“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
When I said that did it catch your ear? You may or may not know this, but the pledge that is repeated today is not the way it was originally written by Francis Bellamy in August of 1892. What I just said a few seconds ago was the original version before several modifications were made. Something else of interest is the fact that putting our right hand over our heart was not the original way to salute the flag. All the modifications made to the pledge and salute were because of various historical influences, which I will discuss in a moment, as well as giving you a short history of the writer of the pledge. Although some people objected to the changes that were added, we still dutifully recite the pledge with the modifications in place.
Francis Bellamy was born in Rome, New York, May 18, of 1855. He died August 28, 1931.He was 37 years old when he wrote the pledge. On June 1, of 1881, Francis married Hattie Benton, throughout the course of their marriage they would have two children, both boys. Francis’s political beliefs were definitely socialistic, yet despite this he was a Baptist minister. Later in life he was dismissed from his pastoral position because of his socialism. At the time of his dismissal he went to work for one of his parishioners, David Ford, and the editor of the Youth’s Companion, the magazine that would later publish the pledge. Socialistic beliefs seem to have run in the family, as Francis’s cousin, Edward Bellamy, was a well known author at that time of the two socialistic utopian novels “Looking Backward” and “Equality”. Following in his cousins footsteps, Francis managed to get some of his own work published as well. The most well known being the pledge of allegiance, which debuted in the Youth’s Companion. The Youth’s Companion was a nationally circulated magazine for teenagers at that time. Francis wrote the pledge (as well as a speech) for a public school Columbus day program that the Youth Companion was encouraging to take place on a national level. Before Bellamy wrote the pledge, the only well known American flag recitation repeated was written by Colonel Balch in 1889. It went like this. “We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one Flag." The new pledge written by Bellamy caught the eye of the public and still stirs American hearts today.
The pledge remained unchanged from its original form until 1923. At that time the words, "the Flag of the United States of America" were added in place of just “my flag” in an attempt to make the pledge more specific to the US. Supposedly this was so that immigrant children would not confuse the flag referenced in the pledge as the flag of their homeland country. Due to Communist concerns in 1954, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God” to rid the pledge of any potential socialistic interpretation . This final addition to the pledge produced the iconic verse that is repeated across America today: “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”
One Last interesting fact to note about the history of the pledge involves the gestures. Originally the salute was made with stiff right arm, palm down, extending outward. When it was changed, the familiar hand over heart gesture was used only for the first half of the pledge. Upon reaching the second half, speakers would extend their right arms towards the flag palm down. During WWII, having no desire to resemble Nazi Germany’s salutes to Hitler, the second half salute was modified to the hand over the heart for the duration of the pledge.
Although Francis Bellamy’s granddaughter contended that he would not have approved of the changes to the pledge’s composition, her concerns went unheeded. The change that was made in the gestures while saying the pledge met with no notable resistance at all. These changes evolved the pledge into what we all know and repeat today.
