See other History Articles
Title: The Socialist Pledge of Allegiance
Source:
Unclebob's Treehouse
URL Source: [None]
Published: Feb 17, 2009
Author: Bob Wallace
Post Date: 2009-02-17 19:34:28 by Turtle
Keywords: None
Views: 82
Comments: 3
I recently received a sneering (is there any other kind?) hate mail that read, in part: "Are you one of the many libertarian, anti-war writers who do not believe in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance? I sure hope not. You are living in the greatest country ever, or don't you believe that either?" Since this guy does not have a clue as to the history and true meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance, I will enlighten him. (He also doesn't have a clue as to what I think about this country.) He also doesn't understand what a non sequitur is. What does reciting the Pledge of Allegiance have to do with living in the greatest country ever? Or does he believe that pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth automatically leads to living in a great country? There is something missing in his chain of logic. The pledge first appeared in 1892 in a boy's magazine called the Youth's Companion. For 45 years the authorship was in dispute, with both James B. Upham and Francis Bellamy claiming to have written it. Then, the United States Flag Association settled the dispute in the most democratic fashion possible – they voted on it. Bellamy won the election and claimed the credit. What kind of man was Bellamy? He was a Nationalist, a Christian Socialist and a Baptist minister who was driven from his pulpit by a congregation weary of his socialist sermons. (Obviously, congregations had more sense in those days.) Since it is not possible to be a Christian and a socialist, Bellamy was very simply a socialist and a Nationalist (I find disturbing the fact that the phrase "National Socialist" is better known by the word "Nazi.") Bellamy was the first cousin of the famous American socialist, Edward Bellamy. Edward Bellamy's futuristic novel, Looking Backward, published in 1888, described a utopian Boston in the year 2000. The book spawned an elitist socialist movement in Boston known as "Nationalism," whose members wanted the federal government to nationalize most of the American economy. Francis Bellamy was a member of this movement and a vice president of its auxiliary group, the Society of Christian Socialists. As a minister, he preached on the virtues of socialism and the evils of capitalism. He gave an obviously warped speech on "Jesus the Socialist" and a series of sermons on "The Socialism of the Primitive Church." Because of such socialist sermons, in 1892 he was forced to resign from his Boston church, the Bethany Baptist church. He then joined the staff of the Youth's Companion. The original Pledge of Allegiance read: "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the nation for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Bellamy considered putting the words "fraternity" and "equality" – gifts of the leftist French Revolution – in the pledge but decided they were too radical and controversial for public schools. The main purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance was to collectivize impressionable young students. Some might call this "patriotism," but it could equally as well be called "fascism." Youth Companion made an untold number of copies of the pledge and sent them to schools all over the country, urging teachers to require the students to recite the words each morning. One hundred years ago the American flag was rarely seen in the classroom or in front of the school Upham changed that. In 1888, the magazine began a campaign to sell American flags to the public schools. By 1892, Youth's Companion had sold American flags to about 26,000 schools. Obviously, neither Upham nor Bellamy paid much attention to the phrase, "You cannot serve God and money." Or, for that matter, the Commandment about using God's name for vain causes. In 1923, delegates to the National Flag Conference in Washington, D.C., replaced the words "my flag" with the phrase "the flag of the United States." Bellamy objected to the changes, even though the delegates suggested the original version had a big hole in it. "My flag" could refer to any flag – foreign flags or baseball pennants. The next year the National Flag Conference added "of America" to clarify which United States the pledge referred to. After all, Mexico refers to itself as the Estados Unidos (United States) of Mexico. Originally the pledge was recited with an extended right arm in the "Bellamy salute." In 1942, Congress decided that the Bellamy salute was too much like the Nazi salute. Taking its place was the current hand-over-the-heart gesture. The Bellamy salute is the same as the Roman salute, the oldest known hand salute. It was widely used throughout the world until World War II, when Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Party of Italy, seeking to revive the spirit of the Roman Empire, adopted the Roman salute in the early 1920's.Adolft Hitler copied it, and it developed such a close association with Nazis that it has since then never been used by any organization not specifically linking itself to the Nazis. In June of 1942 the Supreme Court ruled that children could not be forced to recite the Pledge. The court's ruling didn't draw much attention in the South, where the Stars and Stripes was still considered the "Union" flag and therefore missing in most classrooms. Many Southerners considered the phrase "... one nation indivisible ..." an insult to Dixie. The phrase sent a message to those below the Mason-Dixon Line: "We beat you and now we want your youngsters to admit this defeat every day in public." In both the North and South the pledge came under heavy fire from fundamentalist Christians. The Bible, they pointed out, clearly forbade the swearing of oaths. Today, only half the states have laws that encourage the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms. The phrase "one nation under God" was added during the national paranoia of the McCarthy era, when in1954 the Knights of Columbus lobbied Congress to add the words. Watch any movie made before 1954 in which the pledge is recited, and you'll find the words "one nation under God" are missing. Among the nations in the world, only the USA and the Philippines, imitating the USA, have a pledge to their flag. Possibly someday historians can explain why so many Americans came to consider the Pledge of Allegiance a sign of the utmost patriotism, the way my deluded emailer does. I don't see a pledge or loyalty oath for naïve children in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, or any of the writings of the Founding Fathers. Maybe someday people will pledge their allegiance to the US Constitution and not to a piece of cloth.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Turtle (#0)
Here's where I differ from you, Turtle. It's like this: If the only examples of socialism that had ever been practiced were what had been done in the Soviet Union and/or Cuba, then yes, I'd be right there with you on the "socialism is bad" bandwagon. But, sorry to say, there's quite a few nations that have done extremely well with socialism. Notably Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark - nations that have all achieved impressive strides with their economies and societies over the last 50+ years, all while practicing socialism. See, I don't care what they call it, I don't care what the ideology is, I don't care what kind of uniforms or hats they wear, I care about overall results. I care about how transparent their government is, the quality of life for the average person, the strength of the economy, the corruption or lack thereof among their ruling class, their level of technology, the accomplishments of their educational system, the state of their infrastructure, the perception among the population as to whether or not they are actually represented in their society and/or government, their overall health and well-being, their incarceration rate, the state of their prisons as well as the state of their mansions; and whether or not they actually support basic human rights such as freedom of speech, freedom to travel, freedom to petition their government for redress of grievances, freedom of worship, and freedom from fear of their government coming and taking them away and putting them somewhere with no way to argue the charges against them or even to be represented by counsel. Sorry to say, but the socialist countries of Northern Europe beat us on nearly every one of those counts. Now, explain to me again why I should reflexively be against socialism? It is because "our way is superior in every way"? Sorry, but that's just not true. So please, enlighten me, show me where I'm wrong.
 | Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings. |
#2. To: Elliott Jackalope (#1)
The "socialist" countries of northern Europe are small, all white, homogeneous, highly educated, and genetically intelligent. They are the only place in the world it will work. It will not work in Africa, where the average IQ us 70, It will not work in America, with the 85to 89 IQ parasites inown as blacks and Mexicans. And it certainly didn't work in Russia...where it was known as "Jewish Bolshevism."
No place is better than Turtle Island.
#3. To: Elliott Jackalope (#1)
You forgot one thing about your pet favorite Socialist Societies. They all paractice GUN CONTROL and CIVIL DISARMAMENT. This is ALWAYS the first step to eventual Totalitartian statism and GENOCIDE/DEMOCIDE.
Oh what a DUFFLE-HEAD that Barack Obama is !!! Duffle-Head (As used in a Felix the Cat cartoon) A wicked person of limited intelegence but with pretenses of intelectual grandeur. Their only successful endevors are usually the invention of self punishment machines.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest