WASHINGTON – After the Civil War, concerns about immigration and a changing culture raised an interest in having schoolchildren honor the American flag.
As a companion to Columbus Day celebrations in 1892, the magazine The Youth’s Companion published a pledge of allegiance written by Francis Bellamy, a socialist editor and clergyman. President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed that it be included in school ceremonies observing the holiday that year.
Representatives of various patriotic organizations met in Washington in 1923 to standardize Bellamy’s words as a national oath, said Scot Guenter, professor of American studies at San Jose State University and author of “The American Flag, 1777-1924.”
A year later, however, at a second gathering they decided to change “my flag” to “the flag of the United States of America,” Guenter said.
Although the pledge had not been recognized by Congress, the Supreme Court in 1940 upheld a school district’s requirement that students salute the flag and pledge allegiance to it.
Three years later, the high court reversed itself, ruling that requiring public school students to salute the flag violated free speech protections in the First Amendment.
In 1945 Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance, codifying it into law so that no one could change its words without congressional approval. President Eisenhower in 1954 asked Congress to add the phrase “under God” to the pledge.
Historian Ralph Luker said the 1954 change was intended to differentiate the United States from nations that practiced “atheistic communism.”
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