pledge of allegiance

A pledge of loyalty

The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Julius Bellamy, born in Mount Morris, New York on May 18, 1855 and died in Tampa, Florida in August on the 28th in 1931. He was an author , editor, an American Baptist minister, and a Christian Socialist. Bellamy attended Rome Free Academy in Rome, New York , the University of Rochester (1872-1876, and the Rochester Theological Seminary (1876-1880).

Christian Socialist: Any theory or system that aims to combine the teachings of Christ with the teachings of socialism in their applications to life; Christianized socialism; esp., the principles of this nature advocated by F. D. Maurice, Charles Kingsley, and others in England about 1850.Christian socialism is a socialist ideology that regards capitalism as a faith or ideology to be rooted in the mortal sin of avarice and claim it is a form of mammon worship. Christian socialists identify the cause of inequality to be associated with greed that they associate with capitalism.Christian socialism became a major movement in the United Kingdom beginning in the 1960s through the Christian Socialist Movement.

The original “Pledge of

Allegiance” was published

in the September 8 issue

of a children’s magazine

called, The Youth’s

Companion as part the

National Public-School

Celebration of Columbus

Day .

The original pledge read:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the

Republic for which it stands, one nation

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”

Bellamy designed the pledge to be recited in 15

Seconds. Because of his position as a Socialist, he

Considered using the words equality and

Fraternity, but decided against it because the

state superintendents of educations on his

committee were against equality of women and

African Americans.

Francis Bellamy and James B. Upham, a marketer

for the “Youth’s Companion”, convinced the

National Education Association to support the

“Youth’s Companion” as a sponsor of the Columbus

Day celebration along with the use of the American

Flag. By June 29, 1892, Bellamy and Upham had

arranged for Congress and President Benjamin

Harrison to announce a proclamation making the

public school flag ceremony the center of

Columbus Day celebration.

The Pledge was first used in the classroom on

October 12, 1892 during Columbus Day observance

That followed the opening of the World’s

Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1940, the Supreme Court in the Minersville

School District ruled that students in public school,

including Jehovah’s Witnesses could be compelled

to swear to the Pledge. In 1943, the Supreme Court

reversed its decision because the ruling violated the

the First Amendment.

One objections states that a democratic republic

built on freedom should not require its citizens to

pledge allegiance to it. Also, the fact that the

people who are most likely to recite the Pledge

every day, small children in schools, cannot really

give their consent and nor do they understand what

the Pledge means.

Louis A. Bowman, an author from Rock Island,

Illinois, was the first to initiate the addition of

“under God” to the pledge and the National Society

of the Daughters of the American Revolution gave

him an Award of Merit for the idea. Bowman stated

that the words came from Lincoln’s Gettysburg

Address and at a meeting on February 12, 1948,

Bowman led the Society in swearing the Pledge

with the two words added.

Daughters of the American

Revolution

Critics say that a government requiring and

promoting the phrase “under God” violates

protection against the establishment of religion

guaranteed in the Establishment Clause of the First

Amendment.

In 1923, the National Flag Conference called for

the words “my Flag” to be changed to “the Flag of

The United States”, so that new immigrants would

not confuse loyalties between their countries and

The United States. A year later the words “of

America” were added.

The United States Congress officially recognized

the Pledge for the first time in on June 22, 1942 as

written as,

“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”

The phrase “under God” was incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance June 14, 1954, by a Joint Resolution of Congress. The decision to do so waspushed by George MacPherson Docherty, thePastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. Pastor Docherty delivered a sermon based on the Gettysburg Address in which he cited Lincoln’swords “under God” as defining words that set theUnited States apart from all other nations.

The Proud

Home of the Free

And the Brave

The Bellamy Salute was adopted in 1892, and

removed in December 22, 1942. The Bellamy salute

started with an outstretched hand toward the flag

with palm down, and ended with the palm up.

Because the Bellamy Salute resembled the Nazi Salute, President Franklin D.

Roosevelt instituted the hand over the heart gesture.