Bellamy, under the supervision of Upham, wrote the program for this celebration, including its flag salute, the Pledge of Allegiance. His version was,

"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands -- one nation indivisible -- with liberty and justice for all."

This program and its pledge appeared in the September 8 issue of *Youth's* *Companion*(5). He considered putting the words "fraternity" and "equality" in the Pledge but decided they were too radical and controversial for public schools(6).

The original Pledge was recited while giving a stiff, uplifted right hand salute, criticized and discontinued during WWII. The words "my flag" were changed to "the flag of the United States of America" because it was feared that the children of immigrants might confuse "my flag" for the flag of their homeland. The phrase, "Under God," was added by Congress and President Eisenhower in 1954 at the urging of the Knights of Columbus(7).

The American Legion's constitution includes the following goal: "To foster and perpetuate a one hundred percent Americanism." One of its major standing committees was the "Americanism Commission" and its subsidiary, the "Counter Subversive Activities Committee." To the fear of immigrants, it added the fear of communism(8).

Over the years the Legion has worked closely with the NEA and with the US Office of Education. The Legion insisted on "one hundred percent" Americanism in public school courses in American history, civics, geography and English. The Pledge was a part of this Americanism campaign(9) and, in 1950, the Legion adopted the Pledge as an official part of its own ritual(10).

In 1922, the Ku Klux Klan, which also had adopted the "one hundred percent Americanism" theme along with the flag ceremonies and the Pledge, became a political power in the state of Oregon and arranged for legislation to be passes requiring all Catholic children to attend public schools. The US Supreme Court later overturned this legislation(11).

Perhaps a team of social scientists and historians could explain why over the last century the Pledge of Allegiance has become a major centerpiece in American patriotism programs. A pledge or loyalty oath for children was not built around the Declaration of Independence -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Or the Gettysburg address -- "a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."

Apparently, over the last century, Americans have been uncomfortable with the word "equality" as a patriotic theme. In 1992 the nation will begin its second century with the Pledge of Allegiance. Perhaps the time has come to see that this allegiance should be to the US constitution and not to a piece of cloth.

Notes: 1. Louise Harris. *The Flag Over the Schoolhouse,* C.A. Stephens Collection, Brown University, Providence, R.I., 1971, p. 69. 2. Margarette S. Miller, *Twenty-three Words,* Printcraft Press, Portsmouth, VA, 1976, pp 63-65. 3. Ibid, pp. 55-65. 4. Ibid, pp. 105-111. 5. Ibid, p. 123. 6. Ibid, p. 122. 7. Christopher J. Kaufmann, *Knights of Columbus*, Harper & Row, NY, 1982, pp. 385-386. 8. Raymond Moley, *The American Legion Story,* Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, NY, 1966, p. 7. 9. Ibid, p. 371. 10. Miller, p. 344. 11. *New Catholic Encyclopedia,* Washington, D.C., Catholic University of America, 1967, Vol. 10, p. 738-740. ========== from Propaganda Review, Summer 89

Click the Pic to see Alabama schoolchildren reciting the pledge in 1912.

Just thought that everyone ought to know as much as possible about the thing they crying so much about.

You can find a lot out there on the net using search strings like "pledge of allegiance" and "origin"...

I wonder why it is that Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and such saw no need at all for any "pledge" and would have been loathe to the idea, not only referring to a piece of cloth, but especially having that same pledge codified in law. Yet those who supposedly love freedom as much as the founders did react to this ruling in a manner that would make one think that the court had struck down the Declaration of Independence and gave the colonies back to the British.

A tempest in a teacup! The "Pledge of Allegiance" was written by a Socialist Ad Man to sell flags!! How it ever ended up codified in law is amazing in and of itself.

Just like the guy that brought the suit that resulted in this ruling, those of you screaming and moaning the most are probably short a life or two and need to get one somewhere...

There are far bigger problems out there...

Col Sanders

Speaking of "Looking Backwards" and mass-compulsion government schooling, here's a chapter from John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education.

Three Most Significant Books

The three most influential books ever published in North America, setting aside the Bible and The New England Primer, were all published in the years of the utopian transformation of America which gave us government schooling: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly (1852), a book which testifies to the ancient obsession of English-speaking elites with the salvation of the under- classes; Ben-Hur (1880), a book illustrating the Christian belief that Jews can eventually be made to see the light of reason and converted; and the last a pure utopia, Looking Backwards (1888), still in print more than one hundred years later, translated into thirty languages.¹
In 1944, three American intellectuals, Charles Beard, John Dewey, and Edward Weeks, interviewed separately, proclaimed Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backwards second only to Marx’s Das Kapital as the most influential book of modern times. Within three years of its publication, 165 "Bellamy Clubs" sprouted up. In the next twelve years, no less than forty-six other utopian novels became best sellers.
Was it Civil War, chaos, decades of mass immigration, or a frightening series of bloody national labor strikes shattering our class-free myths that made the public ready for stories of a better tomorrow? Whatever the cause or causes, the flowering communities of actual American utopianism took on real shape in the nineteenth century, from famous ones like Owenite communities and Fourierian phalansteres or Perfectionist sexual stews like Oneida, right down to little-known oddities, like Mordecai Noah’s "Ararat," city of refuge for Jews. First they happened, then they were echoed in print, not the reverse. Nothing in the human social record matches the outburst of purely American longing for something better in community life, the account recorded in deeds and words in the first full century of our nationhood.
What Bellamy’s book uncovered in middle-class/upper-middle-class consciousness was revealing—the society he describes is a totally organized society, all means of production are in the hands of State parent-surrogates. The conditions of well-behaved, middle-class childhood are recreated on a corporate scale in these early utopias. Society in Bellamy’s ideal future has eliminated the reality of democracy, citizens are answerable to commands of industrial officers, little room remains for self-initiative. The State regulates all public activities, owns the means of production, individuals are transformed into a unit directed by bureaucrats.
Erich Fromm thought Bellamy had missed the strong similarities between corporate socialism and corporate capitalism—that both converge eventually in goals of industrialization, that both are societies run by a managerial class and professional politicians, both thoroughly materialistic in outlook; both organize human masses into a centralized system; into large, hierarchically arranged employment-pods, into mass political parties. In both, alienated corporate man—well-fed, well-clothed, well-entertained—is governed by bureaucrats. Governing has no goals beyond this. At the end of history men are not slaves, but robots. This is the vision of utopia seen complete.

I do hope that in your research for the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance that you found other articles less bias than the one you present here. This article was clearly written by a Mike Dukakis supporter who was disappointed that Bush won the election in 1988. I do not believe that using Democratic propaganda to convince people in this forum that the Pledge of Allegiance is evil will work for you. This article is no better than those that wish to destroy past presidents, such as those calling Lincoln gay or Jefferson a philandering slave abuser are.

It does not bother me that the Pledge was written by a Socialist Ad Man to sell flags. It is not illegal to be a Socialist in this country and I love capitalism. I do not believe that Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and such would have any problems with the Pledge as they themselves wrote into law the oaths that our office holders and military take today. And a pledge is much the same as an oath. It does not bother me that the US is one of only two countries that have a pledge to their flags. We are also one of only two countries that have a national day of thanksgiving and it makes America a unique and special place to live. It does not bother me that "Under God," was added by Congress and President Eisenhower in 1954 at the urging of the Knights of Columbus or that the American Legion fostered it. Are they not Americans also? Lastly I do not care that the KKK uses the pledge as they also pray in the name of God and I will not give up my religion just because some misinformed fascists profess it also.

If something is good, what does it matter what evil it had its beginnings in? The US was once rooted in slavery but we have changed that for the better. Maybe instilling national pride in our school children by having them recite the Pledge of Allegiance is one of our best weapons in fighting the multinationlism and islamist terrorism facing us today.

A little less biased version

The Pledge of Allegiance
A Short History

by Dr. John W. Baer

Copyright 1992 by Dr. John W. Baer

>Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge in August 1892. He was a Christian Socialist. In his Pledge, he is expressing the ideas of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, author of the American socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).

Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures and Edward Bellamy in his novels and articles described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all. The government would run a peace time economy similar to our present military industrial complex.

The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of The Youth's Companion, the leading family magazine and the Reader's Digest of its day. Its owner and editor, Daniel Ford, had hired Francis in 1891 as his assistant when Francis was pressured into leaving his Baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons. As a member of his congregation, Ford had enjoyed Francis's sermons. Ford later founded the liberal and often controversial Ford Hall Forum, located in downtown Boston.

In 1892 Francis Bellamy was also a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools' quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his 'Pledge of Allegiance.'

His original Pledge read as follows: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.' He considered placing the word, 'equality,' in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans. [ * 'to' added in October, 1892. ]

Dr. Mortimer Adler, American philosopher and last living founder of the Great Books program at Saint John's College, has analyzed these ideas in his book, The Six Great Ideas. He argues that the three great ideas of the American political tradition are 'equality, liberty and justice for all.' 'Justice' mediates between the often conflicting goals of 'liberty' and 'equality.'

In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the 'leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge's words, 'my Flag,' to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.

In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, 'under God,' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer.

Bellamy's granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.

What follows is Bellamy's own account of some of the thoughts that went through his mind in August, 1892, as he picked the words of his Pledge:>

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution...with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people...

The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the 'republic for which it stands.' ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that Oe Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches. And its future?

Just here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, 'Liberty, equality, fraternity.' No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine of liberty and justice for all...

If the Pledge's historical pattern repeats, its words will be modified during this decade. Below are two possible changes.

Some prolife advocates recite the following slightly revised Pledge: '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, born and unborn

A few liberals recite a slightly revised version of Bellamy's original Pledge: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with equality, liberty and justice for all.'

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