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The Truism that patriotic souls were never told!
Francis
Julius Bellamy
The
United States Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by an American
socialist named Francis Julius Bellamy, who was also a Baptist minister, and
whose cousin Edward Bellamy is the semi-famous author of two socialist utopian
novels: Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).
Francis Bellamy was born in Rome, New York, May 18, 1855. He died August 28,
1931. His original Pledge of Allegiance was first published in a magazine
called Youth’s Companion,
a nationally circulated publication written for youngsters.
In 1888, Youth’s Companion began its campaign to sell American
flags to public schools. For Francis Bellamy, this was more than a mere
money-maker: it was an opportunity for him to spread his statist propaganda,
and in the end Youth’s Companion became a supporter of the
Schoolhouse Flag Project, which, under Bellamy’s watchful eye, aimed to
place a flag above every public school in America.
His Pledge of Allegiance was first published in the September 8th (1892)
issue of Youth’s Companion.
Along with the Pledge, the children were asked to perform the so-called
Bellamy Salute (photo below).
Not four decades later, when the Nazi’s rose to power and began
saluting in a similar manner, Franklin Roosevelt changed the salute to the
hand-over-heart method we see today.
Francis Bellamy’s original Pledge of Allegiance, the recitation of
which he intended to take no more than 15 seconds, went like so:
I
pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all.
Here,
in Bellamy’s own words, is why he chose the specific language that he
chose for his Pledge:
It
began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history,
from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the
Constitution … with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration
of the people…
The
true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the ‘republic for which it
stands’. …And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is
the concise political word for the Nation – the One Nation which the
Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must
specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in
their great speeches. And its future?
Just
here arose the temptation of the historic slogan of the French Revolution
which meant so much to Jefferson and his friends, ‘Liberty, equality,
fraternity’. No, that would be too fanciful, too many thousands of
years off in realization. But we as a nation do stand square on the doctrine
of liberty and justice for all…
The
phrase under God was incorporated into the Pledge on June 14, 1954.
The man to introduce it was a fellow named Louis A. Bowman (1872-1959).
Here are the transmutations that the Pledge has undergone since its inception
in 1892:
1892
“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands:
one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
1892 to 1923
“I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands:
one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
1923 to 1924
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the
republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice
for all.”
1924 to 1954
“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.”
1954 to Present
“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.”
The
Bellamy Salute
The
problem, of course, with all this indivisibility talk is that the states were
not necessarily intended to be indivisible. As Thomas Jefferson said:
If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation …
to a continuance in union, I have no hesitation in saying, “let us
separate” (Thomas Jefferson, 1816).
And John Quincy Adams — a devoted unionist — noted in a 1839
speech about secession:
[In] dissolving that which can no longer bind, we would have to leave the
separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the
center.
If, then, you’ve ever wondered why it is when you hear the Pledge of
Allegiance you feel as if you’re hearing the intonations of brainwashed
drones, this is why:
The Pledge was a propaganda prayer written by a socialist who’s goal
was to inculcate young minds with dogma.
And that’s the end of it.
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