[cracker]

Anyone know why it was changed?

Anti-communists in the 50's wanted it done. The idea was that pledging to God (understood by all concerned to be the Christian God) would prove our moral superiority over the godless commies.

[Dimensio]

Yep. I have some pre-50s paper currency without IGWT printed on the back. I like to collect them.

[mlo]

Anti-communists in the 50's wanted it done. The idea was that pledging to God (understood by all concerned to be the Christian God) would prove our moral superiority over the godless commies.

As a godless capitalist I'm morally superior to religious commies. It's the commie part that's a problem.

[tpaine]

Thanks, - I'd sorta forgotten the 'godless commie' bit. - And look, Ike even used the 'for the children' angle.
The fifties were not called 'buttoned down' for nothing.


11:32 PDT (AP) -- The court, in the nation's first ruling of its kind, said that when President Eisenhower signed the 1954 legislation, he wrote that "millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."