The Pledge of Allegiance

Here is a fact that has apparently been lost in the dustbin of history: our Pledge of Allegiance was created in 1892 as a promotional gimmick for the Chicago World’s Fair celebration in honor of the quadricentennial of Columbus’ arrival in America. It was a big event and the U.S. government made plans for a national Public School Celebration for Columbus Day, 1892.

The editors of The Youth’s Companion, a popular family magazine that was the Readers’ Digest of the late 19th century, became sponsors of the celebration and made it their goal to get every public school in America to raise a flag while students recited a salute — but first, a salute had to be written.

Francis Bellamy (1855 – 1931), a Baptist minister who was forced out of his Boston church for his socialist sermons was assigned to write the Pledge of Allegiance for The Youth’s Companion and the pledge he wrote was recited by an estimated 10 million schoolchildren on Columbus Day, October 12, 1892:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Mr. Bellamy considered using the word “equality” but since many people were still opposed equal rights for women and African Americans in 1892, he decided it would be too controversial.

Other than a grammatical correction — the word “to” was added before “the Republic” — the pledge remained the same until 1924 when the National Flag Conference called for the words “my Flag” to be changed to “the Flag of the United States of America,” in order to ensure that immigrants would understand to which flag they were pledging their allegiance.

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Various other changes were suggested over the years, but none of them were formally adopted. The United States Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance on June 22, 1942 — 52 years after it was originally written.

Following a campaign that was initiated by the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus in 1954, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan sponsored a bill to insert the words “under God,” in order to distinguish the U.S. from the “godless” — and communist — Soviet Union as well as to remove the suggestion of worshiping a flag as a graven image.

“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.”

What was originally a patriotic oath became a public prayer, too. However, the insertion of the words “under God” did not “…[reaffirm] the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future,” as President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1954, nor did it “…constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.” Rather, American society and the U.S. government have become increasingly secular ever since.