The Pledge

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The words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance a decade after my father graduated Columbia High School in New Jersey in 1944. 

He was irritated at the time. Dad’s a Church-goer, but he doesn’t like change. He’s old-school conservative in that way. Why fix what wasn’t broken?

Recently, Dad told me that in the early 1940s high school began with one boy leading the class in the pledge. Then one of the girls read from the Bible, typically a Psalm. 

He said that they held out their right arm in what was known as the “Bellamy Salute.” In 1942, concerned that it too closely resembled the Nazi salute, Congress mandated it be changed to people putting their hand over the heart.

Ten years later, on June 14, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law a bill that added the words “under God” to the pledge. It was done in large part to draw a distinction with the communists in the Soviet Union. 

My mom was in high school then and she recalls how students were required — from one day to the next — to start adding those two words when they said the pledge. 

We tend to assume history happens all at once and then remains fixed and defined.

Often, we overlook or forget how customs and practices evolve over time and how our view of events shifts. The context can get lost.

The pledge was borne out of an effort in 1892 to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival in the New World of Christopher Columbus. The text was first drafted by Captain George Thatcher Balch and later edited by Francis Bellamy. 

In 1923, the words “my Flag” were changed to “the Flag of the United States,” so foreign-born people would not confuse loyalties between their birth countries. A year later, the words “of America” were added. 

The Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that students cannot be compelled to recite the pledge and cannot be punished if they don’t. Forty-seven U.S. states require the Pledge be recited in public schools, with varying degrees of exemptions to opt out. 

These days it seems there is a wide array of practices. I have friends who say it is done in New Jersey and others in California who say it isn’t.

One of my kids went to a high school in New York City which said the Pledge and the other went to one that didn’t.  

They went to the same elementary school which left it up to the teachers. The music teacher, knowing not every homeroom participated, insisted that every one of her classes throughout the day start with the pledge. 

After they finished, she had them sing God Bless America for good measure.

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