The Pledge of Allegiance Was Actually Written by a Socialist

We all love the Fourth of July. It is a time for fireworks, family, and patriotism. Of course, you should probably be aware that some of the things we consider patriotic today have a somewhat dodgy history. Take the Pledge of Allegiance, for instance. Surely nothing says American patriotism like the Pledge of Allegiance… until you remember that it was actually written by a socialist whose vision for America was quite different from what we admire today.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August of 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister and ardent proponent of what he called “Christian Socialism.” He taught that the true meaning of the gospel was socialism and that America needed to adopt it as soon as possible if it was to survive into the modern era. He frequently delivered sermons with titles such as “Jesus the Socialist” and “The Socialism of the Primitive Church.”

He wrote the Pledge of Allegiance hoping to instill a patriotic fervor into America’s youth at a young age. It was first published in the September 8 issue of The Youth’s Companion, a popular magazine targeted towards children.

The original Pledge of Allegiance was considerably shorter than the current version. Francis Bellamy’s original 1892 version of the Pledge reads as follows:

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

Due to his strong support for Socialism, Bellamy had considered using the words “equality and fraternity” rather than “liberty and justice,” but decided against this wording since “equality” implied that women and African Americans deserved equal rights, something which he himself strongly supported, but which he knew would horrify most schoolmasters.

Ironically, despite the fact that Francis Bellamy was a Baptist minister and a very devout Christian, his Pledge contained no trace of the words “under God,” which were not added until over half a century later. The lack of mention of the Deity was very plainly deliberate; Bellamy’s Pledge was loosely modeled after a previous “Pledge of Allegiance” written in 1887 by George Balch:

“We give our heads and hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag!”

Also, originally, people did not recite the Pledge with their right hands over their hearts. Instead, they began reciting it while making the military salute. Then, after the words “to the Flag,” they would raise their right hands in the air, extending them towards the Flag in honor of it.

Francis Bellamy and his friends convinced President Benjamin Harrison to incorporate the Pledge into the proceedings in honor of the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. On October 12, 1892, millions of schoolchildren across the country recited the Pledge as part of the ceremony.

Over the course of the next sixty-two years, the Pledge underwent many changes. The first alteration was made by Francis Bellamy himself; he added the word “to” before the word “Republic” in order to improve the oath’s cadence. Shortly thereafter, the salute was replaced with the gesture of putting one’s right hand over his or her heart, which was deemed simpler and more personal. Nonetheless, the people reciting the Pledge would still raise their right hands towards the flag after the words “to the Flag.”

In 1923, at the National Flag Conference, which was presided over by the Daughters of the American Revolution, the words “my Flag” were changed to “the Flag of the United States,” to prevent the students reciting the Pledge from becoming confused in regards to which flag they were pledging allegiance to. The following year, the Flag Conference further revised the phrase, clarifying that it was the “United States of America,” to prevent any confusion with the other “United States.”

In 1942, on its fiftieth anniversary, the United States Congress formally declared the Bellamy Pledge the official Pledge of Allegiance. During World War II, the Pledge procedure was revised so that the reciters would keep their rights hands over their hearts for the full duration of the oath, rather than extending them towards the flag after the words “to the Flag.” The reason for this change was that the gesture of extending one’s right hand towards the flag looked too much like heiling Hitler.

The most recent change made to the Pledge was the addition of the words “under God,” which were added in spring of 1954 during the height of the Red Scare. The change was made as the result of a request by the Presbyterian minister George MacPherson Docherty and extensive lobbying conducted by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternity. It was an overt attempt to distinguish the United States as a Christian nation in direct opposition to the “godless heathenry” of the ultimate atheistic bogeyman: the Soviet Union.

ABOVE: Photograph showing George MacPherson Docherty (left) meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower (middle)

At the time, lawmakers defended the change, insisting that it did not violate the principle of separation of church and state because the phrase was not truly religious in character, since it did not openly endorse any particular religion and merely signified the importance of God in national affairs.

Two years later, the phrase “In God We Trust,” which had appeared intermittently on national coins ever since 1864, was officially declared the national motto of the United States of America. Ever since 1957, the phrase “In God We Trust” has appeared on every single piece of currency produced in the United States.

Further Reading
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wrote-the-pledge-of-allegiance-93907224/
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
http://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/1779
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2012/09/11/160936717/politics-the-pledge-and-a-peculiar-history
https://books.google.com/books?id=XH9JAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA273#v=onepage&q&f=false